Recipe for sea-sickness on land: 1 big helping of working in the financial district in lower Manhattan 1 extremely windy day 1 33-story office building creaking and swaying in the wind 3 out of 6 elevators in said building out of service 2 of the elevators in service randomly skipping floors Mix in 7 trips between your office on the 25th floor to the art department on the 27th floor, and 4 cups of low-grade corporate coffee. Shake.
Nothing like the joys of Comic Book Wednesday to take the edge off of a tough hangover. Even better is when your Midtown Comics $20 rebate kicks in the same week 75% of the comics you usually buy unexpectedly come out at once. Yay! Tuesday's Acentos was another great one with Willie Perdomo doing what he does best, reading poems with substance and leaving the spectacle to others who need it. The open mic was solid and it was one of the better overall turnouts so far. Not sure what was in the air - maybe the sight of Willie's…
The stench of burning flesh made Ogbogu de Hairoun’s eyes water – salty, stinging tears of loss and terror. It took every last shred of willpower to not make a sound, to lie still amongst the carnage, to not jump up and reveal himself only to fall in a flurry of arrows and iron. To join those he’d shared life with on their journey to the land of the dead. His face was covered in blood and gore, his naked body hidden in a knot of broken limbs and stinking entrails. All around him, the bohio was strewn with the…
1. Finished The Glass Mountain on Friday. Rydill's hit another home run with this one. Where Children of the Shaman was a line drive over the left field fence, Mountain's more of a moonshot into the farthest reaches of McCovey Cove! Totally worth the lopsided exchange rate of the pound:dollar. 2. NaNoWriMo is kicking my ass but I did make some progress this weekend, organizing some of the research I've done on Taino culture for the backstory and incorporated it more fully into what I'd written already. May not get to 50,000 words but I should definitely end the month…
In the ten winters since she’d come to this unbearably hot island, Lady Bludwerth found herself longing for the travails of her homeland more and more often. The fact that “winters” was a definition of time that had little meaning here was only a small part of the reason. That there was a virtue in fighting for freedom that seemed lost when the battle changed to one of aggression loomed much larger. Could it be, as her father had said, that there truly was no middle ground? That a victor always required a vanquished? The clang of iron striking iron…
Mateo de Orikeno’s tall, slender body hovers several hands above the smoothly-packed dirt floor, hazel eyes focused on the pulsing ball of light in his right hand as he tells the tale. “The chief of the land of the dead thought it over for a long time,” he says. The ball of light, an effervescent crackle casting flickering shadows across Mateo’s smooth, unlined face, pulses in sync with his voice – a deep, soothing baritone inherited, like all of his talents, from his mother’s Oniat blood. Recanting the sacred myths of her people, he manipulates the ball of light into…
Had the pleasure of doing a reading/Q&A at the Riverdale Neighborhood House last night for a group of teens from a workshop run by Corie Feiner (fka Corie Herman) as part of a residency she's had since 2000, thanks to Poets & Writers. One of the coolest gigs I could imagine, teaching kids writing in the Bronx. The RNH is a great setup, too, offering various after-school opportunities for local kids, many of whom aren't from Riverdale but from Marble Hill and Kingsbridge. Hope something like that is available when Isaac and India get older. Got a jar of teen-made…