When two worlds collide...

When my geeky interests and my writing life collide, I feel obligated to post about it here.

I have a couple of poems in a new anthology called The Beastly Bride, which includes work by Peter S. Beagle and Jane Yolen, among many talented writers, and I was interviewed about my work in the book here. Click here for more discussion of the book, including some cool imagery of the Fairy Melusine and The Fox-Wife.

In TV News...
Anyone else excited about the return of Futurama, despite lackluster movies? How about the pickup of Season 4 of Chuck, or the killing of Heroes?

Female Comic Book Superhero Poetry

Well, I've been having a lot of fun (and a little stress) putting together my paper and presentation for WonderCon's Comic Arts Conference coming up on April 2-4 in San Francisco. I went back to some of my favorite poets from college (Denise Duhamel and Lucille Clifton) and put out a call for newer poets to send me work (Wonder Woman and Buffy figure predominantly in these poems, it seems.) I hope to find even more poems before I go up. I'll also be using some poems from my own book, Becoming the Villainess, including poems about Buffy, Lara Croft, and others. I'm presenting first thing on Sunday at noon-ish - hope to see you there!
I'm of course excited to meet The Ink-Stained Amazon's Jennifer K Stuller whose new book I just finished (really fun reading!) and the other great folks - Peter S. Beagle, author of one of my favorite childhood books, The Last Unicorn, Gail Simone, comic author heroine, and the folks at one of my fave current shows, Chuck. And of course, I'm thinking of participating in the Buffy Musical Episode singalong at the end. I mean, what could be more fun than a weekend of full-on geekiness? I'm so thankful that I've been included in such a great conference.
Wish me luck and leave me comments about your favorite superhero poems!

New seasons, new shows?

So, faithful readers, any new girl-empowered sci-fi-type shows worth watching coming out? I haven't heard much buzz at all about any of the new shows, but figured it was worth asking...

I am looking forward to the return of Chuck even though I know their budgets have been cut and so we're probably going to suffer because of that - hopefully they didn't cut back on writer's salaries!

I was trying to think if I was really looking forward to any other shows returning. Maybe the flawed-but-fun Vampire Diaries and similarly, too-gory-for-me-but-fun True Blood? Lost?

More Chuck - and possible WonderCon...

Well, if you are a fan of shows about geeks (and I am!) then you will be happy to hear that there's a rumout that one of my fave shows, Chuck, will possibly be making its return in a few weeks instead of next year, because some other NBC shows have been sucking. So, yay, more Chuck!

Also, today I submitted a brief proposal to WonderCon in San Francisco. Wish me luck! It's about poetry and superheroes. Crossing my fingers!

Shows that get renewed, shows that don't

Really crossing my fingers that Chuck gets renewed. Dollhouse I think was lucky to have a full half-season. Heroes will be back (hopefully with better writing!) and Reaper is cancelled. It's hard getting attached to these genre-type shows, knowing they could be cancelled at any minute.

Second Ep of Dollhouse Review

Joss Whedon's new show agains made me say Meh. This second episode - a re-hash of "The Most Dangerous Game" - with sex! - again made me feel too icky. And now I want to shower.

In other news, the likable show Chuck continues to suffer ratings problems. I'm agreeably interested in Lost once again. And I've fallen in love with the British-show-turned-American Life on Mars.

Would it kill the networks to have a likable, empowered woman on television again? Annie from Life on Mars is one of those, but she has so little screen time.

New Heroes, Chuck in 3D

So, what did you all think of the new episodes of Heroes and Chuck Monday night?

I think the reset on Heroes is pretty interesting (although I was disappointed that HRG was once again playing on team evil) and hope it continues in an interesting vein, albeit one completely stolen from the X-Men plotlines archive. It definitely looks like we're heading towards the alternate future that was first featured, where the Heroes are hunted criminals.

Chuck 3-D was too bad, since NBC didn't do enough to distribute the 3-D glasses, but a good-enough episode.

Along with Lost, I'm glad these shows are back. I've been down with a broken foot, and good television is very important for healing! In other good news, Reaper is coming back a little bit earlier, around the beginning of March!

I'm finally going to watch a little Battlestar Galactica on DVD, too, though I have flashbacks to the seventies version that I tried to avoid as a tiny tot...

The latest on Chuck, the penultimate epi of Heroes

First of all, congrats to Chuck - this excellent show has been picked up for when the writer's strike is over, for a full season. This show is like watching a wonderful movie (Office Space meets Alias?) for an hour every week. I love it!

