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The Way the Wind Blows was a virtual representation of one of Shay Cormac's genetic memories stored in the Helix, relived by a research analyst through the Animus.
The Assassin Shay Cormac pursued a target on Port-Menier.
An older Shay began to narrate the events of his past, while his younger self was depicted.
- Shay: Stay my blade from the flesh of the innocent. Hide in plain sight. Never compromise the Assassin Brotherhood. These are the tenets of the Creed. The principles I used to live by. I was a young man then. The Seven Years' War was about to begin. I could not have imagined what the future had in store for me... Nor the cost I would choose to bear... My name is Shay Patrick Cormac. This is my story...
Shay chased a target, who came to a halt near the beach.
- Liam: Well, we won't lack for firewood at least.
Shay attempted to assassinate them, but his target dodged the attack.
- Shay: Admit it, I nearly had you!
- Liam: Nearly counts for nothing, Shay. And besides, no... that was just luck.
- Shay: I make my own luck, Liam.
- Liam: Ah, you've been saying that for years, but you've precious little to show for it. Or have you been spending it all getting out of trouble?
- Shay: Well you know, trouble just follows me around.
Shay and Liam's conversation was interrupted by the sound of distant cannon fire.
- Liam: Let's head back. Come on! Captain de la Vérendrye and his crew must have run into some trouble. Who knew meeting with smugglers would lead to no good?
- Shay: I still don't understand why you can't tell me what we're doing here.
- Liam: Because Chevalier decided not to tell you.
- Shay: I thought we were friends, Liam.
- Liam: We are, but this is business. It doesn't concern you, Shay.
Am I going too fast for you?
- Shay: I'm just keeping my eye on you in case you fall down and hurt yourself.
Shay caught up with Liam.
- Liam: Hurry! We best not keep Chevalier waiting.
- Chevalier: (Shit! Where are those idiots?)
Hold it together men! We will find a way off this island.
Look to those wounds, young man.
Shay and Liam reached Chevalier's camp.
- Chevalier: (What the-) Where the hell were you two?
- Shay: We were out hunting. What happened here?
- Chevalier: My men were attacked by some English sea dogs!
- Shay: Why Captain Joseph, couldn't you fight them all off by yourself like you're always saying?
- Chevalier: It is (Captain) Louis-Joseph Gaultier, Chevalier de la Vérendrye. And you are dreaming if you think any training could make you into a proper Assassin. Do you even know what that means? It means being responsible for an ancient and proud tradition. It means obeying your Mentor without question. How else will we ensure freedom for the human race?
- Shay: Them's pretty words, Chevalier, but I don't feel too free at the moment.
- Chevalier: Well then feel educated, urgh!
Chevalier punched Shay, starting a fistfight between them.
- Chevalier: (Come, Come!)
I will teach you some manners, boy.
How dare you show me such disrespect!
You irresponsible wretch!
You simpleton! You rot-brained cabbage farmer!
Liam intervened.
- Liam: Gentlemen, stop! We've got a common enemy and I reckon he's close.
- Chevalier: The Royal Navy attacked my vessel and forced my men to flee! We are stranded, and what is worse, the smugglers we were supposed to meet have been taken prisoner.
- Liam: Shay and I will free those smugglers, you treat your wounded.
Liam handed Shay a sword and parrying dagger.
- Liam: Take these, you'll need them.
Tread with care, Shay. The Royal Navy will be ready for us. Remember your training.
Shay and Liam reached the British camp.
- Liam: Ready to teach them a lesson?
- Shay: They don't stand a chance.
- Guard 1: Where are your mates now, you bilge rat?
Liam knocked out a guard.
- Shay: Not bad.
- Guard 1: Talk before I bash out your brains! We will find them and let them bury what's left of you.
Shay eliminated the guard and freed the smuggler.
- Smuggler 1: Thank you!
- Guard 2: Keep an eye out, lads. Their pals are still out there somewhere.
Liam assassinated a guard from a haystack, before continuing forward.
- Shay: There he goes again.
Shay eliminated the remaining guards and freed two more smugglers.
- Smuggler: Many thanks, I thought I'd be hanged!
British ships sailed past.
- Guard 3: Happy hunting, lads!
- Guard 4: Set her ablaze!
- Guard 5: Sink that French vessel!
- Guard 6: She's no match for you!
Shay climbed aboard the ship docked near the shore, killed the soldiers and freed the remaining smugglers. More guards immediately emerged from below deck, surrounding the Assassin. Liam and Chevalier then appeared, assisting Shay in taking out the reinforcements.
- Shay: I was saving those fellows for you.
- Liam: Very thoughtful.
- Chevalier: Maybe you are not completely useless, Shay.
- Shay: Speaking of useless, those blockheads won't be needing this vessel anymore.
- Chevalier: This pile of (shit?) You want her, Shay, she is yours. Now bring me back to my ship.
- Liam: You heard Chevalier. This vessel is yours, Shay. Go on, take the wheel.
Shay took the helm and set a course for Chevalier's ship, the Gerfaut.
- Liam: Some of the men you rescued agreed to join us. They should prove a good crew.
- Chevalier: I am not so certain about their captain, but next to me you are the most experienced sailor in the Brotherhood, Shay. Besides, we could use another vessel, even this pitiful one.
- Shay: She's mine, ain't she? My own ship.
- Chevalier: Your own pile of garbage, yes.
- Shay: Ah, with a lick of paint and a few new cannons, she'll look as fine as anything on the seven seas.
- Liam: Shall we begin, Captain?
- Shay: Indeed, Mate!
- Chevalier: (Idiots...)
- Shay: She's a mess, but she's still afloat. And her name's the Morrigan.
- Chevalier: (Morrigan)... The silly fairy queen who ruined Merlin the Wise. Oh oh... she's perfect for you, Shay.
- Liam: The Morrigan was an old goddess, she's the queen of War and Darkness. She harvested the souls of fallen warriors. Perfect indeed.
Shay and his fellow Assassins witnessed the Gerfaut being attacked by British ships.
- Chevalier: (My God!) My ship! (Those bastards!) They will sink her!
- Liam: Let's put the Morrigan to the test, Captain Shay.
- Shay: Ready for battle, men!
- Chevalier: Stop them, boy!
They're tearing her to pieces! Do something!
My ship!
Shay sank the enemy ships.
- Chevalier: It seems this vessel is battle-ready after all. I will return to what is left of Le Gerfaut. It is a long way home, and we have repairs to do.
- Shay: Sing hearty, lads. Chevalier is pleased with us!
Chevalier departed in a rowboat.
- Liam: What course would you have me set, Shay?
- Shay: Time to report back to the Mentor, wouldn't you agree?
- Liam: Wise words, Captain. Wise words.
After rescuing the captured smugglers and acquiring a ship for himself, Shay prevented Chevalier's vessel from being destroyed by the British attackers.
- It was possible to attack Liam from behind, rather than above. This resulted in a slightly altered cutscene, in which Liam counters Shay's attack, instead of dodging it.
Assassin's Creed: Rogue memories
|Sequence 1
|The Way the Wind Blows - Lessons and Revelations - Tinker Sailor Soldier Spy - By Invitation Only
|Sequence 2
|One Little Victory - We the People - Fiat Lux - Kyrie Eleison - Freewill
|Sequence 3
|The Color of Right - A Long Walk and a Short Drop - Circumstances - Keep Your Friends Close
|Sequence 4
|Honour and Loyalty - Armour and Sword - Scars
|Sequence 5
|Men o' War - Bravado
|Sequence 6
|The Heist - Caress of Steel - No Laws But Our Own - Cold Fire - Non Nobis Domine
|Incomplete memories
|RGVjb25zdHJ1Y3RlZA0K - UHJvdGVjdGlvbg0K - QXNzYXNzaW5hdGlvbg0K
|Assassin interceptions
|Scott Lawson - Kelly Snider - Lewis Johnson - Franklin Greear - Maria Gurley - Michael Crawley - Randall Gordon - Rachel Plourde - David Borgen - Philippe Beaubien - Conan Brown - Marla Capps
|Legendary battles
|The Battle of Labrador - The Battle of Quiberon Bay - Pirates of a Lost Age - The Storm Fortress


