The Journal of Michael Merriam

Catherine Lundoff, (catherineldf) award winning author of A Day at the Inn, A Night at the Palace and Other Stories (Lethe Press, 2011) will be reading at True Colors Bookstore with Special Guest Michael Merriam, author of Last Car to Annwn Station (Carina Press, 2011).

True Colors Bookstore: http://www.truecolorsbookstore.com/
Saturday, November 12 · 4:00pm
True Colors Bookstore
4755 Chicago Ave S
Minneapolis, MN

* The reading will take place downstairs in the bookstore, which has no elevator and is unfortunately not accessible for people with wheelchairs or walkers.

I am overwhelmed and humbled by the generosity of people, many who I only know through computer pixels. Belyn is a very lovey and cuddly fellow, and we have great hope that his sweet disposition will allow him to integrate with the Reverend Selena once his visit to the veterinarian is over.

Thank you. Thank you all so much.

Wow. I haven’t updated since the first of the month. Things have been busy around here, and I’ve been (unsuccessfully) fighting off the ick. Like I said, though, things have been busy, so here is a little catch up post.

MarsCon was a great success. I had a good time, the panels were smart and well attended, and the convention big enough to be interesting and have energy, but still small enough not to overwhelm me. My reading went well, even if it was sparsely attended. All the panels I sat on were good, solid panels, with “Ask a Writer” probably being my favorite, though it turned into “Ask an Editor” for a long stretch, since all the panelist had editing experience. I was able to manage the dealer’s room at MarsCon, and able to move around on my own pretty well. I call it a success.

We left the con on Saturday night for ladysea’s birthday, which was also a success. It was good to be around great friends, and there was good food and conversation. Also, we got to pitch MarsCon to most of them. They are almost all of them in fandom in one way or another, so I’m hoping to have a few more of my friends at MarsCon next year.

We went to Catherine Lundoff’s (catherineldf) reading at DreamHaven Books. She is an excellent reader and her material was quite enjoyable. Afterwards we went out to Merlins Rest for food and drinks. The food and drinks were good, and it was great hanging out with everyone after the reading, but Merlins was too crowded and noisy for my taste. I would be willing to try it again on weeknight, maybe.

The Stoll Baby Shower was also a great success. More good friends, good food and good times. The expectant parents seemed pleased with the gifts and the out pouring of friendship and love from their friends.

The City of Hopkins hosts “The World’s Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade” and they are not kidding. I think it took the whole parade about 5 minutes to pass. After, we went down to the VFW Post for free hotdogs and soda, but not before walking to the Elk’s Lodge by mistake. Luckily Hopkins is small and the two locations were only about four blocks from each other.

We bought new bedding. It is lovely.

Made a trip to Uncle Sven’s Comics Shoppe in St. Paul to spend a gift certificate I’ve had for years. Picked up two collections and one card game. The shop itself is small, cute, and well-stocked with friendly and knowledgeable staff.

This weekend I have Paganicon (http://tcpaganpride.org/paganicon/). I will be doing a reading/storytelling event on Sunday, where I plan to present “Four Minnesota Fantasy Tales.” Hopefully I am over my sick and my voice holds out.

Year before I posted an entry here on Live Journal. I suspect, nay, I know, that it is the holiday crush. We have been busy: family visit, visiting friends, New Year's Eve, having a belated birthday get together. Much fun has been had, as well as food consumed and alcohol imbibed, all good things to help push back against the darkness of winter.

The Christmas decorations are taken down and put back into storage. Tomorrow, I shall start to reset the house back to normal, or at least what passes for normal around here. careswen starts her final class of graduate school this week. We are working on financial things, trying to get ready for her to finish school and make the jump into her career. Things are moving forward all around me.

I'll make a post about what cons and such I will be at this year later this week. I will say that it looks to be a busy year. I have a cool sounding MinnSpec meeting coming up on two weeks, one of our members giving a presentation about a seminar focused on story construction he attended last autumn. I am taking part in a self-editing seminar being run on a forum by the Editor-in-Chief of Carina Press for Carina Press authors for the next three weeks. This can only help me as a writer, moving forward.

I saw the ophthalmologist last week. Still blind. No surprise, really.

The Reverend Selena is very fuzzy still.

Saturday, I ventured into downtown Minneapolis for the Twin Cites Book Festival, spending the morning and early afternoon celebrating the written word. I arrived just as the doors were opening, and was surprised to find the exhibit hall already quite packed.

I ran into half_double and leorathesane almost immediately, who had also just arrived. We spent a few minutes catching up, then dived in.

Folks, I knew the Twin Cities and Minnesota had a strong lit community, but you don't realize just how strong it is until you enter a exhibition hall with 100+ publishers of books, magazines, literary journals, and literary support organization. I meet a number of publishers and had a handful of local lit journals express interest in seeing my fiction.

Shortly after nearly completing the circuit of tables (I never managed to get to them all, and I never went upstairs to the children's pavilion, and I never made any programming items, sadly) I encountered cloudscudding, who I escorted over to the Sam's Dot Publishing table and introduced to Tyree, the publisher. wordswoman was already at the table when we arrived, and dmbaird and zarathud23 both showed up a moment later.

The rest of the day was spent browsing the tables and talking to folks, including Scott at the Tales of the Unanticipated table, where we lamented that the Book Festival, Arcana, and Conjecture were all happening on the same day.

