News Bits

Bloodlines wins New Covey Cover Award

I recently learned that my fourth Deviations volume, Bloodlines, has won the Sept. 2010 New Covey Award for Most Artistic Cover: "selected by the Covey Judges as the cover that best combined art and design."





Click here to see how I put that cover together.

Quatrain wins Darwin Day Award

Artist Glendon Mellow (blogging as The Flying Trilobite) held a Darwin Day contest, in which he asked for a Tweet-sized post of 140 or fewer characters describing his fabulous painting Darwin Took Steps. The prize was a print of the painting.

On February 14 I learned my quatrain was the prize-winning post:

Preconceptions dropped away / As he stood atop Bartolome. / For Darwin, a glimpse of nature's plan: / Ascent of stairs, Descent of Man.

Click here for more info, which includes a photograph I took of the real Darwin Steps on Bartolome, Galapagos Islands, and a stunning panoramic view from the summit.

Mole cricket photo picked up by Paws For Wildlife



Thanks to Sebastian Bawn for soliciting my shot of a tawny mole cricket for use in the U.K. site Paws For Wildlife.

New chapbook: Poetic Variables



Poetic Variables: Science Poems for January 2011 is my third chapbook and a sequel to 30 Science Sonnets for April 2010. More info and ways to order are at my website.

Last month I posted a science poem a day, written in various traditional forms, in honor of Science Online 2011. The "fifth annual international meeting on Science and the Web" ran from Jan. 13-16. Click here to access the conference page, which has links to posts, tweets, photos, and videos from the event.

You can access the index and live links to my January 2011 poems here. Those posts include links to the science articles that inspired the poems, along with links to descriptions of the different poetic forms used. Poetic Variables includes discussions of those forms.

From the back cover blurb: "Thirty-one poems celebrate both scientific variety and the many forms of verse. From mental time travel to a 14-million-year-old lake. From jet-lagged mold to frugal amoebas. From quantum states in migrating robins to salmon finding their way by smell. And much more, in forms ranging from Abecedarian to Villanelle, Persian Ghazal to Korean Sijo and beyond."

Thanks to Daniella Martin (Girl Meets Bug), An Inordinate Fondness #12 (hosted by Bug Girl), and Prof. Zen Faulkes for the shout-outs and poem citations -- and to P.F. Anderson, Thebeautybrains, Ellen Byrne, Dawn A Crawford, Karin Fornazier, Vida Jaugelis, Raima Larter, Joanne Manster, Susanna Speier, Karyn Traphagen, Bora Zivkovic, Anton Zuiker, the Citrus County (FL) NaNoWriMo Group, and The Way We Write for all the retweets!

Two science sonnets to appear in Open Laboratory 2010

Two sonnets from last April's collection, "In Development" and "Manipulations," will appear in Open Laboratory 2010. Click here for links to the 50 essays, 6 poems, and 1 cartoon in the collection -- and click here to see Andrea Kuszewski's gorgeous cover!

Two poems appear in Star*Line, including an Editor's Choice



I have two works in a special science poems section (vol. 33 #5/6) of Star*Line, journal of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. "Ciliate Sestina" received Editor's Choice and can be read here.

Guest post at Indie Authors How-To blog

Thanks to Lakisha Spletzer for asking me to guest-blog at her Indie Authors How-To site. Click here to read my post, "What's Your Journey?"

Love Your Library

On February 18 I attended the Citrus County Library's "Love Your Library" evening, complete with wine-tasting, food, live jazz (from the Citrus Jazz Society), silent auction, and more. Click here for my photoset.



I donated this book bundle to the silent auction. The bundle included:
1. Deviations: Covenant (paperback, Aisling Press). (Click here for more info and free downloads.)
2. Riffing on Strings: Creative Writing Inspired by String Theory (Scriblerus Press, IPPY Silver Medalist; contains my story "Arachne").
3. Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet (Dark Scribe Press, Bram Stoker Award winner; contains my story "Memento Mori").
4. Oct./Nov. 2009 Asimov's (Contains my novelette "Flotsam" -- on the recommended reading list in The Year's Best Science Fiction, 27th Annual Collection -- and poem "Derivative Work").
5. Vampyr Verse (Popcorn Press; contains my poem "Neighbors").
6. My chapbook 30 Science Sonnets for April 2010.
7. She Nailed A Stake Through His Head: Tales of Biblical Terror (Dybbuk Press, 2010).
8. Chapbook Divinations: Writing by the Throw of the Dice.
9. My latest chapbook, Poetic Variables: Science Poems for January 2011.

Thanks to library director Flossie Benton Rogers and to everyone who worked on this fabulous event!

Inverness Book Festival



On January 29 I participated in the Inverness Book Festival in the seat of Citrus County. The event occurred in the Old Courthouse Historical Museum. Thanks to festival coordinators Sandra Koonce, the GFWC Woman's Club of Inverness, and the Citrus County Historical Society! Ten percent of sales were donated to the club.

Crystal River Women's Club



On January 19 I spoke to the Crystal River Women's Club. Thanks to Pat Rada for inviting me and to the club for a great audience!

I usually gear my presentations toward writers, but in this case I spoke mainly to readers. My talk focused on how I became a writer, why I write what I do, what inspires me, and how my life experience has shaped my creative output in its various forms. My bottom lines: (a) Follow your passion, and (b) Nothing is wasted.

L-R: Jo Ann Ryan, Education & Literary Chair; Margie Harper, President of CRWC; me; and Pat Rada, Chair of Wednesday's program.

I used a portion of this talk in my guest blog at Indie Author How-To (see above).

Poetry Panel at Tampa Writers Alliance



On January 5 I joined John Foster and David Roth for "The Heart of Poetic Expression... Learning to Romance Words." Thanks to Tampa Writers Alliance President Chris Taylor, to the other TWA volunteers, and to a great audience!

From the panel blurb: "Why is it that many of the best selling novels seem to have a poetic sound to the writing? Perhaps these successful authors have mastered writing poems as well as storytelling. Could understanding the structure of poems help hone the skills of a novelist?"

L-R: Me, John Foster, and David Roth. The meeting occurred at the Carrollwood Barnes & Noble in Tampa, FL.

Coming up: On February 23 I'll speak to the Kings Bay Rotary Club on "A Gaggle of Muses: Creativity for Fun and Sometimes Profit."

Elissa Malcohn's Deviations and Other Journeys Promote Your Page Too


Vol. 1, Deviations: Covenant (2nd Ed.), Vol. 2, Deviations: Appetite, Vol. 3, Deviations: Destiny, Vol. 4, Deviations: Bloodlines, Vol. 5, Deviations: TelZodo
Free downloads at the Deviations website, Smashwords, and Manybooks.

Proud participant, Operation E-Book Drop (provides free e-books to personnel serving overseas. Logo from the imagination and graphic artistry of K.A. M'Lady & P.M. Dittman); Books For Soldiers (ships books and more to deployed military members of the U.. armed forces); and Shadow Forest Authors (a fellowship of authors and supporters for charity, with a focus on literacy).
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