June Linkspam

It’s July! We’ve survived half of 2020! You know, just that sentence is a tad on the terrifying side. If this was the first half, what does the second half have in store for us?

Anyway. Let’s think about something happier, shall we?

I’m happy to announce the contracts are signed for a new Blackfire novella! It will be included in Crone Girls Press’s new Midnight Bites series. Well, as soon as I finish writing it! That is an important step in the process of publication, or so I understand.

Work on the novella and on Ye Olde Thesis has pretty well consumed the month, though the local news and Patreon work has continued, as you’ll see in the links.

Otherwise, life at Donald Media Towers has pretty much continued quietly, as we prepare for a funky-weird fall semester that may be partly online and partly on campus. I really need to clean the office – or at least the part anyone can see on Zoom.

Essays

• Writerversary. (Patreon)

News

• COVID-19 stalls school construction program (Highland News-Leader)

• Highland alters Fourth of July celebration (Highland News-Leader)

• Highland school leaders consider off-campus learning in fall (Highland News-Leader)

• I also wrote a piece on outdoor camping during pandemic for Outdoor Guide Magazine, which is not available online.

Photography

• San Antonio: The Market (Patreon)

Miscellaneous

• Housekeeping and Uncle Sam (Patreon), updating my subscribers on Patreon’s new sales tax and other updates. You remember that I have a Patreon and it’s totally awesome and you should subscribe especially since it starts at $1 a month?

I’m sorry to say just about every public appearance I had planned for the latter half of the year has been canceled or moved online. We’re still waiting to hear about Archon, but other than that, it’s a virtual life for me. 

Stay safe, fiends. I’ll see you on the flip side.

May Linkspam

I’m not even going to pretend to summarize May. Anyone with half a working brain cell and an internet connection knows what’s going on, and I’ve been up to my eyeballs just keeping up the butcher’s bill of attacks on journalists while covering the historic protest marches taking place worldwide. If you want to know more, the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has a compilation much more comprehensive than mine and the ACLU is filing suit. If anything they’re being conservative in their definition of “attacked,” as I’ve seen far more than 54 journalists beaten, maced or otherwise assaulted in the course of doing their jobs.

Meanwhile, for the effect coronavirus is having on the journalism industry, Poynter is keeping a running tally of layoffs, furloughs, salary cuts and news organization closures as a result of the pandemic and shutdown. Please feel free to use this list against any idiot insisting that the media are overamplifying the threat of the virus because it’s so bloody good for us.

Of course, the State of Journalism is not really what Linkspam is supposed to be about, because if I start on the ranting essays I want to write, I’ll do literally nothing else, and I am ass-deep in alligators these days with freelance work. Here’s what I have to share from May:

Journalism

• “Fueling Our Heroes” makes stop in Highland, feeding truck drivers (Highland News-Leader)

• Highland High School creates virtual graduation for class of 2020 (Highland News-Leader)

• Pere Marquette under renovations for spring (Outdoor Guide Magazine – print only)

• Is Highland reopening yet or not? (Highland News-Leader)

• Mayor cautions city must follow state orders (Highland News-Leader)

Fiction

• An untitled short-story experiment for the Patreon group, which originated in my fiction workshop this spring. As always, the Patreon gets the behind-the-scenes stuff and the new stuff first, so you might want to consider subscribing. Hint hint.

Photography

The bloody pandemic has really damaged my plans for regular photo shoots this summer – I had multiple trips planned, and until the damn bug goes away, I won’t be able to do them.

• “Fireworks,” a photo essay for Patreon detailing my efforts to shoot fireworks into abstract sky-art. My town is going to attempt a socially-distanced fireworks display on July 3, and I will attempt to shoot it if I can do so safely.

Miscellaneous

CultureGeek is currently on hiatus due to the complete shutdown of the movie industry. If it resumes, it may be in the form of book reviews – or the reviews may find their way to this space. I haven’t made up my mind on that – I love CultureGeek and I’ve been writing it more than a decade, sometimes with others and sometimes alone. But I’m doing a lot more freelance work these days, I’m writing or managing five blogs, and the decidedly non-lucrative CG may have served its purpose. Or perhaps it has enough fans that it should keep rolling – either in its current space or in a dedicated website. I will decide that by the end of the summer, most likely.

