Interviewing David Drake

December 9, 2008 R. Parrish Leave a comment

At the World Fantasy Convention I became a fan of several people even before reading anything they’d ever written, I also added people to the (very small) list of authors whose books I will never buy, again without reading a word they’d written. I can’t be the only person who buys books (or doesn’t) based on how the author conducts themselves, thus reinforcing the need to always be professional and polite.

Anyway, this isn’t meant to devolve into a lecture or an essay. Quite the contrary.

One of the men who impressed the hell out of me at WFC and made me buy his work even though it’s in a genre I don’t usually read, is David Drake. I emailed him to tell him that, and to thank him for a very powerful panel he was on and we began ‘talking’. One thing that came out of that emailed conversation was that he agreed to do an interview with me for Niteblade.

I’m planning to do a series of author interviews on Niteblade, this is only the first, but I hope you’ll check it out and tell me what you think.

Interview with David Drake.

Please leave a comment so I know you were there. I’d bribe you with prizes if I could, but alas, I’ve nothing to offer at the moment, except karma and gratitude.

Reviews

Reviewed at The Fix

December 5, 2008 R. Parrish 2 Comments

Shiny #4 was reviewed at The Fix and because my story, “Skitter Skitter” was in it, that means it got a review too. I love reviews. Love them. Even negative reviews…as long as they say something constructive rather than just ‘you suck’. Anywho, this was not a negative review 🙂

In Rhonda Parrish’s “Skitter Skitter,” Chloe and Melody are teens assigned to work on a report together. They are investigating a house where a terrible murder took place, and Chloe describes the experience as they make their way in. Parrish does a great job with teen exasperation as Chloe describes their progress, often talking in the purple clichés (“I feel a chill down my spine that touches my very soul”) of teen writing, in spite of Melody’s phlegmatic interruptions.

…and that’s when things bend. The rest will please readers who like the illogic of go-for-the-grue horror.

If you’d like to see the complete review you can see it by clicking here. Yay! 🙂

Niteblade

Niteblade #6: Oh, Christmas Tree

December 1, 2008 R. Parrish Leave a comment

The new issue of Niteblade is out and it’s full of awesome.

The cover story this month, appropriately enough, is “Oh, Christmas Tree” by S. Alan Fox. It’s an awesome bit of flash that I guarantee you will not regret reading. In fact, it should be required reading for all flash lovers.

There are, obviously, other great stories and poems in this issue. For example, we’ve another poem by N.C. Whitehead, a poet I’ve become a great fan of, and another by Greg Schwartz whose work I also adore. There are less than thirteen poems in this issue, alas. Not because I wanted to include less, but because poetry submissions are down. If you’re a poet, yes, that was a hint. 😉

The fiction is strong in this issue as well. I’m going to resist the urge to share some of my personal favorites because if I did that I’d feel like I should blurb them…and I can’t write good blurbs for my own work, let alone anyone else’s LoL. Take my word for it though, there are some great stories here that span a vast number of subjects. We’ve got werewolves, zombies, fanatics, body swappers, sadistic children, psychics and more. Really, this issue is full of awesome 🙂

Best of all, perhaps, if you blog, I’m giving away free copies of the magazine. You should check out the Niteblade News blog for details.

Aphanasian Stories, Flash, Published, Shadows

Going insane, and a bit of flash

November 19, 2008 R. Parrish Leave a comment

I’ve got a couple fulls out to agents right now, for both Swamp Story and Shadows, and I’m kinda going insane I think. I don’t want to get my hopes up too high because if things don’t work out it will be quite devastating, but at the same time, it’s very hard not to. Please keep your fingers, metaphorically crossed for me. I am not going to go into any more details just yet, I don’t want to jinx myself LOL

I do have some news I can go into details about though. My funny little flash piece, Swapped, is included in the current issue of Mississippi Crow Magazine. Rumor has it you can get a copy of the .pdf for free, if you check it out I’d love to hear what you think 🙂

And please, send good thoughts my way re: agents and staying sane.

appearances, Niteblade, Poetry

Racing Death

November 12, 2008 R. Parrish Leave a comment

Do you ever feel like you’re racing death? I do! I don’t know when it started really, but I am very well aware of the fact there aren’t enough years in the human lifespan to do everything I want to. Not even close. With that in the back of my mind, I am driven to get as many things on my ‘Lifetime To-Do’ list as I can before the grim reaper cuts me down. I am, in essence, racing death.

That is how my blog entry today over at Ginger Simpson’s blog starts. If you’d like to see what I say after that and read the short poem I share, please click here and head over. As always I value your comments, here or there.

Deadmonton, NaNoWriMo

Deadmonton Excerpt

November 7, 2008 R. Parrish 3 Comments

So, I’m NaNoing, as usual, except that this year I had zero enthusiasm for it and writing my story was like pulling teeth. I was working on ‘See the Sky Again’ which is an Aphanasian novel. Writing the Aphanasian piece I felt like I was pulling teeth. It really, really hurt. The problem, I think, was that the setting (an underground city) wasn’t fully formed in my mind yet. It’s still not. Once it is I’ll go back to it, but in the meantime I’ve switched and I’m now working on my WIP zombie novel, Deadmonton.

