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MWA delists Harlequin and all its imprints

  • Dec. 4th, 2009 at 3:17 PM

In response to Harlequin’s letter to Mystery Writers of America, Frankie Y. Bailey, Executive Vice President issued the following statement.

MWA logoDear MWA Member:

The Board of Mystery Writers of America voted unanimously on Wednesday to remove Harlequin and all of its imprints from our list of Approved Publishers, effective immediately. We did not take this action lightly. We did it because Harlequin remains in violation of our rules regarding the relationship between a traditional publisher and its various for-pay services.

What does this mean for current and future MWA members?

Any author who signs with Harlequin or any of its imprints from this date onward may not use their Harlequin books as the basis for active status membership nor will such books be eligible for Edgar® Award consideration. However books published by Harlequin under contracts signed before December 2, 2009 may still be the basis for Active Status membership and will still be eligible for Edgar® Award consideration (you may find the full text of the decision at the end of this bulletin).

Although Harlequin no longer offers its eHarlequin Critique Service and has changed the name of its pay-to-publish service, Harlequin still remains in violation of MWA rules regarding the relationship between a traditional publisher and its various for-pay services.

MWA does not object to Harlequin operating a pay-to-publish program or other for-pay services. The problem is HOW those pay-to-publish programs and other for-pay services are integrated into Harlequin’s traditional publishing business. MWA’s rules for publishers state:

“The publisher, within the past five years, may not have charged a fee to consider, read, submit, or comment on manuscripts; nor may the publisher, or any of the executives or editors under its employ, have offered authors self-publishing services, literary representation, paid editorial services, or paid promotional services.

If the publisher is affiliated with an entity that provides self-publishing, for-pay editorial services, or for-pay promotional services, the entities must be wholly separate and isolated from the publishing entity. They must not share employees, manuscripts, or authors or interact in any way. For example, the publishing entity must not refer authors to any of the for-pay entities nor give preferential treatment to manuscripts submitted that were edited, published, or promoted by the for-pay entity.

To avoid misleading authors, mentions and/or advertisements for the for-pay entities shall not be included with information on manuscript submission to the publishing company. Advertising by the publisher’s for-pay editorial, self-publishing or promotional services, whether affiliated with the publisher or not, must include a disclaimer that it is advertising and that use of those services offered by an affiliate of the publisher will not affect consideration of manuscripts submitted for publication.”

Harlequin’s Publisher and CEO Donna Hayes responded to our November 9 letter, and a follow up that we sent on November 30. In her response, which we have posted on the MWA website, Ms. Hayes states that Harlequin intends as standard practice to steer the authors that it rejects from its traditional publishing imprints to DellArte and its other affiliated, for-pay services. In addition, Harlequin mentions on the DellArte site that editors from its traditional publishing imprints will be monitoring DellArte titles for possible acquisition. It is this sort of integration that violates MWA rules.

MWA has a long-standing regard for the Harlequin publishing house and hopes that our continuing conversations will result in a change in their policies and the reinstatement of the Harlequin imprints to our approved list of publishers.

Frankie Y. Bailey,
Executive Vice President, MWA

MWA’s Official Decision: That because Harlequin’s for pay publishing business violates MWA’s rules for approved publishers, MWA takes the following action: First, Harlequin shall be removed from MWA’s list of approved publishers upon the adoption of this motion; Second, that all current active status members of MWA whose status is based upon books published by Harlequin shall remain active status members; Third, that MWA decline applications for active membership based upon books published by Harlequin pursuant to contracts entered into after the effective date of this motion; Fourth, that books published by Harlequin pursuant to contracts entered into prior to the adoption of this motion shall be eligible for the Edgar® Awards, except that books published by DellArte Press shall not be eligible for the Edgar® Awards regardless of when such contract was entered into; and Fifth that books published by Harlequin pursuant to contracts entered into after the adoption of this motion shall not be eligible for the Edgar® Awards.

