Duke and Zink Do America — Where My Politics Go to Live
If you’ve been a reader of this blog for at least a year, you’ll have noticed that I’m rather political. I’m also hesitant to post about politics on this blog, in part because this is supposed to be a space about genre fiction, writing, and so on. That doesn’t mean I don’t talk about things that are political, but it does mean that I try not to talk about things to do with actual politics (Presidential races, etc.). And that’s how it’s going to be from now on, because I just started a political podcast/blog with my co-host at The Skiffy and Fanty Show. What is this new show called? We describe it as follows: Duke and Zink Do America is a 3/5ths serious political commentary podcast from a progressive perspective. We cover news, relevant events, and whatever else comes our way, always on the lookout for the stupid arguments and the stupid people who make them. If you need a fix of progressive politics with a moderate dose of humor, then this is the show for you. Our first episode recently went live. The show will be bimonthly, but we expect to post a few columns a month alongside. Essentially, this is where my political rants and nonsense will go to live, fulfilling my desire to keep my writing and political worlds separate. Feel free to head on over there and subscribe if you are politically inclined. There will be a post over there soon enough explaining our mission, history, and so on. For now, you’ve got over an hour of political deliciousness to enjoy. Go listen and leave a comment! Anywho!
The Guardian Quoted Me!
That’s all I’ve got. See for yourself. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go celebrate with something sugary and delicious. Yay! P.S.: They also quoted Larry over at OF Blog, who gets quoted far more than I do…lucky bastard.
2011 Holiday Logo Design Contest!
If the title doesn’t entice you, then maybe this will: The lovely folks at ooShirts, a Bay Area independent shirt company, has offered a few t-shirts to us for The World in the Satin Bag and The Skiffy and Fanty Show. Rather than shoving our logos on the shirts and enjoying them by ourselves, we thought we’d give folks a shot at a t-shirt of their own! Here’s how it will work: We want a new logo design for The World in the Satin Bag and The Skiffy and Fanty Show that reflects the content or feel of the sites in some way. Roughly translated, that means we have no clear rules whatsoever, in part because we are artistically handicapped. The designs should look nice (obviously) and it should have something to do with the sites, but we are more interested in seeing what you come up with than bogging down the artistic process with rules and rigid desires. These will break down into two contests: one for The World in the Satin Bag and one for The Skiffy and Fanty Show. And you can enter both. What you get if you win: The two winning logos will receive a t-shirt with their winning logo on the front. Free books — winners will receive a $10 gift certificate to their preferred online bookstore AND a choice of a selection of books to be announced later. A bio and thanks in the About sections of both sites (because you’re awesome and we love you) The Rules: High quality images (so that we can adjust, shrink, and move the images without worrying about all those shrinkage issues) Images must be submitted by 11:59 PM on January 8th, 2011 to skiffyandfanty[at]gmail[dot]com. The winner will be announced the following week. Original work only. By submitting your images to this contest, you are not giving us ownership of your stuff. You grant us the right to show the logo and use it on our website and materials we purchase only for ourselves (i.e., business cards, shirts for us to wear at conventions, etc., but not stuff we buy for friends and the like). Any sale of your logo by us will have to be agreed upon at another time. If you want to donate the logo(s) to us, that would be awesome, but we’re not in the business of taking work from people without compensation unless they’ve offered it. Should we become interested in selling the shirts with your logo, we’ll contact you to talk about royalties. A little about ooShirts: While I’d love to reproduce their story here, I think you’d better read it for yourself. They’ve got a great story behind them, and a great company philosophy. We wish them the best of success (not because they’re a Cali company, because we’re totally not that biased…). Have it it, logo designers!
Happy Thanksgiving
Unlike a lot of my fellow Americans, I won’t pretend that this holiday celebrates anything other than being with family and eating an insane amount of food (which could probably feed a small, poor country for a year). I won’t pretend that this holiday is about how great the Pilgrims were to the Native Americans, because that would be historical revisionism at work (and I’m a stickler for getting my history “right,” as far as right can be). Instead, this post is about celebrating what the holiday really means to me: Being with friends or family and enjoying a meal together, without all the hubbub of daily life Saying thanks for the things I have, whether material or personal And that means I need to say some “thanks” to all of you. Thank you all for reading this blog, leaving comments, and otherwise making this whole blogging thing an enjoyable experience! May you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving, even if you don’t live in the U.S. In fact, I’m of the opinion that Thanksgiving should be universal. Tonight, when you have dinner with your loved ones, take a moment to think about how wonderful it is to have them there with you. And then say thanks. Have a great day!
RIP: Sara Douglass (a.k.a. Sara Warneke)
Sad news from Locus: Australian author Sara Warneke, 54, who wrote bestselling fantasy novels as Sara Douglass, died September 26, 2011 of cancer. She had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer last year and lost her battle earlier today. While I have not read much of her work, I know that the SF/F community will miss her terribly, not just as a person, but also as a writer. It is a sad day when we lose one of our own and I wish the best for those she left behind. My condolences to her friends and family. May she live forever through her work.
Five Years of Mediocrity — How Did I Survive?
I was reminded of a very important fact today by SQT of Fantasy & Scifi Lovin’ News & Reviews and John Scalzi of Whatever (and writer of those funny things made of paper which we call books): my blog is old. But it’s not that old. SQT has been at this blogging thing a year longer than I and Scalzi has been doing it for thirteen years — which makes my five look rather pathetic, don’t you think? But in the interest of celebrating something good, I’d like to say how shocking it is that I’m still here after five years. Even more shocking is when and how I started. On September 3rd, 2006, I wrote my first blogger blog post entitled “Yes!” Apparently I was excited to have found it within myself the energy to put nearly incoherent words into a magic Internet box and press the “publish” button. I was also excited about having a mystical mission to entertain the billions of people who still don’t know I exist. And what followed? “Good News & Bad News,” in which I mourned the death of Steve Irwin and pointed out my supreme ignorance as a writer by stating that I don’t write outlines because they are oh so lame. Then again, I still don’t do outlines… After that, I wrote “Names and Things” — the first post where I had something coherent to say, but also the first post in which I proclaimed my love for reptiles. There are two pictures there of animals I either used to or still have (one of which was stolen by my evil, wicked mother from the West). But things picked up from there. I started a novel (The World in the Satin Bag), which turned out to be a piece of high fantasy YA garbage. I’m still working on editing that junkfest, and so far I’ve made it 100 times better — and, yes, there are short stories coming and a video (I swear). And in five years I’ve had a few “hits,” some of the “this is interesting” variety, and others of the “you stupid bastard, I hate you” variety. I’ve stirred up quite a lot of trouble, said some dumb stuff, pissed off a fair share of people, amused some and made at least one or two laugh. What do I have to show for all of this? 229,815 unique visitors from 178 countries (that leaves about 26 I’ve yet to touch) and 334,095 page views, 4,343 comments, and 1,884 published posts (including this one). What can I say? That’s not bad at all, right? But none of that could be done without you weirdos who have been following this blog, whether recently or since the beginning-ish. So I’d like to say thanks to all of you for your comments, page views, and link sharing. You all rock. Here’s to another five years! Maybe by year six I’ll have reached 500,000 unique visitors. Or not. Whatever…