200 lbs.of lazy

I'm tired as Hell.

I spent the day at the Wild Life World Zoo here in Phoenix with the wife, daughter, and in-laws. It was a fun day overall, but a day spent outside in the middle of June in Phoenix will suck every ounce of energy and vitality out of your body and turn you into 200 lbs. of unproductive couch slug.

The issue is that I don't want to be 200 lbs. of couch slouch tonight.

I want to be typing up a story I'm pretty excited about it, but I just don't have the motivation to keep my eyes on the notebook the story's in and type it up.

So I figure I'll just sit down and type, hoping it'll rev me up enough to start working on my re-write.

I'll get started with some links:

First up, A Twist of Noir celebrated it's 100th published story this week with Sweet Dreams by Jake Hinkson. I love Twist of Noir, Christopher Grant always says it's the writer's who make the zine what it is--and he's right--but I also think it has a lot to do with Chris's willingness to publish stories that normally wouldn't fit with your typical mystery/crime zine format.

So hat's off to you, Chris, and I hope Twist goes for another six or seven thousand more stories.

Speaking of A Twist of Noir, have you been reading Andy Henion's, Henson comes Home series?

If you haven't, give these bad boys a read. Henion is a premier stylist and once you've taken a look at the Henson series, make sure to take a gander at Henion's back catalog of stories and column's over at such zines as Hobart and Thieves Jargon. (Which is just sick with Henion's writing.) Any way, here's some links to the Henson series:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Moving on.

Another favorite site of mine is CrimeWav. Aldo and Seth's Podcast site always provides some of the best Hard-boiled and Noir crime fiction on the web and this last week's podcast is no exception as Eric Beetner makes his CrimeWav debut with his A Twist of Noir award winning story (Yes, more Twist of Noir related links.) Past Due. Eric does the reading himself and despite what he'll tell you, Mr. Beetner has the perfect voice for Podcasting. So if you haven't already, give it a listen.

In short story market news, Bad Things is back and Christopher Pimental has reformatted the zine into a weekly featuring one new story per-week. The same submission guidelines apply as before, so if you have a short piece of trash up to 2000 words, why not think about sending it over. By the way, the first story up in the new format is Inexpiable by Brian Kaufman. As usual, make sure to leave comments if you dig the story.

And a hat tip to friend of Bloody Knucks Sandra Seaman who is always kind enough to pass on links to new markets. (Especially to certain individuals who were bitching and moaning about not knowing where to place certain stories.) The market Sandra uncovered is called Sub-Lit. The zine publishes three times a year and accepts stories that diffidently fall into the field of unclassifiable. Also, Dzanc books has started a new monthly zine called the Collagist. If you're not familiar with the type of material Dzanc publishes, make sure to give In the Devil's Territory by Kyle Minor, or many of the fine short story collections and novels they publish a read before submitting. The first issue hits in August.

More items in the stuff you should be reading category, Jed Aryes of Hardboiled Wonderland has posted another fantastic interview, this time with Todd "Big Daddy Thug" Robinson, editor and head degenerate of Thuglit. Great interview, of course, Jed's just been full of them over the past couple of months (the Anthony Neil Smith interview from last week is probably one of the most thorough profiles I've ever come across.) and I hope he keeps it up, because they make for some seriously entertaining reads.

Also, on the critical writing front, does anyone know what's going on with Eastern Standard Crime? It's been over three weeks now since a review has been posted?

Okay, last piece before I get to work. (I've gulped down a couple of cups of coffee since I started writing this, so I'm in a very proper mood now.) Paul "Our man in" Brazil made his Beat to a Pulp debut today with his story, Tut. Ah, Brazil, it seems like only yesterday that we somehow stumbled across one another on Myspace, both of us only just starting to test the waters of this little online crime/hard-boiled/noir world and I have to say I'm more than a little proud of all the quality, darkly hilarious stories you've produced in the last year-and-a-half. So this one's going out to you tonight, brother.