Stephen Graham Jones's Blog, page 248
August 9, 2016
Picking Up Things Instead of my Pen
This post is not endorsed by facebook. Nor twitter. Though it is because of twitter I’m writing it. Just noticed I’m up to about 7100 tweets. So I did what any rational dude would do: opened my calculator app, multiplied “7100” by a guessed-at average tweet-length of 120 characters. Where that gets me is: 852,000 characters. So what I did then was open the latest novel I’ve written, which I’ve now pared down to 97K words or so, and did a character count on that: And that’s not counting spaces, as I was trying to be generous—also, I was trying not to get suddenly despondent. Still, the numbers don’t lie: since November 2010 (gulp), I’ve written nearly two novels’ worth of words just in tweets. But, yeah, let’s say retweets are counted in that total, and chip a big chunk of characters off such that I’ve now just written one fairly long novel’s worth of characters, that add up to words, that add up to sentences and paragraphs and scenes . . . involving characters, which, to me, are people. Not just exactly thrilled with that: I’m losing people, here. And, before you get nervous, no, I don’t want to be one of those users who logs onto social media to badtalk social media. Social media serves whatever its purpose is, which I think this pretty much explains: I’m one of the ones eating those donuts, I mean. Yes, I’m the farm animal in this pretty terrifying meme (it conjures “Bloodchild” for me): But, too? It’s fun . . . → → →
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13th Night
Was a good signing line for this last night. It’ll forever be my first comic book signing line, too. And this’ll forever be my . . . first published comic project, I guess (“Werewolves on the Moon,” a chapter of Mongrels adapted to a ten-page comic, is coming out in an anthology at some point, but it was turned in better than a year ago, I think). Anyway, the specs on this: the First Folio‘s on tour, and its only Colorado stop is here at CU Boulder. So they hit me up to write a script for it, which I did over a weekend in a series of planes, as I was on tour for Mongrels at the time, and then the talented and capable Scorpio Steele worked the story and script into something he could pencil/ink/color/letter (and he added a lot of historical details I didn’t have internet connection at 37K feet to be looking up), and this is the result: Also on the project—enabling the project—were CU librarian Deborah Hollis (the comic was her idea, and some of the characters as well), Pop Culture Classroom’s Ilya Kowalchuk (handling the educational aspects: this book’s going into classrooms everywhere), and CU’s very own William Kuskin, ramrodding it at all stages, and just generally making things work—AND sketching out the initial moves of the story, long before I hired on (five kids, some tunnels, all that). That comic book course I teach here at CU some semesters? Kuskin staked it out, and then MOOC’d it as . . . → → →
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August 3, 2016
The Stanley
One of the cooler group-photos I’ll ever get to have been in, I suspect, since, I mean, it’s too late for me to photobomb The Right Stuff or Reservoir Dogs, or sneak into that hot tub with Steve McQueen, or jump off the roof behind Joan Didion’s Vette: And, for reference, here’s the original: So cool that Pablo Kiolseth remembered the right way to hold his hands at the front of the shot. Though, had I been actually thinking ahead, I’d have had my Zelda F. hat on, I guess. Or at least a James Joycey suit. And, here‘s what the what was.
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August 2, 2016
This Werewolf is Different
Cool. Or, I could just say: TVTropes.
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August 1, 2016
Gamut Magazine slouches onto the scene
And one of the stories from After the People Lights Have Gone Off is up as a free sample. “Second Chances,” with a cool illustration:
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July 26, 2016
File Under (Again): Mongrels, Origin Stories
Actually, I wrote Mongrels (and the chapter this could pertain to) a couple of months before cueing this one up. However, Peter Beagle’s famous old story “Lila the Werewolf?” I definitely knew that one. [ Shelter from Eve Edelson on Vimeo, which his where you have to watch this one, looks like . . . ] Check here for the first installment of these origin stories. Not sure there’ll be another. Could be, as I remember / think of.
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July 22, 2016
Werewolves Out in the World, Part XVI
In Colorado, it’s all about the fourteeners. Here, we’re all about the sixteener—which this is, somehow, already, after all these months. So cool, all the werewolf stuff coming my way, all the Mongrels snapshots &etc happening still. All of everything, including all the previous installments, which are going to tax my Julius Caesar numbering: I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII XIV XV And . . . let’s start with Litsy, the best book-place ever: So cool to get a second read, so fast. Thank you, Rebeccak, whom my autocorrect really-really wants to fix. And, check this werewolf out, hiding mongst the milling crowd, leaned forward to peer through all the spines: And, man do I love the dog + books pics. Not something I would have ever anticipated, and now something I can’t do without: And, look closely: this isn’t actually a photograph. Because no such animal exists: Either the werewolf-unicorn OR a Mongrels sequel. However, I do have it all planned out, should I get the chance . . . And, dig the #hashcloud, yeah? And, dig the Disappearance at Devil’s Rock dude’s cool threads: That one’s kind of a collector-one, in that now they all have the book title printed under the circle. Also? There’s eight or ten copies of Mongrels cheap-printed up (by William Morrow) WITH that cover. For kicks and grins, and blurbers. And, is this a repost? I mean, chronologically, it’s in sequence with the . . . → → →
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July 20, 2016
Tor Novella
Announcing Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones
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July 18, 2016
Comic Book Covers
Think I’ve got a real weakness for the red ones. Diego Latorre, Ninjak: Jim Lee, Wolf Moon: Gabriel Rodriguez, Locke & Key: [ don’t be surprised if I keep adding red covers/cover art to this page . . . ]
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July 17, 2016
Last Couple of Mongrels Events
Really, I think I have a stash of pics from another Mongrels thing, but now I can’t remember where. But I know I have these two anyway, as they’re from the last couple days. First was up in Fort Collins, with HEX-author Thomas Olde Heuvelt. And, Olde’s not a middle name, that’s just the first part of his last name. He’s a cool dude, smart guy, excellent horror writer. We talked about where horror comes from, the kind of genesis for/of each of our books, and then we broke out some action figures and fought witches against wolves, complete with sound effects. As you do. And here’s a string of cool happenings from last night in LA, at the Shades & Shadows reading, where, I have it on good authority, someone blacked out during a piece I was reading (also, when I looked up, there was one person who I think was gagging. it’s a cannibalism story, though. these are good signs). So, here’s the crowd, milling about beforehand: I should maybe note there that while aforesaid milling was going on? Me and Paul Tremblay were down the street at the wrong venue. Who knew one street could have two places called “Bearded Lady” within walking distance of one another? Then, inside—man. Here’s how cool the venue was: Here’s a telephoto shot of me, moving so fast that I was blurring: And then less blurry (via Yennie Cheung): That dude standing over the left, in the first of these two “action reading” pics? He was . . . → → →
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