Jeff VanderMeer's Blog, page 84

Cooking Update: Trout & Steak Provencale

Well, the timing didn't quite work out as planned. The idea was to cook three meals last week, and I only managed two by Sunday. That'll change this week, with any luck. Anyway, it's a good start, and the most excellent news is I didn't poison myself or Ann! In fact, the food turned out pretty darn good.

What did I cook? Trout with almonds and Steak Provencale…

The fish was potentially the most daunting, because I hadn't asked the butcher to take out the bones. So I watched a youtube video on h...

Steampunk Bible Roughs!

So the rough layouts for the Steampunk Bible arrived today, and I sat down with my coauthor S.J. Chambers to review them. At this stage, the point is to have the text and images in a standardized, approved format, even if not all of the images are at high-res (some are still coming in). To adjust the text as necessary at this stage, before we're locked in, and also to provide feedback on both the images used and the way they've been deployed in the layout. Many things will change, many...

Omni Features on Nnedi Okorafor and PW's Rose Fox

For your Friday reading pleasure, may I recommend this great interview with author Nnedi Okorafor, conducted by Matt Cheney, as well as this equally cool interview with Publishers Weekly's Rose Fox that I just posted this morning. Wonderful answers from both interview subjects. Okorafor's novel will be on my best-of-the-year-so-far post for Amazon in early September.

In other news, Matt Cheney just finished off the Third Bear Carnival with an unexpected surprise: my wife Ann wrote a short...

Win a Unique Third Bear

(Yes, it's a story collection. Yes, no one reads them. Yes, go buy it now And, no, this crapulous illo is not how your unique 3B would be personalized.)

The Third Bear carnival has been going on for awhile, but Matt Cheney has upped the ante by staging a "fourth bear" contest that ends Friday. I have to say, the idea of a fourth bear blows my mind. Go check it out. You might win a one-of-a-kind book with a unique illo by Eric Schaller (who did a lot of the art in my City of Saints).

The Third ...

Shared Worlds Teen Writing Camp This Summer…

(What happened in week 2, after I left Shared Worlds? My alien baby remained behind, and this photo by Miranda Severance provides some evidence…)

On Omnivoracious, I just posted an account of Shared Worlds 2010, a teen SF/fantasy writing camp for which I serve as assistant director. This is our third year running, and we believe SW is the only camp of its type in North America due to our unique approach.

If you're a teenager interested in writing SF/fantasy or the parent of a teenager with...

Finch is a World Fantasy Award Finalist!

I'm thrilled to say that my novel Finch (UK version pictured in the upper right corner) is a finalist for the World Fantasy Award.

I'm not big on awards, but the World Fantasy Award means a lot to me–the one I won in 2000 for "The Transformation of Martin Lake" more or less led to a publishing deal for City of Saints, along with Mike Moorcock agreeing to do an introduction.

This is something like my eighth or ninth nomination, with two wins. Having served on the jury, I know how tough it is to ...

Swedish SF/Fantasy: Karin Tidbeck's Story Collection

The cover of the forthcoming first story collection by Swedish writer Karin Tidbeck. Tidbeck attended Clarion San Diego this year, and we believe you'll be hearing a lot from her in the future. She's currently in the process of translating a lot of her own work into English.

"By Grabthar's Hammer, I Shall Learn to Cook!"

This has been a long time coming… Eight months ago I bought the book pictured above with the intent of learning to cook. Then all hell…I mean…all Weird broke out, along with Steampunk Bible deadlines, and I never got around to a weekly schedule of cooking meals.

Now, I can cook an egg. I can make an omelette. I can make basic salmon without too much burning going on. But anything more complex has long been beyond me. Ann can attest to this, since the first meal I ever served her while we...

SF Subculture Seeks Fiction-naut Volunteers for First Contact with Possibly Hostile, Possibly More Advanced Lifeforms in the Vastness of E-space

Damien G. Walter had a guest blogger talking about the untapped potential for science fiction readership, along with some provocative comments. This led to my own comment, reproduced below. Of course, once our outliers reach these distant subcultures, it's entirely probable that they will prove vastly superior to us and already in possession of the information we are seeking to promulgate. In which case, the communicator will become the communicated…

The kinds of SF readers mentioned do not...

Love Letter to Capclave–This Oct. 22-24

(The cover, with spine, for the limited-edition hardcover designed by John Coulthart that's being offered to Capclave attendees.)

October 22-24, Ann and I will be guests of honor, along with Connie Willis, at Capclave in the Washington DC area. (We're not going to World Fantasy this year.) We hope to see lots of you there. It should be a lot of fun, and we'll be presenting previews of some amazing projects, with visuals. Not to mention the debut of the book above, with a tell-all afterword...