This post on therealpzb made me happy, not just for the kind words about D*U*C*K but for the props the poster gives to novellas in general. They're a form I like very much, both to work in and to read. The poster mentions Different Seasons, which may well contain Stephen King's single finest piece of writing ever ("The Body"). I believe Peter Straub does some of his absolute best work in novella form ("Pork Pie Hat," "Mr. Aickman's Air Rifle," more). The post was particularly welcome just now because the latest, otherwise mostly favorable Amazon customer review of Antediluvian Tales complains that "Even D*U*C*K, her latest, has been downgraded to a $35 'novella.'" I suppose it's bad form to bitch about four-star reviews -- and I do appreciate the fact that the reviewer seems to read everything I publish -- but this annoyed me a little. First of all, D*U*C*K wasn't "downgraded" to anything. I contracted with Subterranean Press to write a novella and I wrote one; neither SubPress nor I ever claimed it was going to be anything else. Second, I don't know what those snarky quotation marks are for; novella is a perfectly valid literary term and D*U*C*K is a perfectly valid novella. Third, if you know you don't like novellas and find $35 (a price over which I have no control) too expensive for such a book, don't buy the fucking thing. No one is holding a gun to your head.

Novellas have a bad name even among writers, because they're hard to publish: magazines and anthologies don't want a piece that will take up that amount of space unless you're a big name. And no major publisher is likely to publish a Different Seasons-like collection of novellas unless you're a really big name. One of the things I value deeply about Subterranean Press is that this kind of corporate BS isn't an issue; as long as it's good work, they will publish story collections, novellas, short novels, chapbooks, and other interesting forms for which the larger publishing world has little time.

By the way, I linked to Subterranean's D*U*C*K page because I noticed that Amazon is temporarily out of stock, but in general, it's better to buy my Subterranean books directly from Subterranean; they'll get there so much faster that it's well worth giving up the slight Amazon discount.

Shadow Angelina, the New Orleans photographer who made the gorgeous cover art for Antediluvian Tales, lost her beloved cat Radio to FIP today. (I gather that he actually shared his home with friends of hers, but from the way she writes about him, you can tell he was family to her as well.) I'd never heard of this scourge until about three weeks ago; now it seems to be everywhere. You can see pictures of Radio on her journal, cuntishness. People have been wonderfully generous in helping out with Augie's vet bills, and I hate to ask, but if anyone has a few more bucks to spare ... well, Radio's recent vet bills ran to $3000 and he came from a family of freelance artists, so you see how it is. The Paypal address is Gabrielle@brazenmanagement.com .

I'm astounded by the fact that some people actually seem to think "Elizabeth R" is a good poem. I didn't think I was capable of more than solemn doggerel. Because Chris didn't understand why my salvation lay at the tomb of Edward the Confessor, I've added another quatrain (is that the right word? Poet I am not) just before the final one:

I'm not a killer nor a thief
Nor yet a brutal rapist;
My single sin is in my faith
For which she calls me Papist.

I'm currently being traumatized by the fact that Ernest Hemingway is a good writer after all. I've spent most of my life disliking him without having read very much of him. Recently I noticed an anthology of short stories from the 1940s on my shelf and was unwillingly impressed by "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." About three years ago I found a collection of Hemingway's short shories in a restroom at LAX (the airport) and begrudgingly brought it home thinking I might want to have a look into it sometime. Well, now I am, and they're damn good stories, dammit.

Apparently I woke Chris up early this morning to tell him that I was crow-footed. I don't remember why.

I leave you with this very weird dream about my characters from Jenn M:

Hey Poppy,

You're not the only one having bad/weird ass dreams, I guess. Now, I wasn't drunk, but I do seem to have the flu or some other bug, and have been getting massive amounts of sleep lately, so maybe it was too much, but here's the dream.

The weirdest thing of all may be that it appeared in my dream as a sort of lost chapter to Lost Souls. Like I was reading Lost Souls and all of a sudden I was like, "I don't remember THIS from the other 5 million times I've read this book..." Which is also weird because I'm not reading Lost Souls right now...I've been wandering through Antediluvian Tales, rereading it since I got it last week.

