You may remember me writing “News of Great Sadness” a few weeks ago. This week, the friends and family of Howard Andrew Jones launched a GoFundMe to help defray the arduous and impending medical expenses of his multifocal glioblastoma.
Here is the link to the GoFundMe. Please spread the word if you can. Howard’s third book also came out this week, in his wonderful Hanuvar series–the first of which I got to beta read and blurb, even before his agent sent it out on search.
If you love episodic secondary-world fantasy with marvelous details borrowed from history and incredibly compelling characters, I think you’ll live Hanuvar like I do–and it would help his family (and do his sweet heart good) if you bought the book
(I hand-wrote a draft of this in my journal in February of this year, 2024; we’ll see what it turns into tonight)
(This is one of my fondest daydreams)
not so many years from now after retirement, before attenuation somewhere near water, but on a hill (above the floodplain, on the hospital grid) view of the sky, trees nearby post office, library with study carrels (and maker space) smoked fish at the grocery store (a zero-waste store) farmer’s market, night market, craft fair a festival for every season (and for idiosyncratic reasons) someone to lead foraging walks somewhere to host game nights a concert venue and a bookstore a place to dress up for a theatre, a park for outdoor movies near enough to bring you soup when you are sick near enough to drive you to the airport or emergency room where we can celebrate birthdays, have a bookclub monthly literary salons, poetry nights walks in the graveyard, walks by the shipyard bare branches with lights picnic in the grass when we’re up tea on the deck when we’re down no borders between us but zinnias and oyster shells no miles between us: walkable [him in his guayabera, arms spread wide: “bienvenido, mi amigos!” me in my ballgown, apron, and pocketknife our house your second home, your third place] and we will all have our gardens, our disasters and travel together, and signal from windows run into you randomly, walk you home part way borrow sugar, babysit, show up at need gift exchange, thrift shop, stress bake, create keep each other honest, exercise en masse age in place, gracefully see each other’s faces, as we fade like lace, every day
An Infernal Salon is a fun, low-stakes writing workshop, high on community, ix-nay on the essure-pray. We’ll draw cards from “the Deck of Destiny” from our forthcoming TTRPG “Negocios Infernales” for creative prompts, set a timer for 20 minutes, and UNLEASH! Then we all share what we’ve made! It’s all very raw and vibrant, like a lightning storm!
(Learn more about the game and see some of the cards here . Pre-order at Outland Entertainment’s website here.)
Our salonnières this Saturday are:
Writer, fiber artist, and tarotista Danielle Brigante National Book Award-winner Will Alexander Dark fantasy writer and forest-punk Silvatiicus Riddle Writer, editor, Bram Stoker-nominee Tina L. Jens Writer, activist, somatic therapist, and creativity coach Sophia Babai “Vocateur” reader and writer of SFF fiction and poetry Dylan Haston Frankenwald based horror writer and comics reviewer Steve Toase.
If any of YOU want to tune into https://www.twitch.tv/arvoneleron on Saturday, from 4-6 EST, please feel free! We ALWAYS draw cards for the audience as well.
Anyone who wants to create something with us in the 20-minutes of creation time is always welcome to “whisper” it in Greg’s DMs. If there’s time, he’ll read/share your work too!
I have had this news recently. What you read here is the announcement crafted by Howard, his wife Shannon, and their friend Mark.
I know there is grief across the world, for so many awful reasons. And this is another awfulness: my friend is dying.
Perhaps he is your friend too. Or perhaps you have read his novels, or his reviews on Black Gate Magazine. For my part, Howard Andrew Jones has been my friend and colleague for going on twenty years.
We saw him last month at GenCon. We ate dinner with him. We laughed and caught up in person, after too many years of just phone or zoom. We talked about creating new monsters to fight, in this fantasy-novel business of ours of fighting monsters.
I am glad we broke bread, and played the poet game, and left each other laughing. That’s all the gladness I have right now, because the rest is grief. And gratitude, that our mutual friends are acting as a bridge between Howard’s nearest and dearest, and the rest of us who are sending him so much, so much love.
