Fixing Tom's floor. For fun and profit (or something).

Let me tell you about my friend Tom Smith.

Tom is one of the sweetest, most generous, most giving men I have ever known. He makes music, because he's one of those people who can't not make music, and he shares it, making the lives of others better. He's called "the world's fastest filker," and he's one of the few people who actually filks professionally, which is damned impressive. He appears on my album, Red Roses and Dead Things, as the male lead on "Another Mad Science Love Song." He was one of the first people to welcome me to the filk community, and I love him dearly. When I've needed help, he's been there to help me. When I've needed hugs, he's been there to hug me. He's a class act, is Tom Smith.

Like so many people right now, Tom is running into a patch of trouble. Thanks to slow damage of his bathroom floor, he's about to be hit with, yes, a bill he can't afford. This song sucks, and we hear it way too often these days. So here's a chance to help him out.

If you've been curious about filk music, visit Tom's page and take a look at the albums he has available for sale. He's even taking donations, and offering pre-orders of his upcoming album, Herbert West: The Musical. You can hear sound clips, you can get an idea of what he has to offer, and hey, maybe you can help this iteration of the suck-suck song be a little shorter than it might be otherwise.

It's worth a try, right?

Poetry for a Wednesday night.

I've been writing structured poetry for most of my life. For the past several years, I've participated in a writing exercise I call "Iron Poet," wherein I request three words and a poetic form, and then write a poem to match the suggestion. (I don't have a round going right now, because I am out of hours in the day. I miss it. But I'm not quite that insane.)

I am honored and delighted to have a vilanelle in the latest issue of Goblin Fruit, an online magazine of speculative poetry. It's titled "Ever After Variations," and you can read it for free by following the link above.

Cabinet des Fees is an online journal of fairy tales. They publish fiction and poetry, essays and interviews, and I am totally over the moon to be interviewed in the latest issue. Another of my poems is reproduced alongside the article, titled "Baba Yaga Said." It's free verse, rather than a strict structure, and I'm quite fond of it. The interview was a joy, and the article is fantastic. Plus, check out this awesome description of me:

"A folklore maven and woman of the beautiful weird, Seanan burst onto the urban fantasy scene last year with Rosemary and Rue, the first book in her October Daye series. As her first series proliferates (Rosemary and Rue was recently joined by A Local Habitation, with An Artificial Night forthcoming in September), Seanan is also writing a year-long American folkpunk piece entitled Sparrow Hill Road at The Edge of Propinquity and has just published Feed, the first part of a zombie politico-thriller trilogy, under the pseudonym Mira Grant. Most of us are quite sure that Seanan never actually sleeps."

I'm folkpunk! Also a woman of the beautiful weird!

Halloweentown princess is go.