Friskbiskit

Manga and Comics at BEA

Okay, so BEA was a few weeks ago already, but these two articles from Publishers Weekly are still pretty interesting (thanks Sarah and Betsy, for these links):

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6447413.html?nid=2286

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6448573.html

Coincidentally, I had lunch with Peter Straub at the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts last march and we talked comics a bit. Peter's a peach.

Bishonen Review

My review of Yon Fan's award-winning live-action boys love film BISHONEN is up over at Uniquely Pleasurable.

The Other Anne Harris

Evidently, there's another Anne Harris out there publishing fiction. I found this out at the mass book signing Seton Hill put on for faculty, students and alumni of the Popular Fiction Program.  When I got to my table, there was a nice, hefty stack of YEAR'S BEST FANTASY, and also, a stack of books I didn't recognize: a romance entitled FACING THE WIND by... Anne Harris.  Wow.  Easiest book I ever wrote.  [grin].

In other, SHU residency related notes, one of my students, Traci Castleberry sent me some pix from the residency:
That's me, my hub Steve, one of my students, Sherry Peters, and another SHU WPF student, Michele (sorry M, don't remember your last name), at the student wine social.

This obviously needs no explanation.  On the far right, you can just make out my student, Krista Russell, no doubt alarmed.

And finally, here I am at the mass book signing, trying to imitate the woman on the cover of the book by the other Anne Harris.

Seton Hill Report

So, it's Friday night, and we just got back to our hotel room.  Tomorrow, we're on our way back home.  I've had a terrific time at the Seton Hill University Writing Popular Fiction residency.  Steve and I got in on Wed. afternoon, just in time for dinner in the cafeteria -- which is at 4 pm (!).  The food here is quite good.  Anyway, after dinner, we went and checked into our hotel -- the Hampton Inn.  We have a great room, the hotel on the whole is very nice, with a lovely outdoor heated pool, fresh cookies in the afternoon, and a free breakfast. The breakfast was a mixed success.  The cold stuff was fine, but so far, their hot food items are scaring me.  We'll see what tommorrow holds.  All the same, I would definitely stay here again.

Wed. evening I went to Jason Jack Miller's thesis defense, while Steve chilled at the hotel.  I really enjoyed Jason's reading.  One of the great things about this residency was getting to know him and his wife Heidi better.

Thurs. morning I hit the ground running, leading a writing workshop.  I think it went well, though I only allotted the critiquers two minutes for comments, and I think I could have given them three.  We finished up with about a half-an-hour to spare, which I guess is better than running over time.

After lunch I took a walk around the campus, saw a groundhog and found a trail through the woods.  Nice walk.

Thurs. afternoon, I met with my students one on one to set goals and fill out their contract for the coming term.  Since I have six students, I was in back to back meetings from 4 pm until 8:30.  It was exciting to get to meet my three new students, and to see my three students from last term again.  Every body's projects are different which will make for varied and interesting reading.  I'm looking forward to reading what everyone does with the ideas they talked about.

After the student meetings was the wine social, which is always a blast.  Today, I slept in, took a nice swim (the pool was surprisingly warm, given that it rained yesterday) and then spent a large part of the afternoon talking books with Tim Esais and Heidi Miller. 

I did some writing after dinner, and then headed out for the mass book signing at Barnes and Noble.  I got there (bear in mind I really kind of hate book signings unless there are actually a lot of people there to see me) and was informed that I'd almost missed the whole thing.  Which surprised me because, when I was unable to find when the signing was scheduled for, and I asked around, I was told "after the thesis defenses" which would mean 8 pm and it was just before 8 then.  Apparently it was scheduled for 7-8, but what really happened was that a lot more people showed up about fifteen minutes later, because they'd all attended the thesis defenses, and the signing went on for at least another hour.  So, while it looked pretty grim for the first fifteen minutes or so, I wound up selling a bunch of books, and had a great time.

