Tag Archives: hobkin

Hobkin Update, Morning in the Running for Least Fun Evah

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Thanks to everyone for all the support and get well soon thoughts for Hobkin!

Hobkin slept with me for most of the night and is doing reasonably well, probably better than fosteronfilm, actually. Since I’m in session, Matthew stayed up to watch over the lil guy for the second night/day in a row (my husband’s circadian rhythms are whack) and has been doing all the other caretaker duties so that I can get what sleep I can. Hence, Matthew’s low on sleep and a bit ragged around the edges from these last couple days.

It’s such a blessing that he can be there 24×7 at times like these, but it’s also less than optimal because Hobkin is really a mommy’s boy, and I can do things with him that no one else can—like force feed him meds. Did I mention that after the first dose of amoxicillin, the silly beastie decided he no longer considers it a nummy treat? Sigh. Not sure how my boys are going to fare come Hobkin’s afternoon med. time. I anticipate a pink, sticky mess…pinker and sticker than the one he and I made this AM.

Another reason to nominate this morning as Least Fun Evah: the East/West MARTA rail lines weren’t working when I arrived at Five Points station. They were busing people to their East/West destinations, but from Five Points, once I get off the Northbound, I just transfer to the Eastbound for one stop to get to the capitol. So it’s walking distance. Rather than deal with the bus, I set out to hoof it…in the breezy, blustery cold. And I started off in the wrong direction (of course). Fortunately, the capitol sits at the top of a hill and is crowned by a shiny, gold dome. Hard to miss. Even for someone as directionally challenged as me.

Walked in the door at work to a rush bill. Off and editing while I still couldn’t feel face or fingers and not only hadn’t I even tasted my coffee, I hadn’t even poured it yet. But things are slowing down a bit now. Thankfully. But I’m really not going to be at my best today.

Hobkin at the Vet’s

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So fosteronfilm is right now with Hobkin at the vet’s for an emergency visit.

Trying not to freak out. I can’t be there ’cause I’m still at work, and even if I got off now, it’s terribly unlikely unto impossible that I’d be able to make it to the vet’s in time for the appointment. (My car’s at the North Springs MARTA station, I’m at the capitol, and the vet’s office is in Lawrenceville.)

We think Hobkin simply managed to scratch or cut himself in a, er, delicate area, but the alternative—internal bleeding—is something that we’re not willing to gamble on. Ergo vet visit. And that scary-panic alternative is giving me serious cold sweats and shakes. Glancing compulsively at the cell phone awaiting updates…

[Edit – Update 1: Thanks for everyone’s support and good wishes. Very much appreciated. Hubby just called. They think Hobkin’s got kidney/bladder stones or possibly an infection. They’re trying to x-ray him now to confirm whether he’s got kidney stones. (I REALLY wish I was there to assist with that.) More updates as they come in…

Update 2: X-rays were clean but the vet says that doesn’t preclude the possibility of stones. They decided that rather than sedate Hobkin to do a blood test, it would be safer to observe him for a couple days and administer antibiotics. So husband and skunk are heading home now with some amoxicillin and various directives and things-to-watch-for. Not a minor scratch but not as dire as other possibilities. Fretting and anxiety to continue but turned down a notch or two.

Update 3: Everyone’s home now, and I’m curled up on the couch with Hobkin—not sure who’s reassuring whom. On the medication front, had a flash of inspiration. In my experience, most critters really like the taste of amoxicillin, but Hobkin grouses and fights being force-fed with a feeding syringe (understandably), so I thought to try to offer it to him in a saucer. The lil guy lapped it right up, making what might have been a stressful and unpleasant 3x/day experience for all a nice treat instead! Hurray for small blessings.]

T-day Weekend in Review

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Hope all who celebrate it had a fabu Thanksgiving!

Not much accomplished over the four-day holiday at Chez Foster. fosteronfilm had a cold/sinus malaise and Hobkin had an upset tummy, which resulted in me not doing much in general aside from comforting and playing nurse to both.

Whenever Hobkin’s sick or scared, he demands to be cuddled against my chest, with his head wedged beneath my chin, rather than just curling up at my side or in my lap. I think he finds the sound of my heartbeat soothing, and skunks in general (or perhaps it’s only Hobkin), seem to find being pressed between/against something comforting. Maybe since they live in borrows underground in the wild, pressed in hole=safe.

