Tucson Festival of Books 2019!

It's coming! March 2nd and 3rd (Friday and Saturday) in Tucson: 

Tucson Festival of Books

It will be my tenth-- yes, NINTH -- appearance here (at least according to a recent post on Tucson.com. I haven't been counting, but what I do recall is all the fabulous fun I've had each time! The Husband, Weston Ochse, will be appearing with me. Don't tell anyone I said this, but he's loads more fun than me. You know, Type A personality, big presence, all that stuff. On the other hand, we have an awfully hilarious time when innocent convention planners put us together on panels, and guess what? The folks at TFOB did that this year... TWICE! Hahahahahahahaha!

So lookie:

       Sat. Mar 2nd at 10:00 a.m. - Integrated Learning Center, Room 150

       Horribly Entertaining

       Why write about such horrifying things? Why is horror so fun? Why are horror authors always so funny? Come learn for yourself!

       Also on the panel: The Husband, Joe Lansdale, Jonathan Maberry.

Every single person on every single panel is a long-time friend, some moreso than others. (That Joe Lansdale guy is so super old that I first got in touch with him in 1987!) Wait -- what? Thirty-two years ago?!

       Sun. Mar 2nd at 11:30 a.m. - Integrated Learning Center, Room 141

       V-Wars: Chronicles of the Vampire Wars

       Jonathan Maberry created the shared world anthology of V-Wars, a world where the plague is vampires, not zombies. And now V-Wars will be coming to Netflix! Find out about the V-Wars, and shared world anthologies with some of the writers who imagined it.

       Also on the panel: Jonathan Maberry, The Husband, Jeffrey Mariotte, Marsheila Rockwell

Anyway, just wanted to let y'all know what's coming up on the horizon! Come see us and share in the fun!

C4!! Cochise College Comic Con!

Yep, happening right here in little ol' Sierra Vista, Arizona itsownself, and this very weekend, to boot!

C4!! Cochise College Comic Con

Okay, so we might not be as big as Phoenix Fan Fusion, or San Diego ComiCon, but we do all right. There are panels, gaming, vendors, and guests of all types, including cosplayers, artists, and... oh yeah... writers!

Much fun will be had. I will be there with copies of Supernatural: The Usual Sacrifices, AfterAge, the original paperback version of That's Not My Name, plus a few other books.

The Husband, www.westonochse.com, will also be there. He has all kinds of military science fiction stuff. If you're a military sci-fi fan, you seriously don't want to miss this. Plus he'll talk your head off. That's just how he is.

So come on out -- we can't wait to see old friends and meet new ones!

WHOA!

March 7, 2017... No way. Really? So here I am, hanging my head in total shame because I have not blobbed... er... blogged about anything for almost--

::ulp::

Two years.

I mean, wtf, right? It's not like stuff hasn't been happening. And no, I'm not going to rave about Donald Trump, et al. Occasionally I hang around Twitter, which has an almost magical ability to turn me into a ranting mass of migraine headache. I'm not dragging that mess over here.

So I've been doing art. Like painting canvases, gourds, and other such stuff. I've been gifted with some ribbons and whatnot, and even a little money now and then. Like Twitter, painting does things to me. It changes me. I become this weird, ridiculously happy person. I lose time, but again, in a weird, ridiculously okay way. I work all day, the time passes, I stop and go out to dinner with my husband, Weston, and twenty minutes or so into the meal he leans forward and says, "Hey, you have paint on your cheek." My reply is a big, fat smile.

Not much writing right now (I did that write/right thing on purpose), but I won't say that I won't write in the future. I would like to do both, but I clearly suck at time management. I can't find a clone and I can't afford an assistant. Damn it all, I still have to clean my own brushes.

Just for giggles, here's a look at some of my stuff so far. Not much, because I don't have a lot. (Because sucky time management.)

Here's to you, and to me, and to a brand new year. Let's hope it gets better.

xxo,

Von

Copper Girl

Golden Girl

Harlan (Sold)

Lakota (Sold)

Mary

Don't Tell Me to Shut Up and Suck It Up

When I was younger, I was one of those people who barely knew politics existed.  The way my life was playing out, year by year, mostly didn't fit with that kind of atmosphere-- I didn't make a lot of money and my taxes were EZFile, I didn't care about the drinking age (surprise, right?), and I didn't have to register for the draft. I could vote, I could work, I could pay my bills, even if just barely, I had health insurance through whatever job I had. If I didn't have a car, I had access to affordable public transportation. I didn't have much of an education but I had a hunger to read, I was willing to work hard and learning was easy for me; I taught myself to type and take shorthand at a time when those things were the epitome of what high-powered lawyers were looking for in secretaries.

