Wherein my piece goes live over at the IAF auctions:

“I have been fascinated with shape-shifting for a good many years, and ravens even more. Like most writers, I am also fascinated with symbols. Back when my husband and I lived on opposite coasts, his letters and emails were riddled with symbols and it wasn’t long before they began to arrive in the mail: a leather notebook that he made himself, a wishing stone, captain’s bars. “I’m very talismanic,” he said. I took that as a good sign.

So if I’d been the one gifted with a feather and a vision at the top of Inwood Hill (a perfect place for both, by the by, though I must confess that living in Brooklyn, I don’t get here nearly enough), you’d better believe I’d be searching for clues. Not having any raven’s feathers, I wanted to make a piece that evoked their essence. A piece that reminded me of raven’s wings, but left plenty of room for meaning.”

The price is already up to $62, over twice the opening bid. This kind of stuns me.

I love the design, though. As I mention in the Artist’s Statement (the rest of which you can read here), I first made this necklace about 10 years ago and haven’t since then, though I’ve thought about it many times. The knotting is a lot of work, but the end results are really worth it.

I think the next IAF auction should be knitted and crocheted accessories. There must be some fellow knitters in the interstitial crowd.

I’m feeling a little run-down lately. Lots of good stuff going on, but the minute there’s a void, something seems to rush in to fill it. The Newsarama retailer interview is getting linked around, which is nice. People have told me that they got a lot out of it, which was the idea.

What else? Started Barth’s Tarot novel, The Magician And The Fool. Is wicked good, as we say up North. I love the way he’s bringing Tarot’s Renaissance origins and its occult machinations (traditionally the cause for crankypants among purists, perhaps rightfully so) together in a big ‘ol lovefest. Brilliant! Being a huge fan of having my cake and eating it too, I daresay I’m smitten.

Years ago, Leland had a Queensland Bottle Tree. He really enjoyed growing it, so we bought some seeds on eBay. Things are coming along quite nicely; in fact, we now have two bottle trees growing:

Speaking of symbols, they seem to be a fine one for where we’re at right now.

Our anniversary is next week, right after the full moon. Ooo!

Wow, wow, wow! Talk about a “stop everything!!” moment:

That’s Terri Windling.

This is her new website.

How incredibly awesome.

As usual, I have about a squillion things to post about and no time. Two things need mention, however:

Four retailers generously gave me pointers on how to get a small press book into their shops. If you’re a creator or publisher, don’t miss my interview with Rory Root, Alex Cox, Andrew Neal and Ben Trujillo over on the Newsarama blog:

How To Get Your Indie Book Into Comics Shops
By: The Retailers (and l’il old me)

I cannot take credit for this amazing idea! ‘Twas Heidi at the Beat who put the thought in my head.

Lots of great stuff there for creators, so check it out. ALSO! Much, much thanks to the wicked sweet Carl Vincent for giving BLUE some love on Stainless Steel Droppings. He’s got three new preview pages in all their glory. Woot!!

I should be sleeping. Let’s put it that way. In the meantime, here are a few things.

Newsarama has the full creator list for the Tori book. There is also a glorious Carla page from our story. Yes, that is “Here. In My Head” (as the Undented peeps have concluded). I’m totally amused at how they put one of the naughty pages up there. (I’m referring to the hand-down-the-pants, not the makin’ out. Click to see what I’m talking about - I wouldn’t put it as not-worksafe, so don’t worry.)

The IAF jewelry auction is on!! All money goes to Interfictions 2, I believe. Here’s my contribution, which is based on K. Tempest Bradford’s story “Black Feather”:

Yes, all knotting (read: a lot of it) was done by hand. Some of those beads are vintage glass. Athankyewverymuch!!

And the copy gigs just keep on coming. I gotta figure out how to write copy faster. I’m typing as fast as I can!

In the spirit of getting out of the habit of updates once every two weeks, here are a few things on my scene from the past week…

1. First, the important stuff: IRON MAN. Easily the best comic book movie since the first Spider-Man movie, despite the inclusion of Yet Another Gratuitous Underdeveloped Romantic Almost-Subplot. Go see it.

2. We stopped by the old haunt of Robert Henri on the way to Barnes & Noble tonight. Being able to say things like “oh, we were just passing by Henri’s old house on the way to B&N” is one of the reasons why I love New York. Henri was a dude.

3. Still recovering from The Readers Studio. I did more blogging of the event over on my new site, BuildYourMetaphysicalBusiness.com. Sir James said it best - the post-event letdown is settling in. But there are some great posts about the event (here’s Mary’s) and I took lots of pictures and there’s an Aeclectic gathering in the city tomorrow, so that’ll take the edge off.

Forgive me if I sound like a hater, but I gotta say, events like The Readers Studio and World Fantasy go a long way to remind me how, well, ridiculous comics conventions can be. I love comics people dearly, but sometimes we can really forget that we’re all a bunch of nerds. ANYWAYS!

Yes, that was the second mention of my brand new site, BuildYourMetaphysicalBusiness.com (affectionately known as “the side hustle”). I’m too tuckered to put together a proper announcement now. Next week. For now a whoo hoo! will suffice.

4. Been using my Bohemian Gothic deck more or less exclusively since I got back. I just love how Karen and Alex packed the narrative into these cards. It takes a hell of a lot to get me to ditch my Rider-Waite for readings, not just writing exercises, pondering and yeah, maybe a little pontificating. But man, I love this deck!

What I really need to do is put one big post together on Magic Realist Press for Endicott. They’ve put out 5 Tarot decks in something like the past 6 years, and each and every one has been of outstanding quality and interest to mythic arts folks.

5. Also picked up, on Shawn’s recommendation, The Tarot of the Thousand And One Nights, featuring the work of Léon Carré. These are rare pieces from the Golden Age of Illustration that went with an old Sir Richard Burton edition of the work. Elizabeth Hazel has a great article on the deck in this year’s Tarot Reader and I believe she says she couldn’t track down a copy of the original 14 volumes in any library, anywhere. Maybe my husband, armchair Burton scholar extraordinnaire, can shed some light here?

6. Also! Barth Anderson sent me a copy of his new book, THE MAGICIAN AND THE FOOL. Huzzah! Yes, it’s a Tarot thriller. Not many people I can think of can pull off one of those without it straining the credulity a little. I can’t wait to dig in. (What am I still sitting here in front of my computer for?)

Last thing: those in the know know that us ladies of fantasy are not only gorgeous, most of us also like to rawk the dazzling handmade jewelry. The Interstitial Arts Foundation certainly knows this, and so to celebrate the year anniversary of the publication of Interfictions, they’re holding a jewelry benefit auction. All pieces are inspired by stories from Interfictions and are donated by volunteers… like yours truly! I’m still working on mine but it should be done by weekend’s end. I’ll post pics.