So I spent a good portion of the last four days propped on the couch with eight pounds of snoring fuzziness flopped on my chest, trying to balance my laptop on my stomach so I could get some work done. And those were the times when Hobkin was snoozing flat instead of lolling to one side, requiring me to use an arm to balance him in place—else he’d roll right off in his sleep and blame me for it (yes, that’s happened before)—and thereby forcing me to type one-handed. It’s hard enough typing using both hands with a skunk lying on me; I can’t see over him, so if I lose the home keys, if I can’t find them again by touch, I’m pretty much plum out of luck.

A couple of times, Hobkin flopped on Matthew instead of me, and I couldn’t resist taking a picture of my two ailing boys (with my grainy, less-than-one-pixel-lame cell phone camera, alas):

I feel sort of remiss that I didn’t post a “Things I am Thankful For” Thanksgiving day post, as has been my tradition, but the day itself sort of slipped by me. Like last year, health issues conspired to make the holiday low key—although this year they weren’t mine but Matthew and Hobkin’s. But I think it’s good to remind myself that I have much to be thankful for. So herein my belated “Things I am Thankful For” list; it’s essentially a reprise of my 2006 list, but I am no less thankful two years later:

1. For my husband, Matthew, my best friend, love of my life, and soul mate. He cherishes me as I am, even with all my flaws and foibles. I am stronger because of his support and better because of his example.
2. For Hobkin, for making our house a home and reminding me that dignity is overrated, especially compared to laughter.
3. For family and friends: near, far, offline, and on.
4. For my health. Even as crappy as it is, it could be and has been much worse. And despite all the rips and worn spots in my human suit, it works well enough to keep me going—which is more than many people are able to say.
5. That I have the freedom and ability to chase my bliss and tell the stories that fill my days with magic.
6. For my beautiful home—my whimsy-filled sanctuary where unseen fey folk mysteriously turn on and off the lights and occasionally swipe and hide inexplicable items.
7. That I am not hungry or cold.
8. That I believe in and love myself.
9. For my day job, because it is an incredible blessing that I love what I do and not only don’t begrudge the hours I spend at the office but am glad of them.

   


Writing Stuff

New Words:
• 300 on The Stupid Novel.

Hobkin’s Not-so-big Adventure and Nov-Dec Cricket

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It’s that time of the year again for flu shots, so yesterday on my day off, fosteronfilm and I bopped down to the K-P clinic. While there, I also had my bimonthly test tubes of blood extracted*. The phlebotomist was competent, but I still ended up bruising, and I’m also achy from the flu shot. Meh. I don’t have a problem with needles, but it was a bit of a pincushiony sort of day.

But, for the first time ever, we accidentally left the gate to Hobkin’s area open when we went out. When one of us is home to supervise—which is most of the time—he gets free run, but when we’re out, we lock him in his rover gated area.

We came home to discover that not only had we forgotten to lock the gate, we’d also left the doors to the master bathroom+walk-in closet open—two places where he’s not allowed to go ’cause of the various high potential skunk-induced mischief/danger items therein.

After confirming Hobkin’s whereabouts (napping peacefully in his usual place) and that he wasn’t in any distress, I began a mad-thorough search, checking to see if he’d gotten into anything scary: the sundry meds or first-aid supplies in the cabinet under the sink, the “do not injest” packets of desiccant in shoe boxes, the dental floss in the trash can, etc. And it seems that while he did indeed tip the trash can over, which fortunately had nothing more hazardous in it than a couple tissues, he didn’t riffle through anything else. He didn’t open any of the cabinets or de-box any shoes or anything. Huh. What a good boy! I mean he knows he’s not allowed in those rooms, and it’s obvious he did check them out, but he didn’t get into any of the Eugie-heart-attack-causing mayhem that he could have.

Relief-amazement-relief-amusement-relief.

*I take the immunosuppressant Imuran to keep my lupus/MCTD at bay, and it can cause a drop in white blood count as well as liver toxicity, so I have regular blood tests done to monitor those.

   


Writing Stuff

New Words:
• around 1.7K on The Stupid Novel. Momentum? What momentum?

Received:
• Payment from Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Mangazine for “The Better To…”

Seems that the world’s economy is catching up to the badness of the U.S.’s. When I first made the sale, the same payment amount (in AUD) would’ve netted me about $10 USD more than it did yesterday. But that was when the U.S. dollar was tanking and other currencies were still holding steady. It seems the currency exchange rates between AUD and USD have now equalized out to close to their usual rates. Drat.