At any rate, the dream involved a scene with G-man's folks, who were apparently partaking in some sort of domestic discipline relationship for fun. I don't remember what had happened to make Mary Rose at fault, but she was made to strip by her husband and whipped somewhat moderately with a rattan carcass beater as seen here.

So, I don't know what any of it means, but I felt compelled to share that with you...

I got a phone message this morning from Deb at Garden District Books telling me that Antediluvian Tales was in; would I come by and sign stock? "I loved your Yeats quote at the end," she finished. Yeats quote? Me? What?

*

I opened the Word file of "The Last Good Day of My Life," the long essay that closes Antediluvian Tales, and yes, God help me, during those hazy, crazy days of last winter, I did indeed finish it off with a Yeats quote -- well, sort of. It's a mashup of Yeats and Pete Fountain. I really don't remember much about those months, and it may be just as well.

Anyway, I went by the bookshop and signed stock this afternoon. I haven't received my copies yet, so this was my first look at the book, which as gorgeous as Subterranean Press books almost always are. cuntishness's cover photo is beautifully set off by the Carolina-blue cloth binding. If it does turn out to be the last book I ever publish, well, at least it looks great and has some pretty good stories in it.

*Best Macro Ever by oursin from lolauthors

Ezekiel did his first shed last night. Eye scales, check. The skin came off in three pieces, but wasn't flaky enough to make me worry about his humidity levels. I realize this paragraph may make absolutely no sense to readers who aren't reptile fans. Ssssssssssssssssso ssssssssssssssssorry. I've tried to take some pictures of him, but my digital camera simply isn't up to the close-up task; all I get is a long shiny blur. I'd love a new camera, but cannot currently justify the expense what with the various large family medical bills that have come floating along on an alarmingly regular basis lately.

Antediluvian Tales -- if not my last book ever, then my last one for some time -- goes to the printer next month. I've just seen a very nice Publishers Weekly review, but am not sure whether I'm allowed to quote it yet. At any rate, I will mention that it favorably singles out "The Feast of St. Rosalie," which makes me happy since I think it is one of my three or four best short stories and no one has ever previously paid it the slightest bit of attention (which is what you get for publishing things as limited-edition chapbooks, I guess).

I've been invited to contribute to The Horror Book of Lists, co-edited by Del Howison of Dark Delicacies Books in Burbank, one of my favorite bookstores owned by two of my favorite people. The lists are supposed to be clever things like "The Top Ten Horror Films Where the Black Guy Lives" or "The Top Five Strangest Historical Halloween Traditions." I'd like to do one, but so far I've not been able to think of a single idea; I can't think of a time when my imagination has felt less fertile. I made myself a Post-It note about the invitation so it will be in my face every time I use the computer and I'll have to either think of something or regretfully beg off soon.

I couldn't be happier with this. Thanks again to Shadow Angelina for the gorgeous photograph. Remember, you can now preorder Antediluvian Tales at Subterranean Press.

We didn't get any actual work done on the house today, but we did do major amounts of furniture and fixture shopping. The people who sent us in-store Target gift cards have kindly provided our floor lamps and towel racks. (We bought toilet paper holders too, but it seems wrong to imply that we'll be thinking of you every time we wipe our asses ... )

I've been too consumed with the house to realize Antediluvian Tales was up for pre-ordering from Subterranean Press. Observant readers of this journal will note that the chapbook accompanying the limited edition is actually titled The H.O.G. Syndrome, not just H.O.G.

A few weeks ago I actually thought this might be the last "real" book I'd ever publish ("real" as in book that I care about; since I have no other abilities capable of supporting me, I'd eventually have to do some sort of hackwork to survive). I kinda doubt that now, but you should order it just in case.

One of my favorite New Orleans photographers, Shadow Angelina, has agreed to let me and Subterranean Press use her lovely photograph "Her Fear, Her Return" as the cover of Antediluvian Tales:



© Shadow Angelina

For me, this photograph (of an 1872 tomb from Metairie Cemetery) perfectly sums up the beauty of pre-K New Orleans and the grief at what we've lost. I couldn't be more pleased that Shadow Angelina, whose work I've admired for a long time, is amenable to letting me use it. As well, it's also nice to spread the wealth (in this case, Subterranean's, not mine) to local artists who are probably struggling as hard as or harder than I am.

