The jockey lot lives!

My name appeared in the Independent Weekly in an article about the closing of the Jockey Lot. They quoted me toward the end of the article talking about the exotic nature of the place, and how you could take a five minute drive and suddenly find yourself in a South American country. Apparently, even though the buildings are closed, the action is still hot in the tents outside. I seldom went into the sheds anyway. The tents are where the good stuff could be found.

Also, I just posted to my Bitterwood blog an article called "Building a Better Dragon." If you ever worried that playing D&D as a teen will doom you to an adulthood of geekiness, this article should remove all doubt.

Finally, Solaris has just posted an interview with me on their features page. I would like to assure my mother should she read it that I make reference to dirty pictures on the internet purely in jest, and I've never, ever, I promise, used my computer for such a disgusting practice.

Dragon sightings...

Dragons have been sighted here in North Carolina.

First, there's this photo, taken right here in Hillsborough.

This isn't a trick photo. When Joy Marchand visited last month, we were taking some photographs of the water tower in Hillsborough that looks like a UFO (below), and by chance happened to get a snap of this oddly draconian looking creature as well.

Then, of course, there are dragons in my living room and in bookstores. Check out my Bitterwood blog for more.

My goal is to have to buy a new bookshelf

I got my contributors copy of the Prime Codex anthology in the mail today. Last week, I got 4 contributors copies of the UK version of Bitterwood, though I'm still waiting on the US version. My bookshelf is starting to fill up nicely with books that contain my words. Most are anthologies, two are novels. In order of publication, roughly, they are:

Empire of Dreams and Miracles
Absolutely Brilliant in Chrome
Nobody Gets the Girl (novel)
All the Rage This Year
The Urban Bizarre
Modern Magic
Prime Codex
Bitterwood (novel)

Waiting in the wings are the Blood and Devotion anthology, the IGMS anthology, and the Solaris Book of New Fantasy. Not bad, considering my first publication was only 2002.

Jockey Lot no more?

So, apparently the weekend I reported about the Jockey Lot was the last weekend they were open according to a news report I learned of this week. Apparently the buildings were in violation of zoning codes (having been there, I'd say, yeah, probably), so they were shut down by the fire department. But I'm less clear on the fate of the tents and open air vendors. I'll try to journey out this weekend and learn the truth, if I can find time to spare from my work on the Bitterwood sequel.