Glossolalia

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wonders abide
When I was a kid living in Western Michigan, somehow I got it into my head that bluebirds are mythological creatures and didn't "really" exist--I never saw one there, and I probably misunderstood or incorrectly read between the lines when my mom or dad said bluebirds live "far away."

Then I moved to Indiana. Despite that I of course know better now, every time I see a bluebird, which is often, I nonetheless feel like I’ve just seen a unicorn.

RIP
As if the news today that Realms of Fantasy is going under wasn't enough--iconic American writer John Updike has passed away this morning.

Not a good day for the literary world.

genetics fun with eyeballs
Here's an interesting website that calculates the probability that your offspring will have certain colored eyes (assuming you know who the other gene-donor would be, of course) and determines the probability that you would get the eye color you got. Don't miss the links at the bottom of the page.

What's fascinating is that we don't know all the mechanics as to how eye color works--there's still at least one gene that hasn't been accounted for that affects eye color.

There's even more complication with eye color changing after birth. My originally-brown eyes have been growing more and more hazel over the years!

Rocky question
Please forgive my ignorance--I've only seen Rocky Horror Picture Show once or twice (I know, I know), and that was at home. If you're going to see it, say, in a theater, is the expectation that you'll dress up? As the characters? And if you don't dress up, are you subject to ridicule and derision?

"A Song, a Prayer, an Empty Space" published at GUD
Continuing with recent neglected news, I have a new story out in Greatest Uncommon Denominator’s Mechanical Flight Issue (#3), "A Song, a Prayer, an Empty Space”. This is my Week 3 story from Clarion West, which was dubbed "Monkpunk" by the class. As Bill Ward says in the review below (he explains it so well), it's about an "alternate earth where ancient technological breakthroughs merged with Near Eastern religions to create a Church-dominated world different than our own history." It's also the lead story.

You can get just my story as a pdf through Paypal for less than $2, or you can pick up the whole print version, which I recommend--it's beautifully put together and it has stories by

tinaconnolly and other fine folks.

Review with synopsis from Bill Ward: ( Malcolm-Clarke’s story moves with the sure logic of a dream through a world that almost feels like it could have been ours. )

*~*~*
Also, here's a thing: Six Science Fiction Classics to Help You Choose the Next President

Current Mood: excited
Current Music: Ruh--Gypsy Caravan

A Field Guide to Surreal Botany (+ car update)
I’ve been delinquent in posting of late (September always turns me into a hermit). Neglected news includes the fact that A Field Guide to Surreal Botany is now out from Two Cranes Press, edited by Janet Chui and Jason Erik Lundberg. It’s gorgeous. And it includes my contribution Shade’s Globe, or Sibylwort, which acts as a catalyst for spirit possession, and its aroma has psychotropic effects on the dead.

The entries are strange and funny and surprising, and the whole thing is illustrated with the inspired paintings of Janet Chui. Here’s one review, but there are more on the Surreal Botany site:

"Yes, Two Cranes Press have really got it right, totally, totally right with this one. Gorgeously designed and printed, and yet (appropriately, given the subject) dirt-cheap, A Field Guide to Surreal Botany gets it right every way. [...] Printed on thick, slick, matte, faux-faded paper, it literally oozes quality, to the point where you might be tempted to lay it on a lesser volume and hope the process of osmosis will work some sort of 'magick.' But I think most readers will be loathe to lay it down anywhere. It's a compulsively readable and ultra-cool book."
—Rick Kleffel, The Agony Column

~*~*~*

( Regarding the car situation )

car woes, hopefully not car last rites
My car might be dead as a doornail.

There have been problems with it of late. A few weeks back, the oil light started coming on whenever I would decelerate. I paid $600 to get it fixed. The light started coming on again sometimes.

Today, during rush hour, I came to a stop at a light (at Hillside & High), and there the engine cut out. I called 911 to send a cop over to deal with traffic, which quickly backed up as far as I could see. A wrecker came. He took me to some random mechanic, since my regular guy (whom I've gone to for seven years) suddenly closed up shop, disappeared, and had his phone disconnected.

Based on what people knowledgable about such things have said, the engine may have melted. Insert your choice of expletive here.

(Then, after

deadmanwade graciously dropped me off at home, I was locked out of the house for over an hour...but that rather pales in comparison to having lost my car, if I've lost it. It was rather funny, though, when a couple neighborhood girls came by selling candles for their choir program and found me camped out on the front porch with a school bag, gym bag, fast food bags, all my stuff spread out on the porch, and me eating dinner. I'm sure it looked like I'd been living there on the porch for several days. They looked utterly nonplussed until I explained the locked out business. Then I bought a candle from them.)