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Open a new Italian place and I'm there. So when I saw that Travinia Italian Kitchen was opening a new location only thirty miles away, I made plans to attend.
I first tried using the Hamilton Beach 7 Quart Oval Slow Cooker to create a chicken and spinach lasagna chili for a party. I wanted to make a huge batch of the chili and the Hamilton Beach 7 Quart Oval Slow Cooker was just what I needed. Seven quarts is quite a large amount of food so preparing a meal for the entire family or for a large crowd using the Hamilton Beach 7 Quart Oval Slow Cooker is simple.
Food. Shop like your mother did. Look at the weekly ad circulars the day they come out, and plan your meals around the items on sale. For my kids, I wait until the frozen dinners are $1.88 and stock up. They eat them for after-school snacks and lunches on weekends. That's less than it costs to feed them at school! If they choose them themselves, they'll enjoy them more. My food bill was about $1,200 a month because I like to feed my family quality food, but I cut it back to $600 a month by shopping circulars, cutting back on red meat, and eating more chicken and pasta.
I used about 2 lbs of chicken (bone-in simply because that is all I had) with an onion and a bit of red pepper, plus some chicken broth and spices. Cooked perfectly in 15 minutes. I just had to remove it from the bone and shred it and it was set to be served. I adhered to a slow cooker chicken that stated to cook it on low for eight hours, but I utilized the pressure cooker function for 15 minutes and it was juicy and yummy. I can't recommend this item enough.
Try to get 5-9 servings of fruit and vegetables every day if you can. When you do this, you are providing your body with fiber, which will help you fight hunger. What's more, the fruit and vegetables will help promote your overall health if consumed regularly.
All of these are great ways to help you get started towards reaching your goal and lose 10 pounds in a week. The only thing you have to do is make chicken lasagna by chef gulzar the commitment to see it through.
Does it bother you every time you glance at your weather-beaten garden shed? If you are planning to renovate your existing shed and running out of ideas, you can always look for plans on garden sheds online. You will never run out of ideas since experts out there have intensively crafted practical solutions for you. Do not get stressed out as this will be a lot easier than building a shed from scratch. All you have to do is utilize the available materials and spice up your existing shed. It takes a lot of time browsing for the best ideas on any type of garden sheds online but your efforts will be rewarded once you find the information you need.
If you have a hobby and have out grown a room in your home, then you should consider building a shed designed specifically for that purpose. A shed can be a quiet retreat away from the hustle and bustle in your home. Here you can concentrate on your projects. You can let your creative juices flow in this type of atmosphere. By how to build a shed gable roof you can have your own little piece of paradise.
Without easy to follow plans, you are going to create a lot more stress than is necessary when trying to build your shed. Easy to follow plans will include step by step instructions that anybody who has at least done some handy work in the past can follow. Along with the step by step instructions, the plans will also include detailed diagrams and layouts of the shed you are building.
It is important if you are planning to build a backyard shed that you also take into account any future purchases you are going to make in the years to come. It would be a shame to put a lot of work and effort into building a shed that garden shed only to find out that in a year or two it has become to small for your needs. Planning ahead is essential for a long lasting result. And it is a fact of life that there is no such thing as too much storage space.
It took the better part of 10 minutes to find a book that really sounded great. It was a long sales letter but it really did make sense to me. This guy, Ted McGrath was my kind of guy. All he had to say really struck a chord.
outdoor storage sheds are storage areas used for keeping items often left outside the house when not in use such as bicycles, garden tools, and lawn equipment. They provide a significant amount of space for storage and organization, leaving the garden or backyard free from clutter. If you'll be storing large pieces of equipment, for instance, you may want double doors to provide easy access. If you might want to use your garden shed as a workshop, add windows for light and ventilation. It's possible to get the exterior to match your home, either by painting it or putting on vinyl siding.
Our first step is building the foundation of the shed. You may notice that most sheds are built on concrete blocks or wooden blocks this is done so the foundation won't rot or let water seep in. If you picked up a good set of plans I am sure that this will be a very detailed step.
After determining the shed type and its use, it s time you go in search of a first-class shed plans. You will find many resources from which to choose from. The garden shed cottage companies can help you out in this by providing prefabricated shed or buy yourself a DIY kit. Whatever be the method make sure you have the right kind of shed plan that suits your needs.
Write something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview.
August 2019

subset: commoncrawl


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Click on the links below to read menus.
This institution is an equal opportunity provider and employer
Understanding the Lunch Line: A Parents Guide
Meal Prices
Breakfast $1.50 reduced $.30
Lunch $3.00 reduced $.40
Meal Prices
Breakfast $1.55 reduced $.30
Lunch $3.10 reduced $.40
Edinburgh Schools does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability in admission to its programs, services, or activities, in access to them, in treatment of individuals, or in any aspect of their operations. The lack of English language skills shall not be a barrier to admission or participation in the district's activities and programs. Edinburgh Schools also does not discriminate in its hiring or employment practices.


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Can you imagine the embarrassment?
Officers found a 30-year-old Rock Hill woman standing naked in the road Wednesday claiming she smoked marijuana that may have been laced, according to police.
When officers arrived at the woman's Stonewall Street residence, they found her undressed in the front yard, appearing to have a mental episode, according to a Rock Hill police report.
If you stay away from drugs, things like this don't happen.
Just a tip.
Do you RSS? Don't know what an RSS Feed is?
Save time and read all the latest blog news first.


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Yesterday I pushed out an update to the PHP driver for Ingres into the PHP Extension Community Library (PECL). Whilst it's been labelled as a minor update there have been 15 fixes/additions to the driver:
– Update the unit tests to be more independent
– Add support for the Ingres BOOLEAN type
– Add ingres_fetch_assoc()
– Allow for a 0 offset in all ingres field functions
– Update build scripts for OpenVMS CSWS PHP 2.0
– Fix bug 17556 – Handle errors for non-result returning statements
– Fix bug 16960 – SEGV when fetching the results from a row producing procedure
– Fix bug 16990 – SEGV when executing a database procedure
– Fix bug 17510 – Fix php_ii_set_connect_options so they work as documented
– Fix bug 17302 – _close_statement is unable to free active statements
– Fix bug 17207 – Under certain conditions the driver can SEGV when doing cleaning up
– Fix bug 17198 – Unable to close non-result statements
– Fix bug 17092 – SIGBUS when fetching data on 64-bit Solaris
– IIapi_getDescriptor() should only be called for SELECT statements
– Fix bug 16752 – Send all string values as IIAPI_VCH_TYPE
You can download the source code from http://pecl.php.net/get/ingres or install directly from the command line using the command:
sudo pecl install ingres-2.2.2
Pre-built Windows binaries are available from ESD for PHP 5.1.6, 5.2.13 and 5.3.2. An OpenVMS binary for CSWS PHP 2.0 will be updated today. You can raise questions/problems via the Ingres Community Forums, the project home page or via Service Desk.


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Hampton Inn & Suites at Boerne
Situated in the scenic Hill Country of Texas, Hampton Inn & Suites Boerne is ideally located off the I-10 and Highway 46, just a short drive from San Antonio. Discover our modern guest rooms and suites, featuring our signature clean and fresh Hampton beds®. Ask about our 1,440 sq. ft. meeting room


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CJTF-HOA trains historic Djiboutian Army Rapid Intervention Battalion
The U.S. Marine Corps is arguably one of the most revered institutions within the U.S. Department of Defense. So, when Combined Task Force – Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) leadership recently welcomed members of the Djibouti Armed Forces (FAD) into the U.S. Marine Corps Corporals Course, it was a distinct honor.
CJTF-HOA's continued commitment to training and equipping the RIB enables Djibouti's effectiveness in developing security and stability within its' borders and East Africa.
The Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa's 443rd Civil Affairs Battalion (CAB) Functional Specialty Group (FXSP) veterinarians spayed, dewormed and immunized the cats of Caritas Djibouti here, Aug 30.
Within hours of being notified, CJTF-HOA's East Africa Response Force prepared dozens of Soldiers and tons of supplies for takeoff during an emergency response exercise, validating the EARF's rapid response capabilities.
Civil affairs and information operations personnel from CJTF-HOA met with members of the Rwanda Defence Force to discuss capabilities and pre-deployment tasks for Rwandan CIMIC personnel.


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Cummins Inc. designs manufactures, sells and services diesel and alternative fuel engine from 2.8 to 95 liters, diesel and alternative-fueled electrical generator sets from 2.5 to 3,500 kW, as well as related components and technology. Cummins serves customers through our network of 600 company-owned and independent distributor facilities and more than 7,400 dealer locations in more than 190 countries and territories.
Cummins At-a-Glance:
Corporate Headquarters: Columbus, Indiana
Stock Symbol: CMI (Traded on NYSE)
Founded: 1919
2015 Revenues: $19.1 billion
2015 Fortune 500 Rank: 154
2015 Net Income: $1.4 Billion
Employees: 55,000 worldwide
Copyright © 2016 All Rights Reserved.
Created by eBiz Solutions


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Classification in Mental Retardation: Chapter 3. American Association on Mental Deficiency (AAMD), now American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD)
To define an intellectual disability, 42 CFR 483.102(b)(3)(i) incorporates by reference the definition in AAMD's 1983 Manual. Copies of that manual are hard to find. An scanned copy is provided here. Page 11 indicates that a "developmental period" ends at age 18.
Services and Supports Required for NF Residents with MI and ID: Meaning of PASRR "Specialized Services"
These slides provide written CMS guidance clarifying the definition of "Specialized Services" as the term is used in the PASRR program. These slides were first presented at the 2013 Annual Conference on Home and Community-Based Services.
This file contains the 1992 notice of final rule for PASRR. Of note are the summary of public comments to the Proposed Rule and CMS (then HCFA) responses, in which the agency explains why it took positions in the Final Rule.
This file contains an annotated version of the PASRR regulations, with a note explaining the repeal of the "Annual" Requirement in 1996. This document also contains references to other regulations with direct connections to PASRR, making it easier to see how PASRR fits into other aspects of...
Full text of the Americans with Disabilities Act (originally enacted in 1990), which laid the groundwork for the Supreme Court decision Olmstead v. L.C.