Ah, so many things happening behind the scenes, so many things not even registering in my simple, the-world-is-all-about-me brain. I could vote. Wow, women died so I could have that right, and it took decades for that to register in my sad little brain cells.

What I didn't realize until much later was the discrimination being heaped on me, just because I'd been born a woman.  It was there, yes, but it was just... well, the way it was.  The same as the way the first job I got as an accounting clerk in a large Chicago real estate firm was vetted through an innocuous third party so that the firm could avoid hiring black people. I know this for a fact, since the 60s-something man who pre-interviewed me told me that because of my Tennessee accent I "sounded like a Negro on the phone, so I was hesitant to interview you. But that’s just between you and me." I was young and under-educated, and although I thought his attitude was wrong, I knew I was lucky to get that job (I was unemployed and had been interviewing for months). I kept telling myself that as the company paid me $325 a month, while the young man who sat at a desk four feet away and did the same accounting clerk job earned $450 a month. I could have literally paid my rent with that difference.

Life went on. Things got better, things got worse, then better again.  Life had its ups and downs, and I generally managed to land on my feet. Along the way, though, were some interesting things I believe happened to me only because I was a woman:

While working overtime one night, I delivered something to one of the senior partners in the last law firm I worked for. I don't remember what precipitated it (I still have no idea), but for some reason he suddenly slammed (yes, slammed) me against the wall and put his arms on either side of my shoulders, his face inches away, lips headed toward mine. I was flabbergasted, but not so much that I didn't bring my arms up and outward before shoving him away. I think the best I could manage was something like, "What is wrong with you?" Nothing was ever said about it-- I knew my place, and that place was waaaaay down on the totem pole. Somehow I can't imagine a female senior partner doing that to a male secretary.

Riding to work in a horribly overcrowded elevated train on a hundred-degree morning, a young, smartly dressed man started screaming swear words and insults in my face, apparently because I had dared to pry my fingers away from where he was smashing mine against the pole. I was young, maybe a hundred and ten pounds, and dressed in office clothes. No one defended me, and he screamed at me all the way to my downtown Chicago stop. Would he have risked doing that to a man?

My soon to be ex-husband told me he thought my writing "was just a hobby," even though I'd always said all I wanted to do was be a writer. He was part owner of a farm in Michigan that he loved and went to every weekend, and he wanted to eventually move there. I had never said to him that I thought the Michigan farm was "just a hobby." I also discovered that in his chest beat the venomous heart of a homophobe, and that he thought that just by declaring it, if we had a gay child, he or she would be disowned and never allowed back in the house. Excuse me? My child? My house?

There are thousands of other things, remembered and forgotten, but those are the things that stick out as I ramble on here. Yet this isn't meant to be some kind of autobiography. I want to talk about women's rights, where we are now, what we stand to lose in the frightening and not-so-far future under President Donald Trump. I want to do this because I see so many posts and tweets telling people like me "You lost. Shut up and suck it up."

Okay, you're right. I voted for Hillary Clinton, and my candidate lost. She. Did. Not. Win. But when you say "Suck it up," let's define what IT is:

• The loss of healthcare when President Trump repeals the Affordable Care Act. No, the ACA isn't perfect, but it supplies healthcare where there was none to young people, poor people, elderly people, self-employed people, sick people, etc., and stops insurance companies from denying coverage to those who need it most. If a person's had cancer, diabetes, a heart attack, allergies, for God's sake, they still have to give you insurance. All this is going to go ::kapouf!:: and just disappear. President Trump doesn't have a replacement to put in place. Yes, healthcare is expensive, but it's been that way for far longer than Obama was in office. Back in April of 2000, seventeen years ago, COBRA wanted me to pay over $900.00 a month to keep my post-job insurance going. Wouldn't it be better to work on fixing the ACA instead of just lining it out of existence and potentially killing 44,000 Americans a year? Stop thinking about yourself for a single moment, and look around you, at your family members, your friends, your coworkers, the familiar faces at the stores where you shop. Which of them is it okay to let die?