After the signing, a bunch of us went next door for food, drinks and conversation.  It was a great opportunity to get some final schmoozing in before we head back home tomorrow.

Oh, and one final note.  fellow mentor Toby Buckell's new book Ragamuffin, is out.  I got to see it at the signing and it looks really cool.  Check it out.

Off to Seton Hill

Tomorrow morning, Steve and I are driving to Seton Hill University in Greensburg, PA, for the Writing Popular Fiction program's summer residency. We'll be there through Saturday, and there may not be ready internet access, so it'll prob. be quiet here in Manga-loid Land.  I'm looking forward to the residency -- can't wait to show Steve the campus (he loves old buildings) and I'm leading a workshop this time around, and taking on three more students for a total of six. 

This is going to be a fun summer. 

Seriously.  For a while, I was kind of freaked about the schedule I'd created for myself: two two-week trips (Up North and Japan), plus a residency, plus two more conventions in the fall, six students (did I mention I'll have six students this term?), a first draft of a new novel to write, and revisions on two other novels, and let's not forget about the gay male erotic romance I've got cooking.

Sounds like a lot, right?  But then I made this big calendar for from now through the end of October, and I listed all the stuff I mentioned above, plus a few other things, with estimates of how long they'd take, and I scheduled it all out and whaddya know, everything fit!  It fit in weekdays, w/o evenings or weekends with some skosh room to spare.  So I'm good.  It's good to let go of preconceived notions of one's limitations, I think.

Fun Western Webcomic

In my searches for an artist, I've uncovered some great webcomics out there.  Here's one:

Goodbye Chains

New Issue of the Slash Skinny

Every other month Dusk Peterson publishes a newsletter covering original slash, yaoi and other gay male romance markets.  The Slash Skinny is available from Lulu for just .99 a download and it's a great roundup of the field.  Highlights in this issue include: Iris Print announces an exciting new direction for the company, magazine listings (including Bent Magazine, with a link to a review of the publication by Tina Anderson, and listings of new fiction releases by J.M. Snyder, Kimberly Powell and others.

No more bankers

Have any of you seen the new, online alternative to banks?  Check these out, this could change everything.

Zopa

prosper

Kirk/Spock meets Nine Inch Nails

Ganked from St. Michael (Thanks St. M!) Some really great editing in this. (warning: contains explicit language and implied sexual situations.) Kirk and Spock get Closer on YouTube

Poultry Days

My nephew, Adam Lane, in addition to holding an important job at an L.A. talent agency, is also a filmmaker.  His first documentary is Poultry Days: The Movie, and it's about a festival called, you guessed it, Poultry Days, in a little town called Versailles, in central Ohio.  Every year on the second weekend in June, the town holds a festival to celebrate the local industry, chicken farming.  There's the usual standbys like rides and a parade, and also the Miss Chick Contest and the Little Miss Poultry Days contest.  Also in the same town on the same weekend is an ultimate frisbee tournament that draws thousands of players from around the country. Adam got involved in the event as an ultimate player (ultimate Frisbee is sort of like Frisbee football). He aired his film at the festival this weekend and Steve and I, and our friends Trophy and Brian, drove down to see it, and to experience Poultry Days for ourselves.

Adam's film is terrific.  We got to Versailles just before the screening, and so we hadn't had a chance to experience much of the event before we saw the documentary.  Yet, after watching it, I felt like I already was a veteran.  I knew just what was special about the festival and the tournament, and why.  And I felt like I knew the people involved. A major thread in Adam's film is the Miss Chick Contest, and he does a great job building up drama and getting across to his audience the importance of the title to the contestants. That's why, even if you normally don't give a fig for pageants, you can't help but get wrapped up in this one  It's a nail-biter.