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Inspirational Polaroids
The Polaroids of Sybille Bergemann manage to transform everything into a land of dream and fairy tale like characters. Or as Sybille would put it: "It's the fringes of the world that interest me, not its centre."
A fascinating display of dream like landscapes, pieces of empty furniture, or portraits of characters one would imagine are coming straight from the circus, all can be found in Sibylle's Polaroids. Living in former East Berlin, behind the Iron Curtain which split the communist world from the capitalist one, you could imagine bleak images, or maybe black and white photography from Russian made cameras coming from that era. Polaroid SX-70 camera and film is a powerful symbol of America, and of its capitalist market, and so it was unlikely to be used to create instant images in a former communist country. But the combination works and we are left with a legacy of colour saturated instant photos, that show both the imagination that can sprung when life is not cluttered by all the commodities that surround us now, and the powerful legacy of the instant film over the years.
The washed out colours and deep beauty of her Polaroids evoke a romantic world, in which you could get lost forever, and underline what a great photographic medium instant photography was and is to help you materialize dream like worlds.
Will leave you with some of her photos, great and unique objects in themselves.
There is also a small and great book called Sybille Bergemann – The Polaroids, showed page by page in below video:
And some great website links:
Polaroid Kidd is one of those great examples when the instant camera was used according to its true meaning, to capture an instant fleeing moment and imprint it on one of a kind object, a relic that can be treasured lately.
This guy, Mike Brodie aka the Polaroid Kidd, decided to hop trains and travel all across the United States, with a community of hobos, strong personalities with distinct features and ragged clothes. He captured their portraits and their loved objects on Polaroid film, the rusted but strong palette of colours of the film managing to underline their life on the road, when things get dusted and battered, hair gets messy and clothes are matched in crazy, but distinctive patterns.
Object are part of our life, and we tend to give them connotations, tie them to our loved ones, or just to fleeting moments in life. We love objects and their meaning, and we also love how they are connected with the characters of Mike's Polaroids.
The photos shown below were taken and saved from the Polaroid Kidd blog/website, when it was open. We were fascinated by it, but it is now closed, although you can check Mike's website in which the same journey is captured, albeit not on the great Time Zero Polaroid film. There are also books, here, please check them out. What is even more fascinating is the Polaroid Kidd decided to drop photography altogether and to work as locomotive mechanic, a great continuation of his youth crazy experience of jumping trains.
Some great interviews and articles with him below:
Framework in Los Angeles Times
KQED News


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(UPM Raflatac, Mills River, NC, USA, February 5, 2016 at 17:00 EET) - UPM Raflatac has recently received Clean Industry certification for its label stock slitting and distribution operations in Tultitlan, Mexico. To date, UPM Raflatac's Mexico facility is the first of its kind in the label industry to be awarded this certification.
To achieve Clean Industry certification, companies like UPM Raflatac must meet the legal requirements for environmental protection established by The Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection (PROFEPA) in Mexico. They must also undergo a systematic evaluation of manufacturing procedures and processes (such as environmental impacts and waste management), identify any potential risks and successfully implement applicable preventive and corrective measures.
"We are proud to be the first label stock supplier in the region to receive this highly-respected honor," says Jose Garcia, Sales Director & General Manager, Mexico, Central America & Caribbean. "In addition to all of our other certifications, we believe that Clean Industry certification reinforces UPM Raflatac's commitment to protecting the environment and furthers our goal of becoming the number one supplier in Mexico. Achievements like this are wonderful, concrete examples of our promise to provide high-quality, sustainable label materials complemented by the most customer-oriented service in the industry."
For further information please contact:
Jose Garcia, Sales Director & General Manager, Mexico, Central America & Caribbean, UPM Raflatac, tel. +52 1 55 9195 7230, email@example.com
UPM Raflatac
UPM Raflatac is one of the world's leading producers of self-adhesive label materials. We supply high-quality paper and film label stock for consumer product and industrial labelling through a global network of factories, distribution terminals and sales offices. We employ around 2,800 people and made sales of USD 1.5 billion (EUR 1.2 billion) in 2014. UPM Raflatac is part of UPM - The Biofore Company. Find out more at www.upmraflatac.com.
Follow us on Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook | YouTube | Instagram
Through the renewing of the bio and forest industries, UPM is building a sustainable future across six business areas: UPM Biorefining, UPM Energy, UPM Raflatac, UPM Paper Asia, UPM Paper Europe and North America and UPM Plywood. Our products are made of renewable raw materials and are recyclable. We serve our customers worldwide. The group employs around 20,000 people and its annual sales are approximately EUR 10 billion. UPM shares are listed on NASDAQ OMX Helsinki. UPM - The Biofore Company - www.upm.com


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Gobe was founded on the principles of environmental sustainability while continually striving to have a direct and positive impact on the environmental crisis we undoubtedly face.
Limited edition Prints
Free shipping on orders over $50
Register Your Trees
Now planting in Mozambique
Landscape, travel, outdoor and action, portraits, street and reportage – whatever you're creating, our lens filters will change the way you shoot the world.
Our consciously curated filter kits offer diverse collections of popular filter combinations for creators who like to be prepared.
Our lens adapters let you pair analogue lenses with your digital camera, and mount different makes of lenses with your digital or analogue camera. Unlock new creative possibilities.
It's a digital space for conscious creators to explore their passion for photography, travel, film, art and conservation.
We plant 5 trees for every product purchased. It's our way to lower our impact and re-wild the planet.
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For fast shipping, returns and prices in please visit our store.


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Saturday, September 24, 2016
Cranichis tenuis Reichenbach f. 1865, found some dew covered flowers today.
Today I visited a population of Cranichis tenuis in the Maricao forest. I was surprised to find only seven plants, when last year were dozens. The place where they grow is not often visited by people so human influence is not suspect. I visited the place early in the morning and found these flowers covered with dew. I like how the flowers look.
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You do it anyway. My stupid (expletive expletive) main pc is not working, and that blows my whole routine out of the water. I use the main pc for my online stopwatch and then for my blog cool down. I set my water on the computer desk, and my treadmill is oriented toward the computer so I can glance at the stopwatch.
I laid on the floor for a long time and tried halfheartedly going back to sleep this morning. With two kids sitting on my head and elbowing me in the kidney, I knew it wasn't really going to happen. I contemplated changing out of my workout clothes and sewing. But then something weird happened. I got up, opened up my dinky little netbook and made my morning workout happen. I set the clock for a measly 15 minutes, because I know that is the minimum that my brain needs. I did it and now I feel better! Sometimes the hardest step is the mental one. Out.


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You are currently browsing the tag archive for the 'Noel Fielding' tag.
SPOILER ALERT: This is a joke. Please don't get butthurt because your dream boyfriend might be a hipster (and if your dream boyfriend is Noel Fielding, is definitely a hipster).
Some people never have a chance, really. They say that pedophilia is a vicious cycle and I can only assume that time will show that hipster parents beget hipster kids as well. It is clearly too late for our lost boy Noel Fielding but I hold out hope that his brother Michael Fielding can still be saved. But we must act quickly!
I suspect that Noel Fielding will try to thwart us so first we need to ascertain what sort of a threat he poses! Thus I ask you, dear readers, Noel Fielding – HIP or PED…make your choice…
p.s. Noel Fielding may have Michael dressing like him (skinny jeans and a skeleton jumper) to make him look older but that fake mustache is fooling no one. The boy is clearly underage.*
In America, Russell Brand is probably best known for his role in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall." And as far as I can tell, that acting job is a pretty fair representation of his character in real life as well. To wit, Russell Brand has a reputation as a bit of a Lothario. As such, it wasn't hard to find a few dodgy pictures of him on the internet.


text: In my opinion, to play is a valid tool to implement a teaching that is both effective and capable of preserving the objectives a strong pedagogy. An opinion far from the original if contextualized in that age school that reaches the end of primary school. Are you an audio detective?30 Jan, 2015 in RESOURCES tagged Audacity / Teaching by Alex Di Nunzio


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The TidyTowns 'Our Community Climate Action Award' is one of the Tidy Towns special competitions sponsored by the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment. The overall aim of the Award is to recognise the positive contribution local communities can make in addressing climate change through their TidyTowns activities. The main objectives are to raise awareness and promote behaviour change by encouraging communities to undertake projects that will help lower their carbon footprint.
Awareness campaigns are very important to tackling climate change in Ireland. Spreading information, not only on what climate change is, but on simple ways we can help are excellent Tidy Towns projects. One project winner Monaghan 2016 hosted a seminar with well-informed speakers discussing climate change with the local community. Others projects include eco-camps and workshops teaching people about how they can be more economical with their energy as well as their carbon footprint! Ballycanew Tidy Towns also writes a column for their local newspaper on simple behavioural changes people can do to become more environmentally friendly.
Look back at some of our previous project examples for inspiration, including the 2017 winners. Ennis (2017 Large Town Winners), Ballycanew (2017, Small Town Winners), Monaghan (2016) have some truly inspiring projects that engage the local community in taking real steps to tackle climate change through some simple steps. In recent years our criteria from the Climate Action Award has changed. You may remember that 8 actions needed to be taken in 2016. However, in 2017, this number was reduced to one single innovated idea rather than many little actions.


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The following is a guest post by AddThis VP of Engineering, Charlie Reverte, posted today at APIUX.com. To read the rest of the blog post, click here to go over to their site.
URL design discussions for RESTful web services often degrade into debates over pluralization and parameter names. There are a couple of principles I like to use to keep things simple. Continue reading


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tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27876869490417474652020-08-05T14:25:53.284-04:00The Garden of Sporking PathsThe blog of Erica L. Satifka, science fiction writerErica L. Satifkahttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-33732324151102508952020-07-27T08:00:00.000-04:002020-07-27T08:00:03.920-04:00Story Notes: "Sasquatch Summer"First things first: Yes, after four long years I have another book coming out. I'll be making another post about it soon, but just in case that future post as delayed as this one I should mention that it's cyberpunk set in rural West Virginia, you can pre-order it now, and the cover is amazing. Oh, and the title is Busted Synapses, a reference to the side effects of the drugs used in the book, because you can't have cyberpunk without drugs. I'll be talking about it anywhere I can (which unfortunately doesn't include any bookstores or conventions), including here, but if you liked my previous book Stay Crazy I'd be real stoked if you pre-order this one too.

<img alt="Sasquatch Xing Rectangle - World Famous Sign Co." border="0" height="200" src="data:image/png;base64,[encoded data, 8268 characters]" width="149" />But the novella isn't the only thing that's going down. I'm still writing short stories from time to time, and earlier this month one of those stories was published! Not getting around to writing up story notes until now is pretty inexcusable, but call it a combination of 2020, laziness, and believing the story pretty much speaks for itself.

