Friday's Recommended Reading (& Viewing):

Spring flowers in our front yard.

*  Carlos Hernandez discusses machismo, interstitiality, and Junot Diaz's fiction over on the IAF site.  This is a terrific essay.

* Catherynne Valente discusses Russian folklore , and her book Deathless, at The Tor/Forge Blog.

* Karen Mahoney discusses Armless Maiden folklore , and her book The Iron Witch, at John Scalzi's Whatever.

* Valerianna discusses "forest medicine" at RavenWood Forest. A particularly beautiful post.

* The "Moveable Feast" discussion on magic--which began on John Barleycorn (here and here) and on Astrotabletalk--has now moved on to Erzebet YellowBoy Carr's blog, I Saw the Angel. (If it has also popped up anywhere else, please let me know in the Comments.) An interesting discussion indeed.

* Harper Teen has posted a "sneak peek" of Teeth, the new anthology of vampire fiction for teens I co-edited with Ellen Datlow. (It was officially published on April 1 and is in the bookstores now. Hurrah!) If you follow the link, you can read the Introduction (a survey of vampires in myth, folklore, and literature), as well as two terrific stories: Genevieve Valentine's "Ten Things to Know About Being Dead" and Steve Berman's "All Smiles." Ellen and I worked hard to create a book that would bring something fresh to this admittedly far-from-original subject--and with the help of all the wonderful authors who contributed to the volume, we think we may well have succeeded. Charles Tan has posted a very nice review of the book at Bibliophile Stalker -- in which he discusses the much-debated question: What makes a story suitable for teens?

* Colleen Mondor reviews Welcome to Bordertown and several other good new books in her Bookslut  column this week. Bordertown, she says, "is still the best mash-up of music, faery and coming-of-age drama." And we're glad she thinks so.

* Fantasy Magazine has published a fine story by Kat Howard based on the old "Choose Your Own Adventure" series . There's also an interesting side article on the series by Molly Tanzer, and Ellen Kushner fesses up about her C.Y.O.A. past.

* Have you seen Angela Rossi's odd (but oddly compelling) animal head plates? Go here for a look. (via Lori Field)

* And have you seen the Brooklyn Love Exchange blog, where artist Iviva Olenick collects romantic stories and turns them into embroideries?  (via Andrew Thornton)

* Last but not least, another good Ted Talk: Eric Whitacre and a virtual choir 2000 voices strong. What a strange and amazing new world we live in.

Have a good weekend, everyone.