• Defunding Planned Parenthood, which leaves a lot of women without female care. Yes, they perform abortions (for which they do NOT receive federal money), and I don't know whose percentage is correct. But they also provide women's medical services and medications for women and teens who can't afford them, and they provide birth control so maybe some teens/women don't ever end up having to make that choice to begin with. And if they do want an abortion? I may not agree with abortion, but I would rather a pregnant teen girl have that procedure at Planned Parenthood than have her try to do it herself with a coat hanger. And don't fool yourself-- that happens more than you think.

• Denying climate change. I know people on the east coast who are suspicious about their flowers starting to come up. They should be. It was February when I first started working on this blog. In November my patio Meyer Lemon Tree (outside all year long) filled with flower buds. I had delicate herbs, again outside, that are not only still growing, but started blooming with flowers in January. I have pots of petunia plants outside that are three years old. The herbs, the petunias-- these are supposed to die in winter.  Even here in the Arizona high desert, because, you know, it's supposed to drop to way below freezing in the winter? A lot? And no, it's not a good thing that they aren't dying, because that means they aren't renewing. That means something's wrong. There's a natural cycle here that's being majorly fucked up by manufacturing and drilling and the use of fossil fuels. That pile of bricks and wood that you call home? It isn't. The Earth is home. If the billionaire companies turn the planet into ash and sludge while they fill their pockets with paper money, where are we going to live? 

• Religious hatred, racism, homophobia. Do we really want to be the nation who discriminates because of religion, color, gender, sexual preferences? All these years, hundreds of years, to get where we are, which is still a long way from there, by the way-- there being the karmic goal of knowing we all bleed the same red from the inside out-- and we're going to turn a blind eye while one person rolls all that back? Folks, we are the greatest nation in the world, and we should be setting the greatest example in the world.

• Women's equality. Why is this even a question, especially for the women out there? Again, we bleed red on the inside, just like men. We do it all-- home, school, work, whatever-- and yet so many man see us as nothing but boobs and asses and pussies. Sure, if a guy grabs me on the street and tells me "I can do this because it's Trump's America now!" he's in for a rude and very physical awakening, following by "Fuck you-- this is America's America!" BUT I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO DEFEND MYSELF LIKE THAT. And in fact, it's not likely to happen to me because I'm white. But why should it happen at all? Why do some people think that Donald Trump being elected President makes it okay to hate, to do harm, to do shit like this? Forget the teenagers and whatnot, male and female, who are hormone-soaked and trying to grow up. They aren't doing it for the haters, so don't think it's an excuse to get all grabby and nasty because some teenybopper is wearing a halter top and shorts. I will tell you this: I wear a safety pin on my hoodie. What that means is I will step between you and your target if I see you hating on someone, of any color, of any religion, of any age, of any sex/gender, and if necessary, I will knock you on your backside to protect that person. How sad that I have to remind women that it’s your body, your decision whether or not to have a baby you might or might not want, your decision to die or live giving birth to the fetus that might kill you. Why would you want to turn that decision over to a bunch of men in suits who don’t know what it’s like to face single motherhood, carry the child of a rapist or forced incest, to have months of severe morning sickness or potentially lethal eclampsia? And how on earth can it ever be right to let those same men make it mandatory that you pay for the cremation of the remains of a miscarried child, even when you didn’t know you were pregnant?

• Freedom of the press. I don't think I'm in the minority when I say I want news, all the news, all the time. Not just some of the news. Or none of the news. This country was built on free speech, which naturally leads to freedom of the press. The watchdogs of our government cannot be the members of the government itself, or we will never have the truth. We will never know the truth, because we will know only what they want us to know. And we will never know what we don't know. Even in this day and age, don't think it can't be done.