"Sasquatch Summer" is my first attempt at writing historical fiction. Set in turn-of-the-last-century Oregon, it centers on a small town torn apart by the fight between a small-time timber industrialist, a trainload of New York City anarchists, and the gentle socialist sasquatches that lived (and as far as I know still live) inside Mount Hood. The narrator is Helen, a plucky girl who stumbles into this messy political situation when her brother is kidnapped by sasquatches. Here's an excerpt:

That was the summer the sasquatches came down from Mount Hood and put Papa out of a job.

It wasn't their fault, not really. Sasquatches don't need tools to work. When a sasquatch wants to tear down a tree, he doesn't use an axe. He grips each side with his leathery hands and just pulls until the earth decides to let that tree go. When a tree falls on a sasquatch, the company doesn't have to pay his family any compensation like they did to Jimmy's family. That creature just rolls out from under the tree and keeps on walking.

Of course, most folks didn't see it like that.

Automation has arrived in the Oregon wilderness, courtesy of cryptids who are too intelligent to understand money. To the rescue of both the exploited sasquatches and the dispossessed townsfolk come a motley gang of proto-feminist city folk who seek to form a sasquatch union, but the cultural disconnect between the brash newcomers and the unemployed townies seems like it may do more harm than good for everyone. In the end, the sasquatches need to speak for themselves, but how can a creature that doesn't talk have a voice?

Though written as a several-years-after-the-fact reaction to Occupy Wall Street, this story is really damn 2020. Because I want you to actually read the story, I won't go into the resolution, and will only say that it emphasizes the importance of helping communities on their own terms, and that it's pretty optimistic for one of my stories. You can read it right now at Kaleidotrope, one of the best smaller online magazines out there, and there are many other great stories in this issue. So go read it!
Erica L. Satifkahttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-5283382539472324592019-10-08T08:00:00.000-04:002019-10-08T08:00:00.996-04:00Story Notes: "Trial and Terror" (psst... A PUNK ROCK FUTURE comes out today!)
Somehow, the van makes it most of the way through Iowa. Then it dies all at once, spectacularly, farting out its reserve of gas like an old man on taco night in the run-down nursing home his good-for-nothing children stuck him in after he drove the family sedan into a telephone pole.

Most of those things don't exist anymore. No nursing homes. Only a few sedans. And don't get me started on the lack of taco nights.

Another two months, another story post! My newest one is the 6000ish-word "Trial and Terror," which is my first published sequel.

When the editor of A Punk Rock Future solicited a story from me for the anthology, he specifically mentioned my Interzone story "The Big So-So" (also in audio at Escape Pod) as a story that would fit the theme. And that was when I realized that I wasn't quite done with these characters or their world of permanent ennui due to the sudden withdrawal of alien love drugs. So what did I do? I, uh, wrote a 40,000-word novella with these characters.

I am not a fast writer, nor do I really like writing or pretty much anything about the process other than the brief shot of dopamine when I see my name in a table of contents. However, I finished this novella in about three months, with over half the work squeezed into a two-week span, and I enjoyed nearly every minute of it. The story, naturally, was far too long for a short fiction anthology, so I wrote another story (the aforementioned "Trial and Terror") that chronologically takes place after the novella, which means that this is not just a sequel but the sequel to a sequel, although all of the stories can be read separately from one another and make total sense.

So, anyway! "Trial and Terror" is, as its name implies, a courtroom tale. As in all the Magic Band stories (so named due to featuring a band that is magical, because I bleed creativity from my very pores), your unreliable narrator is Syl, who's not unreliable in the "lies about murdering people" way but instead in the "has spaced five times on picking you up at the airport, will absolutely flake again" way. Not that there are airports in this acktshually decimated world. Unfortunately for them, the band encounters one of the few towns that still clings to something like law and order, and it's up to Syl to get her friend/vocalist Frank's head out of a noose. And maybe there's some romance in the mix? (There is!)

Like I said before, this story (and everything featuring these characters) was insanely fun to write and also funny, at least to me. Maybe you'll laugh too? To find out, buy A Punk Rock Future at Powell's, Amazon, or anywhere else books are sold. There's 25 other "punkpunk" stories in this anthology, including rocking tales from Spencer Ellsworth, Sarah Pinsker, Marie Vibbert, Wendy Nikel, and many more.

(And that novella? Well, I'm still tinkering away at the edits, and whether it's published by someone else or self-published it won't be out until 2021 at the very earliest. In the meantime, I'm definitely open to writing more stuff in this milieu that I love. Big hint.)
Erica L. Satifkahttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-91362186334649466942019-08-07T08:00:00.000-04:002019-08-07T08:00:07.638-04:00Story Notes: "Can You Tell Me How to Get to Apocalypse?" (+ Bonus Flash!)After over a year of not having any stories published at all, suddenly I had two of them come out in the same month. That's how these things happen sometimes! The first and shorter of these is the self-explanatory "You Have Contracted a Deadly Song Virus," which you can read for free at Daily Science Fiction. It's my tenth story there, and probably my most horrific one.

If you like your stories to take longer than five minutes to read, pick up Interzone #282, which includes my short story "Can You Tell Me How to Get to Apocalypse?" illustrated by Vincent Sammy. (Aside: This is my third story with a Sammy illustration, and damn if he doesn't do some insanely incredible work.) A very short excerpt:

A dozen little dead kids sit on the Styrofoam steps outside the only apartment building on Gumdrop Road. They're listening to the newspaper seller. He's talking to them about time.
As is obvious from the title of the story, Gumdrop Road isn't a real place. Like the educational program/media empire that it's based on, it's a television show watched by the last remnants of a dying world that's been annihilated by a virus that attacks the reproductive system. In a world where there's nothing new -- because what's the point? -- people escape into a reboot of childhood comfort viewing. But how do you get child actors when nobody can be born? Well, you read the excerpt.

This spun off from the same flash-writing challenge that spawned "Song Virus," although it quickly expanded beyond flash length. What I'd intended to be a cynical commentary on reboot mania became something much more, as I thought about how this form of cultural recycling might be a reaction to the apocalyptic feel of our times. If you and everyone you love is going to die anyway, why not go with what's safe? Nobody cares about innovation when the world is coming to a close, especially not in the arts. And if it takes digging up a bunch of dead children to lend your comfort viewing the proper amount of verisimilitude, that's not really so bad, is it? It's the end, after all.

Yeah, real cheery story I wrote here.

Anyway, you can get a copy of Interzone #282 from the TTA Press site, on Amazon, or in your classier local bookstores. I have at least one more story coming out by the end of the year, which means I'll be posting on this blog at least one more time. Smell you later.Erica L. Satifkahttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-10212524788665481582018-12-18T08:00:00.000-05:002018-12-18T08:00:11.431-05:00"The Big So-So" Now in Audio; Classes at PCC!Pleased to report that my short story "The Big So-So," originally published late last year in Interzone, is now out in audio on Escape Pod! This is a story very close to my heart, as discussed in the story notes, and I'm happy to see it released to a wider audience (the text is also there if you prefer to read it). And if you like this story, there will be another one set in the same world out in the Kickstarter anthology A Punk Rock Future sometime next year, as well as a novella that is currently in the early editing stage. Fight the entropy of a world gripped by drug-withdrawal-induced ennui with a maybe-magical garage band straight outta Pittsburgh.

Also, I'm teaching another round of my six-week "Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing" adult extension class at Portland Community College. It will run on Saturday mornings from January 26 through March 9, 2019 (with the week of February 23 skipped due to Rainforest Writers Retreat -- put it on your calendar for 2020!), and will be back at the Southeast Campus. You can register here, or email me at the link at the PCC site for more information.

See you in hell, 2018!
Erica L. Satifkahttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-60157027276227124162018-08-09T08:00:00.000-04:002018-08-09T08:00:01.328-04:00Story Notes: "Like Fleas on a Tired Dog's Back"It's been a while! About five months, to be exact. In that time I've finished one instantly trunked novella, one short story, and another novella that is my heart's true joy. I also had two short stories published which I'm going to talk about now!

Interzone no. 275 includes my flash story "The Fate of the World, Reduced to a Ten-Second Pissing Contest," which is the third-longest story title I've ever written. It's a nasty little story about (of course) aliens who make life pretty difficult for a handful of barflies. You can get it and four other stories at the link, one of which ("The Purpose of the Dodo Is to Be Extinct" by Malcolm Devlin) is one of the best stories I've read this year. So you might want to get this issue for that story alone.

The other story, "Like Fleas on a Tired Dog's Back," isn't officially published yet; it will be in the anthology Nowhereville from Broken Eye Books. However, if you don't want to wait you can read it right now! Eyedolon Magazine is a Patreon-based dark/weird fiction publication where you can read stories slated to appear in Nowhereville and many other anthologies! Sign up here for as little as $1 a month and read my story along with all-new work from Kathe Koja, Lucy A. Snyder, Bogi Takács, and Ramsey Campbell.

After her parents are thrown from their car, killed by a moment of planetary betrayal, Megan comes back to the city where she grew up.

The city is of course Pittsburgh, and our planet is pissed off at humanity, just because we destroyed it. Go figure. Earth only has a moment to get its revenge, but it does it in style, creating a catastrophe that spans the globe and leaves aftershocks of both the physical and psychological kind. Humans attempt to survive using technology, but modern-day band-aids aren't going to fix things this time.

Obviously this is a climate change story, based on the Gaia hypothesis. A few months before I wrote it, I read an article about a parasite that makes you allergic to red meat, which made me wonder if the Earth has fail-safes: mechanisms that kick into action when its survival is threatened, that slant the behavior of humans toward ways more befitting to the planet's health. The idea of the Earth suddenly waking up and shaking off its human parasites like the fleas we are was just so appealing. This is also a sibling story, with the bond between Megan and her brother Kyle alternately strained and close in the wake of mass revenge.

