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01/19/2012 :: 10:47 PM Bigfoot Not Dead. I HAVE PROOF!Last weekend, I went to Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore in San Diego to sign the anthology Mutation Nation with editor Kelly Dunn and other authors. It has my story about a poor, misshape and misunderstood monster named Nickelback Ned.While there, Lord Arux bought me this totally hysterical book called Bigfoot: I Not Dead. This memoir of the misunderstood forest creature on the run from celebrity, cannibalism, and celebrity cannibalism had me laughing until I cried at the comic genius that is Graham Roumieu. Then today, I got this in the mail...  Yeti? In Santa Ana, huh? Um, okay. I know someone in that general area. Maybe it's a "Hey, why the hell haven't you called me lately?" letter. Not that she would ever write that kind of letter. I'm not even sure she's a letter writer. Anyway, I sliced open the wee envelope and slipped out a wee card...  I said to the cats, "Oh, cool! I wonder who sent me a Bigfoot card?" And I opened it...  OH MY EFFING GEE! BIGFOOT SENT ME A BIGFOOT CARD! AAAHHHHHH!!!!  11/16/2011 :: 09:30 PM LosCon Panel and Signing ScheduleHey Los Angeles! Come check out my panels and stuff at LosCon, the annual science fiction, fantasy and horror convention held at the Marriott LAX. I'll be selling and signing copies of At Louche Ends: Poetry for the Decadent, the Damned & the Absinthe-Minded. No cash? No problem! I have a nifty device that lets me sell you things with your credit card. :)Friday, November 25 "Getting Your Short Story or Poetry Published" Me and Neda Ansari 1:30 PM Marquis 1 Saturday, November 26 No panels Although, I'll hold a special bar panel that night entitled "The Importance of Drinking in Your Writing Career" if you promise to buy me martinis Sunday, November 27 "Keeping Your Day Job: Is It Possible to Make a Living as a Writer?" Me and Dani Kollin 10:00 AM Chicago "Breaking into the Game Business: What You Need to Know" Sharan Volin, James Corner, Anne Toole, Matthew Hunt 1:00 PM Dallas Autographing 2:30 PM Autographs  11/09/2011 :: 12:31 PM Interactive TheatreI've been thinking a lot about the idea of balancing audience participation and storytelling. I've mostly been on the side that audiences can't get a satisfying story out of such an experience if they get too much input on the story arc.A few years ago, I came up with the concept of a play that involves in Act I a series of characters each completing a dating profile on their computer. Then, the audience would vote on which two characters they think should go on a coffee date. During intermission, the director and writer gather and read the input, which might include notes as to why they want the two characters to meet. In Act II, the two actors of the chosen characters would then improvise the date itself. It's not a huge amount of interactivity, but it's enough to drive the story and drastically alter the ending. Also, it's "replayable" -- the audience can go to multiple viewings and make different choices. You never know which two characters will wind up on the date, nor do you even know if they will be together. I love the idea that it's not just the audience that participates in the interactive portion, but actors as well. When I was living in France, I spoke to a French director who was wild about the idea. I don't know if it would have the same reception here. In fact, I don't know how it would go over here at all. Anyway, it's something I'd love to write but I don't have the time. Maybe something like this exists already?  11/08/2011 :: 11:35 AM Sisters in Crime Emerging Writers ShowcaseAttention all Sisters in Crime members of the Los Angeles Chapter!WHAT Emerging Writers Showcase I'll be reading a selection from No Rhyme Goes Unpunished. WHEN Sisters in Crime Holiday Party December 4 1:00 - 4:00 p.m. Readings start at 2:00 p.m. WHERE South Pasadena Library 1115 El Centro South Pasadena, CA I am one of only four writers selected to read at the Emerging Writers Showcase. If you want to hear me read in person from No Rhyme Goes Unpunished, get thee to the party!  11/07/2011 :: 01:00 PM Announcements Galore!Story Sales"Revivified" to the anthology Night Terrors II from Blood Bound Books. The antho is slated to come out December 2012. "Nickelback Ned" to the anthology Mutation Nation from Rainstorm Press. Upcoming Publications "Coming Home" is coming out as an audio podcast from Pseudopod in time for the holidays. I read -- and sing! -- in the audiocast. Upcoming Events I'll be on panels and signing at Loscon 38 this Thanksgiving Weekend. I'll post my schedule as soon as it's available. Cancellations Due to unfortunate circumstances, Jill Tracy won't be able to make it down to Los Angeles next weekend, so we've had to cancel our event at The Iliad. If we can reschedule, I'll post the details as soon as they're available.  