I have recently joined the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP), which appears to be the standard organization for writers in MFA programs like moi. Their conference looks to be a really nifty opportunity and it’s going to be in Kansas City next spring, which is an easy drive from sunny St. Louis. Best of all, I’m just a member, so I am not in charge of ANYTHING.

SPJ’s Excellence in Journalism is still scheduled for September, but damn near everything else I had scheduled between now and then is canceled, so it’s flip-a-coin whether I’ll be in D.C. this fall or not. I chose not to apply to Dragoncon this year before the COVID mess began – betting pools continue on whether DC will have its big party or not – but I hope to return sometime in the future when life is once again sane. Ish. The local chapter’s work is also on hold due to coronavirus, but I’m hopeful for our annual fundraiser and the monthly Freelancer Coffee Hour to resume soon. (Wear masks!)

Website work continues to be borked, as both the SPJ website and Jim’s website are completely fubar and I have to un-fubar them before I can attack the task of redesigning the rest of the websites. Did I mention I am not a programmer? I never get more than three steps into the recommended processes before I begin weeping and rending my clothing.

In the meantime, I’m working on magazine pieces and editing projects, still banging away at the Goddamn Thesis, and there’s a nifty new fiction project I’m not yet at liberty to discuss. When the contracts are signed, you’ll find out. It involves creepiness… and teeth. Muahahaha.

Stay safe out there, friends.

New photos: East St. Louis

East St. Louis Theater

I found this theater during a 2019 photo shoot in East St. Louis, Ill. It looked as though businesses had at least attempted to use the lower level in the recent past, and everything at ground level was covered in graffiti. But the upper level had fascinating scrollwork and artistic design. I know little about architecture, but I know that that building has stories to tell. 

There are a number of other images from my East St. Louis shoot, which was a fascinating trip detailed a few months ago on the Patreon.

See the rest of the photography portfolio at elizabethdonaldphotography.com.

April linkspam

It’s been a weird month, but then it’s been weird for all of us, hasn’t it? We are only two weeks from the end of the semester here at Donald Media Towers. My husband is about to finish his bachelor’s degree and not-graduate with the rest of the class of 2020; I have taken an extension on Ye Olde Thesis to get it knocked out in the summer before starting my new endeavor (read the last blog post on this list, if you missed that).

I’m under house isolation for the most part, having ventured out only for such thrilling moments as medical treatments or an insurance-funded car repair that required my actual presence for paperwork. The rest of the time I’ve been in the house, sending my essential-worker husband or son out on our errands, and sooner or later I’ll get them trained on how to follow a shopping list.

Teaching is pretty much wrapped up except for student conferences and grading the final projects, and my student work is… well. Let’s just say grad students and instructors are no less prone to procrastination or the mental malaise that has gripped so many of us in this time of plague. I see all these posts saying that it’s perfectly all right not to suddenly take up a new art form or write a novel or otherwise take advantage of all this home time… but then there’s those pesky deadlines.

So two weeks from now begins the summer, and I will not have any steady gigs for this breather between one program and the next. So it’s going to be freelancing, fiction and Ye Olde Thesis. Which probably means more essays and website design, because I can procrastinate like nobody’s business.

Most of my volunteer work is on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic. The American Cancer Society chili fundraiser/author fair scheduled for May 2 is postponed until further notice, and the Breakfastival of Hope scheduled for May 30 will likely be in August. The Cardinals ticket sale is on hold until we hear if there will be a baseball season, and right now I’m just crossing my fingers that the fall festival will happen so we can hold our annual book sale.

This has been disappointing for me, as I have lost two friends just this month to cancer and I’m more than a little pissed off about it. Rest assured our Relay for Life team will be raising money for cancer research one way or another, virus bedamned. In the meantime, you can donate here.

Essays

“Unexpected Gifts” (Medium), featuring a photo by my son, Ian Smith, because it was better than my photo by a long shot, pardon the expression. I better up my game! This one was posted on Patreon first, because Patreon always gets first dibs.

“Peace which the world cannot give, I give to you” (Medium)

Journalism

Highland High explores graduation options (Highland News-Leader)

Highland staying vigilant against coronavirus (Highland News-Leader)

Highland faces budget questions amid pandemic (Highland News-Leader)

Future of marijuana dispensaries on hold for now (Highland News-Leader)

Caterer donating meals during pandemic (Highland News-Leader)

Fiction

“Fever” (exclusively for Patreon)

(And a sooper-sekrit project I can’t tell you about until the contracts are signed. Ooo, mysterious.)