I suspect that will also be the case for whenever I get payment from Interzone (paid in GBP) for “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast.” Double drat. Although I’m gun-jumping there, as the story hasn’t even come out yet.
• Shiny contrib. copies of the Nov-Dec ’08 issue of Cricket:

There was much squeeage when I discovered that “Cuhiya’s Husband” is the lead story! As always, the Cricket folks put together a gorgeous product. Absolutely lovely.

Skunk still limping and Triangulation: Taking Flight

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Thanks to everyone who expressed concern and well-wishes about Hobkin. He’s still limping, but both fosteronfilm and I think he’s better today than he was on Tuesday. We didn’t end up taking him to the vet, as what they’d probably want to do is take an x-ray, and I’m pretty sure it’s a soft tissue injury, and the x-ray procedure (the whole vet experience, actually) would undoubtedly agitate him which would risk aggrevating his injury. But we did call his godmother—the person he stays with when we’re out of town or at Dragon*Con—and got some suggestions for treatment.

It seems that a lot of domesticated skunks suffer from hip dysplasia, which is not surprising considering that most of them are from a single place which is undoubtedly causing some inbreeding issues. Although Hobkin is notably not from there, so I’m hoping that this isn’t hip dysplasia manifesting.

I do think it’s likely that this might be a sign of arthritis—although I don’t believe it’s the sole culprit, here. Hobkin is six years old, officially classified as a “senior” skunk, and I’ve noticed particularly with this season’s coat blowing* that there’s a lot more white around his muzzle and paws than a couple years ago. It sort of freaks me out thinking of our little guy as being “old.” I’m clinging to the hope that he’ll be one of the pet skunks who live a couple decades, but I know that’s unlikely. I also know that it’s inevitable that one day he will break my heart—the unavoidable consequence of loving someone who has a significantly shorter life expectancy than we do. It’s something I try not to dwell upon much, but this (baffling) injury has sort of brought that to the forefront of my mind.

Going to continue trying not to dwell upon that now . . .

*My GAWD there’s skunk fur everywhere! My car is coated in skunk fur, and that was only from one back and forth to his godmother’s last week. I’m worried that our vacuum cleaner is going to belly up from choking on skunk fur!

   


Writing Stuff

New Words:
• around 200 on Taijiya. Did some clean-up, a bit of bridging, and some culling of words, so was a bit more productive than that count shows. Total words: 27.1K.

Club 100 for Writers: 4

Received:
• Contrib. copies of Triangulation: Taking Flight with my (reprint) story, “The Life and Times of Penguin.”
Shiny cover:

Limping Skunk and Aeon #15

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So Hobkin started limping last night. He was curled up next to me on the couch napping after dinner, he hopped down to use the litter pan–and by “hopped” I mean he casually crawled down the “doggie” steps–and fosteronfilm called me over ’cause he saw that Hobkin was wobbling and unsteady. After some anxious observation, we determined that he’s favoring his left hind leg. We think. It’s hard to gauge with 100% certainty exactly which side is the culprit on a critter with such stumpy legs. But I also tried to do a check of his “resistance” strength on both hind legs by picking him up and getting him to push at my hand with each paw, and his left was much weaker than his right. I also checked to see if anything seemed broken or dislocated, and I think we’re okay on that front, too.

We’re not sure what happened. Someone’s with him just about 24×7, so it’s unlikely that he injured himself earlier yesterday without us seeing. And he was fine when he climbed up beside me. I wasn’t watching him when he left to use the bathroom, but he didn’t make any noise or give any sign of hurting himself as he was leaving; I would have noticed that. The only thing we can figure is that he injured his hind leg while he was asleep . . . which is rather baffling.

Unsurprisingly, I was totally and utterly freaking out last night. When we had ferrets, one of the first overt signs of the onset of neurological or other major medical problems was weak hind legs. But Hobkin’s appetite is fine. He’s using the litter pan fine; actually, I’m pretty amazed at how good he’s being on that front, considering he’s limping. And he doesn’t appear to be in pain. Although it’s hard to evaluate pain in a skunk. Hobkin’s almost completely silent, except for a couple notable occasions when he’s been either frightened or angry. I don’t know if skunks vocalize when they’re in distress like a dog or keep quiet like a cat. I’m inclined to bet the latter.

Going to see how he does today, and if he doesn’t show improvement or looks to be getting worse, then it’s off to the vet’s. He was still limping this morning when he got up for breakfast, and I had to stifle an impulse to rush him to the vet today. But the vet is always a traumatic experience for the little guy, and if he’s strained or pulled a muscle, it’s possible he’ll hurt himself worse from vet-related agitation.

Poor Hobkin! Wah!