10/31/2011 :: 03:08 PM "Death in the Evening": Verse, Absinthe and Jill TracySunday, November 137:00pm - 8:30pm The Iliad Bookstore 5400 Cahuenga Boulevard North Hollywood, CA Come let your imagination be seduced in this evening of Baudelairean debauchery as Maria Alexander reads from her latest poetry collection, "AT LOUCHE ENDS: Poetry for the Decadent, the Damned & the Absinthe-Minded." Internationally acclaimed musician Jill Tracy reads her foreword to the book and talks about her days in the underground absinthe scene in San Francisco. We then cap off the evening with a divine performance by Jill Tracy of her noir cabaret. Don't miss this one-of-a-kind event! There is no charge, but we do ask that you consider buying a copy of At Louche Ends there at the bookstore ($8.00) and Jill Tracy CDs. (We should have a bundle deal available.) Both Maria and Jill will available for signing. "Dark as night, sexy as hell, this collection of poetry is not one you will easily forget." DEBORAH P KOLODJI, PRESIDENT, SCIENCE FICTION POETRY ASSOCIATION “Jill Tracy is utterly intriguing. She transports you into a magical world solely of her creation.” NPR, ALL THINGS CONSIDERED  10/22/2011 :: 12:20 PM Drag Race on Dream Street (Death and Gore Remix)Holy hell, there's been a drag races on Dream Street!I used to be a really prolific dreamer. And it wasn't just the amount of dreaming and recall. To say that my dream life was extraordinary would be an understatement. This isn't a brag. This is a curse. My dream life has declined significantly in the last five years, which in some ways has been a relief. I chalk it up to hormonal changes -- less estrogen, less sleep. Less dreaming. The last few weeks, however, my dreams are resurfacing in a major way. I had my first dream hangover in a long time night before last. And what the hell was going on night before last? WARNING: What ensues interests probably only my shrink, whom I haven't seen in much too long. Plus, some of it is really horrific and involves very bad things happening to children. On second thought, you probably do want to read this, you perverts. I was visiting a house where clothes were left all over the floor. I looked in the mirror: I was probably 20 years older, but very fit and dressed like a hootchie with low-slung gray shorts, belly chains, and big Dolly Parton hair. When I turned sideways, a long flap of skin hung off the back of my leg, like a snake shedding. I also had some cellulite on my stomach that I don't have now. Some of the dreams have been horrific -- like the Malaysian gangsters who put a terrified street urchin boy on their billiard table, driving a metal stake into his open mouth to fasten his head to the green felt surface. They proceeded to play billiards, driving the balls against his head until his blood soaked the table. I honestly do not have it out for Malaysian gangsters or street urchins. Or even billiard tables. Last night, I was living with these two Caucasian women who had a five-year-old daughter named Martha. (This is a leak in from watching Doctor Who last night.) I left the flat we lived in and stepped outside into Disney World's Main Street, U.S.A. I came right back to the flat because I wanted to pick up something and found the two women hysterical. "We thought you were home! We stepped out for a few moments and left Martha here. Now she's gone!" I said, "Why didn't you make sure to ask me to watch her? I could have totally watched her." I decided it was pointless to argue. I ran outside, looking for Martha. Last I'd seen, she was wearing a white dress with white stockings and white shoes, her long blond hair pulled back from her face. I looked everywhere. There was a parade. I shouted her name everywhere I looked on Main Street. She had vanished. I decided to hop into a single-person transport pod to jettison back to the flat. They had these things lined up like four telephone booths, shoulder to shoulder, by the restrooms near The Haunted Mansion. Just after I jumped into this very snug compartment and was about to launch home, these two Japanese women tossed in their baby. I shouted, "NO! Don't do that! It's not safe!" There wasn't enough room for this tot and me both. She was almost squished up against me. I could see her face turning blue because the safety bumpers inside the pod doors were pinching her neck. I tried so free her, but to do so would require wiggling out of the safety bumpers myself. The baby turned purple. I started screaming... The beginning of the week featured a dream hangover from a somewhat recurring dream so tedious and deeply annoying, I'm not relating it here. I don't know, though. I don't think I want my street bumps back that prevent the drag racing. Maybe just a few more races, and we'll see what I'm wishing then.  10/16/2011 :: 02:00 PM The Shaman, The Shyster or The Shrewd Cookie?Sorry for not blogging.I could chalk it up to the instant gratification I get from blurting out everything on my Twitter account or my Facebook wall. It's every writer's dream, this throwing out into the wind every witty or not-so-witty phrase that comes to mind. Truth is, I'm overwhelmed.  Last month put me in three different time zones in as many weeks, followed closely thereon by a very successful book signing at Dark Delicacies. Let's be clear: poetry just isn't a big deal commercially. When you can sell out of copies post-signing, that's ridiculously cool. And I seem to have done it.Jill Tracy and I are trying to wrangle an L.A. event together to promote one another that will be so hot, it'll singe your socks. But the stars must align, so keep your fingers crossed. In the meantime, I'm looking for an agent-publisher-royal patron for No Rhyme Goes Unpunished. (Yes, yes, it used to be titled Silence of the Iambs, which I still think is clever, but I got a little tired of people asking me if it's a book about cat food.) Honestly, I can understand the dramatic surge in self-publishing. At BoucherCon, two successful authors recommend it to me because it helped them get started. One is now a New York Times best-selling author, and the other