Tune in to the Darker Side of the Moon radio program tonight at 10 p.m. and listen to me stammer and drawl about werewolves, writing and whatever.

I gotta throw out a plug for Angeline Hawkes’ and Chris Fulbright’s novella Then Comes the Child. This is a really good long story that’s getting recommendations for the HWA’s Stoker Award. If you’re an HWA member, consider giving the book a read and considering it for the Stoker.

In unrelated news, school’s going okay. I found some text books to use for the creative writing class. Last time they were used was 1984, I think. Yeah, well, they actually seem like pretty good books. How to Write Incredibly Short Plays, Poems and Stories is what it’s called. Toward the end of class yesterday I actually had the kids talking to me. The class has seemed very tense, just the opposite of what I wanted. A girl stopped me in the hall today to say she was trying to get into the class. She’s a dancer, and seemed pretty outgoing. Her perkiness could be a real boost.

I began showing Them! to the science fiction class and they were surprisingly interested in it. No mocking it, no groaning over it being in black and white. There were a couple of giggles when the first giant ant came on screen, but that was all. There were groans when we had to stop the movie for a visit from the vice principal. There was no school today; we had a professional day, with a visit from Harry Wong (the dancer was there for the pre-lecture entertainment). Anyway, the  sci-fi kids get a quiz tomorrow. I suspect more groans will be heard, although it’s an incredibly easy test.

Also tomorrow, I’ll have students in my remedial English class for 9th graders. I’ll have 20 of them, I guess. Should be interesting. I’m curious to see what kinds of attitudes these kids will have when they come in. They’re being pulled from other classes because they failed English I last semester. They’ll be a challenge, I’m sure.

Writing news … nothing. No word from Scrybe. I haven’t gotten anything done. The agent nudged the editor considering Amara’s Prayer at the big NYC house, and advised me that if she didn’t respond to just consider it a rejection. It’s been about a week. Damn.