Last night I sent Bill Schafer all the files for Antediluvian Tales and the chapbook, The H.O.G. Syndrome, that will accompany the limited edition. I need to to a drawing for the chapbook cover, but other than that, the project is in the bag (as they say) and should be published sometime this fall.

Here's the final table of contents in the order they'll appear:

"Drink Up, Dreamers, You're Running Dry: A Foreword to Antediluvian Tales"
"The Feast of St. Rosalie"
"Four Flies and a Swatter"
"Henry Goes Shopping"
"The Working Slob's Prayer (Being A Night in the History of the Peychaud Grill)"
"Crown of Thorns"
"Wound Man and Horned Melon Go to Hell"
"The Devil of Delery Street"
"The Last Good Day of My Life (A True Story)"

Inspired by greygirlbeast's doing something similar in her first collection, Tales of Pain and Wonder, I'm including an appendix that lists the Stubbs family stories from both Antediluvian Tales and The Devil You Know in the chronological order in which they happened to the characters, should anyone prefer to read them in that order. (I don't consider the chronological order in which I actually wrote the stories as interesting or important, but that information is/will be available on the copyright notices page for them what wants it.)

Unlike most of my Subterranean Press books, the trade edition of this mini-collection will retail for an affordable $20 or thereabouts. Bill and I have also been discussing the possibility of including a chapbook of my first "novel," The H.O.G. Syndrome (written when I was 12), with the limited edition. The H.O.G. Syndrome is and will remain available for free on my website, but this will be a nice collectible for completists or anyone who likes this embryonic curio well enough to want to own a bound copy.

As I told Bill, for a project that was nearly completed before I even started it, Antediluvian Tales has not been an easy thing for me to pull together, but I think it will make a good little book.

I'm sitting here printing out all the stories for Antediluvian Tales so that I can reread them and get serious about determining the order in which they'll appear, writing a foreword, etc. Nothing like attempting to multitask on a Mac, especially when it's trying to wrap its tiny e-brain around the highly challenging task of communicating with a printer. Three years on, I no longer want to fling my iBook out the window on a daily basis the way I did when I first got it, but trying to make it do two or more things at once is still a superb test of one's patience.

I've received a few queries about why two previously uncollected stories won't be in this book:

"Wandering the Borderlands," originally published in Masques V: In retrospect, I just don't think this is all that strong a story, and it doesn't fit very well with the rest of the collection's contents. However, sometime in the next couple of months I will probably allow Subterranean Press to reprint it on their website, where interested parties will be able to read it for free.

"The Gulf": This collection is called Antediluvian Tales for a reason. "The Gulf" is about as postdiluvian a tale as any I've written; it was the first post-K fiction I wrote that actually dealt with the storm and its aftermath, and its appearance in this collection would be jarringly inappropriate. I do like the story a lot and feel certain it'll be included in my next collection.

It's always a struggle to decide what should go into a collection and what shouldn't. Ultimately I must do my best to produce the best possible collection rather than the most complete one. (In my opinion, completism -- or padding if you're feeling unkind -- is the major problem with Are You Loathsome Tonight?.) I think The Devil You Know is a stronger collection than my previous two because I left out a few stories, and it might have been stronger yet without one or two others.

I've been writing the last piece for the new Subterranean Press collection, Antediluvian Tales. I was afraid I was going to have to break my contractual obligation to include a new story written especially for this collection, but an idea began tugging at my pants leg a few days ago and I started it last night. It's set in Cairns. It's not a short story or even fiction, exactly; it's just this thing, but I think it will make a good closer for the book.

Here, in no particular order yet, is the table of contents:

"Four Flies and a Swatter”
"Crown of Thorns"
"Wound Man and Horned Melon Go to Hell"
"Henry Goes Shopping"
"The Devil of Delery Street"
"The Working Slob’s Prayer"
"The Feast of St. Rosalie"
This new thing

Seeing that list, I have a sneaking feeling I've already posted it, but never mind. Once this piece is done, I just have to settle the order of the stories and write a short foreword in which I will say fuck all knows what. "Here's some stories, I wrote 'em, hope ya like 'em" is about all it ever boils down to unless you're Harlan Ellison, which I regret I am not.