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Happy publication news!  I will have a short story published in the Circlet Press anthology Like a Veil.  The story is called "The Eater of Stories", and though it starts out as my very best impersonation of Neil Gaiman, I think I started to find my voice near the end, and I'm really proud of it.  It's very special to me, too, because it's the first story I've written in longhand in ages, and was almost entirely scrawled down while sitting in the sun at the Hay Festival.  So, very many happy ...

Hello kittens,

Well, I'm still mostly dead from working a real honest unpaid internship and biking both ways.  Except for today because between falling off on Monday (bruises in interesting places!) and learning to arc-weld yesterday (aaaagh sore in the shoulder), I needed a day off.  So I only had to walk a mile and a half to the nearest train station…ah, Rhondda Cynon Taff, never change

But I have Exciting News, or at least the promise thereof.  Here are your clues:

1.

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2.

Have you guessed it ...

Hello kittens,

Yes, it's another lameass post, I'm afraid.  My plea this week is that I just started a placement, which is great fun, but also involves a one-hour bike commute either way   I absolutely adore cycling to work (I take a trail that's mostly through the woods and mostly sans traffic, so that helps a lot.), but I've pretty much started doing ~16 miles a day from almost nothing, so I'm a little wrecked when I get home in the evenings.  Which would be now.  I promise that I'll soon c...

Afraid it's a bit stream-of-consciousness this week, my lovelies.  I'm enjoying having virtually nothing to do, before I start an internship next week.  (Well, "enjoying".  I am one of those people who needs a fairly firm schedule if I'm to get anything done.  I've set one up for myself, kind of, but it's not all that useful.)  The steel-toed boots are broken in, and I'm off to the bike shop tomorrow to pick up a decent commuter (I hope), and work off a bit of tummy going to and from the...

Hello lovelies!

Well, the Hay Festival was just about perfect, minus nearly freezing to death while camping.  (Attending an interview with Ran Fiennes did not, actually, make me man up, thank you.  It gets bloody cold out there at night!)  Hay-on-Wye was a bit odd; it's one of those overly pretty little towns that doesn't feel lived-in in any way, but the festival itself was fantastic.  Not least because I got to spend four days by myself surrounded with books, brilliant speakers, and a very l...

My darlings,

Apologies for the non-Wednesday post (again!), but I'm off to the Hay Festival tomorrow, and I don't know how much internet access I'll have.  (Or, quite frankly, if I'd go online if it is available.  If anyone has advice for getting my mobile/netbook charged, though, leave us a note�)  Five days of bliss on the borderlands, and man I need it.

(First, though:  OH MY HOLY HOLY!  The Ospreys win the Magners League � surprising everyone, including themselves � and Roy Halladay...

One of the interesting part of emerging from my little conservation/museum studies bubble is trying to explain what the hell it is that I do, training as an objects conservator.  I spend a great deal of time getting vaguely terrified-yet-interested looks, which leads to explaining what object conservation is.  The short explanation?  Whatever archaeologists dig up (or whatever's found in a museum store-room), I put it back together, or keep it from falling apart further.

Except, really...

Hello lovelies,

Well, Bristol on Saturday was excellent!  (And not just because I got to miss a load of angry, drunken Cardiff City supporters, and thank GOD they lost, so I don't have to deal with Premier League (?) supporters next year.)  The cruise-o-rama that was the beer garden was…an experience.  It was so, so lovely to meet everyone, too, and to sit around and find out about people, and talk openly about writing about men who totally dig other men, and the things they get up to.  (And, ...

WOOHOO!  It's HOT out!  As hot as it gets here in SE Wales, anyway.  I am in bliss.  I have to put sunblock on, folks.  I haven't been this happy…since I left Philly in '08, really.  (Okay, so monsoon season will start in another week and I'll shiver my way through June and July, but until then!  Real summer!)

Only one more exam until my biggest scheduling problem is when to start sunning and reading in the garden.  (If wet, the living room.)

Just a reminder � 7pm, tonight, Old Market Tavern...

Hello my lovely ones,

Well, I'm writing to you from the start of a British summer, which means I'm curled up on the sofa with a generous G&T (springing for the good gin is worth it, apparently!), watching the dreary weather outside.  Well, to be fair, we had a few days of loveliness, and I celebrated the end of one exam yesterday by having a few pints in a beer garden with friends.  Really, life doesn't get much better.

Speaking of celebrations!  Remember the Time of Awesome that was had last m...