Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-07-11

• Michigan here I come. #

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-07-04

• Enjoy Lovecraft, Cthulhu, & my reviews? Donate to @innsmouthpress's R'leh or Bust! fundraiser: http://www.innsmouthfreepress.com/?p=6318 #
• Why I won't be watching Avatar: The Last Airbender. http://splinterend.tumblr.com/post/749364670/facepainting #racism #

[short stories] (Fat) Fiction Friday: The Mad Scientist’s Daughter by Theodora Gross

First, an update! You may remember that for my first (Fat) Fiction Friday (here), I reviewed Karen Healey’s Guardian of the Dead and talked a little (and somewhat incoherently, sadly) about my responses to the main character who describes herself as fat.

Well, at The Rotund, Marianne Kirby talked about “When Fat Characters Describe Themselves: A Response to a Book I Just Finished Reading” and I wanted to link here because they are very interesting.

—

Second, an actual (Fat) Fiction Friday mini review!

The Mad Scientist’s Daughter by Theodora Gross Part One | Part Two at Strange Horizons.

Two excerpts really capture this for me:

Beatrice: “Why do we always die in the stories?”

Catherine: “Because we’re not the ones who write them.”

and

XI. Why I Wrote This Sketch

Someday, I would like to write a book that isn’t about Rick Chambers or Astarte. It would be the sort of book that George Eliot could have written, about life in a country town and the people who live there, their jealousies, their ambitions, the minutiae of their lives. How they fall in love with the wrong people, or the right people at the wrong time, or lose the mercantile business on which their fortune is built. Or misplace wills. You know, literature.

But I’ve never experienced any of those things myself. All I know is monsters.

Mini Review: I really enjoyed this story, because I do love stories about monsters and stories about monsters doing mundane things and because I do love stories which talk about why women die in so many stories and why women need to be able to tell their own stories.

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-06-06

• PRO TIP: When you're late leaving the hospital for a ride, don't trust the guy who says he checked the fuel & it's fine. #

[short stories] (Fat) Fiction Friday: Sparrow Hill Road by Seanan McGuire

This week I bring you an ongoing series of short stories by Seanan McGuire, published monthly at The Edge of Propinquity.

Sparrow Hill Road is the story of Rose Marshall, a hitchhiking ghost, and the story of her death — and a bit of her life — on Sparrow Hill Road and what comes after. It’s creepy and delightful, sweet and heartbreaking, and every story is filled with adventure and ghostly intrigue. McGuire has created an excellent world of ghosts and the living and the roads they share and the roads they don’t.

I grew up a truck driver’s daughter and have been in love with the road and with driving for as long as I can remember. The first place I go when I need a break is the highway, and no matter whether I’m in my car or on my motorcycle, watching that blacktop stretch before me feels like coming home.

McGuire deftly, expertly captures that feeling in Sparrow Hill Road. I wait impatiently each month for the next issue of the Edge of Propinquity to be released so I can slip back into a story of shadows and souls, of wandering ghosts and monsters in the darkness, and of the rhythm and pulse of the open road.

Rose Marshall’s tale is incredible and McGuire’s writing will still your breath.

Excerpt from the synopsis:

Welcome to the midnight America, the one that exists parallel to the “real” world. It’s a dark country, one where men with hooks haunt Lover’s Lane and scarecrows walk on moonlit nights. It’s the place where people go when they slip into the cracks between light and darkness, a world of routewitches and oracles, demons and ambulomancers. It’s the place where a man named Bobby Cross sold his soul to live forever…and where one pretty little dead girl is racing to save her soul and stop the killings that began on Sparrow Hill Road. The rules are different here, and everyone’s playing for keeps. Be careful. Be cautious. And listen to the urban legends, because they may be the only things that can save you from the man who waits at the crossroads, hunting souls to keep himself alive.

Welcome to the ghostside.

My favorites so far are the first story, “Good Girls Go to Heaven” which absolutely broke my heart and showed me how much I would love this collection, and the fourth story, “Building a Mystery,” but each story is excellent and they just keep getting better.

Welcome to the ghostside, McGuire says, but it sounds more like welcome home.

[Publications] The Vampire Diaries reviews

Well, that was an interesting first season, wasn’t it? Despite my problems with the show and its treatment of women in particular — and despite the fact that it is sometimes ridiculous — I really like it and am looking forward to next season, though I definitely need a break from its issues for awhile.

However, here are the last of the reviews I wrote for Innsmouth Free Press:

+ Control is an Illusion: Review: The Vampire Diaries 1.18: “Under Control”
+ That’s a Miss, Mystic Falls: Review of The Vampire Diaries 1.19: “Miss Mystic Falls”
+ Family Can Really Suck: The Vampire Diaries 1.20: “Blood Brothers”
+ Mommy Dearest: The Vampire Diaries 1.21: “Isobel”
+ (Kill All the) Founders Day: The Vampire Diaries 1.22: “Founders’ Day”

Wow, you can really tell I’m horrible at titles and running out of vampire puns at this point. (In part because the show was using the puns as titles already.)

So what did you all think of The Vampire Diaries season one? Will you be watching season two? If you haven’t watched season one yet, do you plan on catching up over the break?

Twitter Updates for 2010-05-04

• So y'all know, I've been called home immediately. #
• If you have my cell you can reach me on it but no guarantee I can talk long. #

Twitter Updates for 2010-05-02

• In the stadium. Way more calm than a football game so far, despite the warnings people gave me. #
• Weird blonde puppet is giving me the creeps! Stadium singing Sweet Caroline is sweet. #
• Love the Bender robot. Oh and I'm live tweeting the University of Michigan commencement ceremony with Obama. Yes, I'm graduating. #
• @chr0me and brother arrived! Then got to see my name in the program. So ridiculously excited. #
• Brief moment of sun but quickly gone before anyone freaked out about that weird bright light from the sky. #michgrad10 #
• Really glad I brought my iPod because some of these live versions aren't working for me. @michgrad10 #
• Man, hashtag fail for me. It's starting to get cold here at #umgrad10 but people's excitement still high. #
• People are super friendly in the stands while we wait, sharing things & being entertaining. It's really nice. #umgrad10 #
• Everyone around me too busy staring in awe at the helicopter to take pics. Yeah we have it bad! #umgrad10 #
• Twitter on the big screen at the Big House. I love technology. #umgrad10 #
• Ridiculously excited to see my Tweet RE Marine One on the screen! #umgrad10 #
• Obama in the house. This graduation thing doesn't seem real, but amazing.#umgrad10 #
• Not sure when this became the Michigan show and not about grads & alumni, but this speech is pretty awkward. #umgrad10 #
• So very charmed by Obama and his letters from kids, I'll admit it. #umgrad10 #
• Love Obama's realistic views on our use of tech & the positives & negatives of our choices of access to info. #umgrad10 #

Twitter Updates for 2010-04-23

• Haha Paul and his Memphis Belles. Good times. #

Twitter Updates for 2010-04-22

• Meatloaf at karaoke brings much joy to my life. #