Joey HiFi cover for "Mockingbird" by Chuck Wendig

Miriam is trying to keep her ability – her curse – in check.But when Miriam touches a woman in line at the supermarket, she sees that the woman will be killed here, now.She reacts, and begins a new chapter in her life – one which can never be expected to go well.

The cover: Joey HiFi delivers another stunner of cover art. I certainly hope that Chuck Wendig never finishes his Urban Fantasy series, because that would mean that HiFi would have to supply us with the most progressive cover art I have seen. The incorporation of smaller images to create a larger silhouette is certainly not a new technique. In the hands of an amateur the results would repel the eye, especially if somehow bright colors get involved. But with black and white and a strategic splash of crimson, the cover is a looker. I have to say that this cover will catch my eye among many brightly colored images. Impressive considering how deliciously monochrome the image is.

Tell me what you think of this darling! What makes your cover senses tingle?

Mood: Rather cranky 
Coffee Cups Chugged: Three, but I had lots of Coke, so I guess… more? 
Song Selection: “Katy on a Mission” by Katy B [classy dubstep] 
TV Show: The Walking Dead 
Book: “Solaris Rising” edited by Ian Whates 
Movie Last Seen: Margaret Cho’s standup DVD “Beautiful” 
Current Writing Project: “The Tracks that Tower over Forgotten Valleys” 

[December 20th] Anthology Projects Worth Your While

That's how my brain feels like at the moment

As I'm gearing up to switch from academic to creative writing, I'm jotting some ideas for short stories that I've been planning to write for the following projects:

1] Pandemonium: Stories of Smoke to be edited by Jared Shurin and Anne Perry: I've been following the critical non-fiction these two have produced on Pornokitsch to be confident that they know what they are doing and their first anthology has gathered some of the biggest rising names in genre to date, which in its own is one hell of a feat.

Coming in spring of 2012, Pandemonium: Stories of the Smoke brings you London as you've never seen it before - science fiction and fantasy in the great tradition of Charles Dickens.

Charles Dickens lived and breathed London in a way few authors ever have, before or since. In his fiction, his non-fiction, and even his own life, Dickens cast an extraordinary shadow over the city he so loved - so much so, indeed, that his name has become synonymous with a certain image of London. A London of terrible social inequality and matchless belief in the human potential; a London filled with the comic and the repulsive, the industrious and the feckless, the faithful and the faithless, the selfish and the selfless.

This London is at once an historical artifact and a living, breathing creature: the steaming, heaving, weeping, stinking, everlasting Smoke.

2] Bibliotheca Fantastica to be edited by Claude Lalumiere & Don Pizarro: Dagan Books impressed me with their Cthulhurotica anthology, which will delightfully be continued come next year, and Lalumiere has been hailed as a force in the short form, so I wish to be involved hopefully as a contributor.

What we want: Stories having to do with lost, rare, weird, or imaginary books, or any aspect of book history or book culture, past, present, future, or uchronic. Any genre. Although the fantastical is not essential per se, stories should evoke a sense of the fantastic, the unknown, the weird, wonder, terror, mystery, pulp, and/or adventure, etc.

3] Fungi to be edited by Orrin Grey & Silvia Moreno-Garcia: Creepy mushrooms in an anthology produced by one of the key authorities on creepiness. Yes, please. 

Orrin Grey and Silvia Moreno-Garcia tackle the darkest of all horrors: fungi. William Hope Hodgson’s “The Voice in the Night” and its Japanese adaptation, Matango, terrified and fascinated the editors. And now, they’re back for more.

Fungi is an anthology of dark speculative fiction (horror, fantasy, science fiction, and any other variant, such as steampunk) focused solely on the fungal. No happy mushrooms from Mario Bros. A fungus of some type must be a key element in the story, not just a throwaway element. A character can attempt to poison someone with a mushroom, mushroom cultivation may be of importance to the story, the dark patch of mould on the ceiling may begin to terrify an unhappy tenant, a group of people may consume hallucinogenic mushrooms, etc.

We are looking for a variety of settings and protagonists. Mushrooms sprout around the world, after all.

4] The Worldbuilder Project inspired by Empire State written by Adam Christoper: Technically not an anthology in the traditional sense of the word, but I think it can be fitted here. The project itself can lead to a potential inclusion into an anthology, which is always a bonus.