bookshelves of doom

Free Cecil Castellucci!

Tor has published Brother. Prince. Snake., an original short story based on the Prince Lindwurm fairy tale.

So, Happy Friday, and enjoy!

In case you missed it...

...Tor has offered up a free anthology of YA SF/F, with stories by Leigh Bardugo, Marissa Meyer, and others.

Free Malorie Blackman!

At the Guardian, Malorie Blackman reads her YA story 'The Receiving End'.

Free Brian Farrey!

His short story, 'All of Nature Abhors a Vacuum', is available here.

The story behind it is here.

Enjoy!

Free Garth Nix!

In the most recent episode of PodCastle, Mur Lafferty reads Garth Nix's Hope Chest.

Creepy amazing amazingness.

Stories of Edgar Allan Poe, as imagined by Harry Clarke.

May is...

...National Short Story Month.

"I have resisted making any corrections because, really, the only remedy for this story is to take it out the back and shoot it."

Justine Larbalestier, you win at life.

Thank you very, very much for making me laugh so hard in a silent library that I snorted.

Like, eight separate times.

Don't be a sucker.

Or, rather, do?

Or something?

I'm not sure.

Either way, be sure to download the first issue of Sucker Literary Magazine, Voices from Emerging Writers of YA Fiction.

I'd like to go to this.

A play!

Based on short stories by Raymond Chandler!

Even the title—Trouble is My Business—is all hard-boiled.

Ooooo.

Have you ordered...

...the sequel to Zombicorns?

If not, time is running out!

Free Cynthia Leitich Smith!

Haunted Love, a short story set in the same universe as Tantalize, Eternal and Blessed, is currently free at Amazon and many other online spots.

Colson Whitehead on genre.

From the Atlantic:

What do "literary" fiction and "genre" fiction mean to you? Are these terms helpful to you as a writer, or are they just methods of bookstore organization?

They don't mean anything to me. They're useful for bookstores, obviously. They're useful for fans. You can figure out what's coming out in the same style of other books you like. But as a writer they have no use for me in my day-to-day work experience.

I was inspired to become a writer by horror movies and science fiction. The fantastic effects of magic realism, Garcia Marquez, the crazy, absurd landscapes of Beckett—to me, they're just variations on the fantasy books I grew up on. Waiting for Godot takes place on a weird asteroid heading towards the sun, that's how I see it. It's not a real place—it's a fantastic place. So what makes it different from a small planet in outer space? What makes it different from a post-apocalyptic landscape? Not much in my mind.

Today at Kirkus...

...my column takes a look at Enthralled, the upcoming collection edited by Melissa Marr and Kelley Armstrong.

The short version? Thumbs WAY up.

Remember the Wicked Pretty Things uproar?

If not, click on through to get up to speed.

All set?

Okay.

Jessica Verday has decided what to do with her story.