Thanks And The Sofa

Hey, you guys, It's time once again to nominate your favorite contributors to StarShipSofa's wonderful Aural Delights show for The Sofanaut Awards. These are nominations so you can pick as many favorites as you like. I'm eligible in three categories. Just sayin'.

Best Main Fiction: The Loneliness of the Long Distance Diplomat
Best Flash/Short Fiction: A Hard Rain and Brothers and Sisters All
Best Fact Article Contributor: Fiction Crawler, Movie Talk Special - Watchmen

Thanks a bunch for listening! You can vote here:

http://sofanauts2010.questionpro.com/

Next, I want to wish all you Americans and ex-pats out there a wonderful Thanksgiving tomorrow and you know, I've had a shit year (debt, divorce and death, among other plagues), but I still have a lot to be thankful for. Family and friends like you guys, chief among them. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Lastly, I have totally sucked at plugging the Sofa lately, so let's remedy that right now:

Aural Delights No 110 Cory Doctorow

Editorial: by StarShipSofa Stories by Sean Keough

Fact Article: The Sofanaut Awards by Mark Bormann

Fact Article: With A Little Help by Cory Doctorow

Main Fiction: To Go Boldly by Cory Doctorow

Fact: Film Talk by Rod Barnett

New Titles by Tony C Smith

Narrators: JJ Campanella, Paul Caggige

Art Cover by Skeet

The Sofanauts Awards 2010 VOTE NOW!

More Night Music

Here's another performance from Night Music that I love and remember. This time it's Debbie Harry. Hiram Bullock is over there singing and guitaring next to her and David Sanborn is wailing. What a fantastic show this was. It's a shame it was canceled after only two seasons and shit like Full House went on for what? Like a decade or more?

The song is Calmarie from Debbie's Def Dumb and Blonde album. The songwriters are two people named Toledo and Vasconcelos. Is it Portuguese? Sounds like it, but what do I know? I'm only half Portuguese.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_klppfz2gk

I Wanna Be Good

Have I mentioned I love youtube? I saw this performance a few times back in the eighties on the awesome Night Music show, which I absolutely loved, even more than youtube. I've been looking for the song for two decades and just found the video tonight. Happy Happy! It features Karen Mantler and Her Cat Arnold doing a song called "I Wanna Be Good." The band is introduced by host David Sanborn (Yay, Sanborn!) and pianist Carla Bley (whose ex-husband hangs at my store and most of us think acts like a dick). Karen Mantler is Carla's daughter and David Sanborn's son is the group's bass player. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUYBW11GCiY

Pay What You Want For GUD!

Dig it: GUD magazine is selling their pdf copies at whatever price you want to pay (unless you want to pay in chickens or something stupid like that). Load up, but try not to be a total cheap-ass. The money each issue earns is split between the magazine and the contributors. Get a deal and help them make a little scratch!

http://www.gudmagazine.com/subs/pwyw.php

Surveillance Does

No, not surveillance does, but surveillance does. You're pronouncing it wrong. Oh, hell, you'll see. I've been asking everyone I see about this movie and no one has heard about it. I looked it up today and it seems to be in limited release, so maybe that explains it. It looks awesome from the trailer. A ridiculous and stupid type of awesome. A so bad, it's awesome type of awesome. I can't wait.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xp5CsXOrIds

A New Tack

You know me, I change my mind more often than I change my socks (This explains my odor). I've been sending out cleaned up drafts of chapters of my novel, The Inner Workings of the Artificial Mind, to a small group of friends for over a year now, and it's only been twelve chapters so far. I did it this way as an experiment to kick me into gear on the project (obviously didn't work very well) and to show the curious how the book was going to evolve over successive drafts. Since I lost a lot of my notes with the abduction of my laptop weeks ago, I've taken the opportunity to re-evaluate this method after salvaging what I could of the remainder of the novel from old drafts.

I don't think I'll be sending any more chapters out for quite a while. I'm going to write the current draft through to the end of the novel and then do another draft of the entire thing. I'm finding it a lot easier to get through it that way. When more stuff is ready, and I'm sure that will be next year, I'll ship it out to those concerned. Right now, I'm enjoying the work and I don't want to stop enjoying it.

The Bears Shall Growl

This is nifty! Paul W. Campbell's upcoming podcast, Cossmass Infinities, will be doing an audio version of my story Fluff and Buttons on the Teddy Bear Range next year. Yay! Paul narrated my story Brothers and Sisters All on StarShipSofa's Aural Delights podcast earlier this year and I thought he did a wonderful job. Can't wait to hear what he does with the bears. I'll let you guys know when it's available.

The Intersection of Fantasy & Native America

Hey, folks! Amy H. Sturgis, whom you all know from the StarShipSofa podcast, has just co-edited a scholarly work on Native America, fantasy and the intersection thereof called The Intersection of Fantasy & Native America. Eat it up right here:
http://www.mythsoc.org/press/fantasy.native.america/

Tahiti Screams! A story for every mid-life crisis. Episode 17 of Beware the Hairy Mango can be heard here: http://bewarethehairymango.com/episode-17-tahiti-screams/

GUD News, Everyone!

Yesterday I signed the contract, so I feel on fairly solid ground when I say this, but it's in my nature not to take too much for granted. Greatest Uncommon Denominator, otherwise known as GUD magazine, is going to publish my story, Maisy's Many Souls in issue number 6 next spring. GUD is a great mag that's absolutely packed with fiction, something like 200 pages an issue. You can buy print copies through their site or get a great deal on the .pdf versions of each issue. Check them out, love them up. I'll let you know when issue 6 comes out.

Maisy's Many Souls was a sort of a turning point for me. As I was writing it, I knew that I had somehow jumped to another level in my work. I think this is common among creative people, though I can't speak for everyone. I shall indeed speak for myself. I get to a certain level of quality in my work and I think I'm becoming incredible, and "Hey, this time I've really got it!" and then I don't get any better for like, two or three years. Then I lose all hope (But I don't stop, that's the key). Eventually, I suddenly leap forward again. Damn, two adverbs in that last sentence! And you call yourself a writer, Matt? So the evolution of my skill includes punctuated equilibrium, that's all I'm sayin'. Anyway ANYWAY, I enjoyed Maisy's even as I found something disturbing underlying it. I hope you enjoy it and find something disturbing there as well. The characters became real people, saying real things, and they steered me more than I steered them. It was wonderful. Just hold onto that curiosity for another six months, will ya?

Episoide 16 of Beware the Hairy Mango is up! And out! And through! The Fall of the Soy Milkers! Go listen! And Episode 17 should be done later today! Exclamations!!!

Today, I'm including everything in my word count. That includes whatever work I get done on the novel, whatever I add to today's Hairy Mango story, this blog post and even my damned e-mails! Hell, why not Twitter too? I'm in that kind of mood.

My Stuff

Rather than listing everything I've done over to the left under Read (or listen to) My Stuff, I've decided to trim it down to a few choice pieces and then stick a link under those (See the rest here!) where you can see everything (nearly) on my "about" page at bewarethehairymango.com. Take a look at what's there and maybe you'll find some stuff that you'll enjoy.