The words are coming much easier now and I’m really very fond of this novel. I can’t wait to get it done so I can share it with people (my brain won’t let me send out WIPs for critique).

And here is a short excerpt — warning, this is a pretty violent and profane passage, it is, after all, a zombie novel 🙂

Continue reading Deadmonton Excerpt →

Poetry

World Fantasy Open Mic Reading

November 6, 2008 R. Parrish 2 Comments

I’m freshly returned from World Fantasy and though I keep trying to settle down enough to write about how amazing an experience it was for me, I keep failing. There is so much to say and I don’t know all the words. Suffice to say it was mind-blowing.

One part of the conference which was particularly amazing for me was the open mic poetry reading Carolyn Clink put together. Yes, the same one I was just talking about a week ago and admitting how I was too big a wuss to participate.

The week-ago me was wrong.

I went to the reading and I participated! I read a very short piece, a haiku in fact, titled “Lovers” that was originally published in Star*Line. I was -so- nervous. I could barely breathe and I’m not sure exactly how my knees held me up, but I did it. I did it because I figured it would be easier to suck up my nerves and fear and do it than it would be to live with my self-condemnation for years and years to come for being too scared to do it. So basically, because it was easier in the long run.

I’m so glad I did, though even now my fingers get a bit shaky when I think about it. I honestly don’t know how big the audience is because I seriously had tunnel vision the whole time, but I heard someone say ‘This is a bigger audience than I would have expected at a poetry event.’ so that’s good.

Best of all, after I read no one booed, in fact, there were a few chuckles, so I guess I enunciated my words okay.

That was one heck of a way to get my poetry-reading cherry popped though. The people reading were:

Joe Haldeman
David Lunde
Colleen Anderson
Rhea Rose
Eileen Kernaghan
Rhonda Parrish
Carolyn Clink

Yes! That really is my name on the same list as all those amazing poets! *swoon*. So I’ve done it. I don’t know if I’ll ever manage to find the courage to do it again, but…ah hell, who am I kidding? I’d totally do it again, and again, and again…and hopefully better each time. Just…not any time too soon. 🙂

Published

Skitter Skitter

November 1, 2008 R. Parrish 1 Comment

I’m currently at the World Fantasy convention in Calgary and I’ve got to tell you, it is SO full of awesome. I would like to go into the reasons for my saying that (in case they aren’t obvious) but I can’t. I can’t, because if I start I won’t be able to stop and that’s really not what this post is meant to be about. So I’ll talk about WFC later, but for right now I want to talk about Skitter Skitter.

Skitter Skitter is a story I wrote and it’s just been published in Issue #4 of Shiny Magazine.

This is cool for lots of reasons. One of which is that Shiny is a YA magazine, in fact, I think this may be my first YA-specific writing credit. That makes me happy. The other, more important reason, is that I like the story behind Skitter Skitter. It’s dark and creepy and was a whole lot of fun to write.

In fact, it was so fun to write that I wrote it two different times LOL The original format of the story was a transcript, all dialog, no description. It worked (in my not-so-humble opinion) but it was too short, so I re-wrote it with description.

Now, it’s a pretty great mix, even if I do say so myself, and I hope you’ll check it out at Shiny and let me know what you think.

Poetry

SFPA’s Online Halloween Poetry Reading

October 24, 2008 R. Parrish 2 Comments

I was invited to a poetry reading at World Fantasy next weekend and I posted an ‘Oh my god this is so cool but I am way too chicken!’ post to my livejournal. Friends kept telling me not to be a wuss and to participate, especially since I fully intend to attend and listen. I’m afraid I’m going to continue to be a wuss, partly because I’m a wuss and partly because I don’t think I actually have anything appropriate to read. Okay, mostly because I’m a wuss, but the other part is true too!

Anyway, I was inspired by my friends telling me to read so when the Science Fiction Poetry Association asked members to contribute audio recordings of themselves doing readings for their Online Halloween Poetry Reading, I decided to send something in.

If you click here you can listen to some really awesome poets reading their stuff…and I’m reading The Sepultress.

Please listen and be kind. In order to record my poem I had to borrow Danica’s ipod and use it. Unfortunately, I stumbled in my reading a couple times because I was focusing on the ipod instead of the poem. Oops. I figured you’d all forgive me though, especially since it’s my first time at this.

Published

Axe

October 20, 2008 R. Parrish Leave a comment

Not so long ago there was an anthology dedicated to retelling the story of Little Red Riding Hood. I wrote and submitted a piece for it called Axe.

Axe is, without question, the most disturbing story I have ever written. I’d just finished reading a bunch of articles about pushing yourself and testing your limits when I wrote it, and I think it shows. Axe tells the story of Little Red Riding Hood from the perspective of the woodsman’s axe. It wasn’t accepted for the anthology I originally wrote it for, but it did find a home in the DemonMInds Halloween issue. That issue is available at Amazon now and DemonMinds have put up a little teaser too. So if you click here you will be able to read the beginning of Axe for free.

Remember though, it’s not for the faint of heart…really. It’s really, really not.

I write, I edit and I take a lot of naps.