No, I didn’t get black out drunk or anything. I just looked at my calendar yesterday and realized that my next totally free weekend is in March. Between conventions, appearances, and The Mrs’ birthday (and Valentine’s Day which is the day after her birthday and MUCH less important), I’m going to be one busy individual.

I hope everyone out there is surviving the double onslaught of winter weather and the clown fire that is the news. It’s been ridiculously cold here with windchills well below zero for many days in a row. Fortunately we weren’t hit too bad by the snow, although The Mrs did have the fun of driving to work in a snow squall only to be told she should report to a different location. Fortunately the second location was the one close to our house so her ultimate drive home was only about ten minutes.

The majority of my time over the past week has been spent indoors or trying to figure out how to avoid going outside. My major time spent in the weather has been blowing the snow off of our driveway. Once again, I am extremely glad that we got the snowblower this year as it has cut my time out in the wind down to roughly a quarter of what it would have been.

I did make one exception, see below.

Listening To: There is No Antimemtics Division by qntm. This one is absolutely terrifying to me, as one of my biggest fears is losing my memory. There is an entire group of beings which have the natural ability to make people forget—their memories, their lives, even the existence of the creatures themselves. How do you fight something that you can’t remember?

Currently Reading: I’m down to the last story in The Haunted Houses She Calls Her Own. I’m enjoying the book so much that I started limiting the amount of time that I am spending reading so I can stretch out the experience.

Current Obsession: We watched all of the first season of Ponies, a well written, occasionally humorous spy series featuring the wives of two CIA operatives who to to work for The Company in the Soviet Union in the 1970s.

As mentioned above, it’s going to be a busy month or so. This weekend (the 30th - the 1st) I will be at ConFusion. Come out to see me at one of the TEN panels I will be on over the weekend.

On the 7th Dragon’s Roost Press will be at Akronomicon in Akron, OH.

On the 21st, join us at the Historic Howell Theater for Gator Bait.

From the 27th - 1st DRP will be in Pittsburgh for Horror Realm.

Due to some recent discussion with authors that we are currently publishing, we will be pushing back the date of our novel/novella submission requests. However, we do have an anthology idea in the works, so keep your eyes open for that.

I was fortunate enough to attend In Conversation: An Evening with Margaret Atwood at the Detroit Opera House this past Monday. Ms. Atwood discussed her life, her publications, and many other topics. She was interviewed by Sam White, the founder of Shakespeare in Detroit and personal friend of Ms. Atwood. The coincides with the release of her autobiography Book of Lives and the upcoming opera based upon The Handmaid’s Tale this March.

There is always a concern when you meet someone you admire that they will turn out to be something less that you hoped for. This was so not the case. Ms. Atwood has lead an absolutely fascinating life. I didn’t know that she was a big supporter of the Pelee Island Bird Observatory.

In addition to speaking about her life and writing, she spoke about recent political events. Her sly smile made the difficult topics easier to handle.

I will admit, I was hesitant to go out into the cold and deal with traffic and blowing snow and everything else that was included in a trip downtown during the arctic blast. I am so glad that I did.

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