The beginning of this month saw the release of K. Bird Lincoln's novella, The Metamorphosis of Aria Mertz. A a cancer survivor herself, here she talks a bit about both her cancer and her novella:

I was diagnosed with Invasive Ductal Carcinoma in my right breast in 2013 at the age of 41. It was my first ever mammogram. Color me gob-smacked.
I stopped writing for a while. I mean, nothing really seemed worthwhile posting about when cancer was hanging out in the back of my mind. I mean, it’s kind of silly to be all like “Ooh I wrote 100 words!” or “Takeshi Kaneshiro is really hot!” or “Check out this cool taco truck” when what I really wanted to say is “Oh my god I have cancer-- this sucks.”
So yeah, nothing.
But then a High School Friend pointed me towards comedian and TV Star Tig Notaro’s stand up set at Largo about her own breast cancer diagnosis (which fortunately coincided with the “good” week of my chemo cycle) and I found these little bits of stories I’ve been telling people randomly about my whole experience with the FunLand of cancer treatment (I did the whole slash, burn and poison) suddenly wanted to come out and be written.
So I started writing again. And it was such a relief. I owe a big debt to Tig Notaro for creating a space where the darkness of a breast cancer diagnosis is illuminated by humor.
Here’s a story just for you about Chemotherapy and Popsicles and why I stopped eating Lorna Doones.
Want to know my favorite part about sitting in an infusion chair to receive chemotherapy? Watching the nurses in the infusion center tug on big, rubber gloves before they take out the huge-mongous syringe of bright, cherry red poison (Adriamycin) they’re about to literally shove into your veins in the hopes that it will kill off all fast-replicating cells—including your tumor. The gloves are so they don’t accidentally touch it, or get it on their skin. Because it’s poison. Poison=Bad.
So one week I was sitting in my chair being a good, little quiet patient while the nurse gloved up. All of a sudden, Breast Cancer Survivor Volunteer Lady comes in with her tray of Lorna Doones and Pretzels (because we all know nauseous people REALLY want to eat Scottish shortbread) and is all like “Oh, you’re getting the Red Devil, that’s good.” I smile at her. I know she means well. I can forgive her. She’s a breast cancer survivor and I will respect her journey. She’s alive. The very air around her is a mystical blessing, right?

But then the other nurse, without the gloves, brings me a styrofoam cup halfway through the Red Devil syringe. Inside it is a grape popsicle (no way could I handle a cherry red one) because you have to literally freeze the blood vessels in your mouth with a popsicle when getting Adriamycin infusions to keep from getting mouth sores. Then the Breast Cancer Survivor Volunteer Lady was all like “Oooh, and you get a popsicle, too. That’s lovely.”  Lovely? That’s where I drew the line. I never ate another Lorna Doone again. All the Volunteers knew not to come by my chair during infusion after that.
Because yeah, Volunteer Lady, getting the popsicle TOTALLY made up for the breast cancer and the Red Devil.
 For more on K. Bird's slash, burn, and poison Breast Cancer journey, check out What I Should Have Said

Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Metamorphosis-Aria-Mertz-paranormal-thriller-ebook/dp/B07D6B5NG8/
Books2Read:
https://www.books2read.com/u/mqZprZ
Barnes & Noble Nook:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-metamorphosis-of-aria-mertz-k-bird-lincoln/1128688583
Kobo:
​https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-metamorphosis-of-aria-mertz

I spent last weekend at PPWC and, again this year, had a great time. Such an organized, friendly, and well-run conference, and I was very pleased to attend this year as a faculty member. Despite their original GOH cancelling only a couple of months ago, they pulled together four fabulous speakers - a hilarious speech by Mary Robinette Kowal, an emotional one by Laurell K. Hamilton, a rousing one by Bob Mayer, and an uplifting and inspiring send off by Jonathan Mayberry.

Over the three days, I taught a short story workshop and a 2-hour prose workshop, as well as co-facilitating a genre-roundtable on short story writing. I also had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with Jonathan one evening along with other faculty, agents, and editors over the weekend, and many staff and attendees. As usual, I neglected to take photos or post during the conference, but the 2019 PPWC is already on my calendar as an event not to be missed!

Oh - and to the last two people I offered a free copy of A Borrowed Hell and then couldn't get them to you right away, I'm so sorry. I looked for you right through lunch on Sunday. Feel free to contact me through my website and I'll send them to you!

I am delighted and honored to be able to announce that my debut novel, A Borrowed Hell, has been selected as a 2018 Colorado Book Awards Finalist in the science fiction and fantasy category.

A reading by the SFF finalists will take place at the BookBar in Denver on April 6th, from 7-9pm.

I've seen this a couple of places recently and am not sure who gets original credit for it, but someone was spot on.

I don't remember what year I first read Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea trilogy (somewhere in the 70's), but I've re-read it many times since, and it was the gateway series to me discovering many more of Le Guin's books. There's little I can say about her writing or her ideas or her influence that others haven't said already and said better, except for the personal note that she gave me many hours of reading pleasure and was an influence on my desire to write and to write well.

One of the many retrospectives on her can be found in this New Yorker article, and Jenn Northington at BookRiot assembled a nice compilation and summary for some of my favorite Ursula Le Guin books as well as recommendations for new reading along similar lines.