Novel is done!
At long last, I've finished the first draft of my novel A Map to Dig By!

It weighs in at 92k words (for those not acquainted with writer-speak, that’s about 170 single-spaced pages). (Also, the file with all my worldbuilding, plot and character notes, and revision ideas is another 19k!)

Looking back at the last couple weeks entries, I see that recent travel, some health issues, and the novel have really kept things quiet here, but I’ll be catching up with a lot of updates & lj replies soon.

For the moment, however, I’m going to have some celebratory 21 year old single malt Balvenie. Though I could also go for a celebratory collapse on the bed instead.

Naw, I'll go for the scotch.

Current Mood: jubilant

Review Roundup + Batman seems to be on drugs and fights a shark among other things
So, the intarwebs recently informed me that "The Beacon" was an Honorable Mention in The Year's Best Science Fiction! I've never gotten an HM in YBSF (or the Year's Best Fantasy & Horror) before, so, indeed, gladness has ensued.

Alvaro Zinos-Amaro at The Fix gives “Pearl in Shadow” a mixed review, but does have some positive things to say: ( 'I did find the intellectual creativity at work admirable...' )

At the Internet Review of Science Fiction, Lois Tilton gives “His One True Bride” the designation “Recommended”—one of a handful to get that out of several dozen stories! (You need to have a free account at IROSF to see the review or anything else.)

Kimberly Lundstrom at The Fix calls "HOTB" “harrowing” and “exciting,” and Shortbits says ( 'Darja Malcolm-Clarke writes some great, disturbing religious imagery. The mystery of the Harper’s religion and what’s going wrong remains intriguing throughout this excellent story...' )

~*~*~

Enough about me, let's talk about you and your unspoken need for some old school Batman & Joker in this brave new era of Batman films. This is one of my favorite fragments of internet detritus. I can’t say I understand it, but somehow it gets better every time I watch it. I'd love to hear people's theories about what is going on here...

malady
Tuesday morning I woke up and couldn't hear. That evening, in addition to not hearing, my eyes began to feel like they were pulsating in my skull.

As of this morning my hearing has mostly returned, but now my eyes feel like they've been taken out of my head and put back in while I was sleeping.

I hope I'm not about to lose my sense of taste or touch or smell.

My spouse attributes all this to alien abduction.

First, hello to the new people!

( writing process: June )

Fantasy Magazine Author Spotlight--with me!
The folks at Fantasy Magazine have started a new feature called Puppet Strings:

Once or twice a month a Fantasy author will give you a sneak peek into the magic behind their fiction–be it the inspiration, the writing process, the research, or whatever else. Then for the next five days the author will answer questions and participate in discussion about their story.

I’ve written there about the very bizarre medieval mystics that first inspired “His One True Bride” (think: the eating of lice and pus to achieve grace, spontaneous thrashing about and crying out to God in city streets) and how they got me thinking about our own culture. If you'd like to know more about the story, head over to Puppet Strings, and feel free to dive in and discuss it or ask me questions—about process, inspiration, motivation, what swamps have to do with anything, what's up with the scabs and fish oil, why roses and maggots, why a story with so many religious trappings, what Brides didn’t make the final cut, what I intended with the closing scene—whatever you’d like to know about. I’ll be there talking with folks through Sunday. Check it out!

publication
My short story "His One True Bride" is up at Fantasy Magazine! Take a gander if you're so inclined.

(And again, "Pearl in Shadow" is in the June issue of Ideomancer.)

This makes up for my hard drive spontaneously kicking the bucket last night. Everything was backed up, though it's going to take a while to get my email situation up and running in the usual way. Could have been worse.

Current Mood: pleased

the mysterious in the everyday
In one of the classes for the IU Writers' Conference I’m attending this week, Ross Gay is having us discuss and think through ‘mystery.’ We started out by talking about what mystery is and how it differs from ‘uncertainty,’ and decided that ‘mystery’ is a category of experience that allows room for magic or an unknown force or logic or reality that isn’t easily grasped, immediately evident, or transparent. To take it a bit further, mystery as an idea points to a presence, a something that is, but is inscrutable. ‘Uncertainty,’ on the other hand, emphasizes an absence—absence of certainty of course, but also of comfort and stability. Mystery, though, has the capacity to allow for acceptance of uncertainty, even if it is unnerving.

