My story "Through Thy Bounty" (which you can also find in my collection Sparks and Shadows) is featured at Apex Online; the story received an honorable mention in Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 15.

http://www.apexbookcompany.com/apex-online/

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! May your roses be fresh and your chocolate delicious.

I've been a little delayed on announcements this week.

First, Maurice Broaddus interviewed me as part of his "Road to Mo*Con" series.

The second thing is that Cemetery Dance is now selling Sparks and Shadows.

And the third thing is ... well, it's just for people on my friendslist :) I'll post it shortly.

My collection Sparks and Shadows won the Editor's Choice Black Quill Award for Best Dark Genre Collection.

Cool!

Hellnotes just posted their review of my collection Sparks and Shadows. Nickolas Cook writes:

(T)his has to be, hands down, the best collection I've read since Joe Hill's 20th Century Ghosts. ... It's the same way I felt after reading Poppy Z. Brite, Skipp and Spector, Dan Simmons, and Caitlin Keirnan for the first time. There's a passionate urgency to her words, a sly sexuality, a downright filthy come hither-ness (I mean that in a good way, by the way) to her stories. ... Her stories are, at times, unrelenting, fiery, and angry. At other times, she sways you into a state of serenity. But at all times, she tells a damned good story.

You can read the rest here:
http://hellnotes.com/book-review-sparks-and-shadows/

The HWA announced the preliminary Bram Stoker Award ballot today, and my collection Sparks and Shadows is on it :)

Gary A. Braunbeck also made the preliminary ballot for his novel Mr. Hands and his novella "Afterward, There Will Be A Hallway" (which is in Five Strokes to Midnight, which is also on the ballot in the anthology category).

Regarding the Stokers, I should note that being on the preliminary ballot is not the same as being nominated for the award ... only works that make it onto the final ballot are nominees.

As another side note, I'm the only woman on the ballot in fiction collection this year. A few women have been nominated in this category in the past, but none have ever won a Stoker for collection. It would be very, very cool to win.

Of course, I'd much rather people voted for my collection because they think it's worthy of the award, rather voting for it because I have a vajayjay.

So, if you are a voting member of the HWA and you haven't had access to my book, let me know and I can fix that :) I have a few coverless review copies of Sparks and Shadows, or I can email you a PDF. Whichever you prefer, please comment here with your postal address or email address ... I will screen comments so your info isn't revealed.

I believe Gary can also provide PDFs of all his aforementioned works, so please likewise comment here if you'd like copies for consideration.

I found out a little while ago that my collection Sparks and Shadows has been nominated for a Black Quill Award. Cool.

In related news, for a limited time Nanci Kalanta (the owner of HW Press) is including a free copy of my humor collection Installing Linux on a Dead Badger with each order of S&S.

So, if you've been wanting my entire library-to-date at a very good price, this is your chance. Click here for the publisher's ordering page.

Horror Reader just posted a review of Sparks and Shadows:

At times poignant, witty, erotic, thoughtful, chilling and maniacally gleeful, Sparks and Shadows is a delightful collection and book length introduction to an author to watch. (read more)

Zombie Fest last weekend was a lot of fun. It was great getting to hang out with Mike Arnzen, Greg Lamberson, Scott A. Johnson and his wife Tabby. About a dozen people picked up copies of Installing Linux on a Dead Badger, and so far the reader reviews seem pretty positive.

In other news, Fear Zone recently posted a review of my collection Sparks and Shadows ... you can read it here:

http://www.fearzone.com/blog/sparks-and-shadows-review

kestrell is running a series of "13 Days of Halloween" author interviews; you can read mine in her October 22 post.

The folks at FearZone just posted an interview with me conducted by Gary Frank.

I know you've all been thinking of me as being super-aware of what's going on around me (coworkers: stop laughing, I can hear you) but I only last night discovered that ChiZine posted a review of my book Sparks and Shadows. Reviewer William D. Gagliani says:

"Snyder's work is vibrant and resonant and superbly measured ... Short, sharp, and sometimes slightly shocking, Snyder's fiction is always memorable. ... No matter the rhetorical device used, Lucy Snyder's approach is to covertly engage and then massage a little-used muscle in the reader's psyche. Sometimes blatantly, explicitly erotic, sometimes sardonic, sometimes tinged with a great sadness, always just a bit off-kilter, and often just downright funny, the stories in Sparks and Shadows weave a spell that'll prove hard to shake. It really is a bacchanalia in there, and you just might find you don't want to turn the last page. Nicely presented as a limited from HW Press with a distinctive Deena Warner cover, this volume belongs in any serious dark fantasy collection." (read the rest)

I guess he liked it, huh?

In other news, we found out this morning that Gary's going to be an author guest at The It's Alive Show! Zombie Fest in Monroeville, PA on October 27-28.

We're excited about this; this should be a really fun convention.

The Green Man Review just posted a review of Sparks and Shadows:

(N)ot only does Lucy A. Snyder write truly intelligent horror that is both witty and political but her stories and poems tap the feminist potential of horror to illuminate the shadowy extremes of both love and hate.

This week, I'm interviewed at Sequential Tart.

(Edit: They also have a review of Sparks and Shadows up here. The link was initially inaccessible.)

Gary and I went to Hot Damn 5 in the Hocking Hills last week and InConJunction this past weekend ... we had a great time, but boy were we tired afterward. We'll be visiting Indianapolis in another couple of weekends for Mo*Con II. We're still waiting to see if DragonCon will be doable or not.

Right now, the Shocklines online bookstore is offering my collection Sparks and Shadows under their "New Voices Guarantee". This means that if you order the book from them and it turns out it's not your cup of tea, you can send it back for full store credit. Shocklines offers free shipping to U.S. addresses, and Matt is an excellent seller with lots of neat stuff in stock, so this is a good deal for those of you who procrastinated and haven't ordered the book yet ;-)

Hi all,

If you write book reviews for a website or magazine, I can get you a PDF of the book for review. I may be able to get you hard copy, which would be a copy of the book that was damaged in shipping (those are in very limited supply, and availability is not confirmed).

Please comment here with your contact info and the name(s) of the sites/publications you review for. All replies will be screened for your privacy.

Thanks!

I'm interviewed this week at Pod of Horror; Gary A. Braunbeck also reads a story he and I co-wrote entitled "The Still-Life Drama of Passing Cars". My interview starts 23:24 into the podcast, and the story performance is directly after it.

(This lolcat brought to you by the letters S and S.)

My books just arrived at my publisher's house. She's got to check and number the copies, and then she'll be sending me a small box via Priority Mail (so I'll be sure to have copies to take to WisCon) and also a larger box via regular mail.

Squee!

Sparks and Shadows is now available for preorder at Shocklines, which offers free shipping for U.S. customers:

My limited-edition softcover collection Sparks and Shadows is coming out in late April or early May.

Nalo Hopkinson wrote the introduction, and each copy is signed by both of us. The book is 356 pages long and contains 17 stories, 7 poems, and 4 humor essays.

If you'd like to reserve a copy, just send a brief email to Nanci Kalanta.

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And now, another cat picture:


You'd think we lived in a one-room house or something, wouldn't you?
We had five other windows open around the house, but they all crowd at this one.
(The cat-toppled book stack was rescued shortly after I took the photo.)
(Monte did the toppling; apparently he hates Donald Barthelme)