For those of you who have been following my Podcast B-Movie Bastards some new episodes are up.

For those of you not following my podcast, shame on you. Go take a listen.

Some Big Pimpin' coming up. My DH edits a website on SUVs and it's pretty darn interesting. Part of his pay is based on the number of hits each month. If any Buffistas so inclined would like to bookmark this site: [link] and click on it whenever they feel inclined, they would be doing us a total solid. Plus added cool car articles, links and pictures!

Two bits of Pimpage in one day--shameful--but I know many Buffistas will be interested in this.

Our friends Will Shetterly and Emma Bull each have a new book out and they are going on a joint book tour (they are married to each other, so that makes it pretty easy). If they come near your town, check them out! Not only are they wonderful writers, they are also amazingly cool people. [link]

Let me know if you are going and I'll ask Will & Emma to look out for you.

We're running a scavenger contest to kick off the opening of the Drollerie Press webstore on July 20th.

The contest runs from July 13th through the 20th, 2007.

The first unique winner of each day will receive one story. All correct entries will be entered into a drawing to win the whole thing–a copy of all stories in the winner’s preferred format.

Saturday the fourteenth’s winner will receive a copy of Falling
Sunday the fifteenth’s winner will receive a copy of The Orb of Enori
Monday the sixteenth’s winner will receive a copy of Ja’el
Tuesday the seventeenth’s winner will receive a copy of Provenance
Wednesday the eighteenth- one winner will receive a copy of A Kiss to Wake You and one winner will receive a a copy of Every Word I Speak
Thursday the nineteenth one winner will receive a copy of Shepherd to the Wolves and one winner will receive a copy of Monday Night at the Vampire Lounge
Friday the 20th, one winner will receive a copy of Atlantis 1999 and one winner will receive a copy of Survive My Fire.

Find the DP logo at [link] and fill in the blanks. In Tala Bar’s story Ja’el, our heroine is engaged to be married at the ripe old age of __________. In Elena Murphy’s Provenance, however, our submissive _______ is all man. In Deena’s free read The Drawing of the Sea, our heroine is a woman with an obsession, and she’s old enough to live with the consequences.

Go to [link] Cindy Lynn Speer’s website, author of A Necklace of Rubies and Every Word I Speak. Answer this question: I am told that people keep ______________ as pets.

Go to [link] Joely Sue Burkhart’s blog, Author of Survive My Fire. Finish the sentence below the DP logo: Love is the greatest gift of all, and the greatest _____________.

Go to [link] Deborah Grabien’s Live Journal, author of Still Life with Devils coming in November. Fill in the blanks: Mara ________ in the dark and listens to ______.

Go to [link] Tim Mulcahy’s blog, author of Monday Night at the Vampire Lounge, and fill in the blanks: Compared to the Vampire Lounge, Vegas looks like a church social. When you step into the world of blood letting, daytime morality is irrelevant. This is the world of ____________, sharp teeth and razor blades, where pain and pleasure come together in a red cocktail.

Go to [link] Imogen Howson’s website, author of Falling. Look just below the DP logo. To what does the hero of the story compare Linnet?

Go to [link] Connie Neil’s Live Journal. Look for the mention of her story Shepherd to the Wolves. Father ____ is mentioned above the DP logo.

Go to [link] Jennifer Cloud’s website. Look for her novel, Restless Shadows, coming on August 3rd. Fill in the blank: _____________ has a troubling gift.

Go to [link] John Rosenman’s website, author of Alien Dreams coming in September, and fill in the blanks: Alien Dreams explores the following question: How much ______can the human mind take?

Go to [link] G. L. Simmon’s Live Journal, author of The Orb of Enori. What mood was Towers of Grey in when he posted about the scavenger hunt?

Email your answers to Cloud Jennifer at Gmail.com (Remove spaces and change at to @) Please put Drollerie Press in the subject line. Contest winners determined by the first e-mail received (verified by date/time stamp) with all correct answers. Not responsible for undelivered e-mail.

If you have any questions about the contest or about Drollerie Press, e-mail me at drollerie.press@gmail.com

Hear ye! Hear ye!

Amyliz proposed that we open a dedicated Supernatural thread:

Lightbulbs is now open for discussion of the proposal.

DXMachina "Voting Discussion: We're Screwing In Light Bulbs AIFG!" Jul 14, 2007 6:09:14 pm PDT

I finally got the chat room to work! We'll be celebrating the opening of Drollerie Press with a party on the website at 9pm on Sunday the 22nd.

We won't be fully stocked yet, but we'll have a handful of fairytale short stories, each more magical than the last; a supernatural historical novella set in Israel; two vampire short stories with two very different takes on vampires; an erotic short story about an encounter with a legendary creature. (I think "be careful what you wish for" is probably the the moral of that tale!) We'll also have a slipstream fantasy memoir novella that reads like a cross between a beat poem and T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land; and a fantasy novella with some of the best dragons (and hottest sex) I've ever read. From the 20th through the 22nd we'll also be having a sale of all stories at 50% off.

During the party we'll be have a drawing for the grand prize of the scavenger hunt. The lucky winner (chosen from all entrants with right answers during the course of the week) will receive a copy of each of the stories available in the store at the time of the party. I hope we'll also have some other giveaways, but that depends on if I get them figured out and ready to go by the time we get there.

I don't expect you to buy anything, and of course you absolutely don't have to come, but if you'd like to, I'd love to see you there.

The chat will be here: [link] To enter it you only need to choose a name. No password is required.

New post at Gothic Charm School! Yes, my long-threatened Goth vs. Emo column.

Hear Ye Hear Ye

Voting is now open for the following proposal:

Do you want Supernatural to have its own thread?

The discussion for this proposal starts here.

Voting closes Saturday, July 21, at 9PM (PST).

VOTE NOW

(questions should be posted in Bureaucracy)

Last fall in Jena, Louisiana, the day after two black high school students sat beneath the "white tree" on their campus, nooses were hung from the tree. When the superintendent dismissed the nooses as a "prank," more black students sat under the tree in protest. The District Attorney then came to the school accompanied by the town's police and demanded that the students end their protest, telling them, "I can be your best friend or your worst enemy... I can take away your lives with a stroke of my pen."

A series of white-on-black incidents of violence followed, and the DA did nothing. But when a white student was beaten up in a schoolyard fight, the DA responded by charging six black students with attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

Six black Jena High students were expelled from school, arrested and charged with second-degree attempted murder. The first trial ended last month, and one boy, who has been in prison since December, was convicted of aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery (both felonies) by an all-white jury in a trial where his public defender called no witnesses. During his trial, the boy's parents were ordered not to speak to the media and the court prohibited protests from taking place near the courtroom or where the judge could see them. The boy is scheduled to be sentenced on July 31st, and could go to jail for 22 years.

Join me in demanding that Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco get involved to make sure that justice is served, and that DA Reed Walters drop the charges against the 5 boys who have not yet gone to trial.

[link]

Please note:

By consensus achieved in Bureaucracy, we have reopened and repurposed the Book Club thread for discussion of the most recent and final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It will remain open until such discussion has run its course.

Spoilers for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will now appear in the Book Club thread.

Please adjust your subscriptions accordingly and use Read New with caution if you wish to avoid them.