MWA’s Executive Vice-President, and her or his designates, are directed to continue discussions with Harlequin in an effort to reach an agreement that would allow for Harlequin to be an approved publisher according to MWA’s rules.

This e-bulletin was prepared by the MWA national office on behalf of the MWA National Board of Directors.

Mirrored from SFWA | Comment at SFWA

Female troubles

  • Dec. 4th, 2009 at 2:17 PM
CAVEATS--PLEASE READ

1. This is going to be TMI for a lot of people, of both the XX and the XY persuasion. If you don't want to read about menstruation, DO NOT CLICK.

2. THIS POST IS NOT ABOUT BIRTH CONTROL. My birth control decisions are none of your business, unless you are [info]mirrorthaw. If you are, you already know more about this issue than you want to; if you aren't, rest assured that I have made careful, responsible, and informed decisions about same, none of which are (a.) under discussion in this post or (b.) up for discussion with the internet at any time.

3. My situation is complicated by a number of chronic health problems and consequent medications, which are also not under discussion in this post. So if you're about to comment with, "Why don't you do [X]?" please consider the possibility that I have good reasons.

4. I understand the urge to give advice. I succumb to it myself from time to time. However, I am not at this time asking for advice, and unless you are a medical professional familiar with my medical history, I am very unlikely to take your advice should you offer it. I may not be particularly gracious about it, either.

I am making this post because, well, it's the internet. Venting is what it's for. And also for the purpose of, you know, talking about this stuff. Because I still think it's STUPID that anything as painful and annoying as menstrual cramps should be considered normal and just something women have to deal with.

Okay? Okay.

my ongoing saga, let me show you it )

Short Fiction and You

  • Dec. 4th, 2009 at 3:06 PM
John Scalzi, Duke of the Internet (I think the hierarchy behaves much like a court where the monarch is perpetually away), posted an entry about what he gets paid for short fiction, and his thoughts on same.

Now, I'm not on Scalzi's level as an author--I don't make his sales or his money. But I'm fairly safely mid-career these days (average career length being five years I'm actually in the mature career category, but I look at it more as: I've progressed, I'm growing up, but I'm not living up to my potential yet, report card wise). Anyway, I find his post interesting because it's the opposite of how I think of short fiction.

See, I write a lot of short fiction. At any given time I'm committed to 3-5 pieces for a number of publications. Only once since I started writing short stories have I ever had a clean slate--that is, no requests for material, and free to write for any market I liked. This is why I haven't been published in the Big Three, or Strange Horizons, or Tor.com, or a number of other places. I never get to write anything that isn't immediately promised to someone else. It's a crazy world I live in, and Not Normal, I know, in the world where many bemoan the idea that one can't make a living on short fiction, but that's the situation.

The other part of the situation is that novel advances are few and far between. Especially given that I couldn't sell a book in 2008. I have to wait months for any major check. So short fiction is actually how I make a goodly chunk of my income--especially when you figure in the Omikuji Project, which is a short story per month as long as people keep wanting them. Short fiction, for me, pays the bills.

So it's funny--Scalzi talks about how little one gets paid for fiction per word and posted his per word rates, which are almost all higher than I've ever been paid for anything.

I've made 25 cents a word a couple of times. Once I got paid $1 a word for a textbook contribution (still fiction, a retelling of a Greek myth). But for the most part, I work for page-mine rates. 5 cents a word. I'm thrilled if I get 7 cents, ecstatic if it's 10. And occasionally, if I'm friends with the editor or it's for charity, I work for less than 5 cents a word. But for a long time, my policy has been: if it pays pro rate, I'll do it.

Because I couldn't afford not to. Still can't, really. I'm fighting to hollow out recovery time in between the 5 stories I owe various markets right now.