Anyway, I hope you read it, either on Eyedolon Magazine or in the Nowhereville anthology when it comes out. I've been exploring climate change in many of my recent not-yet-published pieces, although really, that's just called setting something in the real world now. Watch out for the firenados!Erica L. Satifkahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-60068897301470669272018-03-12T08:00:00.000-04:002018-03-12T08:00:20.411-04:00Two Great KickstartersThere's a couple of Kickstarters running this month that you all should be aware of, and here's a little bit about two of them!

First up is the Kickstarter for Welcome to Miskatonic University and its companion book It Came from Miskatonic University by Broken Eye Books, two anthologies about college life in Arkham's hallowed educational institution. If funded to the $17,500 level, It Came from Miskatonic University will include a co-written story by me and my spouse/in-house editor Rob McMonigal called "The Last Observer." Although Rob has been editing my work since 2012 (when I got my head out of my ass and started writing again), this is our first time tag-teaming on a story, and I really hope it sees print. The books also feature work by Angela Slatter, Jennifer Brozek, Kristi DeMeester, and many other horror and weird fiction authors. There's a lot of different book levels and goodies available for rewards, including a critique by me of any work of fiction up to 10,000 words in length. You can support the Kickstarter here!

There's also a Kickstarter running for two more years of The Dark. Publishers of quality unsettling fiction for the past several years, The Dark features a wide variety of diverse writers, with over half of the published stories being by women and over a third by people of color. Some of my favorite stories from the past few years of The Dark have been Carrie Laben's "Postcards from Natalie" (which won the Shirley Jackson Award!), "Five Boys Went to War" by Amanda E. Forrest, and "The House That Jessica Built" by Nadia Bulkin. My own quantum suicide story "Lucky Girl" appeared in the September 2017 issue. This Kickstarter also has a reward tier that includes a critique by me (again up to 10,000 words). Support The Dark at this link!
Erica L. Satifkahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-45255366990763845112017-12-11T08:00:00.000-05:002017-12-11T08:00:29.703-05:00Story Notes: "The Big So-So"I write relatively few stories in first person. (Regular-sized stories, that is. I write a lot of flash in first person but writing flash is in my opinion completely different from writing a regular-sized story, so of course the techniques are going to change.) I can think of some reasons why that might be, but I think the main one is that most of my stories don't need a first person narrator. Besides, at any length much above a thousand words my own internal voice is going to kick in, and I don't want all of my stories to sound the same.

But hey, I can have one story like that. One story where I get to indulge a goofy internal narrative style. One story that's more about the way the story is being told than plot or conflict, one story that needs to be in first person because that's the only way it can be written. And that story is this story, "The Big So-So," which is out in the current issue of Interzone (November/December 2017).

I look over at Dorky. She looks over at me. She mouths the words "play along."

 And I mouth the word "what?" because for the life of me I can't figure out what the hell the point of this little stunt is.

 The seed of this story came out of my novel Stay Crazy, specifically the fact that while I share many demographic particulars with Em-the-protagonist, I don't have schizophrenia, though am "neuro-atypical" (a term I grudgingly use) in other ways. This led to a lot of waffling about whether I could really consider the book "ownvoices," and I decided that as a kind of balancing tactic I'd write a story about a character with my own strain of "neurodiversity": attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

One of the quirks of ADHD is that chemicals (especially stimulants, but others too) don't affect us in the same way as non-ADHD people. So for "The Big So-So," I came up with the idea of an alien love drug that has a drastic effect on everyone except Sylvia, the attention-deficient narrator. But being spared from the high also means Syl is saved from the crash that happens when the aliens withdraw the drug, which means she's in an excellent position to help society rebuild.

In addition to neurodiversity, I wanted to write a story where restoration of the world after social collapse happened slowly and organically, and not as the result of any sudden heroics on Syl's part or anyone else's. Small actions making a positive change in the world one at a time. This may just be the most positive story I've ever written. (If you're curious, the band in the story sounds a lot like Brokencyde. Also, you should probably not listen to that video.)

And the story is set in Pittsburgh, because what city better exemplifies a slow recovery from a death spiral, and is also a place I lived for five years?

If you want to read the story, you can buy the issue here from TTA Press, or email me at satifka at gmail dot com. By the way, the title comes from the opening line of the song below. Sleater-Kinney is a much better band than the one in the story.

Erica L. Satifkahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-27067109393423716642017-11-27T08:00:00.000-05:002018-01-13T15:54:58.514-05:00Trying to Try: My 2017 Award Eligibility Post!
It's award season, the most stressful time of a writer's year, or so I've been told. As winning the British Fantasy Award was one of the best things that has ever happened to me, I figured that it would be a not-terrible idea to list the fiction I've had published this year, in case it happens again? But it probably won't. But it might??

While I didn't write as much this year as I'd hoped to (for reasons possibly to be enumerated in a non-writing-related yearly roundup post I may write but probably won't), I had five stories out: two flashes, two regular size dealies, and one novelette (!). I'll go through them from longest to shortest.

The novelette is "The Goddess of the Highway" at Interzone, which is a new market for me. At approximately 12,600 words it is the longest thing I've ever had published that isn't Stay Crazy (please buy now), and one of my longest stories period. So if you like reading my stuff, well, here's a big old chunk of it. I wrote a post about it here, but the keywords are: prosthetic brains, road trip, socialism, pancakes. It's not available online since Interzone is a print magazine, but you can get the digital issue here or email me at satifka at gmail dot com and I'll just send you the damn thing. (EDIT: This story is now available to read for free at my website at this link thanks to Interzone editor Andy Cox.)

The next-longest short story is "The Big So-So," which is also in Interzone! Just like "Goddess" the print copy features some amazing interior art by Vincent Sammy. This story came out so recently that I'm still behind on writing a "story notes" post about it, but basically it's about a bunch of slackers living in Pittsburgh after aliens hooked the whole planet on happy juice (and then took it away). One of my quirks as a writer is that I write very few stories in the first person, and this was my attempt to write a short story that could only be told in first person, because the way the story is told is just as important as the plot itself. Just like above, you can get the digital issue at TTA Press or email me. This story is around 5200 words long.

Story number three is "Lucky Girl" at The Dark, again a new market, and this one is online! I call it an ontological horror story, and it's pretty damn terrifying to me, although it could also be read as just a straight non-genre piece (but where's the fun in that?). The story notes are here, although they mostly wound up being about Sliders. 3900 words.

We also got this cat in 2017, so as you can see, not a complete loss.

Taking up the rear are my two flash pieces, which were both published in Daily Science Fiction. "Attending Your Own Funeral: An Etiquette Guide" is a quiet piece about alternate universes and taking it easy, and "Bitter Medicine" is about humans being human (that's bad). I don't usually have much to say about flash, even when it's my own, but if you've only got a few minutes and you really want to read a Satifka story, well there you go.

So, that was my year in publications. Not quite as prolific as 2014 and 2015, but better than last year, because let's face it anything was better than last year. If you like any of these stories, feel free to recommend them or (if you're a SFWA member) put them on the Nebula Suggested Reading List ("Goddess" is already on there, which makes me incredibly happy). And here's to hopefully a 2018 with even more published work, which means I have to write more stuff, because except for solicited pieces I'm fresh out. Maybe I shouldn't admit that. Well, can't erase it now.

(Oh, and if you're wondering whether these stories are fantasy, science fiction, or horror? Yes, they are!)

Erica L. Satifkahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-32164693608262051112017-11-22T08:00:00.000-05:002017-11-22T08:00:20.387-05:00It's the Apex Black Friday 2017 Sale!Capitalism ahoy! For the next five days (all the way through "Cyber Monday") you can get all books in the Apex catalog for 30% off with the code CHEER17. This includes my British Fantasy Award-winning novel Stay Crazy, which you probably already have if you read this blog, but on the off chance you don't well now you can.

In addition, year-themed packs of Apex novels are on sale, with the 2016 one (which includes my book and seven others) a mere $80 for print and $18 for digital. You can get it here. It's a good chance to stock up a lot of books for your home, school, library, place of business, or just to build a cool fort.

Starts before whenever you read this, ends November 27!
Erica L. Satifkahttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-82552954415974660402017-11-13T08:00:00.000-05:002017-11-17T00:46:44.331-05:00My OryCon 39 Schedule!OryCon 39 is this weekend! Specifically, November 17th - 19th at the Red Lion Hotel in Jantzen Beach. Here's where I'll be:

Friday, November 17

Literary Techniques: Awesome or Snobby? (7:00 pm - 8:00 pm) - Literary fiction and genre fiction has been at odds for a long time, but they don't have to be enemies. Learn some literary techniques that will help improve your writing and take you deeper into your story. You may even end up with a great reading list of 'literary' genre fiction that will challenge your preconceptions about literary fiction and literary devices. Jeff Soesbe, Erica L. Satifka, Laurel Anne Hill (M), Leigh Goodison

Saturday, November 18

Spaceships, Colonists, and Castaways (11:00 am - 12:00 pm) - How small communities function in isolated conditions with minimal resources. Bart Kemper, Erica L. Satifka (M), Blaze Ward, John M. Lovett

Political Economy for World Builders (12:00 pm - 1:00 pm) - Learn the basics of political philosophy, forms of government and economic systems to inspire your story, game or more informed voting habits. Erica L. Satifka, A.M. Brosius

Autograph Session 4 (3:00 pm - 4:00 pm) - Get your books (or whatever) signed by your favorite writers! Erica L. Satifka, EM Prazeman, Amy DuBoff, Sheila Finch

Escape With Us! (5:00 pm - 6:00 pm) - While film is often used to explore complex social themes and situations, the movie theater also functions as a refuge from reality. The nature of the escape changes depending on the larger social landscape. Does the current proliferation of films about super heroes and live-action fairy tales reflect a cultural desire to be rescued, or is it something else? Erica L. Satifka (M), Judith R. Conly, Marshall Ryan Maresca, John M. Lovett

Crime and Fantasy (8:00 pm - 9:00 pm) - From vampire assassins to wizard private eyes to undead thugs, crime has been mixing it up with fantasy for years. What is it about crime, noir, and the paranormal that's so appealing? Also - what are some really good titles? Erica L. Satifka, Fonda Lee, Diana Pharaoh Francis (M), Marshall Ryan Maresca, Rory Miller

Sunday, November 19

Erica L. Satifka Reading (10:00 am - 10:30 am) - Erica L. Satifka reads from her works.

