Friday's Recommendations:

* The debut issue of The Weird Fiction Review is now online, containing fiction, nonfiction, webcomics, interviews with Kelly Link and Neil Gaiman, and more. Edited by the excellent team of Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, the journal is devoted to "all facets of the weird, from the clas­sics to the next gen­er­a­tion of weird writ­ers and inter­na­tional weird." Promising indeed.

* November 2011 is Children's Picture Book Month, and there's a new website up to celebrate this wonderful (and important) art form. All month they'll be posting daily essays by Jane Yolen, David Ezra Stein, Dan Yaccarino, Eric A. Kimmel, and many others.

* Katherine Langerish continues her exploration of mystical voyages in myth, legend, and fantasy at Seven Miles of Steel Thistles.

* Howard and Rex continue to marvel at synchronicity at John Barleycorn.

* Stephanie Piña continues the discussion of Elizabeth Hand's Mortal Love at The Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood (inviting participation from all interested readers)...while Liz Hand herself discusses Gregory Maguire's Out of Oz (the conclusion to the "Wicked" sequence of books) in The Washington Post.

* Audrey Bilger discusses two new books on Jane Austen (and V.S. Naipaul's now-infamous dismissal of the author) in "Just Like a Woman: on Jane Austen's brand of sentimental education," from The Los Angeles Review of Books.

* The New York Times has an in-depth profile of the brilliantly interstitial Japanese author Haruki Murakami (A Wild Sheep Chase, Kafka on the Shore, The Elephant Vanishes, etc.).  About his latest novel, 1Q84, Murakami says, intriguingly: "The Little People came suddenly. I don't know who they are. I don't know what it means. I was a prisoner of the story. I had no choice. They came, and I described it. That is my work."

* Also in the Times: "A Sister's Eulogy for Steve Jobs" is a very moving piece by Jobs' long-lost sister, Mona Simpson. "Love was his supreme virtue, his god of gods," she says. And his last words? "Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow."

* Kenneth Goldsmith discusses plagerism, re-purposing, and patchwriting in a provocative article in The Chronicle of Higher Education (following on from some of Jonathan Lethem's ideas on the subject). "For the past several years," says Goldsmith, "I've taught a class at the University of Pennsylvania called 'Uncreative Writing.' In it, students are penalized for showing any shred of originality and creativity. Instead they are rewarded for plagiarism, identity theft, repurposing papers, patchwriting, sampling, plundering, and stealing. Not surprisingly, they thrive."

*  Jeff VanderMeers discusses Nnedi Okafor's World Fantasy Award winning novel Who Fears Death (which I highly recommend), and links to Matthew Cheney's fascinating interview with the author, at Omnivoracious. "I feel very responsible for every story I tell," says Nnedi.  "These aren't just tales that I'm throwing out there. There are so many layers of reality, so many layers of 'life'. Stories multiply them. One should NOT take this fact lightly....What makes a story important is located within how it affects me. That also goes for wielding the power of a story. I don't deal with stories that I am detached from. I deal with stories that touch me in some way, that are connected to me. That way when I work with them, that feeling of responsibility is innate, it is assumed. I am writing science fiction, fantasy, magical realist literature based in African culture. If I do African culture wrong, I do wrong to myself. This isn't about accuracy at this point. It is about 'truth'. Two different things."

* Short story recommendation this week: "The Bread We Eat in Dreams" by Catherynne M. Valente, in Apex Magazine.

* Poetry recommendation: "Crone Moon: a poem for Samhain" by Lucy Coates at Scribble City Central.

* Podcast recommendation: Lapham's Quarterly editor Aidan Flax-Clark interviews John Crowley (author of  Little, Big and other magical works): Part I and Part II.

* 'Tis the season: There's a gallery of antique vernacular photographs of Halloweens past (from Ossian Brown's book Haunted Air) at BoingBoing, antique Halloween postcards from The New Public Library, a gallery of Ray Villafane's incredible pumpkin carvings at Daily Art Fixx, and skulls (knitted and otherwise) at Midori Snyder's Into the Labyrinth.

* If you're in New York, please don't miss the exhibition of Su Blackwell's extraordinary "paper art" at The Center for Book Arts through Dec. 3. (She's also giving a talk there on November 11th at 6:30 pm.) You'll find more info on the Center for Book Arts website, and can see more of her work on the Su Blackwell site.

* Lester Strong looks at "Shalom Neuman's Art in Exile" (including works inspired by Jewish folklore) in Dissent Magazine. The article co-incides with an exhibition opening in the artist's birth city of Prague.

* Heather and Ivan Morison's "Sleepers Awake," an art installation in the Kentish countryside, is a piece I would very much like to see based on this review in The Telegraph. (May we have more contemporary art like this, please? Beautiful and magical, instead of merely cerebral?)

* I've fallen deeply in love with the paintings of Catherine Hyde (with thanks to another fine painter, Jackie Morris, for the introduction). Working from a studio in Cornwall, Hyde says: "I am constantly attempting to convey the landscape in a state of suspension in order to gain glimpses of its interconnectedness, its history and beauty. Within the images I use the archetypical hare, stag, owl and fish as emblems of wildness, fertility and permanence: their movements and journeys through the paintings act as vehicles that bind the elements and the seasons together."

* Speaking of lovely work: the charming drawing below is by Hussam Elsharif, a talented young artist from Tunis Village, Fayoum Oasis, in Egypt. First of all, have a look at Hussam's blog, Khushushban, where he posts wonderful drawings, carvings-in-progress, photographs and reflections on his life as a mythic artist in a very beautiful and culturally rich part of the world.

Second, have a look at the project for which Hussam created this particular drawing: "A Book Full of Morran" by Swedish illustrator Camilla Engman. Engman has invited fellow-artists to send her pictures featuring Morran, her adorable pup (pictured in the photo below, and in more photos here). The best of these submissions will be published in a book, with the proceeds to go to charity -- and there will also be a website collecting all of the Morran pictures sent in by artists all around the world. You can learn more about the Morran project, and see some of the fabulous pictures, on Engman's Studio Morran blog. Oh, what a great idea this was! (I think Tilly is a little jealous...)

Have a good weekend, everyone.