Happy Birthday, BVC

A year ago we went live with Book View Cafe, uncertain whether it would sink or swim. The answer, a year into the experiment, appears to be that we're not only swimming, but swimming toward new lands to conquer. The site has well over a thousand subscribers, plus the casual visitors. We've added additional writers to the stable. We've published our first e-reprint anthology (with more to come) and The Shadow Conspiracy, a very cool original steampunk anthology--more of a braided novel, really--has just gone to formatting (the equivalent of "it's in production"). I have never worked with a group of people to rival the ingenuity, energy, and enthusiasm of my fellow Book View Cafeterians (?), and I'm proud to be a part of the experiment.

If you haven't checked the site out, please do. Most of my backlist of short stories is there, as well as work by Vonda McIntyre, Ursula LeGuin, Laura Anne Gilman, Steve Harper, Sarah Zettle, Deborah Ross, Kit Kerr, and (as they say) many more. Much of it is free, all of it is "nominal cost," and damned if this might not be one version of the future of publishing.

Replenishment of a Sorry Wardrobe

It finally hit critical mass and I had to do one of those things I hate to do these days: shop. Nothing exotic--undergarments, socks, a new pair of shoes, and a couple of sweaters. Bras are one kind of ugly because, in the words of Jane Russell, we full-figure girls get rooked. $50 for one bra. $88 for the other. Neither of them contain diamonds, neither of them light up in the dark or permit one to operate a cell phone hands-free. Sigh. Shoes are another species of hell: I have dinosaur feet--significant bunions (particularly on my right foot) and when I get a pair of shoes that fits properly for everything else, the pressure on the bunion makes my lesser toes go numb. Gradually the new shoes will stretch out and look crappy, but exert less pressure on the bunion, and everything will be fine. But: ow.

The sweaters were not to bad: I had a 30% coupon for The Gap, and there's nothing so pleasant as picking out $150 worth of merchandize and paying less than a hundred for it. One black sweater, one lovely tomato-soup colored one, and a hot pink sweater that I'm wearing right now.

I no longer look like a bag lady, which is a comfort.