He grows old as the sea deep where the fishes are

As greygirlbeast has announced, "The Woman Who Was Wife to the Husband of the Sea" will appear in this month's Sirenia Digest, with an illustration by Vince Locke. This makes me very happy. "The Woman . . ." is a folktale I encountered at a young age, one which made a huge impression on me and which I have told professionally at occasional points in my life. If you weren't at Readercon to hear it in person, the next best thing is to subscribe to Sirenia. And pick up a subscription even if you were—the more I hear about Caitlín's "Derma Sutra (1891)," the more I can't wait for the end of the month.

O you who know more than I do about Carla Speed McNeil: is Elaine Lee one of her influences? ericmvan lent me Starstruck: The Luckless, the Abandoned, and Forsaked (1984), and in its deadpan melange of futuristic strangeness with recognizable fragments of twentieth-century Americana, it reminded me of nothing so much as Finder. Starstruck is more absurdist, less aboriginal, but it does have a sort of cultural glossary at the back; their sensibilities seemed on similar wavelengths. Also I need to read more of both.

Under the cut: two photographs of me from Readercon, neither of them terrible. All praise to Anita Allen.

( Sometimes they let strangers in and other times they check the records. )