My year in books! 2017

How many books did you read this year?
60! I EAT BOOKS FOR BREAKFAST. Wait, no, that is not an efficient use of books, as my stomach doesn’t know how to read.

What was your number one TOP FAVORITE of them?
Usually this question has me pacing in circles and wringing my hands, because to pick a single favorite of the year is literary masochism, but this year? This year I think I’ve got my winner… A Tale For the Time Being (Ozeki). BUT it’s very closely followed by The Highland Witch (Fletcher), and Some Kind of Happiness (Legrand), and ohhhh about 15 others.

Happy “Eat ALLLL the Candy” Day!

 

In honor of Halloween and all things sugary– I mean, spooky– I’ve decided to do a little horror-themed post. 🙂 When I was a very wee kid, I wrote a bunch of scary stories. I’ve forgotten most of them now, but I distinctly remember one that I wrote while my family and I were staying in a hotel.

Been readin’ most our lives, livin’ in a bookworm’s paradise

A few days ago I started a new job as a library assistant! It’s been awesome. How could it not be? I’m surrounded by books all day, talking about books all day, handling books all day, scoping out the back cover descriptions of books all da–I MEAN, definitely not getting distracted by that, of course not, nope. 🙂 I’m kidding, I’ve been way too busy learning the ropes for any distractions. Library work is a lot more complicated than it looks on the outside, hoo boy.

New publication! The Bones and the Bird

In case you missed my announcement on Twitter the other day, my newest short story, The Bones and the Bird, is out in Psychopomp Magazine! It’s a dark fairy tale about a witch who can change her shape by eating feathers and bones, until one day the process goes wrong.

I’m really proud of where this got published, because it’s a fantastic journal and one I’d been submitting to for AGES. Every story I had that fit them, I submitted, but none made the cut. Until this one! Huzzah!! When I got the acceptance letter I nearly did a hundred back flips, and I don’t even know how to do ONE back flip, so thank goodness I just happy-danced instead. 😉

Thank you so much to those who have read, and for those who’d like to, you can find it in that link up top. Hope you enjoy!

Hungry

A year ago, the wonderful Kaaterskill Basin Literary Journal published this surrealist flash fiction of mine, so to honor the event, I am reprinting it here. I hope you enjoy!

So here’s the dealio with the biblio…

(I can’t believe you just typed that ridiculous title, Noel. Delete it!)

No, other self! It’s corny and stupid and that’s why it makes me smile! 🙂

Anyway, this post isn’t actually about my book, but about this book-themed blog. My bloggio. Just kidding, I don’t call it that. I call it my coolio foolio bloggio! 😉 Hehehe.

Alright, here is, in fact, the deal(io): I’m going on a pseudo-blogbreak.

Rewrites and Realizations

When I woke up this past Saturday, I had no idea that an hour later I’d be scrambling to rewrite my novel’s opening. Ahh, how young and innocent I was then…

Fresh in my inbox that morning was a rejection from an agent, but it was no ordinary rejection. It told me WHY. Whyyy! O blessed “why!” Those of you in the querying trenches know how rare that is.

Sadly, his reason confirmed something I’d already been nervous about…

Let’s DEWEY This! – The Mother Tongue

This month’s nonfiction post is another languagey one! And yes, I can use languagey as a word, because language is a constantly evolving system in which all words are “made up” and every word was, at one point, “not a real word.” 😉 I think Bill Bryson would side with me on this. He did write a whole book about it after all. Here are my favorite tidbits~

Uproot Me

I want to be uprooted.

Let the storms rip me from my tethers

and carry me away.

True,

it might feel like chaos.

But it might also

feel like flying.

This blog post has a DARK SECRET…

ABOUT A MYSTERIOUS PAST…

FULL OF FORBIDDEN DANGERS……

AND SHOCKING BETRAYALS………………….

Are you intrigued???

I’m not.