I am SO EXCITED to announce this! Soon releasing is the FATHOMS IN THE EARTH anthology, published by Air & Nothingness Press.
AANP books are SO BEAUTIFUL, heavy with fine paper and thoughtful covers. This anthology comes with interior color plates and 12 double-sided postcards–one for each story title!
This one is a limited run of 200, so it’s probably best to order soon if you want one.
I have a story in it, called “The Book of Games.” For my archetypes (which you’ll read about in the following paragraphs), I chose to play with:
Maid/Familiar/Monster.
I particularly enjoyed researching Naples, and re-spinning characters from The Tempest from a, you know, 21st century, feminist, post-colonial viewpoint.
(I realize that the “post-colonial” part is an ongoing project; and may we all contribute to and live to see widespread reparations to those we have harmed.)
About this book, by editor/publisher Todd Sanders:
“The Tempest entered the consciousness of Western Civilization with themes of magic, betrayal, revenge, and family. It is a singular work ripe for reinterpretation with archetypal characters.
This collection of 24 stories, with titles taken from the film Prospero’s Books by Peter Greenaway, explores these five fundamental characters and their interactions, placing them in new contexts, and inventing new narratives for their relationships.”
Find Air and Nothingness Press at the following social media places: Twitter: @aanpress Mastodon: @aanpress@wandering.shop Bluesky: @aanpress.bsky.social Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aanpress
Well, one of the most hilarious things of my 40s is suddenly loving and playing D&D.
I mean, I’m not UNUSUAL in this, given the rampageous success of shows like Critical Role and Dimension20, which, yes, we watch.
My main job–other than writing–is voice acting, specifically as an audiobook narrator. But I was never into RPGs before Carlos. In fact, I was mildly repelled enough by them that he proposed co-designing a TTRPG I’d like to play with me so that I WOULD play RPGs with him. Yadayadayada, look at me now. LOOK AT ME NOW!
Designing an RPG was, in fact, A TOTAL GATEWAY into a whole world of gaming I now love. I’m sorry now that I ever felt any other way about gaming… but fandoms are complicated, and hospitality is a long game. Sometimes we bounce off things if we don’t feel actively welcome in the spaces those things are loved. Sometimes it’s just a matter of exposure and social circles, etc. I’m here now. I’ll do my best to invite others in.
I have some personal goals as a gamer, which are:
1.) Be less anxious about learning new games and playing games in general
2.) Playtest a lot of NEW games-in-development by brilliant designers, be in the conversation, learn the vocabulary
3.) Lean into the fun and YES, AND!
One of my “Yes, ands” is, when Dr. Gregory A. Wilson asked me to be one of his cast for the Heathglow podcast, I said yes. AND now I’m in a podcast, lol.
I thought that playing Mog Rizz, a Hyena-shifter trickster and student at Hearthglow Academy was a one-off thing for the Damon Runyon Foundation charity that Greg was running a couple of years ago.
Mog Rizz, a Hyena-shifter rogue, 3rd Level (Arcane Trickster). I asked artist Hannah Flaherty for her to look like a cross between Eponine from Les Mis and Eurydice from Hadestown… only, a hyena.
First, we performed live at the Klein Auditorium and the tickets benefited cancer research. Artist Hannah Flaherty made character art for all of us. But THEN there was a follow-up performance at the Klein (along with a level-up of our characters) last year.
And THIS year, the Klein is letting us record on their second-floor mezzanine for a third adventure… in fact, a series of them! This is the Hearthglow Podcast.
When Greg proposed this to us, I looked at Carlos, blinked a few times, and then said, “Well, yeah. I guess I’ll do it. That sounds like something I want to have done in my 40s.” I already knew Carlos was in. He was getting that glinty-eyed thing again.
A D&D LIVEPLAY PODCAST! LIke the COOL KIDS. Here’s a link to the Hearthglow page, with all the episodes so far. More coming, since we just recorded a session, which is enough material for 2-3 more episodes, I think.
Carlos, who’s always been a cool kid (as defined in this blog as a cute-patootie gamer who loves D&D, which Carlos has been since he was 13), is playing Ally Needy (pronounced Nee-DAY currently), a fairy dragon with a confusion breath weapon. I’ll try to get a pic up of her later.