So, this episode lacked the power, wit and grace of the previous one, had way too many plotlines, and just fell flat. Let's hope the next episode, which, if the writers don't get working soon, is going to be the season finale, isn't the big disappointment that last year's season finale was. I was pretty much looking forward to Hiro kicking Peter's butt in this episode, but, sadly, they're saving that for next week. Have you ever heard of an "idiot" plot? This means everyone has to be an idiot for the plotline to work. So, this week, Maya, Peter, Mohinder...Micah's cousin...wow, how incredibly easily manipulated are these characters? I hate losing respects for my imaginary friends.
On the plus side, it was nice to see Claire standing up for herself with Elle.

On a somewhat related note, if you love superheroes and poetry, or someone you love does,
This book makes a great holiday gift!

Four Months Ago...and Chuck, Meet Summer!

It's a sad story because you just know Chuck is going to get cancelled because of the strike. But when Chuck (ie Seth Cohen, the older-and-more-spy-like) met Summer in last night's episode (Chuck Versus the Truth) I just wished the show would go on forever. So much fun!

On Heroes, we finally got to solve some of the mysteries (How Peter wound up with amnesia, how Nathan was healed, how DL died) but others were left unsolved - like, how did the Bennett's get back together? This, again, is a show that is just getting back together just before the writer's strike will cause it to go dark.

And I am a writer, so I support fair wages for work performed, but at this point, I think they're doing themselves more harm than good. One of their key sticking points is getting paid for downloads of episodes, and I think that's still such a new revenue stream (ie not that successful a revenue stream) for companies that the big media networks aren't going to budge on it. I've always worked for a set-fee for my media contributions, and never got a per-download bonus or anything. That would be nice, though. How about it, MSDN?

Heroes Moving in the Right Direction, just in time...

Yes, the last two episodes of Heroes have moved towards the action, bringing the characters together, setting up a conflict and challenge for the Heroes to confront (Adam/the Virus.) Why did it take SO LONG to get going? One of my poetry professors told the class, people have short attention spans, your poems must provide constant rewards for the reader or they will stop reading. Applies to television too. Too little reward, and your loyal fans dissapate.
And now that the writers' strike is upon us, will it derail the momentum? Even worse, does this mean the end of "Chuck," "Reaper," et al and a deluge of reality television and game shows?

In other news, the Buffy comic (Season 8 - see Dark Horse Comics for more details) has been really wonderful. I heard that Joss Whedon and the actress that played Faith are going to team up for a weird "Dark Angel" type series where "blank" human superbeings are imprinted with memories and abilities for nefarious missions. Could be good, could be awful. I'm reserving judgement til I hear more.

Heroes Proving a bit...yawn...

Hey guys, sorry I haven't been posting, I was out of town for a few weeks and then had a lot of tv to catch up on.
I'm sorry to say it, but the new season of Heroes has been a whole lot of not exciting for me. I can barely stay awake through a whole episode. With the most interesting characters split up and in different locations and timelines, and a lot of new characters (I call them the Heroes Others) that no one cares about, well, who can blame me?
But, two new shows have been stepping up to entertain - Chuck and the Buffy-esque (laughs, fighting against darkness, kooky friends, bad parents...) Reaper.
I haven't got my hands on the new issues of the Buffy comics either, so I will report on those later as well.
Bionic Woman hasn't been all that great (what it lacks in humor in makes up for in Alias-rip-offs?) Is there anything else I should be watching? Are you like me, getting fed up with the woefully unfocused sophomore year of Heroes?
(PS All you Pushing Daisies fans...yes, I've seen it, was clever and cute, but you know, I can't commit to a show I know for sure is going to be cancelled before the season is up...)

Geeked out Chuck, Four Months Later

Okay, I know I'm supposed to talk about Heroes, but...

How great was it that the new show Chuck (an homage to The Man With One Red Shoe, Johnny Mnemonic, Alias, and other twisty genre shows) name-checked my childhood computer and favorite game in the first five minutes of the show? I mean, I learned to program on a TRS-80 and my favorite game was Zork! My mom and I used to write down maps for each other for the maze. Geeked out!

So what did ya'll think of Four Months Later? I think I was so excited to have Heroes back that the actual event let me down a little. I did like Typhoid Mary (I mean Maya - yet another comic book ripoff, but I liked the actors and the angle) AND Claire's new flying stalker boy. I was disappointed with the way Hiro's dad went down (literally) and that Hiro missed a chance to say goodbye.