The Nearly Monthly News Marches On!
Pfew! The year marches on and it's time for another newsletter. Happy Pi Day!
This month, in addition to Pi(e) day, GM's Day, St. Patrick's Day, and Purim, I'm also celebrating that a large corporation (which shall remain nameless) has finally paid me the $500 I've been owed September 2019. This is the longest I've ever had to wait for a check, but slow payments are not uncommon in entertainment, and go to show that, in the end, this business is often about persistence. That, and being petty enough to keep bugging your manager to go after a multi-billion dollar company for $500.
Which (let's face it) is fun for exactly no one involved. Although I don't think of myself as suffering greatly from imposter syndrome, I do think one of the ways it manifests is that little voice in my head that says, "You can get along without that $500. It's not worth the time it's going to take to collect. Being able to make a living as a writer is a privilege." And all those things are true. But it's also true that unnamed multi-billion dollar corporations should pay their freaking bills.
ahem
So if we take anything forward into the rest of this month, let's all remember that knowing our worth and collecting what we are owed for our labor is (actually) not that petty after all.
From My Desk
My short story "Requiem for a Dollface" is in the March/April issue of Uncanny Magazine, available now for purchase, and available free on the web and the Uncanny podcast April 5th.
Nominations for the Hugo awards close tomorrow! (March 15th). If you're a Chicon 8 member and so moved, check out this list of my eligible works.
What I'm Reading and Watching
Given everything that's going on in the world (which is somehow even more than everything that was going on in the world last month) I've found myself gravitating to the comfort end of the spectrum.
Perhaps, as a screenwriter, I should not support the growth of unscripted television, but I love to binge a good heartwarming docuseries. Lately I've been watching Swap Shop on Netflix, which follows a diverse cast of dealers and resellers who listen to a Tennessee Radio program were people call in with the things they're trying to buy, sell, or trade. Most of the regulars work is slightly different niches of the resale market, so you don't have the cutthroat rivalries of Storage Wars, but you do get a broader cast than, say, American Pickers. Plus, it is a truly glorious tour the wide array of accents of the American Southeast.
On the literary end of the spectrum, thanks to a hot tip from friend of the Mostly Monthly News Marguerite Kenner, I picked up Legends and Lattes: A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes by Travis Baldree, about an orc barbarian named Viv who gives up adventuring and opens a coffee shop... in a city where no one has heard of coffee. It's a delightful read on both a story and a prose level, and if you're looking for something cozy, I highly recommend it.
From the Cutting Room Floor of the Duolingo Dystopia
This month, Zari embraces a radical means for the redistribution of wealth.
Caption: Zari from Duolingo says: Burglarize rather my rich neighbor's house! in French and English.
And that's the Nearly Monthly News!
I hope March treats you well, whatever you chose to celebrate during it. Questions? Comments? Drop me a line. Otherwise, I'll be back in your inbox in April. Stay safe out there.