A few genre items of interest:

* Neil Gaiman's speech from last night's Nebula Awards is available here. (And congratulations to Lois McMaster Bujold for winning the Nebula Award for Best Novel for Paladin of Souls.)

* Newsday.com has a new and interesting article here by Diane Werts: "Fan Fiction booms as modern folklore."

* I recommend "Thirty-Two Statements About Writing" by catvalente (and thanks to st_crispins for the link).

* If you read, teach, and/or study Gothic literature, be sure to check out Valancourt Books and Zittaw Press, both of which are doing admirable jobs of producing quality reprints of rare and classic Gothic works. I'm particularly excited by Valancourt's forthcoming titles.

* And, last but not least, congrats are due. Congrats to my friend Alex Ness, editor of Pop Thought, for being nominated as one of the Best Comics Reviewers in the 2004 Squiddy Awards. And congrats to my friend altariel on the publication of her Deep Space Nine novel The Hollow Men, which I can't wait to read.


And now, a quote for the day:

Whatever they wanted, whatever it took to sweeten their weary days--whether it was bloodred wine or whiskey, or ganja strong enough to set their feet on another plane of reality--the big guy could get it for them. Or it might be cocoa with marshmallows, or it might be caviar. All it had to be was forbidden, and he could get it for them....

But nobody really cared, because he had the power to ease the pain of living, heal the sores of ennui, and take away wounding memory of the cold, clean, bright, ordered world for a couple of nights. And if they shuddered, shamefaced with guilt over their excesses, they only did it after he had sailed away. Later still they prayed for his return, and watched the sea for a glimpse of his pirate flag. All they wanted was a little freedom, and they knew he could get it for them.

It was only freedom of the senses, of course. Once, the boy had had dreams about setting them truly free. He had thought it might be nice, to be a legend.

He was older now.

from Kage Baker, The Life of the World to Come