I'll be selling copies of my British Fantasy Award-winning novel Stay Crazy for $10 (the "get these excess book copies out of my house so I can fill that space with candy" price) at the autograph session, and reading from my newest short fiction publication "The Goddess of the Highway" at the reading. And... that's it! See you there!
Erica L. Satifkahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-88290305716830007432017-10-24T08:00:00.000-04:002017-10-24T08:00:20.797-04:00Video Interviews!This weekend I did two video interviews for the SFWA Fantasy Storybundle! In the first one I interview Sally Wiener Grotta, author of The Winter Boy, one of the twelve books in the Storybundle. And in the second I'm interviewed by Cat Rambo about Stay Crazy and short story writing. Features a special appearance by Rue the cat, who honestly waited as long as she could before trying to sit on my neck. Take a look, and make sure to check out the Storybundle! Twelve books, fifteen bucks, ends November 2nd.

Erica L. Satifkahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-46834059648294657322017-10-18T08:00:00.000-04:002017-10-18T08:00:00.308-04:00Story Notes: "The Goddess of the Highway" / New Flash Story!

So now that the magazine it's printed in is almost off the shelves, I figured I'd blather a little bit about my novelette "The Goddess of the Highway." It appears in the September/October issue of Interzone, and it's the longest story I've ever had published aside from Stay Crazy. The beginning:

Sixteen hours, four minutes, seven seconds.

He's tired and wired all at once. His shoulders ache with the tension brought on by the bennies, and his teeth have worn down to nubs. He can hear them grind even through the soothing tones of the in-cab entertainment system, which is currently broadcasting soft piano paired with roundish blue-green shapes.

Sixteen hours, eight minutes, forty-nine seconds.

Like a lot of my stories, "Goddess" was inspired by something I hate, specifically the movie Idiocracy. If you haven't seen it, Idiocracy is about a dysgenic future where only the stupid have bred, so people water their lawns with Gatorade and elect a pro wrestler as President. (Hey, our President only guest starred on wrestling!) Of course, as everyone knows intelligence is impacted very little by genetics, and environment is by far a larger factor.

In "Goddess," intelligence-destroying bombs ruin people's brains, requiring prosthetics to replace the lost functions. And of course, the prosthetics are coded by color and material, running from Plastic (the lowest caste) to Platinum (people as smart or smarter than today's geniuses). A Plastic-plated truck driver named Harp meets up with a Platinum rebel with an unclear cause named Spike, and together they might just figure out the secret behind the bombs, and a way to fix everything. Oh, and there's a metaphysical being that appears whenever you've taken way too many amphetamines, because yeah.

Under the influence of the neurobombs, society has become static. Like in Brave New World, humanity has been strictly corralled into castes, but their limitations are not inborn. Desperate to get their old brains back, lower-caste humans gobble up smart drugs, but those are only a temporary reprieve from the cruel system. What's needed is revolution, but what kind of revolution can you have in a world where most of the citizens can't even remember how to tie their shoes? Well, you'll see.

This is also a commentary on artificial scarcity and how it's used to control working-class people. There's nothing keeping everyone from having the best prosthetics, just as there's nothing keeping us from socialized medicine or a better public education system or luxury gay space communism. Nothing, that is, except our own need to control other people. Of course, once the society of "Goddess" is set up, it's hard to break out of it. Even if the limitations are not inborn, they're still there. Most of the people in the story are only vaguely aware they're being oppressed, which makes the task of toppling the social order even harder. And then there's the ontological mystery of the Goddess herself, who might be real or just a figment of Harp's shattered mind, or maybe it's some kind of Schrodinger's Cat thing. So it's a lot of my favorite themes all wrapped up in one super-sized piece of fiction.

It's not online, but you can buy the issue here, and also on Amazon if you so wish. I'm immensely proud of this story, and super stoked to have made a sale to Interzone.

***

Also, I had a flash story out yesterday! "Bitter Medicine" in Daily Science Fiction is the story of an alien hunter/medical researcher who does what humans do best. If you didn't already know I was a huge misanthrope, well, now you do. Go and read if you wanna.

Erica L. Satifkahttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-6375419711442300502017-10-13T08:00:00.000-04:002017-10-13T08:00:01.066-04:00The SFWA Fantasy StoryBundle!Good news, everybody! My British Fantasy Award-winning novel Stay Crazy is included in this StoryBundle, comprised of books written by members of SFWA and curated by president Cat Rambo. Five bucks will get you four books, but $15 will get you all twelve, including mine! Some selected reviews:

"She writes the scenes of madness with pure poetic fire. The kind of writing that slinks in and settles into you, and makes you keep reading and reading onward. The moments when she was off her medications and her schizophrenia is taking hold feel so true and so right and so on point." --Paul Jessup, The Unsung Letter #12

"[T]he greatest strength of Stay Crazy is its incredible depiction of paranoid delusions and the way those delusions mix with the sci-fi element to keep both Em and the reader off their game." --N.S. Dolkart, author of Silent Hall

Get the bundle here, and help support an organization that advocates for professional science fiction and fantasy writers, as well as fill you up on reading material for the rest of the year!

Erica L. Satifkahttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-44282546331804449782017-10-07T08:00:00.000-04:002017-10-07T08:00:13.953-04:00Fantasycon 2017: A Jolly Good Surprise!I am pleased glad deliriously ecstatic to report that Stay Crazy has won the British Fantasy Award for Best Newcomer!

I did have a speech prepared, but I promptly forgot all of it once I got to the podium and I'm not even quite sure what I said once I was up there. (If it was embarrassing, please don't ever let me know.) So in case I didn't say it then, I want to thank my publishers Jason Sizemore and Lesley Conner at Apex, my writing mentor and biggest supporter Nick Mamatas, all the short fiction editors who have bought my work over the years, my spouse/in-house editor Rob, and most of all the British Fantasy Society. I could not be happier that my little small press book has been so greatly honored. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Fantasycon itself was wonderful, as was the week in London preceding it. I was especially happy to meet some of my UK-based writer friends, including Eliza Chan, G.V. Anderson, and Georgina Bruce (who won the BFA for Best Short Story, yeah!). I spent a little bit of time hanging out with the Interzone crew (psst, you can buy new the new issue now, which I am in!) and awkwardly barconning. I'm not sure if I'll ever make it back to Fantasycon as it's a bit of a hike, but I hope to see some of the folks I met there at the Dublin Worldcon in 2018, because that's definitely a thing we're planning to do.

Been back home for a week now, and just getting back into the writing swing of things. Some people write on their vacations, but I'm not one of them. Hope to have some new sales and progress reports soon, but until then, you can buy a copy of Stay Crazy directly from Apex here. And keep listening for the signals!Erica L. Satifkahttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-67801706544125458092017-09-21T08:00:00.000-04:002017-09-21T00:19:16.201-04:00My Fantasycon 2017 Schedule!In light of being nominated for the British Fantasy Award for Best Newcomer (!!! <--this is still deserving of multiple exclamation points), and it being my first award nomination, and having the ability to splurge on a major trip for which I am extremely grateful, I'm going to England! Rob and I will be in London for a week, followed by a few days in Peterborough for Fantasycon 2017. If you want to actually see pictures of and commentary on the trip I'll be dropping them on Twitter and Facebook. I'm also going to be on two panels at the con, and here they are! Both of them are on Saturday, September 30.

New Author Experiences (1:00 PM): Every writer has a different path towards getting their work published and finding an audience. Join a selection of new writers on this panel who are experiencing different parts of the process and listen as they compare their journeys. Phil Lunt (mod), Jeanette Ng, Anthony Laken, Erica L. Satifka, Kevin Elliott, Joseph E. Cole

Being BFA Nominees (4:00 PM): An award nomination can be a great confidence booster for a writer. It can also lead to all sorts of new opportunities. Our panel of BFA nominees will discuss what got them to this stage and what they hope their nominations will bring in the future. Ian Hunter (mod), Erica L. Satifka, Pete Sutton, Neil Williamson, Phil Sloman

I will also have copies of Stay Crazy for sale in the dealers' room and would like to make space in my luggage for books and touristy things, hint hint.

And finally, in short fiction news, my novelette "The Goddess of the Highway" is out in the current issue of Interzone (272), along with stories by Paul Jessup, T.R. Napper, and Aliya Whiteley. I'm waiting to talk about the story until people have gotten copies of the magazine and read it, but in the meantime check out the gorgeous story art below by Vincent Sammy, which pretty much nailed my own mental picture of the titular character.