ETA (LATER):
Ally Needy (pronounced Nee-DAY), Carlos’s character, is a fairy dragon with something called GEMFLIGHT. I don’t know what it is but I wants it.
In the new Hearthglow podcast, Ally’s introduced a new CONSTRUCT companion: MR. ROUND CLOWN! Carlos asked Bek, the illustrator of our Negocios Infernales cards, to create character art for her.
Mr. Round Clown. Art by Rebecca Huston
Carlos did up all the specs for Mr. Round Clown, and created this character sheet for him that looks, you know, like something you’d find in a campaign setting or something.
I know I linked to the Hearthglow page above, but just in case you don’t fee like clicking, here are the first few episodes, as well as the YouTube link.
I’m late to our Sitzfleisch Poetry Hour today, but that’s okay: I’ll stay over 10 minutes. Jennifer Crow opened the silent Zoom room for everyone, but she was there alone for the first ten minutes anyway. Now we are THREE, and I’m trying to decide what to write.
I think I’m going to go with the ditties I scribbled for our GenCon Infernal Salon at the beginning of this month. We had over 40 people in the room, and everyone got a group draw (according to their birth months or something), as well as a single additional card that was just their own.
I think Carlos and I did individual pulls for each other, at the very end. My cards were:
YOU ARE MOSTLY HOLES. (Espacio)
GUTS MAKE THE FINEST MUSIC (Carne)
IS THAT THE CRY OF A DYING STAR (Rayo)
I thought to write three nursery-rhyme style bits, thinking about how we build worlds not just through blocks of text, not just through character and dialogue, but through scraps of poetry, song, art, adages, newscasts, radio blips, paper clippings, posters. Anyway. Here’s what I came up with, freshly typed up tonight.
I added the ending rhymes while I was typing them, because I’d let a few drop in the 30-minute squeeze of first-draft writing, and I wanted to see what was what. Bonus words tonight include “swine dame,” so I call that a win.
They’re all very silly, but what can you do with only 30 minutes and a small journal? (Answer: anything, really. One just… writes. SO MANY DIFFERENT THINGS come of it! We have everything from poetry, to character sketches, to bits of novel, to whole short stories. People write plays. People draw pictures. People write reels! It’s AMAZING.)
But here is what I did last time, in 30 minutes.
1. PIG GOD RHYME
Here, piggy piggy A Mama’s made a bargain B Daddy’s marching far on B The reaches, past the hills C Mama’s gonna catch you D With her axe she’ll fetch you D Butcher you and dress you D Offer up the kill C
Here, piggy piggy A Look you at the god now B Entering the brown sow B Headless and aglow C Mama’s on her knees here D Keeping Daddy safe, dear D Offering her pleas clear D Any way or how C
Here, piggy piggy A Effigy of pigskin B Protector of the farmkin B From cottage to the pale C Wedded to the swine dame D Oink we in your great name D Thank thee, light the pigflame D God who will not fail C
2. Lullaby of the Void
Hush, my beloved Let silence descend Hear what this prophecy-darkness forfends Night is your guardian Her whispers, your friend Hush now, and sleep now And dream of the end
The dim stars are screaming A void for their song Be easy, you’re dreaming–you’ve done nothing wrong It’s only, our emptiness yearns to belong Hush now, and sleep now Till morning bell’s gong
3. Origins of the Moon
My father has two holes for eyes A cavern for a mouth An open pit of belly And an appetite uncouth
My mother’s head is riddled through With meteoric dents Her ribs are cracked and peeling And her thighs are ripped and rent
Is it any wonder, then That I, their lovely child Am hollowed-out and chasm-deep My innards all out-piled?
They gouged me from their excess And shaved me down to size And now I smile, craterous From o’er your midnight skies
*** I had some bonus time, so I wrote a ridiculous short play–just dialogue.
The scene:
Imagine two, immense, fleshy, golem-like caryatids, holding up a kitchen ceiling on their flayed shoulders, watching with peeled white eyes as a bevy of feral cooks work on their next meal.