I went back to the Sam's Dot Publishing table, where cloudscudding was helping Tyree sell books. I sat down as well. We were joined by wordswoman, the three of us giving Tyree a chance to wander around for a bit. It's always a good idea to help your publisher out when you can. joelarnold and Terry Faust came by the table as well, so we had several of the Northern Lights: 20 MinnSpec Tales authors available to sign copies. It was also good to see several folks I've meet at local conventions attending the festival (Carrie and Katie, I'm talking about you!)

As I was leaving the festival, I ran into Britt Aamodt, who pointed me to a possible venue to hold a release party for Northern Lights

I think next year I would like MinnSpec to have an information table and maybe a place for members to sell their work, as long as it is not completing with another publisher at the festival.

Filed under Moments When You Realize Your Life Has Gotten a Little Odd: I had separate occasions where people I did not know said something to the effect of "Oh! You're Michael Merriam. Great! Now I can put a face with the name." I'm still a little boggled by that. I also have not gotten use to having people I've never meet walk up to me holding my book and asking for my signature. It is a happy-making thing meeting someone who bought your work and is excited about it.

I signed a lot of books. I had no idea we would sell that many copies of Northern Lights: 20 MinnSpec Tales and The Horror at Cold Springs.

Tyree at Sam's Dot Publishing also told me that Horror at Cold Springs is about to go into its second printing. I told him I had the next novella in that setting almost ready, and he told me to send it on to him. Also, we talked about doing another MinnSpec anthology in 2012, since Northern Lights has sold so well.

That is all to report about the Twin Cites Book Festival, but I will probably post again tomorrow to talk about the rest of the weekend, which included seeing a favorite author read her work, going to a friend's deployment party, and running network cable through the ceiling with greykev at careswen's office.

jongibbs has written a nice post about Abra Staffin Weibe's (aka cloudscudding ) crowdfunding project to help raise money for her mother's cancer treatment. Go here and read his post, then follow his links and help out if you can.

Northern Lights: 20 MinnSpec Tales ToC: #1. "Kissing Frogs" by Jaye Lawrence

The first time I met Jaye was at a MinnSpec meeting and afterward I was pretty sure she wasn't going to come back. Which filled me with dread, because the story she read us that afternoon at Betsy's Back Porch was lovely. I knew then she was something special as a writer. I made sure I stopped and spoke with her on the way out, encouraging her to come back again. I don't know if my words had any effect, but she come back and became a big part of MinnSpec, running the group's primary writing workshop.

I knew from the moment I read "Kissing Frogs" that I wanted it to be the lead-off story for the anthology. Quirky, surprising, by turns funny and sad, always gentle, I wanted to use this story to set the tone for the anthology. This would not just be a bunch of stories tossed together between some covers. These are stories that will take you places you've never been before. This Tiptree Award nominated story had the feel and tone I wanted with its two unlikely and likable characters. Lawrence takes an idea and theme that in the hands of a lesser writer would have been played for jokes or come across as silly and trite, and gives the characters real warmth and humanity. If you have not read a story by Jaye Lawrence before, you are in for a treat.

"Kissing Frogs" was originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, May 2004 and reprinted in James Tiptree Award Anthology #2, November 2005.

Purchase Northern Lights: 20 MinnSpec Tales here.

I feel a vampire novel brewing in my head. I blame kmarkhoover.

I thought this was going to be a contemporary rural fantasy, but it is shaping up to be magical realism.

I know the shape and form of this story now, can see it in my head, can feel what it should be, but am starting to fear that what it should be and what it will be shall end up two entirely different things due to my skill level. It is a vexing thing.

I added to a couple of the scene I had previously written, expanding on them, changing some language. I also wrote a scene that connects a pair of the other scenes and started two new scenes, though I am reasonably sure where they will fall in the scheme of things.

I have done very little today except work on this story, practice bass guitar, and pet the cat, which seems to me a pretty fine sort of day indeed. Outside, it is cloudy and cool. I can smell the grill of someone in the townhouse complex, making me want to grill out as well, though I haven't taken anything from the freezer that could be grilled. Inside, the Tigers and Rays are playing baseball on my television. Though I have given my allegiance to the Twins (in the American League, anyway), my family is a group of long-time Tigers fans, so I still follow them. Tomorrow, our gaming group is making a field trip out to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. I own a really nice, really expensive doublet which I can only wear in certain situations, so yes I will probably wear it tomorrow.

I have some thoughts about my convention season this year, especially as it pertains to my disability. I suspect there will be more on this come Monday or Tuesday. For now, I need to start the dishwasher, prepare for dinner, get ready for careswen to return from class, and then maybe write more on the loon story.

Still not dead, which is quite pleasing to me and, I assume, everyone else around me.

I opened read Rija's Tale for the first time since I completed the first draft. It hangs together fairly well for a first draft, doing what it is intended to do, which is be a fast-paced bit of high fantasy adventure storytelling. It's a little thin in the plot early on, with Rija simply moving from one calamity to the next while trying to find her place in the world. The second half of the book has strong legs though, as Rija stops reacting and starts acting, taking control of her situation and life. There are things to fix, but the bones are solid.

I'll be heading up north for the weekend, spending time with some friends and recovering from the frantic pace I've been on since 4th Street Fantasy Convention. I've fallen behind on a variety of projects, so starting next week there will be some frantic catching up, but for now I need this weekend to rest, play, and recharge.

Play nice with each other while I'm gone.