My Google Agent which searches on my name pulled up this post on SFFAudio today. It lists the stories in the H.P. Lovecraft Public Domain Works audiobook collection from LibriVox: I read “Celephais”. Also included are “The Music of Erich Zann” and “Herbert West: Reanimator”.

Three people complain about a single swear word in a book, and Random House decides to change it.

Oh, and they’re also trying to put a clause in their contracts that says they can refuse to do business with an author if the author does something to make them unsuitable to be a children’s author. (The English Roses, anyone?)

Thanks-I-think go to Diane Duane.

You can probably guess why I’m linking to this. :-)

…to observe/The rite of May”

You know, no matter how much analysis you put around it, I am now convinced that Shakespeare meant exactly as they played it in the 1999 movie. I just didn’t realize how far back that little ditty ran. :-)

I can’t properly categorize this short story without spoiling it, but if you like Young Adult fantasy, you should check it out.

While updating my mailing info at Powell’s, I came across a neat interview and Q&A session with Stephen King. My interest in him has been a bit revived since showing the girls his house and the Biography video.

Might it be because the reading programs are designed to bore kids to death?

One mid-September night, when I was tucking my 5-year-old son Eamonn in bed, the standardization madness came home to roost. With quivering lip and tear-filled eyes, Eamonn told me he hated school. He said he had to read baby books that didn’t make sense and that he was in the “dummy group.”

Then he looked up at me and said, “I just want to read Frog and Toad.”

Hat tip to TeacherKen@Kos.