• Gay rights, transgender rights. Can we please let these people love and be with and marry the other person they want to? Let them look the way they want to? Why do you care, as long as they aren't hurting you? They bleed red inside just like everyone else. No, don't play the "It's wrong in the eyes of God" card on this Catholic girl. I believe God is everywhere and wants people to love and be happy, not to hate because, holy moly, two penises might touch each other or some shit. I also believe in separation of church and state, which nixes, right in the BUD, the idea that the government should be able to make same-sex marriage illegal. Listen, no one is kidnapping your children and brainwashing them to be gay. No transgender person is peeping at anyone else in the restroom. Think about it: a gay person or a transgender person has already accepted themselves and taken the steps needed to live the way they want. They don't need to influence anyone else. And if you think what they do in the privacy of their bedrooms is bad, then why are you thinking about it at all? Why not turn your attention to something else, something that's amazing and beautiful and doesn't give you so much of a damned headache?

• National Parks, protected lands, the wonders of this fabulous, beautiful planet. Maybe you see it via the Internet, National Geographic Channel, magazines. If you're lucky, you see bits and pieces of it in person along hiking trails or in our National Forests. It looks endless, doesn't it? Well, folks, it's not. Mankind has this ugly way of dirtying everything it tries to expand onto. You think not? Spend ten minutes, ten minutes, on Google Images and check these out: oil spill, deforestation, oil drilling and the environment, coal mining, strip mining, fracking effects, garbage, and finally, pollution. If you haven't had enough, try this one: poisoned water. Shall we sit back and shut up and let the hard-won protections evaporate?

• Torture. Seriously? If you don't get that it's too wrong to put into words, I just have this to say: If we act like the enemy, we become the enemy.

• Honor. We are not a nation of quitters. We are not a nation of liars. We've entered into agreements, good agreements made for good reasons. I said it up there, and I'll say it again, with more force: The United States doesn't need to be "made" great. We are the greatest nation in the world, and we should be setting the greatest example in the world.

Why am I writing this? Because I saw people denigrating the marches that have been taking place-- The Women's March, and other upcoming marches (like the Science March, March for Life. and others that are being born). Gosh, no one even blinks about the American Cancer Society Relay for Life, the Memory Walk, March for Babies... the list is endless. So it's okay to make your presence known in support of fighting diseases of the body, but not when something's wrong with how we're being treated as the people of our nation? When the politicians we elected turn their backs on us, break all their promises, and start changing our shared future for the worse? When those same politicians put things into place that fatten their personal bank accounts while all the time ignoring all but the most wealthy of this country? Politicians who pay $200,000.00 for a membership in Donald Trump's private club do not understand people on social security, or people who make $15,000.00, or $30,000.00, or even $60,000.00 a year. They don't care about them.

I don't understand what's going on. Okay, Donald Trump is now President Trump. Isn't he supposed to act like a President? Isn't he supposed to have America's best interests at heart, and not his wallet's? Isn't he supposed to want to keep America secure? Since when did his private club become the extremely expensive place where the United States hosts foreign heads of state? There's no cyber security there. He's let people take photos of stuff they shouldn't and see classified documents. He's using an unsecured cellphone. He doesn't appear to understand the difference between refugees-- people running for their lives-- and terrorists. He doesn't care about the difference, and as long as you're not from a country he does business with, you can't come here.

Yes, he's now President. But that doesn't mean I have to sit back and just "take" all of this. I am an American, born and raised in this country. I have complained about it, but I have always paid my taxes. I have worked and paid social security taxes and Medicare taxes and unemployment taxes. I have the right to disagree with what the President, or any elected official, says or does. Because this is AMERICA. This is not Nazi Germany, and it's not going to be. The American people, the ones who see what he's doing way, way, way wrong, will never let that happen.

So stop telling me to shut up and suck it up. I believe we're being done wrong, and I have the right to say so. I'm going to lose some followers, some readers, and sadly, maybe some personal friends, but I'm saying what I have to say. If you voted for Donald Trump, or you voted for one of the other two who didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning, I think you screwed up. But what I'm seeing are people who don't want to admit that, so they say, again, shut up and suck it up. Fine, I get you might be too embarrassed to admit being wrong. So sing your praises to the President, but lay off those of us-- and we are many-- who are resisting the wrongs we believe are being done to this nation and its people. I see women who say they wouldn't vote for Trump, but wouldn't vote for Clinton either. You seriously thought voting for one of two unknowns would be a good thing? You seriously didn't know that would get Trump elected? Or you just wouldn't admit it?

Woman to woman, right here: You really believed that a man who joked about grabbing women's pussies, putting the moves on married women, who was being sued for fraud and for discriminatory hiring and renting practices, and who made fun of a disabled person on national television, was going to change?