just had his 7th novel come out from William Morrow. And given the lack of response from agents -- and I mean, not sluggish response, but almost NO response -- over the last 6 months of targeted, strategic queries, I have to wonder if my new friends aren't right. I wish I believed in self-publishing. Why not? Because the writer doesn't get the collaborative benefit of an agent, editor and publisher -- all extremely valuable partnerships toward shaping the end product. Even if I have a pretty good book, I know that chances are this tiered partnership would make it a great book. I get the whole "indie" thing for the music, games and comics businesses. The art from those media are by their nature developed through partnerships and collaboration. But books are very solitary. If you've ever listened to an author's ramblings about how they love a character or a scene they've just written, you can hear the saccharine self-absorption. This isn't a bad thing at all during that incubation phase, but once the book is hatched for the broader world, the love affair must face a level of professional scrutiny that it bypasses when it's jettisoned into the Amazonsphere via Kindlepod or whatnot. It potentially cheats the reader in a fundamental way. I would say there's a higher possibility this isn't necessarily true for much more advanced writers -- people like Harlan Coben who have a massive audience and who are absolute, top-notch pros. Still, clearly it wasn't true for my two new friends. That said, writing is a vocation. A calling. Many of us who answer the call also feel a deeply intrinsic need to share our stories. We don't need or want permission to do this. Waiting around for other people to help us tell that story just isn't in our DNA. So where does an author find the balance between being a professional who makes a living and honoring the need to tell a story? I am personally taking several books to my grave at this rate -- books I know people want to read. (Trust me. I know my audience, and one is based on a script that placed highly in the Austin Film Festival once upon a time.) I also know agents are overwhelmed, publishers are pressed to make bigger profits than ever, and the market is crap. It'll probably remain crap for a long time. That leaves me wondering what to do differently, if anything. I'm plugging along for now on the traditional path. If you happen to know someone on that path who would love a damned funny, laugh-out-loud crime book, let me know, okay? But if you've got some other insight, lay it on me. There might be a day soon where I will take it up...  09/11/2011 :: 06:00 PM The Day Tony Blair Saved (Sort Of)Ten years go today, I awoke at 5:48am, deeply anxious, a heaviness in my chest. I shut my eyes and faded out of consciousness for a few moments before my clock radio alarm went off at 6:00am. Voices, shouting. I stared at the clock. 6:03am. I popped the plugs out of my ears.The story unraveled in the hysterics. I got out of bed, blinking, and stumbled into the shower. I stood under the hot water. My hair fell out in clumps, swirling in the rush to the drain. I dried off and booted up the computer. Horrors sprung up on the Yahoo homepage. I watched a news reel. Tadd was on IM. A box appeared with his ID. "Can you believe this shit?!?" he typed. The traffic to PeopleLink in Santa Monica was thick. Yet when I arrived at work, no one was working. We stood around talking. "They finally got back at us," one person observed in a hushed tone, clearly aware that this concept might upset some folk. "For what?" I asked. She indicated that our involvement in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the rest had been less than savory. I felt sick to my stomach. I knew we weren't "the good guys," but did we deserve this? Did those innocent people deserve this? In some people's eyes, yes. Work sent us home early. When I went outside, I discovered that I'd gotten a parking ticket for not moving my car soon enough. I called the parking cops and said, "Could you please have better things to do than give you tickets on a day of national disaster?" They threw out the ticket. The only leader who said anything all day that sounded brave and encouraging was Tony Blair, who gave a stirring speech from Downing Street. Our new president hid for a while. When he finally emerged, he sounded far less encouraging. I wanted to throw a brick at the computer screen. Republicans joked online. "So, do you want to be president NOW, Al Gore?" To which I replied: FUCK YOU. I later myself made a tasteless joke about the Pentagon now being the Quadragon. Sorry about that. It was either that or throw up from depression. But that's how it went down. And it went down even further from there, George Bush driving us into the ground with useless wars, rampant greed and debt. I just hope that 10 years from today, we'll be in a much better place.  08/24/2011 :: 03:55 PM Hitchcock Poetry AnthologyIt's now available through both Amazon and an independent seller.  Get your copy today! (Thanks, Chris!)  |
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Warning: All text is copyright
by me, Maria Alexander, with the Library of Congress and the Writer's Guild of America.
If you are tempted to take any portion thereof and make it your own, my attorneys will catch your foul stench on the cosmic winds
and hunt you down like the Hounds of Tindalos, descending upon you from all angles to
devour the miserable stump of flesh you call your life.
Just so you know.
