The <i>Deviations</i> Journey: Land O'Lakes Library Author Fair

But first, a shameless bid for attention...

I've been participating in a thread over at Jay Lake's Facebook page. The thread's upshot: how what some people use as normal, everyday vocabulary is seen by others as too smart, too show-offy, or even as newly-invented words, not to mention providing fuel for hot and cold running malapropisms. Mind you, I'm giving a polite distillation here.

I mentioned the time a creative writing professor had accused me of plagiarism: "...until I showed him my notes. Then he said he thought the piece was publishable. I thought it was crap. Our assignment had been to write a short story draft in one week, so I just threw something down on the page. (I still remember a line from it -- 'So cold, that telescope's shaft!' I hang my head in shame...)"

Jay pointed out the line's potential to be part of a "brilliant" haiku. To which I replied:

The stroke of midnight --
So cold, that telescope's shaft!
Burn, you swollen stars.
:-p~~

I remember the story's title, too -- "In Magnification of Touch." Did I mention I'd been reading a lot of Freud in those days?

(Thanks for the thread, Jay.)

The Land O'Lakes Library in Pasco County, FL, held its inaugural Author Fair on Saturday, March 20. I drove down with Lakisha Spletzer and her daughter Alea. Thanks to both of them for helping me haul my load to and from the car!

My display included:
1. Deviations: Covenant (paperback, Aisling Press).
2. Covenant and Appetite on CD (click here for more info and free downloads).
3. Riffing on Strings: Creative Writing Inspired by String Theory (Scriblerus Press, IPPY Silver Medalist; contains my story "Arachne").
4. Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet (Dark Scribe Press, Bram Stoker Award winner; contains my story "Memento Mori").
5. Issue 14, Electric Velocipede (Hugo Award winner; contains my story "Hermit Crabs," which is on the recommended reading list in The Year's Best Science Fiction, 26th Annual Edition).
6. Oct./Nov. 2009 Asimov's (Contains my novelette "Flotsam" and poem "Derivative Work").
7. Vampyr Verse (Popcorn Press; contains my poem "Neighbors").
8. General info flyers, and flyers advertising forthcoming work, including She Nailed A Stake Through His Head: Tales of Biblical Terror (Dybbuk Press), which will contain my story "Judgment at Naioth."

Kisha also took a video of me at the event, accessible here. Videos of more authors attending can be seen on her Kishaz Worlds Facebook page.

L-R: unidentified, Valerie Anne Faulkner, Susan Noe Harmon.

Chris Coad Taylor.

Seated, L-R: Philip Rice, Toni Martin, Rebecca Nunez. The books at far left were authored by Henley Holbrook.

Author Fair, Land O'Lakes Library: Lakisha Spletzer and Alea

Kisha and her daughter Alea.

Alea sits at my display, alternately writing her own story and editing her mother's book Werelove: Dusk Conspiracy.

Seated at far right: Fred Tomasello, Jr. The books at far right were authored by Kal Rosenberg.

Standing at left, L-R: Michael Dalton, Wendy Van Horn, Jerry Teske.

Coming up: I join Loretta Rogers to do cold read critiques at the Homosassa Public Library on Saturday, March 27.

Elissa Malcohn's Deviations and Other Journeys

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Cover for Deviations: Covenant, Second Edition

Vol. 1, Deviations: Covenant (2nd Ed.) Vol. 2, Deviations: Appetite Vol. 3, Deviations: Destiny Free downloads at the Deviations website and on Smashwords.