Jeff VanderMeer's Blog, page 128

B&N Review: Ward Sutton's Illustrated Look at Inherent Vice

I don't know if the Barnes & Noble Review is getting its due, but it deserves your consideration (readers, I'm curious: do you regularly check out the B&N Review?). They've been publishing some first-rate reviews and commentary on books. The latest piece to catch my eye is Ward Sutton's comics-version review of Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice. It's lovely stuff, with colors that burst off of the page. Check it out.

Murder By Death's Finch Soundtrack (and More Finch Limited Details)

(The CD design by MBD, based on John Coulthart's cover for Finch.)

Murder by Death sent me the Finch soundtrack music yesterday, and I've spent a fair amount of my life since listening to it. The CD clocks in at about 23 minutes and has seven tracks, some of which have multiple parts or subtitles. I absolutely positively love it–it's about as close to the music in my head I imagined while writing Finch as it could possibly be, which shouldn't come as a surprise since I listened compulsively to M

Belated Outer Alliance Pride Day

September 1st was Outer Alliance Pride Day, and Cheryl Morgan has a round-up of some of the posts associated with the day, with some context about the John C. Wright post that sparked the idea–and there's the posts linkage on the Outer Alliance site itself. I'm not normally a joiner–I don't actually belong to any organizations, as far as I'm aware–but this one seems like a no-brainer.

So here's the pledge: "As a member of the Outer Alliance, I advocate for queer speculative fiction and those who

Matrix Reloaded: Fifteen Pounds of (Pouncing) Chest Cat and Major Kung-Fu

(Looks so evil. Not evil. Demented and nuts, but not evil.)

So. We have a new cat, who looks like the devil sometimes (see above) and sometimes looks like this:

Other times, the cat looks like this:

We got him from neighbors down the street who had put up a "Free Cat" sign as part of their garage sale. Because, with three cats already and all kinds of time commitments, we needed another beast in our lives. But Ann bonded and I enabled, and we took the cat, which otherwise might've gone back to the

Fall/Winter VanderMeer Tour Update: David Anthony Durham and Paul Tremblay in Boston and More

One cool thing about doing a book tour is getting to mix it up by doing some events solo and teaming up for others. So, for example, we've just added an event at a Borders in Boston for November 20th, featuring myself and co-conspirators David Anthony Durham and Paul Tremblay, two writers I really think are great. Should make for a great evening, and as soon as I've got the finalized time (evening) and address, I'll add it to the tour

Expect more events added to San Francisco, New York City, and

Emerging Writers Interview at Clarkesworld with Jesse Bullington, N. K. Jemisin, Tessa Kum, Meghan McCarron, Shweta Narayan, Jeremy C. Shipp, Angela Slatter, Genevieve Valentine

In addition to the usual great content, the latest Clarkesworld has run my round-robin interview with eight writers I think of as cool and "emerging," since "new" doesn't quite cover it: Jesse Bullington, N. K. Jemisin (also in this issue with fiction), Tessa Kum, Meghan McCarron, Shweta Narayan, Jeremy C. Shipp, Angela Slatter, and Genevieve Valentine. (A tip of the hat to the Emerging Writers Network, by the way–they don't own the term "emerging writer," but they're why I thought of using it.)

Teaching at Clarion in San Diego in 2010

I'm assuming it's official, since it's on the site and GRRM blogged about it. Ann and I will be teaching the last two weeks at Clarion in San Diego next year. The four instructors before us during the six weeks will be the mega-talented Delia Sherman, George R.R. Martin, Dale Bailey, and Samuel R. Delany. We're thrilled to be in such fine company, and look forward to both the selection process (Ann and I get a voice on the applications since we're doing the last two weeks) and meeting the studen

Booklife News

Publishers Weekly has written a good review of Booklife: Strategies & Survival Tips for the 21st-Century Writer that reads in part: "Author and blogger VanderMeer (Finch) outlines ways for writers to harness both the emerging power of the Internet and their own creativity in this informative guide. VanderMeer differentiates between a Public Booklife (marketing the book and the writer) and a Private Booklife (strategies to help get words on the page) and suggests that one's ideal Booklife is a dy

Jeremy C. Shipp is Critiquing Manuscripts

My critique service is currently closed due to tons of deadlines, but just FYI, if you're looking for a critique from an interesting perspective, Jeremy C. Shipp is now critiquing manuscripts. You can reach him at chrismatrix at yahoo.com for more info, and his bio is beneath the cut. I think he's one of the most interesting surrealists/absurdists around.

Jeremy C. Shipp is a fiction author whose books have been praised by authors such as Piers Anthony, Jack Ketchum, Jeff VanderMeer, and John Ski

Evil Monkey on "You Like Us, You Really Like Us"

Evil Monkey:

You can relax now, "we've" won the culture wars.

Jeff:

Huh? Who's "we"?

Evil Monkey:

Ya know—SF, fantasy, horror. We've won!

Jeff:

Okaaaaayyyyyy. I thought we either didn't care about that or were fighting to be included at the adult table, with the grown-ups who've been having the same kinds of serious discussions being had at the kids' table all of these years, not just waiting to be subsumed into the pop culture zeitgeist?

Evil Monkey:
But, there are serious discussions—like in the Wa