Can you believe it’s been 5 years since the release of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies? And just over 200 from the release of the original novel? Well, to celebrate, the folks at Quirk Books (who published …and Zombies and its followups, as well as many other fine collections of pulped trees) asked me to do some digging and explore the past, present, and future of their massive mashup mega-hit — where it started, how it worked, and what it did for the company over the last 5 years. The short answer is that it basically launched their entire fiction line, which is now tremendously successful — and also served as an accidental omen to our current pop-culture status of zombie overload (seriously! They beat the trend! But barely).
Hello, website! Long time, no update! I swear that one of these days I am going to actually train myself to just make brief updates here as they happen, instead of these info dumps.
ANYWAY. I’ve got some stuff going on, because of course I do. It goes like this:
Saturday, December 7, I’ll be returning to MORTIFIED and performing some hilariously terrible songs that I wrote when I was 16. The performance will take place at Space 538 in Portland, ME; tickets are $8 in advance and $10 at the door. Do I know anyone in Maine that I can even embarrass myself in front of? I don’t know, but I can tell you that it is definitely worth it to go to Maine to laugh at my terrible, terrible songs.
And then, ya know, the youge (like, the slang/shortened word for “usual,” but spelled phonetically? Is that right?): Workin’, writin’, so on and so forth. Tonight at the Huntington we start performances for The Cocktail Hour by A.R. Gurney, which is directed by Maria Aitken, a favorite of ours at the theatre. Here’s a little video I made for that:
So now I’ve pissed one Whedon and armwrestled another, which only leaves Zak for me still to cross. But overall I think that means that I’ve successfully become a Whedonverse villain?
Over on the Quirk Books blog, I propose a few days for Alternative Oktoberfests, mostly inspired by books, in case you’re one of those weirdos (not like me) who somehow doesn’t enjoy a sixteen-day festival of beer and bratwurst (weird). Check it out:
Look, we all know that I love stories and drinking. This is no secret to anyone who’s ever spoken to me for more than a minute. So naturally, I’ve got another article on the topic that’s now live over at Quirk Books. Think of this as a kind of companion piece to my How To Drink Like Your Favorite Writer and A Guide To Pairing Your Comic Books and Beer posts. You liked those, right? Of course you did.
And here’s another new article I wrote for the fine folks at Quirk Books about one of my favorite things in the entire world: time travel paradoxes. Time to make your head spin!
I actually wrote this article quite while ago, and I was pleasantly surprised to see it hit the waves of the Internet today. Similar to another post I did over at Tor, this one breaks down a few of my favorite fictional rock bands (some of which have managed to become nonfictional as well, which is a particularly impressive feet). Check it out!
Happy International Talk-Like-A-Pirate Day! Woohoo! I mean, uhh, aaaargh argh argh argh me booty n’ ye swab wit’ me gob in the gonk. I don’t know. But I do know that in honor of International Talk-Like-A-Pirate Day, I’ve written an article for Quirk Books on my Top 10 Fictional Pirates of all time.
I also know that EL James, author of the bestselling and highly controversial 50 Shades book series, retweeted my article. So if her follow up novel is a Momerotica Pirate epic — well, now you know who to blame.
My newest article for Quirk Books is now live, a breakdown of fictional schools to both increase and decrease the impact of your own September woes. Did I mention that it starts with an epigraph from the greatest television show of all time (also known as The Adventures of Pete & Pete)? ‘Cause it does. Now enough dilly-dallying. Go check it out!
I have a confession to make. I didn’t really bring t-shirts for everybody. Although I do have these sweet new business cards! So that’s cool, right?
I know I’ve been slacking (again) lately (again) with keeping this website updated with all of my various doin’s. But it’s not like I’ve not been not doing things (…or is it?)! Instead, I’ve just been too busy doing things to, ya know, write about doing things. It’s kind of why I hate meetings in general, because I’d rather be doing things, than talking about doing things. So this website’s kind of like a meeting then. Except I don’t hate it; in fact, I quite love my little website here. So really, not like a meeting at all.
(shut up Thom) Okay so here’s a brief rundown of where the hell I’ve been:
My very short play, Stumped, was performed as part of a staged reading series to celebrate Company One‘s production of Hookman.
My debut comic book story, Not Dead Yet, finally saw print in GrayHaven Comics’ sci-fi anthology, The Fifth Dimension! Also the first printing already sold out, which means maybe someday you’ll be able to sell that shit on eBay for like $20 (but probably not)
I did a totally awesome article for Quirk Books comparing Samuel Beckett (the playwright) to Sam Beckett (the time traveling protagonist from Quantum Leap) and it was totally awesome. Don’t believe me? Ask the former executive director of the American Theatre Wing!
We did another staged reading of my play True Believersas part of ImprovBoston’s Geek Week celebration. It was really great to hear the play out loud in front of different kind of crowd, as it helps me figure out what kind of changes I need to make to the script before the world premiere this summer at the Factory Theatre (July 12 – 21! Get yer tickets while they’re hot! Just kidding, they’re not on sale yet). The lovely producing folks at Vagabond Theatre Group have a post up over at their website about the event so you can catch up on all the happening. There’s also the first part of an instructional series about how to make your very own The Cyborg Head of Stan Lee, which actually comes a lot more in handy than you might think.
Did I mention that I launched a new website for the Huntington, and that our world premiere production of The Luck of the Irish was extended, and sold out almost every night? For being, ya know, “just my day job” or whatever, sometimes it keeps me pretty busy as well.
Plus Cupcake! So many things, so very busy with this wonderfully little world-premiere-musical-that-could. We raised $6,000 in our Kickstarter campaign (we were going for $3,750…whoops!), and we were the featured show this past Friday on Goldstar. You may have seen some of my sexy posters around town as well(just don’t tell Grant that I photoshopped his arm a bit…) Previews start this Thursday, May 10!
AND, to top it all off, I’ve only got like 50 pages left to read in Infinite Jest (finally! Jesus God this book is epic), so I’m gonna go finish that right now and hopefully conquer my crippling fear (no pun intended) of paraplegic Quebecers.
So now I’ve pissed one Whedon and 