Then the class shared their personal experiences of the mysterious, and it was marvelous to hear so many tales of the mysterious infiltrating people’s lives.

So I present to you, dear reader, the same question: What is the most mysterious thing (or just a mysterious thing) that has happened to you in your life? Something that seems to point to a strange reality or force, or maybe leaves you with the sense that your picture of reality isn't complete. I invite you to tell the tale in a comment here, or better yet, post it in your own journal.

( Here’s one to get things started. )

flash flood!
The water has receded back to the proper creekbed, and there are now kids innertubing through the creek cement drain pipe!

Tragically, my camera's battery was low, so all the pictures I took are really dark. Here are a few that turned out.

( non-flood conditions ) (You can see the creek, that brown ribbon way in the back there.)

Compare this shot taken from the same position: ( under water. )

( Another of the water--this is all supposed to be lawn. )

The water probably got between three or four feet deep.

It's remarkable how quickly the water rose--then receded again.

Well, that was not how I expected to spend the last three hours, but I have no regrets! Now back to novel writination.

~*~*~*~*~*~*
ETA: I guess the whole town is just in shambles. I hope everyone is okay. O__o

ETA 2: This is downtown Bloomington. Now I really hope everyone is okay.

More photos here in the Flood Gallery.

ETA 3: I just have to say, ZOMG.

Kirkwood Avenue

here be a lake, suddenly
Flash flood!

Those thunderstorms that just passed through? The street is now under about a foot of water. What about my yard, you ask? There is now a lake where there used to be a little meandering creek! 1/3-1/2 acre of my property is now UNDER WATER.

I've lived in Bloomington eight years and this has never happened before.

Million Writers Award notablation
“The Beacon,” my short story published in the August issue of Clarkesworld, made the southStory Million Writers Notable Stories of 2007 list! Yay!

The next thing that happens is the judges whittle the list down to ten, and the world gets to vote to decide the winning story.

Also, I managed to sleep eleven hours last night. I don't think that's related to the above, however.

Illinois earthquake
I woke up this morning to the things on top of the bureau near the bed rattling. It abruptly stopped right as I woke up. Earthquake was the first thing that came to mind. Nah, we don’t have earthquakes in Indiana I thought, and proceeded to be very weirded out. What would cause that? I finally concluded the cat had been doing something crazy, jumping in and out of the bureau like he sometimes does…but the drawers had been closed, and I knew he wasn’t in the room. It took me a long time to fall asleep again, I was so unnerved.

I was really relieved to find out this morning that there was a reasonable explanation for all that! It’s my first earthquake. The only thing comparable I've been in/near was the 1980 Mt. Saint Helens eruption when we lived in Seattle, but I was too small to remember anything about it. We still have ash from it, though.

Also, maybe that's why I've been thinking of earthquakes lately.

When all aloud the wind doth blow
From age nine through twenty-two I lived on the shore of Lake Michigan where they get ‘lake effect snow’ (that is, plenty). This resulted in quite respectable winter landscapes, and Michiganders are not ones to quake at formidable conditions. Months of white and white-turned-brown/gray were assumed. Needle-sharp cold was assumed. Treacherous travel was assumed.

So I’ve been pretty dissatisfied with these warm, rainy, and in short lame, southern Indiana winters the last three years. I cannot abide 50 degree-days in December or January unless it is some truly bizarre fluke, something by which people are disoriented and befuddled, something about which people feel uneasy, even vaguely but indubitably apocalyptic. Going about one’s business in a jacket on a 50-degree January day is just perverse.

Southern Indiana’s recent moderate dumping-upon at least made it feel like a somewhat reasonable, recognizable season, rather than a displeasing pseudo-winter. But this evening I realized one of the things I need most from winter: danger. And I finally got it tonight driving on the slick icy roads when the temperature plummeted from 45ish to 15 while it was raining/icing. I wasn’t sure, for example, that my car was actually going to stop in time as I came up behind a mini-van at a stop sign.

And it was marvelous. That’s what I want out of winter—the sense that my life, my bodily integrity may be at risk. That I could be mangled if I don’t play my cards right. Navigating winter should require skill.

Indeed, I feel a little more satisfied with the winter of ’07-’08, having now at least questioned, if only for a millisecond, whether I was actually going to live through it.

~*~*~*~*
In additional news of a pleasing bent, I’ve discovered that my short story “The Beacon” has been nominated for a British Science Fiction Association Award for short fiction (long list; here's the short list). How this came to be I do not know, but I am utterly floored. Damn.