Happy October!
I am super excited that Gods and Monsters is finally available as an audiobook. I am able to offer a limited number of free copies to listening readers, or readers who would like to be listeners.
Please email me if you are interested. AND IF YOU LIKE IT, PLEASE LEAVE ME A REVIEW.
This audiobook took longer than most because it has so many different characters.The narrator, Missy Davis did an amazing job using different voices for every character. It’s up for an AUDIE Award. The book is on The Nebula award recommended reading list.
The SFWA Science Fiction Writer’s Association has an interview with me about the book in this month’s newsletter which I’m taking the liberty of inserting here.
My play, Hand to God, opens the first Wednesday of November and plays throughout the month at the delightfully intimate Teatreneu in the Gracia.
Rehearsals have been intense. It’s exciting to be immersed in another character so different from my own, although everybody who hears about the play says: “Oh, what a perfect role for you!” Should I worry?
I play a religious Texas widow, whose son’s sock puppet becomes demonically possessed. I go from saying: “Ges-us loves you,” to “Bite me,” in a page.
The rehearsal studio is fairly near the ocean and I’ve been walking over to snorkel after rehearsals, although soon it will get too cold to swim.
I participated in a beach cleanup and got to hear about their exciting seahorse project. The oceans around Barcelona used to be home to many seahorses. In fact, there was a small bay in Portugal that had more seahorses than anywhere in the world! Of course it doesn’t now, but they are slowly trying to make a safe haven for the seahorses in Barcelona. The seahorses are about 6 m/15 feet underneath the sea on a bamboo structure. They’re very small, and given the fact that I didn’t have any weight on going down and then had to search, it was right at the limit of my breath that I found one.
This is what I saw the other day!
Felimare picta, sometimes called the regal sea goddess is a colourful sea slug or dorid nudibranch. I adore nudibranch! They have an amazing lifestyle! Look it up.
I also signed a contract to re-publish a short story of mine. You can read a version here.
The Roots of Benevolence
“It had been quite a day. The brains of a dozen of the world’s richest and most powerful people were waiting in our freezers to be sliced, diced and analyzed.
I’m India March, a post-mortem neurobiologist in The Department of Mysterious Illnesses (DMI), a subdivision of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC.) …”
click on the link above to read… and please, leave a comment if you can.
I’m also holding auditions this month for, “WHO’s AFRAID OF VIRGINA WOOLF.”
Which I’m directing and which will be playing at Teatre Gaudi and in Steiges in March. Steiges is a lovely seaside count about 45 minutes from Barcelona.
I got a small drawing commission this month and I have been painting some tables. I found the coolest high glaze. I’ve always wanted to experiment more with high glaze
This one is very fun. You can drop droplets of water over the droplets of water I painted to create even more of a Trompe-l’œil effect. I even went to some of my old paintings and started touching up the glassware with this gloss.
I mentioned before that Gods and Monsters is on the Nebula recommended reading list. I’m also delighted to have a short story on there, “The Great Unconformity”
It’s based on a real event in geology, a chunk of billions of years of missing history seen in rock strata worldwide, and H.G. Well’s, “The Time Machine.”
Also we have two poems, Reincarnation, by ADDISON, FLORES, GOYAN, KING & WONG, and Surveillance I: God in Machine by Addison, Flores, Goyan, King & Wong, on the list.
And now the part of the newsletter you’ve all been waiting for: Weird Catalonian Customs. Today I’m going to share with you one of my favourites. It doesn’t actually take place in Catalonia but close . . the world’s greatest food fight.
La Tomatina is a Spanish festival in Buñol, Spain, where participants throw tomatoes at each other. It’s the biggest food fight in the world.
La Tomatina Festival began in 1945 when a guy participating in the Giants and Big-Heads figures parade, Big-head fell off. The man flew into a rage, as one does when one’s head falls off, and began hitting everything in his path. A market stall full of tomatoes innocently standing in his path was then raided by the crowd. People began pelted each other with tomatoes until the Policia intervened.
These are the “Big Heads,” they often show up during festivities.
The following year, some people engaged in a pre-planned quarrel bringing tomatoes from home
La Tomatina was banned in the early 1950s by Francisco Franco who was not a party guy, and hated tomatoes. This however, did not stop the participants, who were later arrested. Imagine calling someone to bail you out of jail for throwing tomatoes.
In 1957, a tomato funeral was held to protest the ban. Residents paraded through the streets carring a coffin with a large tomato inside. They were accompanied by a band playing funeral marches. The protest was successful, and La Tomatina Festival became an official festival.
Eventually, the festival gained notoriety throughout Spain. Since then, the number of participants increased every year and in 2002, La Tomatina of Buñol was declared a Fiesta of International Tourist Interest.
Events before the fight include a paella contest and tomato fireworks, bands and parades around the medieval city centre. The first big event before the tomato battle is the “Palo Jabón”. People gather round on a long greased pole with a piece of ham on top. The goal is to climb the pole and make the ham drop, which requires people to scramble over each other. During this effort, other celebrants sing and dance in circles, and all participants are doused with water from fire hoses.
Once the ham falls, the tomato battle commences.
Usually, the fight lasts for one hour, after which the town square is covered with tomato debris. Fire trucks then hose down the streets and the people. The Citric acid in the tomatoes aids in the cleaning process, resulting in some of the town’s surfaces being cleaner than they were before. Maybe every city should do this?
Since 2013, participation in the event has been restricted to the 20,000 holders of paid tickets. In 2015, it was estimated that almost 145,000 kg (320,000 lbs) of tomatoes were thrown.
That’s all for this month. Have a wonderful Halloween/ All Saints Day/ Día de Muertos or whatever you celebrate.
Sending love to you all.
Please buy a book, read a story, leave a review… Artists need feedback to survive and buy tomatoes and cat food.