The Gorramn Shiniest Dictionary and Phrasebook in the ‘Verse has a revised cover and a fabulous new title! I’m happy to share this with you today. Huge thanks to my editor at Titan Books for giving me the chance to update you with the revised cover. Spring 2016 can’t come soon enough!
Happy to announce today that I have signed with Red Sofa Literary.
Jennie Goloboy and I are fine-tuning my proposal for a nonfiction book filled with worldbuilding games geared for writers. I couldn’t be happier about this development, and I’m looking forward to working with Jennie on this. More news as I get it.
Happy reading!
Popping in today to give you a quick preview of my story titled “Three of a Kind.” I designed this pastiche about internet furies based on three programming languages, and I’m including the first couple of paragraphs for each one. They get progressively stronger, language-wise, as the pieces go on to represent the fury and how they feed off of our rage. The structure also ties into the language in some fashion, which is clearer to readers familiar with those languages once you see the whole piece.
The anthology, called Gods, Memes, and Monsters: A 21st Century Bestiary, has been published by Stone Skin Press and is available from their store directly or wherever books are sold. Please do check this out as there are dozens of amazing and very fine authors in this collection including: Chad Fifer, Charlene Challenger, Chris Lackey, Dave Gross, David Barnes, Dennis Bolen, Dennis Detwiller, Ed Greenwood, Ekaterina Sedia, Emily Care Boss, Gareth Hanrahan, Greg Stafford, Greg Stolze, James Wallis, Jean-Francois Chenier, Jerry Schaefer, Jim Webster, JM Frey, John Tynes, Jonathan Blum, Jonathan Howard, Julia Ellingboe, Kathryn Kuitenbrower, Kenneth Hite, Kurt Zubatiuk, Kyla Ward, Laura Lush, Molly Tanzer, Monica Valentinelli, Myna Wallin, Nancy Kilpatrick, Nick Mamatas, Patrick O’Duffy, Peter Ball, Peter Chiykowski, Peter Dubé, Peter Freeman, Richard Dansky, Robin Laws, Rupert Booth, Sam Agro, Sandra Kasturi, Silvia Moreno-Garcia…and many, many more.
If you’d like an eBook, please consider picking up a digital bundle of PDF, ePub, and Mobi formats for Gods, Memes, and Monsters: A 21st Century Bestiary from DriveThruFiction.com.
Three of a Kind
by Monica Valentinelli
aWduaXRl
(Base 64)
“Ignite”
“…shots fired at yet another elementary school in Virginia just days after…”
“…though he’s a veteran political commentator, his surprising set of remarks have forced women’s organizations to withdraw funding from…”
“…when asked how should we get young people to care about major issues, she answered: Do what I did. Cast a little-known actress into the role of an iconic super heroine…”
I am one of three entities, sisters of spirit and flesh. When you first meet me, you won’t recognize me when you do, for I will be invisible. Yet, I am everywhere. Nowhere.
I am online on a website, in the comments, on forums and in chat rooms. I am lurking on your phone, spying on you while you talk to your friends, send your lover naked pics, bitch about your mom or your whiny best friend.
Can you see me now? My form becomes more solid each time you get angry; each time you get pissed off, each time you vent about something someone else said online.
6275726e
(Hexadecimal)
“Burn”
We are valkyries, succubi, poltergeists, imps, harpies, serpents and sinners who live on in bytes and pixels, feeding off your melting-cheese-on-the-asphalt rage, your hours wasted worrying about stupid bullshit, and your regret for diving into yet another flame war.
You’ve already met my sister, Ignite.
Thanks to the demon on your shoulder, the fires of your personal hell have been raging on in your mind.
I attack after Ignite, hit you hard every time you lash out and type a pissy comment, forcing you to stick around and wait for a response.
I can smell your fury burning through forum after blog after website. Burn, baby burn.
011000010111001101101000
(Binary)
“Ash”
Regret.
(I feed off of your guilt.)
When you were with my sister, Burn, your eyes were bloodshot, flames were shooting out of your nostrils, and your fingers flew across your keyboard. You posted hundreds of comments that’ll get lost in a matter of hours…
(And still completely searchable to anyone who cares.)
…which is the equivalent of thousands of Calories.
I am pleased to announce that, this Spring, a new addition to the Firefly ‘Verse will be hitting store shelves. It’s called The Gorramn Shiniest Language Guide and Dictionary in the ‘Verse, and pre-orders are now available.
The process and the approvals for this project was much different than what I’ve done previously for Firefly. All of my effort was strongly focused on writing the text, which is different from being a developer on a multi-book project where I get to see the text, layout, and most of the art ahead of time. Here, I spent a lot of time analyzing the show scripts, reviewing the language, and focusing on the individual words–some of which had alternate spellings! Plus, there’s a special interview in here with Jenny Lynn, the show’s translator as well, and I got the chance to hear some great stories.
I’m hoping that fans like you will be amazed to get a new, inside look at what it’s like to be involved with Firefly from a language perspective, and fall in love with the ‘Verse all over again. Thanks to my editors at Titan–I had a blast on this project!
Apex Publications is pleased to announce the addition of a new anthology to its 2015 release schedule. Upside Down: Inverted Tropes in Storytelling is an anthology of short stories and poems that will highlight the long-standing tradition of writers who identify tropes in science fiction, fantasy, and horror and twist them into something new and interesting.
Upside Down: Inverted Tropes in Storytelling will include original contributions from Maurice Broaddus, Shanna Germain, Laura Anne Gilman, Sara Harvey, John Hornor Jacobs, Rahul Kanakia, Haralambi Markov, Sunil Patel, Kat Richardson, Nisi Shawl, Lucien Soulban, Wrath James White, Alyssa Wong, and many others.
“I am excited to be working with two fantastic, smart, and gifted editors like Jaym Gates and Monica Valentinelli,” says Jason Sizemore, the publisher of Apex Book Company. “They should only enhance the Apex reputation as one of the genre’s leading anthology publishers with the release of Upside Down.”
Edited by Jaym Gates (War Stories) and Monica Valentinelli (Haunted: 11 Tales of Ghostly Horrors), the anthology will debut in Fall/Winter 2015 in both digital and print. The anthology will be Gates’s second collection with Apex Book Company and Valentinelli’s first. A Kickstarter and open submissions period are also planned for this fall.
To find out more about Upside Down: Inverted Tropes in Storytelling, be sure to watch for milestone-related updates from the editors posted on the Apex Book Company website.
