now read this!

issue 11 of paraphilia magazine is out, with its customary pastiche of art, interviews and literature from the new frontiers. always a dense, challenging and rewarding read, this installment also includes "hollow earth" a short story from yours truly. this is not one that has seen the light of day before, although it has been kicking around my hard drive for a while. on a personal level, i find it probably the most depressing thing i've ever written [although there are some pretty strong contenders]. it's also possible that that's just my subjective thoughts as well.

here's a little excerpt ::

There’s a look of anxiety that runs behind his eyes when he talks about waking up, suddenly lucid and alone in the middle of the night. The power had been knocked out by a storm and his heat was off. He could see clouds above him when he exhaled and then, as the congestion in his chest became worse, he watched the clouds grow wispy and insubstantial, becoming thinner no matter how hard he pushed to get air out. He realized that there was no air in him and lay there imagining that his lungs had frozen when the power went off, that he was gradually dying from the inside out, blood growing thick and heavy, icicles forming on the inside of his stomach cavity. He didn’t tell the story as a frightening one, he told it as a joke- how funny it was that he had been so out of it. But the fear was in there, peering out at us, begging for help through his muddy eyes. 

to rest, just follow the link above and feel free to send me feedback.

the paraphilia site also now offers books by some of their regular contributors. and if my particular story tickles your fancy, you can always pick up a copy of interference, an anthology featuring a handful of others.

thanks for reading!

[image is unrelated, just something i thought went with the story.]

caveat emptor, caveat scriptor

i think that we've all done this at certain times: google your name and perhaps a key term related to an accomplishment of yours just to see what the internet is saying about you. i do it periodically, linking my name to various words, but most successfully with the title of my short story anthology, interference, or conversion, the film i've been involved with as a writer, producer and actress. (it would help if all the media coverage for conversion hadn't misspelled my name.) so the other day, i tried googling "kate macdonald interference". i'll just say that the results were a little surprising.

first of all, the book is on sale everywhere in the world (although sadly lacking in reviews), through channels i've never dreamt of. i knew that it was widely distributed through online networks, i guess i hadn't realised just how widely.

second, i was a little surprised to notice that many of these places list the book as being "in stock". as far as i was aware, copies were always ordered to ship, which gives them a long lead time, but means that no one holds any inventory. if i were willing to pay a few dollars extra (prices starting from $10.38cad on amazon, compared to $7.76usd plus shipping, which is what i have to pay if i want to order a copy through lulu), i could have copies of the book shipped to me faster from a retailer than i could from the online publisher i worked with. perplexing and more than a little annoying.



but what truly shocked me was the range of prices for which the book is selling. even on amazon.ca, there are copies advertised at prices that would normally be reserved for handwritten manuscripts of "ulysses" or copies of "the old man and the sea" that hemingway barfed on after a week of binge drinking. i'm exceptionally flattered, but i'd like to point out that i'm neither well-known nor dead, so there's no way the book is worth that sort of money.

of course, you could also buy a used copy, which is normally a way to save money, except that the only used copy on amazon.ca costs about two and a half times the amount of a new copy. if the copy really is used, it would mean that the person selling it is making about three times what i did off the original sale. nice.

perhaps most confusing to me was the fact that i found something called a "collectible" version being sold out of new york. i wish i could call them to find out what made the version collectible. the book is still in print and can still be purchased from major on line retailers or direct from lulu. no version of the book is different than any other and if there's a version floating around that has dirty limericks scribbled in the margins that were purportedly written by the author on a glue sniffing bender, i'd like to burst that imaginative bubble.

i'm a neophyte when it comes to this sort of thing and i know that there's a trick to figuring out each of these incidences. there has to be. i just feel like asking the people behind these pricing shenanigans why they'd bother. the world has many problems that need solving, so surely there are more productive ways for today's corporate wizards to spend their time?

finally, i had a most disturbing revelation when i went to search "kate macdonald interference". google's helpful predictive function leaped into action as soon as i had typed my name. unfortunately, the top suggested search was "kate macdonald naked". i didn't have the courage to try searching that. i'm worried i'll find out what really makes some copies more expensive than others.

interference is available at amazon worldwide, barnes and noble and a wide range of other reputable booksellers. here are some links. to those of you who have already bought it, i thank you and to those of you who are considering it, your support is greatly appreciated.

to recap

i can honestly say that i have never had a year like 2009. i mean, every passing block of time has things that distinguish it from others, but this last year was really something special.

for one thing, 2009 for me really started in the middle of 2008. some may recall that, when the year got off to a rocky start, i opted to fire 2008 about half way through. coincidentally, that lines up with when i moved back to montreal and started giving some serious thought to the process of what i wanted to be doing.

but if we're really sticking to the calendar year, it started with me half-jokingly telling my boyfriend over brunch that i wanted him to direct a screenplay i'd just written. i was kind of surprised to learn that this was actually feasible and, for the next several months, i was wrapped up preparing for something that, until we started filming in august, i never really believed was going to happen.

of course, before that, i managed to fulfill a long-term ambition of mine and publish an anthology of short stories (also available through barnes and noble and through lulu). some of those tales had been kicking around for a long time and it felt good to finally see them in print.

all the while, things started to come together for the film, more people got involved and it did seem alarmingly possible that this was actually going to happen. i got to put in some time being the music editor for paraphilia. plus this year saw me dj'ing more than i have in a long time.

by the beginning of august, of course, we were ready to start filming and, even as the cameras rolled, it didn't seem real to me. perhaps because it's not something i've done before, so i'm not sure how it should feel. we even got some media coverage (translation here). i owe a huge debt of gratitude to many people for making this project come together. as a writer, i'm not used to working on a creative project where a lot of people are involved, but this experience was truly remarkable. more to come in 2010. (note: the process of film-making is also teaching me patience, something which i have never possessed.)

the latter part of the year, my "post-conversion period" was quieter to start with, but in late november, my boyfriend and i got engaged. i don't even know what to say about that, and i've said a lot about it already (see post "q: are we not still devo?" below). i'm happy. really happy. and it's another first that ends a year (and a half) of important firsts.

and, yes, the year did have some pretty bad lows. the day that my book was published, my youngest cat, the adorable, loving walter, died unexpectedly of a heart attack. (although, even from bad can come good, since we've since added two young'ins to the brood here). by late in the filming process, stress and lack of sleep were making me wonder why i'd started the whole thing in the first place (hey, we all have our moments of doubt).

in july, one of my dearest and closest friends for many years was seriously injured in a car/ bike accident (read the whole tale). however, as difficult as it was seeing him remain in a coma for two weeks and wondering what would happen when he woke up, the sadness of the memory is mitigated by the fact that, once he did wake up, he made an astounding recovery, far faster and more complete than anyone had predicted. religious people would say it was miraculous. i just think that it's testimony to his strength, both inner and outer.

it's funny, because i've often looked back on years and thought to myself that they didn't sound like much. i can't say that about this year. 2010 will be a year of seeing what i can make of what i did. i feel lucky to have the opportunity.

INTERFERENCE.

out now! "interference" a collection of my short stories, available from lulu.com.

these seven stories were composed over a lengthy time span and i've selected them to form this anthology because of their thematic links. each of the stories deals with thoughts of anxiety, particularly the fear that surrounds our control over our own lives.

this is my first solo published work and i hope that it brings something to all who read it.

purchase here