   


Writing Stuff

Was up north visiting the mom-in-law last week. Didn’t get nearly as much done as I had planned to (I never do; I don’t know why I keep expecting to be productive when I’m there). And got zero words down on the novel. @%&^*! Well, I did edit a load of Dragon*Con guest bios for the program book. And, with the much appreciated editorial assistance of elemess, full_fathom5, and terracinque, we finished all 400+ of them. So I did get some stuff done.

New Words:
• 2.5K on The Stupid Novel since we got back from Illinois. Working title: Taijiya. Total words: 26.9K.

It is now officially the most words I’ve managed to get down on a single work of fiction. It’s unlikely that I’ll be able to make zero draft as I’m rapidly hitting the point where I’m going to have to drop everything that isn’t Dragon*Con-related. But I’d like to make 30K. 40K, of course, would be better. . .

Club 100 for Writers: 3 (sigh)

Received:
• Notice from the fine folks at Aeon that my story, “Black Swan, White Swan,” will be in the upcoming issue, #15. Also, they listed me on the cover (*squee!*):

Hot skunk, “A Thread of Silk,” Part 2 of “Writing Multicultural Fiction for Children”

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Hobkin doesn’t like the heat. It makes him grumpy and stompy and prone to tearing about the house huffing at things. We were hoping to be able to hold off on turning on the air conditioning for a little while longer, but ended up switching it on this weekend. I feel sorry for the little guy, after all he’s got a fur coat on, and I don’t think he can tolerate as much heat as we can—especially since he doesn’t drink water.

We’ve now switched ISPs, and not only is our connection speed noticeably faster, but part of the package deal was switching from our Dish TV to AT&T’s cable—with a DVR thrown in. Really loving the DVR! I can record cartoons (from my computer, even!) and save them up to watch on weekend mornings. Rah!

   


Writing Stuff

Published:
• Part 2 of “Writing Multicultural Fiction for Children” (nonfiction reprint) is now up at Absolute Write.
• “A Thread of Silk” is now up in the June, 2008, issue of Baen’s Universe with illustrations by Anthony Hochrein.


I’ve waited a looong time for this one to see print. I subbed this right before Baen’s was taking an extended slush holiday, resulting in unusually long RTs. But the wait was worth it.

Skunk in the bathtub

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I want to give a huge “thank you!” to everyone who answered the eleventh hour plea for volunteers and came out to help rescue fifteen pallets of Meisha Merlin books last week! Y’all rawk.

This past weekend was a three-dayer for me, since we Georgia government employees get Confederate Memorial Day off. Yep, Confederate Memorial Day. And how exactly does one celebrate Confederate Memorial Day? By bathing a skunk, of course!

It actually went better than usual. I did not get smacked in the face by a sudsy tail—the first time that hasn’t happened, I might add. And, while Hobkin was obviously displeased at being plunked into a bathtub full of lukewarm water and lathered up with baby shampoo, he put up less of a fuss about it than we know from experience he’s capable of. Also, he did not (this time) go running amok through the house afterwards, collecting dust mice and lint in his still-damp, newly washed fur.

Of course, I was compelled to snap a couple pictures to compound the indignity of his ordeal:


Doesn’t he look piteous?


“Umf. Must escape bathtub!”

   


Writing Stuff

New Words/Editing:
• Back to work on WiP, “Morozko.” A major editing pass to hack out around 500 superfluous words and then hammer out 600 new ones gives me a net gain of 100 words. Making progress.
• 1400 on “Cthulhu Editing.”
• 550 on a new story that I started just to get some words going. It worked, but I’m not sure if I’ve enough enthusiasm to see this one through. Had a bunch of imagery that needed an outlet, but the story’s pretty nebulous.

Published:
• “Daughter of Bòtú” in the August, 2008 issue of Realms of Fantasy. Yay! Actually, I don’t think the issue’s out yet (haven’t received my contrib. copies). But I got to see an e-ARC. Happy shiny.

Taxes, Dragon*Con, various website updates

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This weekend, we did our taxes. Glargh.

It was tempting to postpone filing them since we’ve got until May 19th due to our county being one of the ones declared as a federal disaster area from the recent tornadoes, but we (mostly fosteronfilm) went ahead and crunched the numbers and signed the forms, and they’re winging their way to the IRS in time to meet the regular deadline.

