Myth, the Universe, and Everything

Look at what I got in the mail!



Remember back to two years ago when slwhitman was running a Kickstarter campaign (which I wrote about frequently) to start Tu Books? A refresher on what happened next: the campaign was successful enough to grab the attention of Lee & Low, who brought Tu Books on as am imprint with Stacy at the head. The above book is from the first publishing season of the house, and was a gift for my contribution to the Kickstarter campaign. Inside, Stacy did a little doodle for me.



I am clearly thrilled for Stacy, and wish her the best in continued successes. All three of this season's books look fantastic!

I also got my contributor copy of Haunted in the mail this week, and it is super exciting to see my name right there on the cover. It's nifty that my married name has made me alphabetically first so frequently. We also got a very thoughtful and largely positive review from Hunter C. Eden over at Ravenous Monster, and I especially appreciated his comments about the characterization in "Missing Molly." He writes: "Abbott's sensitive portrayal of the soldier's state of mind admirably avoids both 'psychotic veteran' and 'American hero' clichés in favor of genuine character development well-served by the author's command of dialogue." (That's a review to pin to my bulletin board to cheer me up on frustrating days!)

In more personal news, I am sick of having a cold (pun intended), but despite being under the weather, I did pass my kempo test on Friday, so I am now a second degree brown belt. Twostripe had his third degree black belt test on Sunday, and from now on shall be known as Threestripe here on MtU&E. Huzzah!

I love it when bits of my life intersect.

I remember when I was first on facebook, I connected with Jim Coppoc, a friend of mine I'd known through high school friends, who is now a poet and professor. A college friend of mine immediately sent me a message, wondering how in the world I knew Jim! She'd met him in a completely different context.

The same thing happened a couple of years ago when I realized that spyscribe, who I knew from college, shared a mutual group of gaming friends who lived in Connecticut. The story of how that happened is only slightly convoluted, but the result has been spyscribe's having more reasons to come out to Connecticut than just my family, so delightfully, we've gotten to see her a few times we wouldn't have otherwise.

It's especially fun when these moments happen while I'm working. As part of my bread and butter work, I write essays for Something about the Author (without bylines, so I'm probably not allowed to say about whom I'm writing). A couple of times, including this last batch, the person I'm writing about is also someone I know through livejournal. It's awesome to be able to say to my editor, "So, if you can't get in touch with this writer, I can send them an lj note!"

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In correlating news (speaking of connecting people, or in this case, people to items), a few new items are up at the kickstart_tu auction, including out of print books by janni and a new critique -- this one a line-edit offer (which I have to say are actually my favorite types of critiques). Less than a week left to put in any donations or bids!

I tried to find a good excerpt about thankfulness, but I didn't quite manage to come up with one. (I looked through a book by Deitrich Bonhoeffer, and funnily enough, the excerpt I ended up with is remarkably similar in theme to one I considered by him.) But I will say a few things I am thankful for in general: family, friends, a good work year, and especially that my little one on the way is healthy and just as she should be.

I'm also thankful to all the folks who have donated or made bids over at the kickstart_tu auction, and hoping that it continues to get more folks visiting over the next week and change that we're running it!

One of the books that I've always appreciated for distilling thoughts about the nature of divinity and the human relationship to the divine is a very small memoir called Mister God, This Is Anna. It's mostly a view of "Mister God" through the perspective of a six-year-old girl, who shares her wisdom with the author, Fynn. It has the kind of feel-good nature that reminds me of Thanksgiving, so that's where today's excerpt is coming from. I hope all of my American readers had a lovely Thanksgiving yesterday, and all my international friends have many things to be thankful for, holiday or not.

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So far as Anna was concerned, being good, being generous, being kind, praying, and all that kind of stuff had very little to do with Mister God. They were, in the jargon of today, merely "spinoffs." This sort of thing was just "playing it safe," and Anna was going to have none of it. No! Religion was all about being like Mister God and it was here that things could get a little tough. The instructions weren't to be good and kind and loving, etc., and it therefore followed that you would be like Mister God. No! The whole point of being alive was to be like Mister God and then you couldn't help but be good and kind and loving, could you?

"If you get like Mister God, you don't know what you are, do you?"

"Are what?" I questioned.

"Good and kind and loving."

This last comment was delivered in her throw-away tone of voice as if it were insignificant and irrelevant. I knew this one of old. Either you had to pretend it hadn't happened, or start asking questions. A moment or two of hesitation on my part as I watched the grin spread from her toes and explode in one short sharp hoot of mirth, and I realized that she had sprung the trap. She had something to say and had forced me into asking the question. If I hadn't done it then I would have had to sooner or later, so...

"OK, Tich. What's all this goodness and kindness and loving lark then?"

"Well," and the tone of her voice slid down the roller coaster of excitement, shot up the other side, and took off. "Well, if you think you are, you ain't."

(x-posted from kickstart_tu)

Dear Friends,

Any of you who follow my livejournal know that recently, I had the opportunity to have Stacy Whitman (slwhitman) write a guest post about her plans for her new publishing house: Tu Publishing. The mission is admirable: the books put out by Tu Publishing will feature multicultural heroes and heroines, helping science fiction and fantasy for children and teens become a more diverse genre. Young readers should be able to find fantasy and science fiction where their own culture is reflected in the world of the novel, and the goal of Tu Publishing is to offer just that. (You can read more about the goals on Tu's mission page.)

Here's the catch: ever publishing endeavor needs capital to start. Stacy is using Kickstarter as a fund drive to get the project started. As of today, she's reached 29% of her goal, and only 25 days remain for contributions! That's where we come in.

In order to help her reach her goals, this community has been formed to auction off items, services, crafts, and other various and sundry offerings, with all the proceeds going to the Tu kickstart page. We hope to help Stacy and Tu reach the goal of $10,000 by December 14th.

How can you help?

1) Donate something to our auction.
2) Bid on something donated to our auction.
3) Spread the word! Get lovers of fantasy and science fiction to pop by!

Contributors decide on the starting price and the end time of their auction. Because the turn-around is so soon, auctions will begin as soon as the listing for the offering is posted.

Auction winners will make a donation directly to the Tu Publishing Kickstart page and send the receipts to the contributor.

Thank you so much for your support!

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In old news, I completely forgot to resolve my contest on November 7th. Congrats to karenkincy, asakiyume, and vita_ganieda, who will be getting Andrew Lang fairy books in the mail. :)

In somewhat less old news, my Norse Saga game on Sunday caused the second best fit of laughter I've ever had in a role playing game. (The first still goes to Cody Jones for the dirigibles.) I did not quite fall off my chair (hence the dirigibles maintaining the number one spot), but I did cry, I was laughing so hard. This is one of the many reasons I love table-top role playing games. (Also, I got to totally myth-geek the table with references to Taliesin, Cerridwin, Annwn, Bridget, Manannan, Gwyn ap Nudd, Loki, and sundry others.)

But now, off to figure out what I'm going to put into the auction!