I'm around a lot of military people and I see a chunk of the you-lost-suck-it-up coming from women in the military or from the wives of military men. This is my opinion-- and hey, just like anyone, I could be wrong-- but I view it as a sort of subconscious reverse discrimination. I truly believe that even if these women realized what they were doing they wouldn't admit it, because they don't see it. They don't even know why they wouldn't, or couldn't, vote for Hillary Clinton, or why they latched onto any reason at all to vote for anyone else. It's just the way they "felt," a deep-seated, subconscious belief that "If I vote for a woman, I will look weak in the eyes of my male military counterparts or my husband. I'll vote for the man so I don't look like I'm voting for her just because she's a woman."  Yeah, I get it. I got stuck in those cross-hairs back in Chicago's Washington/Epton mayoral race in 1983. Harold Washington was black, Bernard Epton was white. I was young-- those were the days-- and just starting to think about that monster called politics. I didn't care about color; what I cared about were the legal issues tainting Washington's career (suspension of law license, failure to file taxes). A coworker and person I considered a friend accused me of being racist because I would not vote for Washington. Wait-- was I supposed to vote for him because he was black? Or because I believed he was a good candidate? But stubbornness was bred into me from the Irish side of my family, so I voted for the person I wanted to vote for. He didn't win, but okay.

You know what? Whether you're a man or a woman, and whether you didn't vote for Hillary Clinton because she's a woman, or because of Benghazi, or because of the strategically re-released emails, that's fine. I don't care. Donald Trump was elected President, and that's just the way it is.

But don't tell me to shut up and suck it up.  What I said on Facebook on November 9th holds, now and forever: I will not accept the defeat or diminishing of my brothers and sisters, no matter what words come out of the White House. We worked too long and hard for gay rights, gay marriage, equal rights for people of all colors, reproductive rights for women, the right to free speech, freedom of religion. There are many things to come in the next four years I won't be able to do anything about, but I will always stand and fight against being forced to step backward in the progress that so many of us fought to attain.

If you support Trump, I don't tell you to shut up; you have your right to free speech (or at least as long as your elected President will allow it). But so do I. This is who I am. This is who I am now. Better, I hope, than I was when I was younger. Not as good as I hope to be in the future.

So YOU back the fuck up and let me stand with my sisters and brothers so that our government knows we won't let go of the things we struggled so hard to get.

***

The Day SKYNET Failed

Okay, I'm not one to point fingers, nor am I apt to be a hypocrite.  As such, if you hear me say "Get off the Internet and you'll get more accomplished," you can bet I'm talking about no one else but Me. Number One. Numero Uno. MyOwnSelf.  Alas, as hard as I try, I am a Facebookaholic.  I post something, then I can't help but run back and see if/how other folks liked it, particularly if it has to do with my 3-G Network (Ghoulie, I Am Grooty, and The Grimmy Beast).

Then SKYNET failed.

Sometime yesterday afternoon our router self-destructed.  SKYNET might think it has control, but when the hardware bombs... HA!  The Husband (Weston Ochse) futzed with it and futzed with it, and finally today declared the router deceased.  So off to Best Buy we went, where we also finally admitted that our five-year-old modem was pretty decrepit.  We then came home and he set about reconnecting us to SKYNET, er, the Internet.

But I just want to point out what happened when my hands found themselves not attached to a keyboard this morning and afternoon.

 For three years I have grown various and sundry herbs in the screenhouse I built while The Husband was deployed to Afghanistan.  Year after year, fall came and went... and with it, those herbs.  They dried up and crumbled away, save for the few times we went out and used bits and pieces for whatever we-- okay, not usually me, I seldom cook-- were making.  Most of the time it was basil to throw in pasta or on a pizza.  Occasionally we'd use some of the lemon thyme.

But without the keyboard hoarding my fingers... voila!

Now drying in Ye Olde Laundry Room:

Basil
Italian Oregano
Garden Sage
Pineapple Sage
Lavender

And what to do with all the lavender that was too small to hang?  Make something I'd been meaning to ever since I planted it:

Lavender Butter!

And hey... let's make it really interesting.  After all, it is Halloween Season, right?

