February 21

So what does this mean…

 

Two ereaders full of books and I’m reading the paperback?

Actually, it means both were tied up while I transferred my books from one to the other, but I thought the moment was rather amusing.

In other news I’m working real hard to find balance in this day job-writing-reviewing-home life tsunami. I’m something of a completeist though, so I have a tendency to throw myself totally into one thing then realize I haven’t done anything else for days. So pretty much my house looks good, or I have a good word count, or I read a dozen books a month, or spend the day kicking bureaucratic butt for Mister but I have a hard time doing it all. I tried dividing it up into days (MonsterLibrarian Mondays, Cleaning Wednesdays, Working Weekends) but then all this drama with Mister’s school happened and that collapsed.

This is something of an understatement, but it’s really hard balancing what you want to do with all of life’s little dramas. If there’s anything I have accomplished it’s forgiving myself some for last year’s depression. Life can be very, very overwhelming. Also a major understatement.

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February 14

#storyeachnight Let’s Play White by Chesya Burke

Let’s Play White by Chesya Burke is an excellent collection of nameless myths, darkness and hope. Burke tugs readers through shadowy places where hope still tries to linger, even if the people have given up. She also takes us to places where light is strong and vibrant, but people can’t accept it. A wonderful collection, highly recommended, my favorites are the urban voodoo-themed ″Chocolate Park″ and the powerful rural fantasy novella ″The Teachings and Redemption of Ms. Fannie Lou Mason″.

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February 2

Monster Librarian’s 2012 African American Read In

As you probably know, February is Black History Month in the United States. To honor that, MonsterLibrarian.com brings you a message from Zombie Michele Lee announcing a project she’ll be spearheading this month. We hope you’ll participate!

Hi, this is Zombie Michele with a special announcement. In honor of Black History Month I’ll be hosting Monster Librarian’s first (online) African American Read In and you are enthusiastically invited to join in!

 

How to join: February 6th, 7th & 8th join us online on Twitter ( we’ll be using the hashtag #MLAAReadIn), on Facebook or here at Musings of the Monster Librarian.

 

All you have to do is read a book (or two or a dozen) written by an African American writer (stay tuned for a list, if you don’t know where to start) and tell me on those sites, or email me at zombiemicheleATgmailDOTcom (with spam guards removed) what book you’re reading. We’d love to hear what you think of it as well, but all we require for reporting is which books were read.

 

I picked a three day scope so that you have plenty of time to join in. There is no minimum number of books you have to read. There is no genre you have to stick to (though being a speculative fiction site we’ll be focusing on science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery and romance authors). Read as little or as much as you like of what you like!

 

I’ll do all the heavy lifting (aka, filling out the reports to make this event official). You just have to read!

 

To help you out, Zombie Michele has hunted down some booklists of reading material you can use to get started below:

YA/Adult List from the event site-http://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Involved/Action/AARI/Young_Adults_Adults.pdf

Young Children’s List from the event site-http://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Involved/Action/AARI/Young_Children.pdf

A book list from the Cincinnati Library– http://www.cincinnatilibrary.org/booklists/?id=africanamericanwriters

 

And our own (not exhaustive) list of African American speculative fiction books is after the break. Many of these books are available digitally, so even if you’re a last minute joiner there’s no problem. Just download a book and jump in!

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January 22

Review: Zombie Writing! So You Want To Write About Zombies? edited by Armand Rosamilia

Writing Zombies! Is almost exactly like going to a horror con. Most of the pieces are conversational musings on how to or why the authors write zombie stories. Some try to be instructive, others are more enthusiastic conversations from fans, and most do a fair amount of self promotion (some more fluidly than others). However one has to wonder why we needed 44 authors to say mostly the same thing over and over and how, if many of the authors are new enough to still be dragging out the same most basic writing advice (and admit they only have been in the game for a few months, or a story or two) this book counts as being by ″Masters of the Zombie Genre″. I’m not saying these people have no right to write, or converse about their love of zombie tales, just that this book isn’t written by master writers, and a lot of it isn’t writing advice at all.

There are some excellent essays included here (Tim Waggoner, David Moody, David Dunwoody and Keith Gouveia’s all for sure.) But Writing Zombies! Desperately needs better editing on every level. The essays are too repetitive (to an eye-glazing level), there are profuse spelling and/or grammar errors included and even the formatting itself needs work.

If you’re a zombie fan and could spend hours sitting around talking about why you love zombies (and which ones you love) this is a good books for you. But it’s not what it’s billed as, valuable writing advice from Zombie writing masters.

*I live tweeted as I read this book. My essay-by-essay take is below the cut.

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