Erica L. Satifkahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-68261272064759958952017-09-02T08:00:00.000-04:002017-09-02T08:00:03.222-04:00Story Notes: "Lucky Girl"It's a new story day! (Actually, a double-new story day, but I'm saving the other announcement for later.) This month in The Dark is "Lucky Girl," a little bit of parallel-dimension existential horror. A clip:

Mike's sister Natalie had attempted suicide on eleven separate occasions, each time using a different method. Cutting her wrists, knocking back three family-size bottles of Tylenol, hanging herself with a hospital bed sheet, jumping into the Columbia River with a bag of stones around her waist. She'd even gone into the woods smeared with bacon fat and gotten herself mauled by a cougar, which only seemed ridiculous because Natalie had survived with barely a scratch. If she hadn't, it would have been tragic.

The background: In the nineties, there was this really bad show called Sliders that I thought was very good, because I was a teenager. It was about a group of people who traveled to parallel worlds where a minor change in the past caused reality to branch out, and it blew my mind. Were parallel worlds real? What caused them to splinter off? Could my everyday actions cause a parallel world? If I were smart, I'd have gone into physics, but instead I became a science fiction writer.

A few years after I stopped paying attention to Sliders (the show having gotten too bad even for me), I discovered a band called The Eels, which happens to be fronted by the son of the man who created the many-worlds theory, Hugh Everett III. In case you don't want to click through that Wiki link, just know that the Everetts' story is interesting as fuck. The Eels' best album, 1998's Electro-Shock Blues, is about the frontman's sister Elizabeth, and this is the part where I start relating all this background information to the actual story.

Elizabeth Everett, like Natalie in "Lucky Girl," committed suicide in order to travel to a different parallel world. Hugh himself neglected his health after coming up with the many-worlds theorem, and died at the age of fifty-one from preventable causes. These things are tragedies, but it made me think about how thoroughly an idea can shatter someone's world... and this being science fiction, about what happens if that idea turns out to be true.

The thing about quantum immortality that makes it horrific is that it's deeply solipsistic. If you're the only constant in your universe, you can die over and over again without ever reaching what Natalie in the story (yes, most of these story notes are only tangentially about the story, I realize that now) calls the "zero point zero zero zero zero one universe," the one where you're least likely to be alive. After a time, it would wear on you, to have a "life track" where you're the only real inhabitant. Far from being something desirable, quantum immortality would kill your soul, and once you'd shunted yourself into more than a handful of "split-offs," it makes sense that you'd keep dying over and over again. Because what else is there to do? Might as well keep traveling now that you've gone this far. And if you die when you're old from natural causes? Then expect an infinity of parallel worlds, where your mind keeps flipping into a succession of nearly identical hospital rooms, trying to survive. Better hope you're not in any pain!

Basically, what I'm saying is that I desperately hope Hugh Everett III was full of shit.

So anyway, that's "Lucky Girl," or at least some rambling about things kinda relating to the story but not really. Physics are wacky, guys. Oh, and listen to The Eels. Here's the opener from the album, "Elizabeth on the Bathroom Floor."
Erica L. Satifkahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-74874380160779038792017-07-17T08:00:00.000-04:002017-07-17T08:00:24.674-04:00In Which I Am Nominated for an Award!You know how it goes: You're sitting in a neurologist's waiting room running on a medically-mandated two hours of sleep. You're reading Twitter, because you're always reading Twitter, and you see that you've been nominated for a British Fantasy Award. And then the EEG tech comes and gets you, and you can't play with your phone anymore, and you mumble something like "I think I've just been nominated for an award" but the tech is all "oh dear, you are tired, aren't you?" You lay in a quiet room for an hour trying to take a medically-mandated nap but you can't because you're wondering: did it happen?

It totally did.

I am so thrilled and honored that my debut novel Stay Crazy has been nominated for a British Fantasy Award in the Best Newcomer category. My first shortlist! So incredibly stoked! This book is pretty important to me, and it means the world that some other folks liked it too. Thank you judges and readers, from the bottom of my heart.

Assuming we can get passports and a hotel, I'll be attending Fantasycon 2017, as well as spending a week in the UK because why not. My first trip overseas! Exciting! See you there!

Erica L. Satifkahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-65596316629290366072016-12-30T08:00:00.000-05:002017-01-01T13:05:00.889-05:00More STAY CRAZY Reviews!Response to Stay Crazy has been trickling in slowly but surely. Over on LiveJournal (still!) Nick Mamatas lists it as one of his best five books of the year, saying "I blurbed this one! 'Had Philip K. Dick lived through riot grrrl and the collapse of America's industrial economy, Stay Crazy would be his memoir. Erica Satifka is a prophet.' I think this book was hilarious, telling, and raw. It definitely worked hard to avoid crazy-person-is-magic cliches at the same time. Plus, after the largely unexpected election result, the United States will become more and more like the town in Stay Crazy. I'd said that Satifka was a prophet before Trump won the election—I hate to be a prophet myself, but..."

Meanwhile, at Bogi Reads the World, Bogi Takács also puts it on eir year-end list, with this blurb: "On the surface a snarky, cynical romp with a mentally ill woman battling aliens in a big-box store, then a semi-autobiographic examination of class issues in rural America, and then sheer Dickian existential vertigo. At one point I had to stop reading this and wait for the sun to come up, just to make sure all was right with the world. Then Trump got elected. (To make it clear, I am not blaming the book.)"

(Maybe I did cause Trump! Uh, sorry about that? Like, really really sorry?)

Jason Sanford calls Stay Crazy the best SF debut of the year, remarking "Stay Crazy mixes a fast-paced science fiction plot with deft social criticism, characters you'll love, and laugh-out-loud humor. The novel is also an excellent exploration of neurodiversity and how there are multiple ways to see both your own life and the world around us." (And if you haven't read it, check out his easy fix for the execrable film Passengers.)

And last but not least, James Nicoll (one of my fave reviewers) posted a review saying in part: "Mentally unstable protagonists offer authors an easy way to keep the audience unsure as to whether what seems to be going on is what's actually going on. Also, they offer an even easier way to for authors to treat their protagonists in a shallow, exploitative way. Satifka avoids that trap: Em is a rounded character. She may be an unreliable observer but she's not a caricature."

Not doing a 2016 wrap-up post because I wrote very little this year what with the election and all. Next year's output will depend on whether we're fighting Civil War II or World War III or both (the smart money is on both), but hopefully I will squeeze in some fiction. After all, who doesn't want to escape reality by reading a book? Oh wait, what do I write again.... aw, crap.
Erica L. Satifkahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-63958014975593912882016-11-28T08:00:00.000-05:002016-11-28T08:00:12.386-05:00A Banana-Cream Pie Dropped from a Stepladder: My 2016 Award Eligibility PostSo we seem to have entered the time of year when I have to look away from the trainwreck of American democracy and list the works I've had published this year! Between the election and -- okay, it's all election -- I haven't been doing much writing or submitting. I only had four things published this year, which is half of what I had published in 2015 and and also 2014. As a certain President-elect would say, sad!

However, one of them is a novel! Stay Crazy is 65,000 words of paranoid Walmart alien fighting action, and it's already gotten some amazing reviews on Goodreads and Amazon. As a debut novel, it's eligible for all first-novel awards as well as the standard ones, and while I'm not convinced a little book like this has a hope of being nominated for a big-time award, I'd be honored if folks would consider it. (And for the rest of today, November 28, it's available for 40% off directly through Apex.)

I am also equally proud of my short story "After We Walked Away," which was published last week by Apex Magazine. It's an answer to Le Guin's story, but a million times more dark and desperate and gory. It's so new that I haven't really gotten many reviews of it yet, but people who've read it seem to be digging it, and at 3700 words it's also a bit on the short side. If you know Ursula, feel free to send her a copy, I'm too scared.

The other stories I had published this year are "Human Resources" in Fireside and "The Panoptimom" in Ember: A Journal of Luminous Things. They are also good stories that don't take much time to read!

If you like my story or book, or any others, you can list it/them on the SFWA Reading List if you're a member, or on your own site if you're not. Trust me when I say that no matter how dire things in the world are right now, every writer still feels a little lift when someone says they like our stories, and it lasts until the next time we check Twitter.Erica L. Satifkahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-66783598318324229912016-11-25T08:00:00.000-05:002016-11-25T08:00:00.162-05:00Apex Black Friday Sale!

Survived another contentious Thanksgiving dinner? Celebrate with cheap books from the Apex Publications Black Friday sale!!! From Black Friday to the snort-inducing neoholiday of Cyber Monday, you can get a copy of Stay Crazy or any other Apex book for 40% off! For the math-challenged among us (like me) that means you can get the ebook for $4.20 (heh) and the paperback for $9.57. All orders of physical books above $25 also receive free shipping! Just use the checkout code GIVE16.

Already have my book? Then check out Jennifer Pelland's Unwelcome Bodies (one of my top five single-author story collections), the varied mil-SF anthology War Stories, or E. Catherine Tobler's transcendent 2016 novella The Kraken Sea. Or anything else! You know you want to buy books anyway, so get them from the small-press source instead of giving Amazon your business.

(However, if you have a moment to spare, please leave reviews on Amazon and Goodreads! They really do help.)Erica L. Satifkahttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-2799983562026080652016-11-22T08:00:00.000-05:002016-11-22T08:00:17.141-05:00Story Notes: "After We Walked Away"My short story "After We Walked Away" is now available to be read free at the Apex Magazine website!

Of note: this is my last short story scheduled to be published. I still have a handful of them out on submission, but due to the election my writing volume has gone way down. The results of the election obviously haven't helped matters. There are a couple other things wrapped up in this as well, but in short, living in a Philip K. Dick world is not really that much of an inspiration for writing Phildickian fiction. Who knew?

But! I do have this story, which draws its inspiration not from my #1 Patronus but instead from the seminal story by his high-school classmate. If you haven't already read "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas," then I'm actually kind of surprised! You should read it now, because my story may not make as much sense without knowing the background. Also it's pretty fucking dark, maybe the darkest thing I've ever written.