Patreon/Blogs etc.

Patreon subscribers received their annual bonus, which was a copy of the River Bluff Review, a literary magazine only distributed in dead-tree edition that included two of my stories this year. They also received a matted photograph. See what you miss by not subscribing? And there should be a lot more fiction in the coming year… for details, see below!

Elizabeth, what are you going to do when you grow up? (that itty bitty announcement here)

March linkspam

To say the month of March was a tad unusual would be grossly understating the case. But you’re right there with me, aren’t you?

I’m fine. My family is fine. We have the enormous privilege of working and/or attending a state university. That means when my husband’s job was put on administrative leave, he kept his salary and benefits. His second job is deemed essential, so he’s still working a few days a week. My son’s job has had its hours cut, but he still has some income. And we are all working our way through the semester via the wonders of Zoom.

I have been in the house for coming up on four weeks, with a few brief exceptions: a doctor’s appointment and two brief trips for supplies when the menfolk were unavailable. Immune-compromised means I was sheltering in place before there was a state order. I am teaching my class in a Zoom chatroom, I am working my way through my final semester from home, and if the thesis weren’t a hot mess, I’d actually be just fine.

We’ll call it a learning experience for all of us.

But I am privileged. We still have money coming in, and we got a nice big tax return just in time to help us through the worst of it. We kept our health insurance – very important for a house with as many prescriptions as I do – and we are in no danger of eviction or starvation.

Not everyone is so privileged. Some of the people I know are in dire straits. There are emergency funds popping up for journalists, for artists and writers, for students, for others in my circle that are devastated by the current mess. I urge you to seek them out – and to buy work from those artists and writers, because we are all going to need a little beauty to survive this.

And give a little extra love to the journalists. They were talking about this before it came here, and people mocked them. Then they were warning of disaster, and people ignored them. Then they were reporting on the disaster we predicted (or rather, the scientists they quoted predicted) and people blamed them. Now the disaster has hit their own organizations, and they’re being furloughed and laid off even as they were risking their own lives to give you the information you desperately need more than ever.

Support journalists, subscribe to a good paper if you can afford it, and maybe hop into the comment section once in a while to say something nice about it. Don’t stay too long – the mire might get on your shoes. But a supportive, intelligent comment on a news story would make a huge difference.

If you’re a journalist who has been laid off, here are some resources to help you. If you’d like to support good journalism, pick a fund here.

In the meantime, here’s what I’ve been up to this month. It’s not as much as you’d expect from someone who’s been mostly housebound, but may I remind you… THESIS.

Essays

An abundance of caution (Medium)

Journalism

Highland inching closer to new pool (Highland News-Leader)

Highland paramedics move to neighboring fire station during renovation (Highland News-Leader)

Highland takes steps to combat coronavirus (Highland News-Leader)

Highland citizens vote down marijuana dispensaries in advisory referendum (Highland News-Leader)

Highland bus drivers stay on salary amid coronavirus shutdown (Highland News-Leader)

Fiction

Coppice and Brake launched with a short story from me titled “Shiny People”! Here’s a blog post about it, and you can buy the dead-tree version or the ebook version right now.

And here’s a podcast of a radio interview with me and Crone Girls Press publisher Rachel Brune about Coppice and Brake, the creative process, the convention life, the changing gender dynamics in horror, and random other subjects that came to mind. Thanks to Adam Messer of WRUU for hosting me!

The River Bluff Review launched its annual edition earlier in March, including two short stories of mine titled “Dear Katrina” and “Sergeant Curious.” It’s a literary magazine and while “Dear Katrina” is part of the Blackfire series, “Sergeant Curious” has no supernatural or horror elements at all. It was an unusual honor to be selected for publication in a literary magazine outside of my usual genres. Unfortunately River Bluff Review is only available through the university.

Patreon/Blogs

Tempting to sing ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper’ (Donald Media)

The end is nigh… (Patreon)

The Cheshire Inn (Patreon)

That’s all the news that fits… um, except for that one other thing. That’s going to be its own blog post. Stay tuned, citizens.

February Linkspam

How can you tell that we are in a fever pitch in ThesisLand? We’re almost a week late with February’s linkspam.

Also: It’s March, which is my birthday month, and thus every March I give a free bonus to my lovely Patrons. The kind folks who subscribe to me at Patreon make it possible for us to cover some of our bills while I’m wending my way through grad school, and that means everything.