I continue to be appalled at how much Uncle Sam takes out from my writing income. It’s effectively double taxed—at a higher rate, even, which is supposed to make up the difference for Social Security…except I pay Social Security through my day job. Every year at this time I contemplate whether it would be beneficial to incorporate myself, start delving into the labyrinthine forms and regulations to do so, get confounded and flummoxed, and give up. So this year, I’ve resolved to skip the forms–>frustrated step and go straight to “give up.” But I really wish I knew whether it would be worthwhile. ‘Course, I could hire a tax lawyer to advise me, but I’m sure that would eat up any possible tax benefit and then some. Sigh.

In other news, while I was updating the Daily Dragon website (details below), I went in and overhauled Hobkin’s website, Musta-lay-day Grove, and moved it to my domain server. Comcast, my ISP and the previous host of the site, doesn’t give users admin access to the hosting space it provides (did I mention recently how much I hate Comcast?), and I wanted to upgrade Musta-lay-day Grove to a WordPress platform—which requires admin access in order to create a database and DB user. So I decided to make Musta-lay-day Grove a subdirectory of my eugiefoster.com domain.

Now I’m wondering if I want to go ahead and register a domain for Hobkin’s website. I even went and checked the availability of mustalayday.com and mustalayday.org (unsurprisingly, both are still up for grabs). It’s a silly and tiny hobby site—skunk pictures, a FAQ, and some links—so I’m not sure if I can rationalize the expense. Then again, I’ve maintained the thing for years, and I kind of like Hobkin having his own web presence. Ponder ponder.

   


Writing Stuff

Received my guest acceptance letter from Dragon*Con. I was actually thinking about not applying to be a guest this year. Last year was just so hectic with running the Daily Dragon, I had to cancel out of a lot of my panels (which, among other things, brought on a load of guilt for shirking my responsibility to those track directors) and one of my readings, and I ended up being so overbooked that I enjoyed the convention the least of any year since I started attending it. But in the end, I decided to go ahead and apply.

The thing is, sometimes my panels are the only times I manage to get out of Daily Dragon headquarters, and my guest obligations often help to ground my time sense. Knowing that I have to be at a panel at XX o’clock keeps the days from blurring into convention limbo space-time. Plus, I frequently enjoy doing panels, despite the panic and hyperventilation beforehand. Although I am going to ask the scheduling folks not to slot me for any readings. There’s just way too much prep involved, and I intensely dislike doing solo speaking gigs.

On a related Dragon*Con note, the Daily Dragon website moved to a new .org URL from its old .net address, as D*C is doing an across-the-board upgrade to its website server/hosting/etc. I decided that a site overhaul for the Daily Dragon was long overdue, so I migrated it to a PHP platform, specifically WordPress, which should greatly ease DD website updates during the convention. It’ll also allow my reporters to get me their articles from anywhere they’ve got access to the Internet during the convention. Rah.

New Words:
Zero, nada, zilch. I suck.

I tell myself that I’ve been busy with overhauling and upgrading my various websites, but what I’ve been doing is procrastinating. Going to try to apply words to page this afternoon. I’ve run out of excuses, and I’m getting really pissed at myself for not making some progress, any progress, on the writing.

Session 2008 Day 34.25: a sale to Aeon and annoyance with the USPS homeland security policy

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Had a quiet Easter weekend with fosteronfilm and Hobkin. Stayed in, cuddled a skunk, and watched Donnie Darko. Hey, there was a bunny in it.

The Georgia legislature is in adjournment until Thursday—which will be Day 35 of this session. It’s been relatively quiet at work, giving me a chance to play catch-up, but it seems that as soon as I start making headway in one area, stuff starts piling up in another. I can’t seem to get my email down to less than 50 “needs response” notes, some of which are egregiously late, as I have a terrible habit of responding to email in last-in-first-out order rather than first-in-first-out as I ought. It feels a bit like using a tablespoon to bail out a leaky boat…that’s headed into a waterfall…in the middle of a thunderstorm.

Also, I’m miffed with the USPS. Apparently, a recent homeland security policy of theirs now mandates that all stamped mail which weighs 13oz or more must be dropped off at a post office rather than mailed from a residential mailbox. Because, of course, the folks who work the counter at the post office will have a much better detection system than my local letter carrier when it comes to terrorist mailings of over 13 ounces.

The thing is, I’ve got a no-frills postal scale at home, and my standard operating system is to stock up on various denominations of stamps so that I can disseminate review items for The Fix as I get them*, without having to set aside time to drive back and forth to the post office. But now, I can’t do that with any material that’s heavier than 13oz, like, oh, say, most trade paperbacks and glossy magazines. ARGH!