They’re facing each other across a vastness, just chattin’.
Dramatis Personae LF = Left Face RF = Right Face
LF: They’re at it again. RF: They’re always eating what they shouldn’t. LF: So outré. RF: Disgusting. LF: Riveting. RF: Marvelous. LF: What’s on the menu today? RF: Rocks. LF: Rocks? RF: And tripes. LF: Tripes. RF: And rocks. LF: I was forgetting the rocks. RF: I think it cleans out their systems. LF: Roughage. RF: Sort of flushes it. LF: And tripes? RF: Protein. LF: We all need protein. RF: Not us. LF: Not anymore. RF: They ate us long ago. LF: Better this way. RF: Debatable. LF: More relaxing. RF: Tedious. LF: At times. RF: What are they eating now? LF: Maggots. RF: Suckers. LF: Better to be done with all that.
***
(That’s all I had time for.) (Like LF says, probably “better this way”–but I did enjoy diving back into an all-dialogue format for a hot second.)
Get you a reader who is an artist, a genius, a darling, who is so full of love and jeweled colors and divine radiance, that she makes you, over the course of a year, a cathedral window of your own gods.
Phoebe Leung Ashcroft, @phoe.ash on Instagram, is a visual artist bookstagrammer, who reviews ARCs by drawing illustrations for them, and creating a little write-up in the caption.
For my books, she has drawn Loreila Winter-Touched from Dark Breakers, Alizar Eleven-Eyes from The Twice-Drowned Saint, and Lanie from Saint Death’s Daughter.
But, wait. Phoebe, the aforementioned artist/genius/darling, has done EVEN MORE.
In addition to her three versions of Saint Death…
…she has made ALL THE REST OF THE GODS of Liriat and Quadiíb!!!
Phoebe’s third and latest depiction of Saint Death, the Doe-Her-Mother, is taken directly from the text of Saint Death’s Herald, of which she has had some special peeks.
I, um, made a LORE FOLDER for Phoebe and my buddy Anthony, who is a DM and sometimes plays around in my world.
Because when people draw you pictures and adapt your stories to D&D games, you want to make that as EASY AS POSSIBLE FOR THEM, because they are the AWESOMEST PEOPLE.
A little while back, I made a little video about the Twelve Gods and some of their attributes, which I included in that lore folder, in case you were interested. You can listen as I speak in one window, and admire Phoebe’s craftswomanship in the other!
Thank you forever, Phoebe. Now when I write, I am also always thinking of you.
I have written before about fan art, when I was on Substack for a hot second last year. I wonder if I should just copy/paste the material I made there last year to this blog, so that it shan’t be lost forever if I give up the platform entirely.
But for now, here’s a link to that blog about fan art, for you will see how bright this world is with wonders, and how awed I am to have provided some of the source material for these visions artists have.
LOL. Carlos and I released a backers-only update on Negocios Infernales today, and on it, we gifted them one of their rewards: a new web-based tool for our “Deck of Destiny” cards.
There’s a box to input your question, and then you get to pick 1-3 cards to draw to help interpret your fate. The tool randomly pulls them for you. Each card pull includes an explanation of the suit.
Right now, the tool is just for backers on a private link, but eventually we’ll migrate it over to Outland Entertainment, where it will live for ALL THE REST OF YOU to enjoy. (Although, naturally, you’ll want YOUR OWN DECK OF PHYSICAL CARDS.)
Anyway, I was testing the web tool out today, and I asked it: “How I can keep motivating myself to finish my edits on time?” I chose a 3-card draw.
My answer?
– “You are mostly holes” – LIKE MY MANUSCRIPT, AFTER I CUT IT UP!
– “Skin is a coward” – THAT QUILL IS BLEEDING! (Self-explanatory.)
– “The scavengers win every war” – after I SCAVENGE the SCRAPS remaining of my manuscript, I will WIN THIS NOVEL!
Yay!
So. Quite an optimistic reading, eh? (I particular love two Carne cards, especially that line in the suit-meaning: “the triumph of self-interest over community.” It is, after all, in my best self-interest to FINISH THIS NOVEL.)
C.S.E. Cooney 