If you’re not a Patron, you can still get in in time for the March bonus! Sign up here – subscriptions start at $1 a month. You know you spend more than that on a candy bar (ouch, remember when they were 50 cents?)

Also this month:

Essays

Never show how you make the sausage… or do you? (Donald Media)

To dust we shall return (Medium)

Blogs/Reviews

Superb Owl 2020: Wave that mustache! (CultureGeek)

Psst. Patrons only (Patreon)

News

Highland denies additional funds for art fair (Highland News-Leader)

Highland to broadcast meetings live (Highland News-Leader)

Feasibility study suggests need for school construction (Highland News-Leader)

Highland moves forward with streetscape (Highland News-Leader)

Photography

A walk through the orchids (Patreon)

The Cheshire Inn (Patreon)

Fiction

The River Bluff Review release event took place March 3 at the Cougar Bookstore on the campus of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. This year’s edition includes two original short stories from me: “Sergeant Curious” and “Dear Katrina.” Here’s the post about it.

And don’t forget that Coppice and Brake is coming out March 21! That one includes an original story, “Shiny People.” You can still preorder your copy for $10 here.

March and April are going to be thin months, folks, thanks to Ye Olde Thesis and a bunch of late-semester gotta-graduate stuff. Jim and I both graduate in May, and we are going on VACATION right after. But there’s some fun stuff on the horizon, and I’m looking forward to sharing it with you as soon as the T’s are crossed and the I’s dotted. Thank you for your patience.

Welcome spring!

January linkspam!

I’m delighted that an original story will be coming out in March in Coppice and Brake, a new anthology from Crone Girls Press. “Shiny People” was inspired by an incident at a convention, actually, and I had so much fun writing it. Find out more about the anthology and my funky little story here.

I’ve also been crazy busy with some SPJ events. In February, SPJ will host a seminar in Google Tools at St. Louis Public Radio, which is going to be fascinating if you’re a journalist, data reporter, or giant nerd. (Or all three, which is pretty common.) We’re also moving forward with a trivia night in April, and there’s the annual First Amendment Free* Food Festival… and on the fiction side, the Eville Writers are rolling again after the winter break, while Literary Underworld is preparing for the first convention of the year in February and I’ve started planning for our fundraiser author fair in May. Whew!

Meanwhile, the semester has begun at Ye Olde University, where I am once again teaching newswriting and writing for the mass media. I am taking two courses that are delightfully fun, and womanfully attempting to finish The Thesis. I have other words for the thesis, but they’re probably not appropriate for a public post.

A friend said the other day, “I don’t know where you get the energy.”

“What energy?” I replied.

“To do all the things you do,” she said.

I laughed. “It’s an act!”

As of this writing, it is 14 weeks to graduation. Oh hey, there’s today’s Daily Panic Attack! Back to work.

Also this month:

Essays

The Newspaper (Medium)

Learning to fly (Medium)

Me vs. the Mouse (Patreon)

News

Highland paramedics need new housing during renovations (Highland News-Leader)

How to keep your New Year’s resolutions at school (The Alestle)

Highland provides incentives to Trouw Nutrition (Highland News-Leader)

Budzban steps down for political, social projects (The Alestle)

Highland to issue bonds for new public safety building (Highland News-Leader)

Feasibility study recommends major renovations for Highland schools (Highland News-Leader)

Photography

I did photo shoots this month for a couple of private clients, which are not currently permitted for public display. As I write this, I’m in Springfield, Illinois and will be shooting at a couple of sites here while my husband is rabble-rousing with his union.

Fiction

Sausage-making: An incomplete WIP (Patreon)

I’m also delighted that two of my short stories will appear shortly in the River Bluff Review. By next month’s Linkspam, I should be able to share with you the details on its publication and how YOU can snag a copy.

December Linkspam and Happy New Year!

It’s been a wild month to close out a wild year. The first week was consumed with finishing out the semester, writing term papers and grading my students’ projects.

Then I hopped a plane to Pennsylvania and Washington D.C., for my pilgrimage to the now-defunct Newseum and to visit my family. There are many photos and stories to be told there, and Patrons and Medium subscribers will probably see them first. You might consider subscribing! (See, I can be subtle…)

There are also shenanigans afoot. I’m not free to talk about them yet, but suffice to say “busy” doesn’t really cover it.

