In between rewatches of Catherine Cookson this weekend, I got some lovely news: RT Book Reviews has put Mechanique on the ballot for Fantasy of the Year!

I’m in excellent company, and am flattered and thrilled by the nomination.

*

The Catherine Cookson was not as thrilling. I am really trying to wrap this puppy up, but some of these are surprisingly ponderous. Not Dwelling Place bad, because how could you be, but pretty dull in their own special ways, including one I have watched twice where I literally cannot keep track of anything after about the one-hour mark because my eyes just glaze over, so when someone drowns in the river I think it’s the hero’s sister, but also there are like a dozen neighbors? We’ll see. It’s a journey.

(At least the screencaps will be slightly better than the ones from The Dwelling Place, whose screencaps I would redo except it would mean watching it again and some things are just not going to happen.)

Including some self-promo, handbell choirs, and a confession about the nerdiest things in my attic.

First, stories!

1. My terrorism-and-toads story “Bufonidae” will be appearing in the inaugural issue of Phantasmagorium, edited by Laird Barron! It seems like this horror number might be available around Halloween, which is handy, so stay tuned.

2. John Langan and Paul Tremblay’s anthology CREATURES is alive! (It’s not actually in all caps, I think, but I like to type it that way and then imagine I’m a newscaster in a 1950s monster movie.) Covering thirty years of monster stories, the Table of Contents is pretty awesome. Alongside this august company is “Keep Calm and Carillon,” my horror story about a handbell choir.

The anthology is available now online and at booksellers in various places.

2.5 (On another Tremblay-related note, I was flattered to see he enjoyed Mechanique, though I would like to go on record as being against bringing back hissing in movie theatres, since I think that’s a danger to the public in case of a sudden influx of snakes in the building.)

3. I generally don’t talk about process, because it’s widely variable by project for me and it makes me feel a little unqualified to pretend I know what I’m doing all the time, but over at Clarkesworld, I do a little talking about style, approach, and how I clearly stayed home a LOT in college. (Bonus appearance of the best mural ever!)

4. And over at BookBanter, I answer some questions, including what advice I would give to aspiring writers, which is the write-a-million-words advice, because that is advice I believe in.

Related: I went home a few weeks ago to spend some time with family. Part of the weekend included me cleaning out some things from the attic. Alongside the historical costumes (now passed along for someone else to enjoy) and clothes so out of date they were cool again (now passed along for some hipsters to enjoy), I found a box of my old writing.

It included a few pages of the Star Trek tie-in novel I wrote when I was 11 or 12 (in ProWrite!) and printed out from my dad’s dot-matrix printer. I had hand-drawn a cover that I attached to it. It was about Guinan using her alien powers to bring Tasha Yar back from the dead for necessary plot reasons I cannot remember, and the time-paradox problems that ensued. It was called “Obfuscation.”

I showed my mother.

“Oh, that’s sweet,” she said. “How old were you? Eleven?” She paused, thinking. “Yeah, I remember you didn’t leave the house much that year.”*

I kept it – it’s tucked safely away underneath the X-Files spec scripts I wrote in high school, which we speak not of. The box is big spanning grade school through college; I’m going to guess it’s one million words. I’m glad I wrote them, and I’m extra glad they are being kept somewhere far, far away.

* This is true of any year.

So, at the launch party for Mechanique, I was lucky enough to have two incredible performances, AND lucky enough to have a friend willing to film them. Both performances were amazing, and I’m so pleased to be able to share them with everyone!

First up was Juanita, who was outstanding on the static trapeze; I had seen her before at a House of Yes variety show, so I knew how athletic she was, but this performance was a complete change of mood that she seriously aced.

Later in the evening, Anya performed on the silks.

Nerd-out about this song: it’s “Paradise Circus,” by Massive Attack, and I listened to it an unhealthy amount when I was writing Mechanique. When Anya emailed me asking for music suggestions, I wrote back instantly with THIS OR ANYTHING LIKE THIS. However, I didn’t know anything for sure until just beforehand, so when this happened I got nerd vapors.

And she was perfect, from her expressions to the fact that she’s 30 feet up for some of these moves. Watching this live was seriously amazing, and I’m really thrilled to be able to share it.

Huge, huge thanks go to Juanita, Anya, and everyone at the House of Yes who made the party feel like a real circus!

So, way back when, I threw a circus as a book launch party. It was a great time, made even better by the fact that a friend agreed to shoot some footage in case I wanted it for posterity. (I did; posterity is my favorite.)

Then edited a book trailer out of it! (Editing software is not my favorite.)

There’s more bonus footage from the party that I’ll put up a little later this week (those performances were too good to waste!), but for now, here’s the book trailer for Mechanique, presented by a total nerd who really enjoyed that circus.

Let’s start this week with some really fun news, shall we?

THIS SATURDAY, JUNE 25, I will be appearing at the Borders in Springfield, VA, to do a reading and signing for MECHANIQUE!

I’m excited about the chance to go back to the Borders I haunted in high school, buying books for extra-credit research. I’m ridiculously excited about the chance for my family to see me read something that is not a middle-school report! I am slightly less excited about the fact that my grandmother and my sister have been going through family photos and will probably be coming with ammo. (There was a photo of me in my lone dance recital outfit. It was just as great as I remembered, for every possible value of “great.” Element of my dance costume I had somehow forgotten – built-in extra strap of hot-pink sequins right across the collarbone, just in case the rest was a little subdued.)

I’ll be there from noon until 2mumble, and if you’re in the area, I would love to see you there!