Weekend Wrap-Up: Royalties, Zoms, and Wally the Corpse Flower

Just a few quick items for the end of July, the first being a royalty payment from Martinus Publishing.  As mammoths go, it’s a bit on the petite size which isn’t exactly world-shattering news, but the thing is part of it’s for the anthology ALTERED AMERICA (see January 20 2015, March 28 2014, et al.) with my Y2K story “Avoid Seeing a Mouse” which, although it’s clearly ending its run, has paid quite handsomely over the past three years, in fact probably nearing professional rates had it been paid for by word count.  And the story is a reprint to boot, originally published in ZOMBIE JESUS AND OTHER TRUE STORIES (Dark Moon Books, 2012).

The other anthology in the mix, though, LIFE OF THE DEAD with my “Girls Gone Dead,” has (to pardon the expression) pretty much died.

But speaking of zombies, for those who might be in Indianapolis in August, be sure to check out the Indiana State Fair or, more precisely, the Purdue Extension Agriculture/Horticulture Building.  To quote the news release, one will find therein “a walk-through maze and interactive video game designed to simulate a zombie apocalypse.  The maze ends at an underground shelter stocked with all the supplies necessary for survival in an emergency.”  Why?  According to the Extension’s Steve Cain, “the goal is to help visitors learn about disaster preparedness.”

And then, lest local Bloomington folks feel left out, about 9 p.m. Friday the Indiana University biology department’s nine-year old Amorphophallus titanum, or “corpse flower,” bloomed for the first time.  Named Wally after a former department greenhouse administrator, the corpse flower is so named because of the rotting-meat stench it emits to attract insects for pollination and its bloom is short-lived, averaging only 24 to 36 hours.   It is also a native of western Sumatra and one of the world’s largest species of flowers.