But look--5 cents a word, with my average short story being 5000 words or so, comes out to about $250 for a short story. Is that a ton of money? No. Is it a couple of bills paid, or a half tank of heating oil, or a third of my rent? Yes, it is. And it adds up. I write fast. It rarely takes me more than a day or two to write a short story, once I have it in my head (it's the getting of it in my head that takes time, grasping the idea, smoothing it out in my brain, coaxing it, but mainly getting the idea at all) and if the story's good enough it might make a Year's Best anthology for another $100, or maybe another $30, depending on the anthology. But all those small numbers add up, and if I write two short stories a month, which I usually do, plus Omikuji and whatever other freelancing things I'm up to at the moment...well, that's how you live from day to day.

Without short fiction, I'd have had to quit this gig a long time ago.

I can't even imagine getting 50 cents a word for anything I'd write. I've had two short fiction gigs lately that paid about 25 cents a word and I was over the moon about it. When it comes to short fiction, I almost always say yes, as long as it comes with a deadline and isn't a vague "send us a story sometime." It's a massive part of my working life--even though I never set out to be a short fiction writer and had to learn the hard way how to do it--just by doing it, over and over, until I didn't hate everything I wrote.

I do agree, absolutely, that as writers we must be paid for what we do unless we choose to forgo payment for reasons that seem right to the individual author. And as someone progresses in their career, what they can afford to write changes. It's only in the last year that I've even started to limit myself to pro rates--though I would never have accepted the fifth of a cent rate that started this whole debate. But for me, pro rate is a good, solid rate, nothing great, nothing spectacular, but solid enough to count on, and I work for it regularly. It's the bedrock of my ability to write full-time. Not as exciting as a novel sale, but without it, I'd be in freefall.

Thursday Night Lights

  • Dec. 4th, 2009 at 12:07 PM
Life is magical and full of... uh... a tiny teeny bit of hope?

The Jets beat the Bills of Buffalo last night in Toronto, which was good. Defense looked awesome, especially Darrell Revis, who completely shut down that loudmouth TO. Offense, not so much. And things got even worse on the offensive side of the ball when Mark Sanchez dove for a first down and hurt his OTHER knee, the one not already in a brace. Really, he's taking this "following in the footsteps of Joe Namath" thing too far. Kellen Clemens looked awful in relief. If Sanchez is seriously hurt, Gang Green is done.

And if not... well, there's still a slim chance we could make the playoffs. All we'd need to do is sweep our last four games, including the undefeated Colts and red-hot Bengals. That's going to happen, sure. Uh-huh.

But Rex does have the defense playing lights out, so that's something.

Tags:

20090406Tea today: linden chamomile
Teacup today: quityerbitchinandwrite

Just finally settling down to get some work done on "The Unicorn Evils," after yoga, weights, grocery shopping, eating something before I fell over, putting the groceries away, and putting all the bones in the freezer into stock pots to become stock so I had room to put away the frozen veggies.

Also, the bread is in the loaf pan. I hope it rises sufficiently to be baked tonight or tomorrow, because I want to eat it. With butter and harissa and sardines, because--god knows why--I am craving sardines lately. And other fish. And fresh orange-carrot juice. And harissa. Maybe I need vitamins and fish oil, to counteract the looming lockdown of winter.

I'm surprisingly pleased with the way TUE is shaping up so far. It's giving me lots of good, juicy ideas and character stuff, and it's only going to be better once Emma gets her teeth into it.

Yay for work we love!

The Complaint Department seems to be adapting to her new pill regimen pretty well so far. At least, no obvious personality change, but she does seem calmer when something mildly stressful happens, like being picked up by her monkey or a Kjitten! Attack! (Which we have with appalling regularity around here.)

(One diazepam for the cat; one for me... nah, they'd catch on to that.)

To-do list shrinking slowly.

