I spent Easter weekend visiting my old stomping ground in Pittsburgh; we ate sandwiches and did lawn work and went to Ikea, and oh I do miss living in an area with a ready supply of my particular type of yuppie. Also one of them is eight months pregnant. Endlessly entertaining! I haven’t been back since the move. I went in feeling as if I’d been dumped by the entire city, hoping I wouldn’t spend the whole weekend crying; I left reminded to live wherever I’m living, as grateful for the people I know here as the ones I knew there. I’m glad I went.

Also, got lost in downtown Pittsburgh. Really missed that.

I’ve been really lucky with fiction and poetry sales lately, and unless you follow my Twitter feed or obsessively check my website for some reason, you probably haven’t heard about them, so here’s a quick rundown:

– The Peril of Stories won publication in Enchanted Conversation
– Jelly Rules the Roost was accepted at FaePublishing
– A Fixer-Upper (poem) sold to the Candle in the Attic Window anthology
– Crown of Bells (poem) was accepted at Bull Spec, which just got voted onto the SFWA approved markets list, so go them!

Arcane #1 was released, with my story Courting the Queen of Sheba, with a scarypants cover and great content. Flashlight Memories came out, with my poem Lies. My sister [info]megengelhardt has a poem in a book by the same publisher, and it’s been very popular with our grandmother and her friends. In case that’s your speed.

In dispatches from the Aphid Wars: I’ve severely decreased the population, and am only occasionally finding pockets of resistance, which I snip off and then crush (sometimes while screaming “DIE DIE”, sometimes with a quiet, contemplative intensity). It’s possible the threat may never be eliminated, but perhaps, with ammunition and iron will, it can be contained.

OH YES. I also spent a few days in Chicago, to watch a taping of A SHOW which I actually had to sign an agreement not to blog about (!) but if you want the not-too-hard-to-decipher deets, my sister has the story.