Bill will be one of several writers reading in the new Essay Fiesta series at The Book Cellar in Lincoln Square. Essay Fiesta features writers reading humorous personal essays, and is hosted by Keith Ecker and Alyson Lyon. The event itself is free, but proceeds from a raffle afterward go to benefit the Howard Brown Health Center.

The reading starts at 7:00 pm, but since seating is limited please arrive by 6:30. Besides its great selection of books (including a small but smart SF section), The Book Cellar offers coffee, wine, beer, cheese, sandwiches, and other goodies. They're also great about special-ordering anything you can't find in the store. The Book Cellar is near the Western stop on the Brown Line.

Bill's pulpy new short story, "The Visitors at Wriggly Field," is available free at the ChicagoIn2012.org web site, in support of Chicago's bid to host the World Science Fiction Convention in 2012. Batter up!

This morning in the back window of the car
I found a ladybug
bleached bone-white and fragile under the glass,
like a tiny skull.

With eyespots faded almost to nothing,
blinded by the sun,
it was as if the creature had only slowly,
and jealously,

let go of the urge to outwit its predators.

Via the PS Publishing newsroom, here are excerpts from Peter Tennant's recent Black Static review of my collaboration with Derryl Murphy, Cast a Cold Eye:

This short novella does many things right. For starters, its setting is immaculately captured on the page, with a real sense of rural Nebraska in 1921 coming over thanks to a wealth of tiny details, such as the ins and outs of photography or a look inside the house of a wealthy widow. There's a strong emotional grounding too, for both Luke and the society in which he is placed, an aching sense of despair undercut with a feeling that perhaps the worst is past, so people can look to the future with hope, an optimism confirmed in its denouement. Characterisation is spot on, with no-one who can be considered either evil or a criminal, just ordinary men and woman with all the flaws and virtues that implies....

The supernatural side of the story is suitably understated, so that we believe but also take on board the possibility that the ghosts could only exist inside the hearts and minds of the people who see them. With a subtext suggesting that the spectral world is just another aspect of life, wishing us neither good nor evil, but just there, a case could be made for Luke as the 'I see ghosts' boy from Sixth Sense picked up, rather like a reverse Dorothy, and put down in rural Nebraska, but that might be stretching things. In any event, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend it without reservation.

This morning is Plant a Tree day on WBEZ. If you pledge any amount today, they will plant a tree in your name anywhere in the world.

"Anywhere?" said Laura. (We often talk back to the radio in the morning.). "I want them to plant a tree in my back yard."

"I want them to plant a tree in Antarctica," I said. "It's pretty barren down there."

Does this make us jerks?

In the March 8 New Yorker, Hendrik Hertzberg makes an interesting throwaway observation in the course of discussing the Republican disinformation campaign that has labeled Obama's health-care effort as "socialist":

The Democrats' bill more closely resembles Richard Nixon's health-care proposal—the one that Ted Kennedy went to his grave regretting he hadn't embraced—than it does Bill Clinton's, to say nothing of Harry Truman's.  [full article]

No, they're not ignorant. What they're doing is putting Orwell to use in a different way—deploying careful buzzwords—socialism, totalitarianism, 1984, Big Brother—that have become freighted with decades of fear-inducing associations, words that slice through rational processing and detonate like smart bombs in the reptile brain.

The worst indictment of socialist ideas I can think of is that our equitable, cooperative, socialist education system has so completely failed to instill in us the ability to see through all this doublespeak.

And the links to other complaints about Shamrock Shakes just keep pouring in! Here's an oldie but goodie from The Onion:

Sinn Fein Leaders Demand Year-Round Shamrock Shake Availability

See, Laura and I aren't the only ones upset about the new Shamrock Shakes. Marcus Leshock and Kyra Kyles from Chicago Now are both up in arms:

2010 Shamrock Shakes? More like SHAM Shakes!

Shamrock Shakedown: Why I am Disappointed by McDonald's Shamrock Shake

Thanks to pixelfish for pointing me toward these links.

Hey, Chicagoans! I have a reading coming up tomorrow, Tuesday, March 2, 2010, as part of Chicago's Tuesday Funk Reading Series at Hopleaf.

It's my fourth appearance at Tuesday Funk, where I'll be appearing alongside Lisa Chalem, Reinhardt Suarez and (my Writers Workspace colleague) "Etiquette Bitch" Marianna Swallow. I'll be reading a segment from my collaboration with Derryl Murphy, Cast a Cold Eye.

The event takes place in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf, which opens at 7:00 pm. The reading itself begins at 7:30 pm. The address is:

Hopleaf Bar
5148 N. Clark St.
Chicago, IL 60660

Hopleaf is one of my very favorite bars, specializing in Belgian ales but with a menu of over 600 craft beers from around the world. (It's cash only at the upstairs bar, which features a smaller but still extensive beer list.) All that and excellent Belgian food too. The readings are always excellent and varied, and I hope to see you there!