Because if I don’t list these, I’m clearly never going to get around to looking at them properly:

CATALYST:

Preview

THE EDGE:

Preview

DOUSEE:

Preview

EATSLEEPDRAW:

Preview

NO:

Preview

LIVING URBANISM:

Preview

OUT YONDER:

("an exploration into the free health clinics of Appalachia")

Preview

JUSTINA VILLANUEVA:

("For two years, Justina Villanueva has been confined to the dark, moldy basements of New York City’s metal scene. She lives for the stench of tour buses and the aural warfare of death metal festivals. No gig is too small and no band is too loud."

Preview

I have a MagCloud RSS feed of new releases going straight to FeedDemon. The above is a topslice of the more interesting-looking stuff I’ve seen pop up there. I will get round to buying most of these before Xmas, with a bit of luck, once I’ve used the Preview function (which is still flaking out in IE8 for me, but working like a dream in Chrome) to flick through them.

It won’t be hard, soon, to regularly curate a list of stuff worth visiting MagCloud for.



Shnirele perele gilderne fon
meshiekh ben dovid zist oybn on
halt a beckher in der rekhter hant
makht a brockhe afn gantsn land.
Oi, omeyn veomen dos iz vor
meshiekh vet kumen hayntiks yor.

Vet er kumen tsu forn
veln zayn gute yorn
vet er kumen tsu raytn
veln zayn gute tsaytn
vet er kumen tsu geyn
veln di yidn in Eretz Yisroyl aynshteyn.

[photos] Your Friday moment of zen

  • Dec. 4th, 2009 at 9:40 AM
Your Friday moment of zen.

IMG_1533.JPG

A fungus from the Yerba Canyon hike at Taos Ski Valley. © 2006, 2009 Joseph E. Lake, Jr.

Creative Commons License

This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Open Fantasy Magazine Positions

  • Dec. 4th, 2009 at 12:29 PM


We're looking to fill the following positions at Fantasy Magazine.

Podcast Manager

Necessary skills: Audio production and editing experience. You know how to record a podcast and edit out extraneous noise, as well as how to add music or other audio tracks. as well as how to put it on a website. You listen to podcasts and know the difference between a well-done one and a badly-done one.
Duties: Work with podcast readers to make sure podcasts are up to standard and coach new ones. Post fiction or interview podcast on a twice-a-month basis. Time estimate: 3-5 hours a week.
Benefits: Resume-worthy experience with online audio production. The satisfaction of seeing our numbers grow while working with a talented team dedicated to bringing the latest and best in fantasy to our readers.

*

Advertising Manager

Necessary skills: The ability to contact and facilitate the purchasing of advertising space by 3rd parties for the Fantasy Magazine website
Duties: Maintain the advertising network tools, add new ads, remove old ones, and respond to advertiser questions.
Benefits: Commission-based. Inquire further.

If interested, drop me a line at sean@fantasy-magazine.com including the position(s) you're interested in, and why you're qualified. I'm very glad to work with you to make sure you get high school or college credit for work done with the magazine if needed.
I'm probably feeling far too rabidly antisocial even for a journal entry this morning, but here goes. And isn't it odd that in 2009, an undertaking that was once the very definition of private— writing an entry in a journal or diary —has now become a public spectacle? It seems to me that "we" are so very afraid of a moment alone, truly and completely alone, without even the promise that someone will at least eventually look at what is being done, what we are thinking, what we are feeling. A society that is becoming increasingly exhibitionist, and, of course, also becoming increasingly voyeuristic. It's a nice psychotic balance, I suppose, a new ecosystem of excessive interaction. Or not new, only made more intent, more intensely so. Makes Big Brother's job easier, I suppose.

