Notes From Coode Street

I don’t usually do this, and I don’t know if I should. A bit of linkage. First, via David Yeates, The West Australian reports on Shaun Tan winning a major French prize, the possibility of his book The Arrival being turned into a motion picture (which I’m not sure about), and the Mexican government purchasing 30,000 copies of the book to distribute to schools and libraries. Second, the New York Times talks about Starbucks hitting a bump in the corporate road. Turns out automating the coffee experience isn’t working, and they need to get back to core values. Having spent time in a Starbucks in the past year I can only agree. Thirdly, Justien mentions a review of the anthology First Kiss (Then Tell), which contains a story of hers that she read at Books of Wonder (the best kids bookstore in the world) last November when we were there for a signing. Her story rocks, is very disgusting, and very funny. You should go check that book out, and she should write more short stories (hint, hint).  More soon…

Over in the comments, Pam mentions having some trouble getting through to my email address. Just to confirm, submissions for E2 should be sent to jstrahan(at)iinet(dot)net(dot)au. If that doesn’t work, you can try jonathan(dot)strahan(at)gmail(dot)com.  If that doesn’t work, you can post a comment here and I’ll do what I can to make things work.

As a quick postscript to the guidelines for E2, I should have mentioned that I’m not accepting simultaneous or multiple submissions.

This little Indian has had too little sleep, and can’t shake the damned bug that’s been keeping him coughing and spluttering for a week. Dinner’s on in the background, the offshoots are watching The Aristocats, and I’m not reading. I’m also struggling to get the goddamn World Fantasy hotel website to offer the right room rate so I can get that all sorted. Not listening much either to be honest, though I have recently realised that Faces are pretty damned fine.

I’ve been reading reviews of a couple of my books of late.  Good, well-intentioned reviews that made me grind my teeth.  We don’t respond, we don’t engage - not because the reviewers are crazy or bad or evil, but because they are not and we know we would only look foolish.  Still, we wants to precious, we really does.

There is one thing that has been brought home to me of late - it is much easier to sit back and point out what someone is or isn’t doing, than it is to do what they’re doing.  This is a kharmic thing. And so we learn.

Just got the word from Jeff Ford that Eclipse One has been reviewed by Paul DiFilippo in this weekend’s Washington Post. It’s a very good review, so my thanks to Jeff for pointing it out, and to Paul for the review.  Very good news for the weekend, indeed.

It’s happened.