Last night my writers group met, and it was a good meeting, with four stories on the block. I put my post-apocalyptic vampire/cockroach story up for review and surprisingly, some people liked it. Mike Jasper had already read and commented on it, and a lot of his and their comments jived. The voice was too masculine, the vampires weren't quite vampiry enough, don't end a first person story with the death of the protagonist, and so on. So I've got some excellent feedback to rewrite this one, though I won't be throwing too much time into it.

I've got another story about half written, a far-future SF/Fantasy blend called "Cutting Flesh, Carving Bone" that I'll be putting in front of my group next time.

And Mike and I have settled on a collaboration idea. We need to do some research, but we'll probably be bouncing back story elements, ideas, etc. for a while before we start diving into prose.

Meanwhile, on the reading front, I picked up the original SF anthology Redshift, now out in paperback. Some good stories in there, but I wouldn't compare it (as the editor has), to Dangerous Visions.

Also, on audio, I finished Across the Nightingale Floor, a medeival Japanese fantasy, and I'm now listening to The Lovely Bones, which is about a 14 year-old girl who is raped and murdered and tells the story from her perspective in the afterlife.

As I always ask, what about you guys out there?