No writing yesterday. No busyness of writing yesterday (a few emails aside). We went to the shore, to see the heavy surf that was the aftermath of the storm. We went first to Narragansett, to Harbor of Refuge. We were both surprised by the violence of the waves. It was greater than what we'd expected. We walked out on the beach on the western side of the granite jetty. The air was full of salt mist and sea gulls, and the wind was bitter, though the day was freakishly warm (high 60sF here in Providence). The sun was bright, a white hole of fire punched in the sky. It was almost impossible to hear one another over the roar of the waves, but then, there was nothing that needed saying, anyway. We found a surfboard washed up on the sand, its owner nowhere to be seen. It was clear that the high tide, which had been sometime around 9 a.m. (CaST), had come well inland, into the brush and salt marshes north of the harbor. It appeared that wooden barricades had been erected the day before to keep back sightseers, but the waves had smashed them. Spooky found an orange blob of fish eggs amongst the flotsam. I'm not sure how high the waves were— officially, I mean —but they were slamming against and over-topping the jetty (which is 5-7 feet high, if you're standing on the beach it protects), sending spray twenty or thirty feet into the afternoon air.

We left Harbor of Refuge, having decided we wanted to see what was going on farther west, at Moonstone Beach. But first we went all the way down to Point Judith, where the tide was lower than I'd ever seen it before. Mossy green rocks were exposed, and tide pools, but the waves were too treacherous to try for a look at what might be stranded in them. The foghorn at the lighthouse called out over the crash of the breakers.

On the way to Moonstone Beach, I pointed out a bumper sticker to Spooky. "Do No Harm." As if that's even possible, as if every human action, no matter how profound or mundane, doesn't do harm in some way. Still, I suppose it's a nice sentiment.

We reached Moonstone as the sun was getting low. We'd stopped somewhere along the way so I could photograph a field, still green in December. We passed cows and flooded pastures. When we finally reached Moonstone Beach, we found it completely transformed by the storm. The usual carpet of cobbles and pebbles was swept away or buried. Much of the sand was stained black with the ghost of the '96 oil spill. The waves were almost as impressive as those at Harbor of Refuge, four and half miles to the east. Despite low tide, the brackish tea-colored water in Trustom Pond was very high, rushing loudly through the spillway into Card Pond. Spooky and I walked west, towards Green Hill, walking into the wind. But we only went a hundred yards or so. The sun slipped behind clouds advancing from Long Island Sound, and the temperature abruptly plummeted. By the time we made it back to the car, we were shivering and the dunes were in shadow.

And that was yesterday. I have enough photographs for several days, and the first seven are behind the cut below.

Please note that we've begun a new round of eBay auctions. And that Spooky has only four of her Cthulhu-headstone Cehalopodmas ornaments remaining (of the ten she made); you can see (and purchase) them in her Etsy Dreaming Squid Dollworks shop.

There will be no writing today. I have to finish editing "Sanderlings" and get the chapbook ready to send to Subterranean Press. Also, I need to undo a large number of changes that an over-zealous copy-editor wrought upon one of my stories. I will not name the story, the book, or the editors— it wasn't their fault. I just wish publishers would start firing copy-editors who try to become authors vicariously, by "correcting," and thereby mangling, prose. It is an enormous waste of my time that I have to go back, now, and fix what wasn't broken to begin with.

Photos from Harbor of Refuge:

3 December 2009 )

flickrgeist 4dec09

  • Dec. 4th, 2009 at 3:50 PM

A snapshot of what friends and acquaintances have been doing and looking at, via their Flickr accounts:

4157427607_e513e5dbd4_o

1. The Stilton Terrahawks, 2. buttons’ packaging, 3. Pill Lights, 4. , 5. P1010487, 6. The Seine at 4am

Salvation and stuff

  • Dec. 4th, 2009 at 9:01 AM

Want to get even with the Salvation Army
for discrimination in Jesus' name?




Click here to find out how!


I found this on Ben Peek's blog and thought it deserved even wider dissemination. Find out what happens to the bucks you drop into the SA pot.

This is the best book promo video I ever saw:



Made me buy the book. You have to give serious props to the NZ Book Council.

