Ellen Datlow's Blog, page 81

My reprint anthology is going well, but I'd like some more suggestions of GREAT cat stories--from after 1980. So forget the obvious ones like "Spacetime for Springers."

I am looking for stories in which cats--domestic or wild, large and small felines are important to the story. I've looked in the obvious places-the various cat anthologies-and am more interested in finding terrific under-reprinted stories from out of the way places: mainstream, mystery, horror, fantasy, and sf. No cat detectives

This is already all over the net and it should be. It breaks my heart for Justine, who has worked so hard on the book. I think by publicizing and responding to the issue, she's taken a very courageous stance and I hope that the outrage makes a difference. There are so many things wrong with the stance of her publisher that all I can do is sputter in rage.

If you haven't yet discovered it, please start here with Justine's blog
Ain't That a Shame

You might want to read her publisher's response in

The visiting nurse went to see my dad yesterday to check him out and see what both my parents need. The OT (or PT, I'm not sure) is there now and went over what my dad can and cannot do on his own. Speech Therapist is coming tomorrow. The nurse was supposed to come again today but I forgot to ask my mom if she did.

Car hasn't arrived yet but it's "on the way."
Thanks for your indulgence in reading all this.

I'm home from Florida, my parents are settling in nicely and hopefully things will go smoothly for them. My sister and I will likely visit them in Florida every couple of months. The flight back was tough--my dad, (never a patient man and now much worse in that respect) was insufferable while waiting for the cab to take us from the rehab center to White Plains airport. Then both my parents flipped out when no one from Air Trans miraculously and immediately appeared at the airport with wheelchai

Here are my official program items. There are two others that I fear might be in the program but they are errors (I will not be doing a dramatic effing reading of "The Raven" and will not be in Montreal in time to do the best of the year in short fiction panel).

When: Thu 19:00
Title: Horror and Dark Fantasy Writers:
What Makes the Story "Horror"
or "Dark Fantasy"?
All Participants: Ellen Datlow,
Kari Sperring, Maura McHugh, Susan
Forest, Kaaron Warren
Description: Horror and dark fantasy
writers

I'm in Florida, settling my parents back in to their (usually) winter home. They only have a very slow dial-up and it's not separate from their phone line so I can't stay on long.

Hard day getting back yesterday --everyone on edge and miserable although the flight itself went fine. My dad seems very comfortable being back here and is doing most everything for himself. Even pouring juice. He smoked his first pipe today in over a month.
BIG honking thunderstorm last night while my mom was out shopp

photos from July 15, 2009 KGB

When I was in Los Angeles for the Stokers, one of the people I visited and stayed with was Bruce McAllister and his lovely wife Amalie.

I had no idea until the visit that Bruce is interested in geology and archaeology so when he brought boxes of rocks and showed me how many of them were tools --tested by various means I was astounded and fascinated.

I was delighted when he offered me four of the tools. The three above are all from France.
He says of them: they are Upper Paleolithic Aurignacian flak

Yay! At the SF Site--a couple of excerpts and the entire Featured Review
...Not one of these stories is anything less than excellent.
...There's a subtle complexity, a questioning of traditional fairy tale morals, a subversion of the familiar, and taken as a whole, it gets the point across without overdoing it. So in that regard, Troll's-Eye View is a splendid anthology."

FANTASTIC FICTION at KGB reading series, hosts Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel present:

Clarion West Special Evening

With Samuel R. Delany, Jack Womack, Cat Rambo, Kris Dikeman and guest-hosted by Rajan Khanna, July 15, 2009

In honor of 25 consecutive years of the Clarion West Writers Workshop and Amazon.com's challenge grant, the KGB Fantastic Fiction series will be featuring a special Clarion West reading on July 15, 2009.

Clarion West is a non-profit literary organization that administers the Cl