Reminder of a spy

I saw the movie "The Imitation Game" Sunday. It's a very good flick. The mention of the British Cold War spies, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, reminded me that a number of years ago Maclean's younger sister, Nancy Jean, lived in Cedar Hill, Texas, where I ran the local weekly paper, and I knew her pretty well. In fact, she once gave me a memoir to read and appraise, but unfortunately it disappeared when a break-in at a self-storage unit resulted in the theft of a table where the document was stored.

Nancy Jean Oetking ended her days in Texas because she married a petroleum engineer. She died in 2007, aged 88.

Thoughts on Christmas Eve

I've always thought I may be somewhat dyslexic. When I was a kid, they never heard of it, so we'll never know. But one of the first times I thought I had a problem was when I couldn't remember Santa's reindeer. I mean, I thought they were like Rudolph and Dancer and Prancer and Donner and Blixen and Schlitzen and Nixon - that's as far as I got.

I always wondered how a reindeer got elected President.

Kindle collection

Well, I have committed Kindle...

I know some people think I sneeze and my stuff is published, but truth is, I get plenty of rejections like everyone else. Despite having four collections published - that's putting "Letters from Gardner" in the fiction category, the ISFDB lists it as non-fiction - I've had failure there, also. Over three years ago I pitched a reprint collection to an ebook publisher. The deal never happened - I never heard back, so I assume he wasn't interested.

I was thinking about ebooks when I realized I still had the collection, so I decided to upload it to Kindle Direction Publishing. I had never done that before, so I thought I'd give it a try.

"Bend it Like Bradbury" has 21 stories; a few have never been reprinted before. There's a certain amount of overlap with other collections, but my only other collection available through Kindle is 2009's Fantastic Texas.

Here is the Table of Contents:

Meet Me At The Grassy Knoll

Mak Siccar

The Hideaway

Won't You Come Home, Bill Buckley?

Black Hats and Blackberrys

Airy Chick

My Ugly Little Self

Twilight on the Finger Lakes

Across the Plains

Berserker

The Amerikaan Way

Silvern

Good Old Gal

Insight

Comes the JuJu Man

Double-Crossing The Styx

I Got You

Hopscotch And Hottentots

Irredenta

They Call It Time

Ghost Writer

So there, I've gone and done it. The link is here:

Not true

Something this morning reminded me that 25 years ago, in a very early version of Microsoft Word, one of the suggestions offered by the spellcheck to correct "Antonelli" was "Antichrist".

Sure glad that changed.

A first

I had the idea recently to offer a signed copy of "The Clock Struck None" for sale on eBay. I put down the "Buy Me Now" price at $19.95. IT SOLD! Wow, that's found money. I need to keep this listing.

Latest publication

"Ad Valorem" in Omni Reboot is my 89th short story published since June 2003. I've written 126 short stories since 2002. I don't know where I get the time.

Ten Things You Might Not Know About Lou Antonelli

1. He is a first generation American; both his parents were born in Italy.

2. His mother was an eyewitness to the display of Benito Mussolini's body in Milan at the end of World War II.

3. His mother's maiden name is Savini; he is a second cousin of the famous motion picture special effects make-up artist Tom Savini.

4. He always carries a silver dollar for good luck..

5. As a result of holding elected public office, he could claim the title "Honorable". But as a result of a special appointment to a condemnation court in Dallas County in 1998 (which adjudicates eminent domain damages), he could also be called "Judge".

6. He ran for Congress when he was 25.

7. He cannot snap his fingers, apparently because of a peculiarity in the shape of his thumb.

8. He attended his first science fiction convention when he was 46 years old.

9. He met Barack Obama at Columbia University in 1983

10. That same year - a blogger asserts - a rally in protest of the Soviet downing of KAL Flight 007 that he helped organize made Obama cry in frustration.