The Road did a 1.5 million opening weekend. That's a "you'll never work in this town again" performance. Too bad for John Hillcoat, a good director, but maybe he'll make better films if he stays away from SoCal.
Presented to you in order of publication, I encourage you to read the following stories, and leave comments, whenever possible:

November
"Cesare" by Megan Arkenberg
"The Confessions of Prince Charming" by Kelly Barnhill
"My Best Friend's Girl" by Ari Goelman
"Into the Monsoon" by A. M. Muffaz
"Medusa Complex" by Christie Skipper Ritchotte
"Reading By Numbers" by Aidan Doyle

December
"The Chrysanthemum Bride" by Angela Slatter
"The Raccoon's Daughter" by Nicole Kornher-Stace
"The Tongue of Bees" by Claire Humphrey
"Choke Point" by Sarah Totton

links!

  • Dec. 4th, 2009 at 10:06 AM
Wow, I had no idea so many of you like hybrids too! (My husband was very happy about that, btw--he's been driving a Prius for years, so he was all, "Your blog readers are awesome!" to which I said, "Of course they are!" And you are, you know!)

Links:

Pimp My Novel on what factors influence how many copies of a book are purchased by the chains, independents, and the big box stores: part one and part two -- The main thing about these two posts, I think, is pointing out that a lot of what factors into selling in is completely out of your control, but if you want to be published/are about to be published/and/or don't know what things like co-op, comp titles, and P&L are, then do yourself a favor and read these posts. It's important to know about the industry and Pimp My Novel is one of the best blogs out there about it.

Normally, young adult novels get a fair amount of time on bookstore shelves--but this is not the case of adult books, which usually have three months to either succeed or get returned. J.C. Hutchins writes very candidly about the first month of his book's "life," and what's happened in it. -- "And how is the book doing? If you’re an aspiring novelist, or have a book coming out soon, prepare for a revelation. If you’re a published author, feel free to sagely nod along."

Editorial Ass on what you can--and what your should--expect from your agent

Author John C. Wright on writing advice

Agent Jessica Faust on writers and the writing process

Finally, over at Storytellers Unplugged, three excellent editing tips -- The first one, in particular, is one I take to heart very strongly. (My books normally lose about 30-40% of what I've written from first to final draft)

Tongue Twister

  • Dec. 4th, 2009 at 10:57 AM

[Click to enlarge.]

If Rudy Rucker can post his somewhat primitivist paintings on his blog, well then, by golly, I can put my own "art" up here.

This is a drawing I did last nite for Deborah, after consuming three glasses of white wine. The obvious impetus was the text, which reads:

THE TARSIER'S METATARSAL WAS COVERED BY INTARSIA!

I venture to say that that unlikely sentence has never heretofore been composed in the entire long and proud history of the English language.

And that, ultimately, is why we write.

Posted by Paul DiFi.

This Gun for Hire

  • Dec. 4th, 2009 at 10:53 AM


Just caught up with this noir classic last nite. Superb!

The whole film is on YouTube, in nine parts, with the first embedded below.



Posted by Paul DiFi.

UPC SF 2009 Winners

  • Dec. 4th, 2009 at 10:46 AM

[Click twice for readability.]

I have not yet seen this information dispersed on the SF blogosphere.

Congrats to all the winners!

Posted by Paul DiFi.

Morbid blog tour: Hugues Leblanc

  • Dec. 4th, 2009 at 7:10 AM
Hugues Leblanc is a photographer in Montréal, Quebec. His haunting black-and-white images have been exhibited extensively in Montreal and around the United States, France, and England. Hugues has a penchant for cemeteries, ossuaries, mummies, and other assorted macabre subjects. Visit his website: http://www.angelfire.com/tx4/tapholov/

Hugues provided three covers for Morbid Curiosity: an Italian skeleton, Marie Laveau’s tomb in New Orleans, and the Canadian mummy below. His photographs usually accompanied his essays, whether about “Going Into Tombs” (Morbid Curiosity #4, reprinted in Morbid Curiosity Cures the Blues), working with the dying as a hospice nurse (“Lingering Death,” issue #5), or visiting “Italy’s Undead” (issue #8).