The only thing that’s saving me from really pulling my hair out is that I’ve been encouraging editors/publishers for the last several years to send me electronic files instead of paper. So now, the majority of the review material I receive is electronic. But I still get enough hard copies that this is going to be a major inconvenience and, with fuel prices being what they are, an annoying expense.

Stupid USPS.

In other news, I’ve migrated my eugiefoster.com website to PHP, specifically WordPress. My experience with webmastering and helming The Fix has really sold me on the application, even though I don’t update my homepage with anything like blog-like frequency. The flexibility of being able to make site-wide changes easily as well as the browser-based admin interface really appeals. Now I can chuck FrontPage—which always inserts gobs of junk into my code that requires clean-up—and not have to worry about learning DreamWeaver. Shiny.

*I also use it for my paper submissions, but there’ve been fewer of those over the years as more and more markets accept submissions via email.

   


Writing Stuff

Hmm. Well, it seems that “Daughter of Botu” is not, as it turns out, going to be in the June issue of Realms of Fantasy. Not a problem, but now I’m wondering which issue it’s slated for. Did I misread my contract and it said June 2009 instead of June 2008? Or was it just bumped to next issue or something? Must remember to check that when I get a chance.

Received:
• 98-day SALE of “Black Swan, White Swan” to Aeon. Woohoo! I’ve been trying to break into these folks since they premiered. Delighted that this story will have such a wonderful home.

But I’m also all fretty. The acceptance email indicated that their contract should have been attached to it, but it wasn’t. I sent a “please resend contract?” email last week, as soon as I got their acceptance, but haven’t heard back, and I even succumbed to my twitchy writerness and sent a follow-up from a different email address yesterday. I’m sure it’s that they’re very busy—and probably not that they’ve changed their minds, seen that it was a brief bout of insanity that prompted them to receive positively something I wrote, and are trying to come up with a kind way of telling me never again to darken their virtual doorstep with my prose—but my on-again/off-again email reliability issues have really ramped up my writerly trepidation and apprehension.
• Note from Drabblecast that their production of “The Tiger Fortune Princess” is scheduled to go up this Wednesday, huzzah! Also that they’re passing on another submission I sent them, pook.
• Email from the editor/publisher of Fantasist Enterprises:

Fantasist Enterprises Needs Your Help

When I started Fantasist Enterprises almost ten years ago, I had three major goals in mind: 1) Create new markets for short fantasy fiction. 2) Help re-grow the popularity of the short story as a literary form. 3) Bring illustrations back to literature in the artistic marriage that the Pre-Raphaelites so championed.

I’ve certainly learned a lot since those early days, in respect to writing and editing, art directing, and running a publishing company. I’ve also met numerous friends, mentors, and students over the years—something that is infinitely valuable. It has been a joy to work with so many talented writers and artists.

Now FE and I need your help. We need to raise awareness of the company and sell more books and art in order to complete our upcoming projects and break exciting new ground in the genre. You can help us reach our goal in many ways.

1) Spread the Word . . .

. . . through your own words: If you have read our books and enjoyed them, please recommend them to your friends. Consider posting reviews on Amazon.com, BarnesAndNoble.com, and anywhere else that book reviews are welcome.

. . . with banners: Add a little visual flair to your website, blog, or MySpace/FaceBook page with FE banners. Go to our banners page for directions on how to add them to your page.

. . . by wearing T-Shirts: Want some FE art on your person? Then check out our T-shirts on our swag page

2) Buy a Book or Art

Buy an FE book through your favorite book retailer or direct from us at www.FEBooks.net, where we are running some specials for a limited time (see below). The stunning art found in our books is available exclusively on our website.

DEAL 1: While supplies last, purchase both FANTASTICAL VISIONS I & II for a total of $12.00.

Yes, FE and I were still cutting our teeth on those publications, but there are some memorable stories to be found within their pages. And soon, they’ll be collector’s items!

DEAL 2: Purchase both CLOAKED IN SHADOW & MODERN MAGIC for a total of $24.75.

DEAL 3: BASH DOWN THE DOOR AND SLICE OPEN THE BADGUY is on sale for $12.75.

So yeah, not only do I support small presses, especially ones that publish short fiction, but these folks had the excellent taste to publish “Souls of Living Wood” in their Modern Magic anthology and “Mistress Fortune Favors the Unlucky” in Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy, and they’ll be publishing “Megumi’s Fire” in their forthcoming Paper Blossoms, Sharpened Steel. So buy a book, y’all! Pleeeease?

Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy

Modern Magic