sean on Salon and Fountain Award

So, there's a great reason to sit through the day-pass Salon ad -- starting today they're publishing excerpts of Sean Stewart's wonderful novel Perfect Circle, which is about "Texas, ghosts, and perfect pop songs." (Not to mention it's published by the equally wonderful Small Beer Press.)

The first one is here.

I woke up sweaty and shaking. Tense. I had been dreaming about ghost roads again. This one was leaving an apartment complex swimming pool, and there was a little girl walking down it. She was looking back over her shoulder at me, eyes solemn behind a cheap kid's snorkeling mask, and wearing pool flippers; slow dreamy duck-steps, a trail of wet inhuman footprints disappearing into the dim black and white houses, the humming silence.

All I can do is tell you that you're a fool if you don't go read this and buy the book immediately. My favorite thing I've read this year. They use the hardcover cover (lovely, lovely), but I'm partial to the trade paperback cover, which is displayed below.



(Gavin, put up a smaller version!)

There's also an interesting interview with Richard Linklater about Before Sunset and adult romance at Salon today. It has some good writing stuff in it too:

To have the dialogue not play out like it was literature or theater, we had to [really think about how people talk]. In our natural dialogue, we're doing subtle segues to smooth edges. But what's really going on is people are trying to communicate their own thoughts, as much as they can or are interested in. It makes for a certain disjointedness. So if you really listen to the way people talk, that's what's there -- it's not flowing literature.

Makes me want to go rent Before Sunrise and then actually see the sequel, despite the fact both contain Ethan Hawke.

Also, the Speculative Literature Foundation has named "The Specialist" by Alison Smith the winner of its first Fountain Award, for "a speculative short story of exceptional literary quality." It was published in McSweeney's and the prize is $1,000. The short list is up too and there's some great stuff on there. Jurors were Heinz Insu Fenkl, John Kessel, Larissa Lai, Kelly Link (half of Small Beer Press, apropos of nothing but the above), and Maureen McHugh.

John Kessel says of the winning story: Alison Smith's "The Specialist" is beautifully written, funny, and full of evocative details. As I read the nominated stories I was on the lookout for originality and good writing, but what really carried me in this story was the feeling that the author had access to something fundamentally mysterious. I love the way the story kept taking sharp turns when I least expected them, and I found the final images powerful and disturbing.

I'm looking forward to hunting it down.

worm "Wig in a Box," The Polyphonic Spree

namecheck Mandy "Hollywood" Helton