Of all the artwork I published in the magazine, Hugues’s pushed my boundaries the farthest. As a cemetery fanatic, I faced ethical issues about his prying open unlocked mausoleum doors to photograph what was within. I was actually repulsed by Hugues’s luminous photographs of recently dead corpses he encountered at work. Because I felt such strong reactions, it seemed important for me to publish the photographs and start a dialog.

Q: What does morbid curiosity mean to you?

A: If we choose to, or if we have enough money, we can avoid all that is dirty, annoying, and gruesome in this world. But despite our best clothes, the nicest makeup, and walking the red carpet, reality brings us back to the fact that we vomit, we defecate on a regular basis, we get sick, and we’re afraid of dying every time our usual hold on life meets a foreseeable or an unforeseen obstacle. A lot of life’s disagreeable moments are dealt with by workers or professionals, whose main purpose seems to be making money out of our misery and helping us avoid what we fear to see for ourselves.

I think ‘morbid curiosity’ has a lot to do with the inquiring objectivity of the scientific mind. Science has risen as the greatest method of finding out the truth about all aspects of life. Curiosity is the main reason for most of us. Its fun to figure out how your iPod works, but I think it’s much more fun to figure out why mummies exist. Why do we set up these elaborate funeral rites to remember our relatives, but cannot come face-to-face with corpses unless they are in a museum? ‘Morbid curiosity’ isn’t morbid at all; older civilizations dealt with death in different ways but we, today, prefer to sugarcoat it.

Death is the ultimate weirdness about life. The pages of Morbid Curiosity magazine were filled with events that dealt with a special kind of ‘unknown.’ It was a great read because there isn’t a higher purpose in life than sharing our experiences.

Q: How did you discover Morbid Curiosity magazine?

A: My girlfriend was in San Francisco on a book tour (she’s a writer) and doing a signing at Borderlands. Morbid Curiosity #1 was on the counter and she brought it home. We both pored over that issue, delighted and amazed. We bought the next one from the website. Ultimately, I submitted articles.

I’ve always like unusual reads. For example, I liked RE/Search, especially the book that dealt with “modern primitives.” I was fascinated with what people did with their bodies in the name of freedom, but these people were also following a long cultural tradition of mortification and they claimed to achieve higher conscious awareness. Hey! There were still freaks around in this world that weren’t complaining about not being normal, i.e., who enjoyed their differences. We’re constantly told to act ‘normal,’ but we all know that there’s something wrong just waiting to happen, so it’s pretty hard being normal. Individuality is more than genetic. It’s in the way we interact with the world that we test our values and reach an understanding of others.

Q: Did you have more than one piece in the magazine? Which was your favorite?

A: I had three stories published. One was about exploring local cemeteries, going where no one dreams of going. One was about my work experience in a geriatric ward, sharing final moments with strangers. The last was about traveling to Europe to search for these rare places where beauty and death coexist.

The first two pieces were my favorites. “Going Into Tombs” was so out-of-this-world. We have great cemeteries here in Montreal. The essay was about visiting cemeteries in a way that verged on ‘sin.’ It was a rebellious, amoral, dangerous experience. I wanted to see everything, inside and out. “Lingering Death” was more about my work and what I see and experience daily. My work environment changes slightly from week to week, but I’m still dealing with ‘end-of-life’ situations. I don’t really enjoy accidents/crime scenes, nor people dying from illnesses at an early age. But I can empathize with old age, running out of steam, living your final moments. I’ve seen it over and over.

Q: Did you have a favorite story in the zine that wasn’t your own?

A: I can’t say. I loved going through the magazine over and over. Every story was unique and worthy. Morbid Curiosity was so refreshing and thought provoking. I loved it all.

Q: How did the piece you have in the book come to be written?

The interview continues... )



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