 Thus I give you Skull & Crossbones Lavender Butter Pats (presently shaping up in the freezer).

Happy Halloween!

Beating Up the Boogeyman

So back in July, The Husband (Weston Ochse) and I were Guests at the 2016 Scares That Care convention in Williamsburg, Virginia.  (Yes, I know-- I should've done a little better about that on this here blog, but I did, at least, promote it on Facebook. Anyway.)  We had a great and grand time hanging out with east coast friends we don't get to see that often, given the way the airlines [insert unmentionable word here] people who try to travel across the country.  But that's a rant for another time.

Besides the normal drinking and eating, we did a lot of fun things at Scares That Care, including getting to attend a wedding held in the lobby.  But we spent most of our time in the Celebrity Room, offering our wares (in our case, books) to people and gawking at all the stars.  The Husband even got to meet one of his movie idols, Diane Franklin.  And yes, the first words out of his mouth were "I had such a crush on you!" (::snicker::)

Most of the time The Husband was around, supervising and pestering me.  Eventually he had to go to the restroom.  That, of course, is when I finally struck.  I told Kelli Owen, who was sitting next to me, "I'm going in."  And I headed over to use my old and trusty martial arts skills on the Boogeyman himself.

Okay, so maybe I didn't exactly take him down, and maybe, MAYBE, I squeaked a little when he grabbed me.  But I had courage, damn it!  COURAGE!  And hey, I can still throw a good jab and do a decent front kick.

Didja see the SIZE of that guy?

Special thanks to Kelli for catching the big battle on her phone.  And y'all think about attending and/or donating to Scares That Care.  It's a wonderful, all-volunteer charity organization that picks three deserving people per year to help out.  Check out their website and you'll see the enormous extent of their sheer awesomeness. 

StokerCon 2016 Schedule - Viva Las Vegas, Baby!

Yes, I've been a bit absent.  In all honesty, I spend too much time on Facebook, which is where you can zip to if you want snippets of daily life-- pictures of flowers, bugs, the Three-G Beasty Babies Network.  I blame two of them, the boys, the boys, for keeping me busy-- they've been fighting.  But that's a post for another time.

So here I am in Las Vegas at StokerCon 2016.  I look at The Husband's blog, and of course, he's posted his schedule.  Gee, do you think I should do the same?  Uh...

Saturday:

10:00 A.M. - Panel: THE HORROR OF ROMANCE (Red Rock 4)

11:30 A.M. - Library of the Dead anthology signing (Dealers' Room)

3:30 P.M. - Signing (Dealers' Room)

7:30 P.M. - Bram Stoker Award Banquet (I'm presenting the award for Short Fiction with Michael Marshall Smith)

That's it -- a nice, light schedule this time. Stop me and say hi if you're there!  And if I've never met you in person, don't be afraid to tap me on the shoulder and say, "Hi! I'm XXX from Facebook!" (or just re-jog my aging memory.

VIVA LAS VEGAS, BABY!

Up to Date!

Yes, believe it or not, I have FINALLY gotten my website links up to date.  You can poke around and see it all on the right side, under "Links".  Because of Blogger weirdness, you should open these in a new tab or window (Right Click, then choose your preference).  It's all there -- where  I'll be (appearances), ebooks, even the big ol' Short Stories page has not only been updated with publication info, but where you can find the story.  There's even a free one in there, if you dig around.  Nope, not gonna tell you-- you gotta go visit.  Check it out!

Live in the Moment

I'm on a roll here!  Yes, I did another guest blog for Women in Horror Month, this one at the request of J.G. Faherty.  It's called Live in the Moment, and it's all about when not to write.  You can find it here.  I'm always interested in your thoughts, so feel free to let me know what you think of it!

A Woman's Time

February -- already -- and it's Women in Horror month.  Yep, I'm one of those.  I've written a couple of blogs to celebrate, and the first of those came out today, on the Grey Matter Press site.  It's called "A Woman's Time," but it really applies to everyone.

By the way, the fine folks at Grey Matter Press are publishing an anthology called PEEL BACK THE SKIN, which will be out in June of this year.  Included in the stellar lineup is a particularly nasty story I wrote for them, called "Superheated."  This is an anthology you don't want to miss.

On my list of Things to Do is "Blog Posts: Personal."  I'm going to get better at this, damn it!