Loren Rhoads's Blog, page 93
May 26, 2010
Tonga in Memoriam
I read the news with disbelief. They can't be seriously considering closing the Tonga Room. I've been going there for 25 years, although admittedly less frequently than I used to. It's an institution. A bona fide tourist Mecca. If they've had trouble drawing the crowds they used to pull, then the hotel needs to get the word out -- not close the place down. My husband ...
May 21, 2010
Context is everything
I was up early, as usual, computer on, checking my email and trying to get a handle on the day. The radio played softly in the background, more for company than entertainment.The DJ cued up a Carlos Santana song, the one that goes, "All you killers, leave your lights on." It was a song I really liked, amidst the bland modern rock that he generally played. I listened to the ...
May 14, 2010
The best book I've read in a long time
The Celestial Globe by Marie Rutkoski My rating: 5 of 5 stars As much as I liked The Cabinet of Wonders (the first Petra Kronos book), I adored The Celestial Globe. The storytelling kept spinning off in unexpected directions. All the crossing and double-crossing amongst the Elizabethan spies was told in such a way as to be completely clear and never predictable. Petra herself has become a much ...
Her Fearful Symmetry
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger My rating: 3 of 5 stars Unsurprisingly, I loved everything that had to do with Highgate Cemetery. As a setting, I can't imagine how it could be beat. Unfortunately, I felt that the book suffered from too many characters being weird for weirdness' sake. I find hoarders with OCD pitiful but not particularly engrossing. With all the busyness going on ...
March 12, 2010
Checking in
Wow, I had no idea it had been so long since I updated this journal. I'm been working hard on the book of cemetery essays. Today I hope to revise the introduction and proofread the last handful of essays (Pere Lachaise, Green-Wood, and St. Louis #1). Tomorrow I hope to put the whole monstrous thing into manuscript format and send it off to my agent.Then I'm going to take some time off. Visit a ...
February 8, 2010
The Bram Stoker Award for Nonfiction
I'm startled to get to this point. I'd been assuming the book wasn't eligible for the award because all its essays are reprints. (Last year, the fiction anthology I was part of got disqualified for not having enough material published for the first time in 2008.) Perhaps the rules have changed.
Anyway, I've posted the news to twitter, facebook, and my blogs. I'm offering to give some of my stash of books to voting members of the HWA. Hopefully, Morbid Curiosity will advance to the next round and we can call it an award-nominated collection of essays.
Wish me luck!
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February 7, 2010
The Black Mass
One of my favorite parts of the Morbid Curiosity reading at the Hypnodrome was to see what the performers chose to wear. Russell Blackwood sported an exquisite black on black smoking jacket, which imparted a nice sense of decadence to the evening. Dana Fredsti went with courtesan chic to read about being an exotic dancer. Jill Tracy was sleek and self-contained in black to convey her sense ...
February 6, 2010
Not His Real Name
Frank Burch, not his real name, remains a man of mystery. He came to Morbid Curiosity through a colleague who'd contributed to the first issue. Both of them were academics with a morbid bent. She published her story under her own name. His, no less true, required a pseudonym. He wanted to tell the experience, needed confess it to an understanding audience, but he couldn't take the ...
February 5, 2010
The Morbid Things We Do For Money
When I started putting the Morbid book together, I had to make a lot of hard choices about what essays would go in. Some contributors gave me pieces for multiple issues, compounding the dilemma. Dana Fredsti was one of those.Dana wrote about working with big cats, especially a tiger named Jasmine, at a feline rescue facility in Southern California. She wrote about learning to surf, which I ...
February 4, 2010
The Preliminary Stoker Ballot
To my amazement and pleasure, Morbid Curiosity Cures the Blues made the preliminary ballot for the Bram Stoker Award in Nonfiction. The next round of voting will determine whether it makes the actual ballot of nominees, then it goes to a vote for the award.I'm startled to get to this point. I've been assuming the book wasn't eligible for the award because all its essays are reprints. (Last ...
