Uncanny Valley's developing catalogue of the strange

So Mike Meginnis' and Tracy Bowling's Uncanny Valley Press now has three web releases, and I think we can see a bit of a pattern developing.

Curio, my 21 little ghost stories

Sutherland Douglass' Peeping Tom 'Rockefeller', an excerpt from a fictional psycho-sexual memoir of 'Clark Rockefeller'

Gabriel Blackwell's Neverland, a satirical exhibition from the infamous Discovery Institute, those champions of intelligent design.

I don't know what's happening with the proposed print version of Uncanny Valley Magazine, but as curators of online weird, I think Mike and Tracy are doing a thrilling job. I am incredibly pleased to be a part of whatever their vision seems to entail.

The Creative Response

So we're sort of going nuts here on Planet Lala, preparing mentally for a book tour that's gonna have us zig-zagging the nation. I say mentally, because nothing concrete is being achieved, except on Mom's end. She's making necklaces for me to read at all the events. She made everything on this table, more than half of which were strung specifically for the tour, and there's another 5 or so coming. Her designs are growing more dramatic all the time.

I have no clothes, though. I'll have to wait until near the end of summer, when I hope I'll be a size smaller.

The second pic I call "Charli's Choice," and yes, that is a Snug Harbor Souvenir Typhoon go-cup near the bottom.

Advance Uncorrected Proofs arrived today!

280 pages--40 more than expected. Can't wait to read it.

But surely not in this order . . .

New Orleans
Seattle
Brooklyn
Boston
Providence
Cleveland
Chicago
DC
Philly
Memphis
Denver
San Francisco
Baton Rouge

De-sentiment

Having a great couple of days here with a new novel idea sort of developing geometrically--a kooky desert romance + treasure hunt, maybe sorta like a 60s movie--and Dean says the concept is a winner, but I have to get my notes on the dry-erase board asap.

Thing is, I don't want to erase the board because it has my Death-Wishing notes on it (once showcased at the defunct Hit and Run blog). I'm so un-sentimental about physical stuff, but this board--I can't do it. And Dean says it's a sign of profligate madness to buy a second board. Sigh.

In other news, Death-Wishing just popped up on a British distribution site with a slightly different and spoiler-y plot description. The more I look at book jacket summaries, the less I understand them.

How to, by Charli

Louisiana Stories

My review of Sara Gran's Claire DeWitt and The City of The Dead went live late last night on Art Taylor's blog, Art & Literature: the Literary Blog of Raleigh's Metro Magazine, and today he interviewed me about Death Wishing for our department newsletter. I just finished a writing up a Q&A to go out with review copies, and I guess I'm relieved that the questions Art asked me were pretty close to the ones I asked myself. Like, "Why New Orleans?"Because that's where I want to be.

Of course the reason Art gave me the Gran book to review was because of the NO connection, and Claire is a wonderful, original book, and I hope there will be a Claire DeWitt series. Gran's New Orleans is a scarier place than my new Orleans, but we both ended up with major characters named Vic. Weird.

Here's an ad we threw together--might appear in the latest issue of Gargoyle if we got it to the editor on time:

back to work

today is the last day of vacation--we went to ocracoke last week, and both of us got colds. I'm still coughing, making really ugly noises in my chest. oh well, seeing as I've not had a cold since Nov 2009, I think I got off easy. We went out to a Louisiana music fest thing today, headlined by Trombone Shorty. Chances of him being referenced in tonight's ep of Treme, about 70%. "Show me something beautiful . . ."

Apparently the book galleys are going out to potential reviewers this week. As part of the package I was asked to write up a Q&A, and that was tough, but I think I'm happy with the result. I wish it was funnier, tho. It's all about the gags, as far as I'm concerned. Screw literature.

We're now turning our attentions to making my big girl's website. I'm really loving Ethel Rohan's page as well as the new Lit Pub deal. I'm pretty sure I want something super simple and clean, at least to start with. But maybe that urge is at odds with having a site that people find interesting . . .

also? my vacation was 2 weeks long, and I had plenty of net access. two things I didn't do--answer work email or check htmlgiant. weird.