Those inteviewed in the film, whether they were frisbee players or town residents, emphasized the friendliness and helpfulness of the whole Poultry Days community.  This really bore out in the experience that we had there this weekend.  After witnessing the Cool Hand Luke Egg Eating Contest (!), which raised about $6000 for the Luekemia Foundation, Steve, Brian, Trophy and I decided to go back over to the town festival side of things and check out the band at the social tent.  This necessitated us driving a short distance and we were pulled over with our map light on, trying to figure out how to get where we wanted to go when a car pulled along side us and slowed to a stop.

Big city folk all, we tensed, expecting, at the very least, drunken epithets.  But no!  The folks in the other car said, "Are you lost?"  "Where are you trying to go?" "The social tent?  Follow us."  And they led us there.  Wow.

Other highlights of the weekend included the chicken dinner -- succulent smoked, bbq chicken; going on carnival rides with Trophy; breakfast at the Sweet Shop Bakery with my nephews; hanging out with my family in general -- my brother, sister-in-law and niece were also there; watching my first ultimate Frisbee game and finally, the hilariously down at the heels but cheap, cheap, cheap Econo Lodge room we stayed in (headboard fell off the bed within the first half-hour of our occupance, shearing the prongs off the plug for the bedside lamp as it went -- good times).

It _was_ a good time.  And did I mention that my nephew Adam's film is fabulous?  Copies are not available yet because he's applying to Sundance with it and they don't let you do that.  But go check out a preview here:

http://one.revver.com/watch/113384

I mean it. Go. 

Oddities of Eighteenth Century British Law Enforcement

Was revising the NIMBLETONS script today, and had to do some research on how crimes were prosecuted at that time.  Pretty interesting. There was no public police force.  Crimes were prosecuted primarily by the vicitms, at their own expense.  Here are a couple of sites with good information.

 

http://www.bradfordhistorical.org.uk/antiquary/second/vol10/samlister.html#ref47

http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/England_18thc./England_18thc.html

Name Dropping

My pal Kathe Koja has a blog now!  Go check her out here. And Gene Wolfe looked up the etymology of my last name and Steve's: Ainsworth is the name of a town in Lancashire, and Harris means descended from Harry, which is way cool because my favorite character from my books (so far) is Harry in ALL THE COLORS OF LOVE.

Pirates of the Caribbean

Steve and I went to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie yesterday.  It was a non-stop thrill ride, as usual.  I particularly loved the surreal envisioning of Davey Jones' Locker.  Oh, and all the different pirates from all over the world.  And the love story with Davey Jones and Calypso, goddess of the sea.  And the giant whirlpool, which we all saw in the previews, was truly awesome.

There were a few disappointments.  After making Lord Beckett of the East India Trading company such a thorough, scarifying badass in the last film and this one, he gets short shrift at the end, in a sequence which Steve decried as having poor naval tactics to boot.  And the ending itself was no big surprise, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but in this case, after all they did with Eliz. Swan, I wanted more for her than what she got.   

But overall the film was immensely entertaining and if you haven't seen it yet, I recommend it.

Joss Whedon Takes on the World

Joss Whedon's impassioned and moving post about women has been all over the blogosphere, but I only got around to reading it today.  If you haven't read it yet, go, do:

Joss Tells It Like It Is

New Boys Love Magazine

Kellie Lynch of Iris Print has announced their new bi-monthly publication, Boys Love Twist.  It will feature fiction, articles, reviews and comics in a magazine format.

This is good news for writers and artist in the OEL/BL field.  Unlike in Japan, where this kind of magazine format is standard, North American BL publishers have until now been operating in the graphic novel model.  This has presented problems for artists and writers because of the huge amount of work that must be done up front, for the small advances OEL/BL publishers can afford to pay.  Now, with serialization, creators can get paid as they go, which should ease things for everybody.

And yes, if you're wondering, Boys Love Twist is the publication Kellie wants THE NIMBLETONS for.  I was sworn to secrecy, until the official announcement was made.  Now that I can be specific about the publication, my artist search may be easier.