Recent Reads: A Crack in Everything

This angel was a beautiful piece of graffiti on South William Street in Dublin. It was there a long time: I saw it often. I never thought to write a story about it. I would resent that now that Ruth Frances Long has written one and thus proven to me what I failed to imagine, except I’m just really, really *happy* that Ruth wrote this book, and let me tell you, it’s always a relief when a friend writes a book you genuinely like. A CRACK IN EVERYTHING is urban…

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Elfquest: Skywise & Cutter

Elfquest: Final Quest, issue 4

Sigh. I’ll be giving the Final Quest one more issue, because it’s ElfQuest and I’ve loved it since childhood, and because there’s an *extremely* faint chance that the character they apparently killed at the end of this issue is actually dead. If they have actually killed the character off, the story becomes *much* more interesting to me…but I’m so very, very dubious that they’re really dead. This issue featured 20 pages of story, which is enough for one solid story thread, but not the two and a half they’re jamming…

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“Let Them Eat Cake” Recipe Roundup

Okay. I had loads of questions about the “Let Them Eat Cake” recipes, especially the gluten free stuff, so I’m doing a round-up on them. Gluten free, vegan carrot cake recipe with ‘cream cheese’ frosting. Contains flax ‘eggs’, which I’d never previously encountered and am now quite enamoured with as a substitution. Also, even fresh, that frosting tastes *remarkably* like cream cheese frosting, and if you stick it in the fridge overnight and serve it cold (it’s soft enough to spread onto a cake even when cold) it tastes exactly…

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media blackout

I am…desperately behind on writing. This summer–since mid-April–has been…very bad, for writing, and the two projects I hoped to have completed by now are…not. :/ Which means that with 4 months left in the year I also have 4 major projects I want finished or significantly dented, which is…unlikely. I mean, like two of those books are half-written; two are not written at all. I also have three short stories and some copy edits to do, the sooner the better. I am therefore declaring a media blackout in September. Unless…

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Green Tea Cupcakes

So yesterday was the 200th birthday of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Irish author of such gothic classics as UNCLE SILAS and CARMILLA. Swan River Press, a small Irish press specializing in gothic horror and half-forgotten Irish authors, has done a rather splendid celebration of Le Fanu, including – a track at last weekend’s Eurocon – a walk through Dublin with Le Fanu’s life & career as the path – a lecture last night by Le Fanu expert Jim Rockhill – and the release of DREAMS OF SHADOW & SMOKE: Stories…

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