So the complaint I've always had about Le Guin's story is that leaving doesn't really fix anything. I'm not the first person to point this out, but it seems to me that leaving Omelas isn't only useless for the child scapegoat that powers the city's uncanny joy, but it's also not a good decision for the leavers. While the original doesn't describe the world outside (saying only that it is "less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness"), one can easily posit that the world outside is our world, where there is not one scapegoat but many, and misery is not "concentrated to a single point."

From a utilitarian standpoint, Omelas is a paradise with no asterisk. Of course it's better that one suffer greatly so that many don't have to suffer moderately. It's logical. However, most human beings aren't logical. I'm certainly not. And so, Omelas is a horror, a place that knowingly makes a Faustian bargain in order to enjoy an easy, magical happiness.

And yet, I can't see the real world as being all that much better than Omelas. In fact, it's probably much worse than Omelas, because there are a lot more people in pain, and suffering is entirely random. If Omelas/Solved City is a utopia with a rotten open secret at its heart, the outside world is just rotten. The characters can't organize a fight against all these injustices, because there are too many of them. It would have been easier to stay and fight, or if not fight, then acquiesce to a world powered by "violence-magic." It's not a brave choice, but if the only other option is misery for all including you, then maybe that changes things a little. Humans aren't logical, but we're even less brave. (I told you this story was dark!)

Anyway, if you have a few minutes to spare, read the story. I can't promise you a fun time but at least it's a way to divert your post-election depression for a short while.Erica L. Satifkahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-72862739528088223772016-11-17T08:00:00.000-05:002016-11-17T08:00:21.503-05:00My OryCon 2016 ScheduleFirst of all: Yep, world's a shitshow. I'm not gonna go into politics here not because I don't want to but because this blog is pretty much a dumping ground for my con schedules and reviews of my book and stories. If you want to know my up-to-the-minute thoughts on the waking nightmare we all live in you can check out my Twitter and Facebook.

So with that in mind, OryCon 2016 is this coming weekend (November 18-20) and here is my schedule!

FRIDAY

1:00 pm - 2:00 pm: Women Role Models in Science Fiction - Are there any good female role models in science fiction? Or are they still relegated to being damsels in distress? A discussion of both weak and strong female science fiction characters across all media.Christina Hartley, David Weber, Erica Satifka (M), Mike Shepherd

SATURDAY

12:00 pm - 12:30 pm: Erica L. Satifka Reading - Erica L. Satifka reads from her debut novel Stay Crazy.

2:00 pm - 3:00 pm: Underpinnings of World Building - Waste water treatment, civil engineering, power generation - how much do you need to have to make your world believable? Erica Satifka (M), JJ Ark, Ken Lizzi, Mark Ezell, Vannessa McClelland

6:00 pm - 7:00 pm: We Can't Talk to Flipper, so How Can We Talk to Aliens? - The real problems of inter-species communications, and things we might be able to do to deal with them. Universal translator? Let's start with *a* translator. Erica Satifka (M), Gerald Nordley, Howard Davidson, Peter Wacks

8:00 pm - 9:00 pm: Political Economy for World Builders - Learn the basics of political philosophy, forms of government and economic systems to inspire your story, game or more informed voting habits. Erica Satifka, Matt Bellet

SUNDAY
11:00 am - 12:00 pm: The Death of the Stand-Alone Book - Trilogies, tetralogies--we're not even sure of the right names for five, six, seven-book series! Where does the madness end? Is there no market any more for non-series books? Diana Francis, Erica Satifka, Maura van der Linden, Tori Centanni (M), William Hertling

1:00 pm - 2:00 pm: Structurally Speaking - Stories have rhythm. Is there One True Pattern, or can we mess with it? Are we really bound to the Hero's Journey, or are there other models? David Boop, Erica Satifka, John C. Bunnell, Sharon Joss (M), Theresa Reed

And that's it! I will also have copies of Stay Crazy both in the dealers room and with me if you'd like to get one. I'm told it's quite humorous, which might make it a pleasing diversion from this hellscape.
Erica L. Satifkahttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-26667748178146703032016-10-03T08:00:00.000-04:002016-10-04T13:15:52.609-04:00The STAY CRAZY Ridiculous Cosplay GiveawaySo at least one person is a Stay Crazy superfan. Here's one of my spouse/in-house editor Rob's coworkers in Em cosplay:

And... we have an idea for a giveaway. Take a photo of yourself or someone else holding a hairdryer and communicating with a package of frozen food, and Twitter-tag both @ericasatifka and @ApexBookCompany. Battle pose is optional, but recommended. I'll retweet everything, then randomly pick one person to receive a signed physical copy of Stay Crazy. You must live in the United States! I'll be closing the competition at ten entries or Halloween evening, whichever comes later. And hey, horror is one of the genres in which people keep trying to stick this book (along with urban fantasy, science fiction, young/new adult, and humor), so it even kind of fits! You can read the first two chapters of Stay Crazy here if you'd like, but keep in mind this is right before all the weird shit goes down. I promise you, however, weird shit does indeed go down.

In the meantime, if you've read Stay Crazy, please consider leaving a review on Goodreads or Amazon. They really do help, especially for small press books that don't get a lot of mainstream attention. It is easy much of the time for writers to believe we're shouting into the void, and it's not a great place to be, and not only because Donald Trump is there.

And lastly, here is a picture of my book fort. These babies will see you at OryCon:

Erica L. Satifkahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-1356361881312989582016-09-13T08:00:00.000-04:002016-09-13T08:00:00.151-04:00STAY CRAZY Review Roundup!I am not a very good blogger, and I'm only barely a better Twitterer. However, I have been getting some pretty great reviews of Stay Crazy, out RIGHT NOW from Apex Publications, and I might as well share them on Ye Olde Blog, for the three people who might follow me here and not on Twitter or FB. Some highlights:

"We really need more stories like this. Not just in the sense of how it deals with mental illness, but which acknowledge struggles that don't end cleanly or may not end at all after the big ugly has been banished beyond our realms, while, at the same time, showing us people coming to realize this and accepting it as part of their life while finding value in the small, daily victories." --Cemetery Dance Online

"Stay Crazy was a blast to read. This is a tale where "crazy" runs amok, not only in the title, but in just about every aspect of the story. If you've ever felt just the slightest bit crazy yourself, then this book is for you." --Books, Bones & Buffy

"Stay Crazy treads the common ground between science fiction, horror, and fantasy. It taps a common plot thread, the gap between the fantastical and the insane, but doesn't scruple to twist convention for its own purpose. The persistent tragic undercurrent to both the setting and the characters keeps it grounded in a grim reality, without being overwhelmed by despair. That alone, in my estimation, makes it well worth a read." --Hazel Gold (mild spoilers)

"What I liked about the book is that the take feels so genuine. Satifka isn't trying to reach some fundamental of mental illness that we have to tease out or extrapolate. She's writing about one condition that she has clearly done her homework on, and has built a character and story around. And once things start moving, it becomes a nail-biter pretty quickly." --Alligators & Aneurysms

So yeah, buy a copy of Stay Crazy, wherever fine books are sold! Which now includes the Portland independent bookstores Another Read Through and Annie Bloom's Books! Or get your local library to order it for you! It's all good.

Erica L. Satifkahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-90731444941796049612016-08-16T08:00:00.000-04:002016-08-16T15:37:38.088-04:00STAY CRAZY Released: We Have Book Sign!So there comes a time in every manuscript's life where they must be fed into a computer, rendered into pixelated symbols corresponding to various phonemes, and then stamped on the thinly flayed corpse of a thousand-year-old tree.

Anyway, this is just a rambling way of saying that Stay Crazy was officially released today. It's available everywhere: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powell's, and the Apex Publications site itself. Here is a terrible picture of it:

And like all 21st century authors, I took a little blog tour. Here's where I've been so far:

Starting at the beginning, at Alex Shvartsman's The Hook I have an essay about the beginning chapter of the novel and why I started my weird SF/horror/WTF book so mundanely. At the South African Speculative Fiction Review blog I talked about the real villain in Stay Crazy (capitalism), and at Midnyte Reader I had a post about some of the darker themes in the book.

One of the main things I wanted to do with Stay Crazy is fight the stigma of psychosis, and so over on John Wiswell's blog I wrote about why I thought it was so important to show a heroic (kinda) character with schizophrenia. And on Mary Robinette Kowal's My Favorite Bit I spoke a little about the interaction between my protagonist Em and her mentally ill coworker Roger, which is the novel's most significant relationship.

I did interviews with Nick Mamatas, Shimmer Magazine, J. Kathleen Cheney, M. Darusha Wehm, and Andrea Johnson the Little Red Reviewer.

Here are some more early reviews:

"Stay Crazy succeeds in its defiance of convention, in taking the most familiar story arc in existence and turning it inside out. As a first novel, it's a promising showcase of Satifka's talent, and fans of Philip K. Dick will feel right at home." --The Semiotic Standard (with bonus interview!)

"What I like about Em is that she is kind of a jerk. I like to have to try hard to find the redeeming qualities in characters." --The Booktrovert

You can add Stay Crazy on Goodreads. I myself am a horrible user of Goodreads, preferring to announce my book recommendations from a megaphone out of the side of a helicopter, but the kids seem to dig it. And lastly I did a reading at the Another Read Through bookstore in Portland, and you can buy it off the shelf there right now!

And finally, I'll be at WorldCon, where there will be a release party on Friday night in the Consuite. I'll be holding one of these:

...and just generally being as awkward as possible so you might as well come over and awkwardly eat cookies with me. YAY BOOK!
Erica L. Satifkahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com