New week, new dumpster report
Hello again, world. These days I am vacillating between relief I’m not personally engulfed in flames from the World’s Latest Dumpster Fire yet, and furious about how many other people are already being burned whole.
Nonetheless, good things do still happen. The following things happened last week:
My house still mostly doesn’t smell. That is a a low bar for satisfaction, but here we are. My office today was cozy and bright and a lovely place to spend hours NOT on the internet because I don’t do the internet on April 1. (I am too squishy and accepting, and my default is always to believing declarations at face value. Bad match for International Laugh At People For Believing What You Tell Them Day.) I expect the smell to return after tomorrow’s predicted Armageddon Rains flush more ground water through the sump pump, but it’s definitely improving as time passes, and that’s all I ask.
I am halfway through a lovely series called The Steerswoman that someone on Bluesky recommended last week. It’s scifi disguised as fantasy, and it reminds me of the best of the books I read 30+ years ago when low-tech SFF was A Big Trend in. Most were far-future post apocalyptic novels, but some, like these, featured lost/regressed colonies on alien worlds.)
Stickers and window clings and even some photo prints of Hope Crow are on their way to me. I’ll post about that when they all arrive, you betcha.
I have new clothes! When I realized my wardrobe literally had nothing left between “twill workpants+hoodie+tee” and “formal dress” I went on my first clothes shopping trip since 2014. Now I have 2 pairs of shoes that aren’t hiking boots, 3 pr of “business-appropriate” black stretch trousers, a fancy new suit jacket, 3 colors of a top to go under the jacket—and a new dress for my few Formal Occasions. (The dress wasn’t on the list, but it SPARKLES. I had to have it.) Every single thing that fit me was on major clearance, so apparently it was all meant to be.
I got to spend a day at my alma mater listening to library-related seminar stuff, and had two great meals with other folks on the Advisory Council and from the University. I learned some cool things, got to visit new places in South Bend, and had a much better time than I expected. Spouseman’s latest car is 100% comfy for road trips, even on Chicago bumpy roads.
Lessee. Other stuff.
I’m mostly confining my rants about the epic WTFery of existence in the United States of Fascist Fuckery to a different little blog. And for now, the effects are mainly at the edges of my life. I am thankful. But I am not ignoring it, and wouldn’t, even if I could.
Which I suppose I could. People do.
I have overheard other people say, one to the other, “things aren’t as bad as <insert news outlet here> is making it out to be,” and it takes all I have in me not to scream at them, “NO IT’S WORSE, A THOUSAND TIMES WORSE, OPEN YOUR EYES,” but it always happens in a venue where righteous fury would not be personally safe, or helpful to bystanders.
But. I Digress. More GOOD stuff:
I’m slowly working on adding direct-sales capbility to my website (I may have to enlist Expert Help, it’s a wearisome amount of data entry and I keep getting distracted by Prettier Themes Than Mine) I’m also looking at other publishing venues, since apparently Drive Thru Fiction and Itch.io are the Latest New Places people are going for their fiction.
With help from friends, I’ve found someone to hire who can look at my writing and tell me what kind of reader tags and content warning I can add. I’ve been wanting to add those for a long time now but kept grounding out. Very pleased that project is at last off the ground.
This week my big goal is to get Relics From A Traveling Show entered into the Indie Author Project contest for this year. (It just opened up for submissions today. I’m not late for once!) Controlled Descent made it to the final round at the state level in, hm. 2018? 2019? But in any case, it’s a library-driven thing, so I love participating.
Speaking of libraries, could y’all please request your library buy Relics From A Traveling Show for you? It’s only in one library so far, at least that I can find. (It’s in New Hampshire. I don’t know why. I don’t know anyone in New Hampshire.)
And now that I’ve asked for something, this feels like a good place to stop.
But wait, the best part of any post: Cat pics!
Pippin discovered how to get behind my computer monitor.
The laptop is warm. He likes it there. (Fringe benefit of blurring my screen, it looks like he’s on the screen too, now.)
Okay, that’s all until later.
What’s on your bookshelf?
This is the part where I talk about my books.
Relics From A Traveling Show
The newest of the new! A collection of all my short fictions in one handy volume, available now from your favorite booksite or local shop.
Or! OR! if you like your local library, you could request a purchase. Free for you, sale for me, everyone wins.
Most libraries need the following info for ordering print books:
Title: Relics From A Traveling Show
Author: K. M. Herkes
ISBN: 9781945745201 (paperback)
Every library system does things a little differently, but most want their collections to serve their communities, so most of them are very responsive to patron requests.
If you like novels more than short stories, I recommend my series The Rollover Files for hopepunk tales of about an alternate world where moms with midlife crisis superpowers have been saving the world and making the military nervous since 1943.
I also have a completed, quirky slow-burn science fiction thriller duology with a romance chaser: The Stories Of The Restoration.
All my titles are available from Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Hoopla, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, Overdrive and many other fine booksellers.
Support your favorite independent bookseller! Find a local shop via Indiebound
Be a potato.
" Fear is strange soil. Mainly it grows obedience like corn, which grows in rows and makes weeding easy. But sometimes it grows the potatoes of defiance, which flourish underground."
Terry Pratchett (Small Gods)