Toward the end of the month, I took a bit of a break and enjoyed the holiday with my family. I hope you were able to do the same. But now it is a new year, and we must roll up our sleeves and set about achieving the impossible on a daily basis.

Also this month:

Essays

The richest man in town (Medium)

Reviews/Blogs

CultureGeeks pick best movies of 2019 (CultureGeek)

News

‘Don’t become known as a pothead community’ (Highland News-Leader)

Highland residents to vote on pot issue (Highland News-Leader)

Report shows Highland pool is ‘functionally obsolete’ (Highland News-Leader)

Residents speak in favor of Highland pot dispensary (Highland News-Leader)

Photography

On Assignment: The Quad Preacher (Patreon)

November Linkspam

Happy to report that this month saw my first piece with a new client, Current Magazine. I’ll be following up with the ongoing controversy between NPR Illinois and the University of Illinois, which appears to have repercussions for most of public radio, so stay tuned! (so to speak)

Also this month:

Essays

Shopping in the pink aisle (Medium)

On a pilgrimage (Medium)

Reviews/Blogs

Fall tour wrapping up! (Donald Media)

#thankyoupatrons (Patreon)

That’s a wrap! (CultureGeek)

Fiction

Happy to report that Stories We Tell After Midnight has been a great success, and I’ve been so pleased to share space with fine authors.

I also received word that two other short stories have been accepted for a literary magazine, which is quite an honor. More about that later!

Also posted a new short story on the Patreon, accessible to $5+ patrons.

News

Highland residents strongly opposed to marijuana vote (Highland News-Leader, news)

Highland city council approves new building for seniors (Highland News-Leader, news)

Highland approves marijuana dispensaries (Highland News-Leader, news)

Will Highland teachers be allowed to carry firearms in the classroom? (Highland News-Leader, news)

September-October Linkspam

You know how every year I say, “Man, the fall tour is killing me. I’m not doing this to myself next year.” And then I do it anyway? Yeah, that’s what September and October have been like. I have not had a quiet weekend at home since Labor Day, and I won’t for several more weeks. I’m not complaining (much), because it’s an incredible privilege to be in high demand, for conventions and book fairs and other groups to seek me out and ask me to attend.

But holy Hera, am I tired.

In the meantime, I did some stuff. Here’s the collection of links from the last two months. Keep in mind that I post the best of my work on Contently, and I try to keep it at the top 100 pieces of the last five years, so if you want to read the collected works of one Elizabeth Donald, that’s a good place to go. In the meantime, here’s some of the work of the last two months:

Do keep in mind that Medium has a paywall after the first few reads, and Patreon requires a subscription. I would absolutely love it if you subscribed to my Patreon – starting at $1 a month – and I do my best to give my Patrons first crack at my work and plenty of freebies – like this month, when my Patrons got a free copy of the new anthology! (See more below.)

ESSAYS

How to survive a horror movie: 2019 edition (Medium, essay)

Jumping off the high dive: Freelancing the first year(Medium, essay)

La Gloria and five hours at the airport (Patreon, essay)

A petal of memory (Patreon, essay)

Castles and rocketships (Medium, memoir essay)

REVIEWS/BLOGS

Halloween Roundup! What’s your favorite scary movie? (CultureGeek, review)

Patreon bonus! (Patreon, blog post)

New anthology! (Donald Media, blog post)

Fall Deathmarch (Donald Media, blog)

NEWS

Residents raise concerns about Highland brewery (Highland News Leader, news)

Students protest quad preacher for ‘hate speech’ (Alestle, news)

Faculty Association selects new union president (Alestle, news)

SIUE students join anti-abortion rally at Planned Parenthood site (Alestle, news)

Plastic bag fee gets mixed reaction in Highland (Highland News-Leader, news)

Highland forms historical advisory council (Highland News-Leader, news)

Highland tobacco sales now limited to 21 and up (Highland News-Leader, news)

Highland ranks as one of the safest cities in Illinois (Highland News-Leader, news)

Highland set to host Street Art Festival (Highland News-Leader, news)

Highland schools get technology upgrade (Highland News-Leader, news)

People who work from home in Highland now face fewer obstacles (Highland News-leader, news)

PHOTO ESSAYS

History on Tap: The Schott Brewery (Patreon, photo essay)

On assignment (Patreon, photo essay)

Photography: On assignment (Patreon, photo essay)

MAGAZINES

Here are some of the best methods for evaluating college diversity (DiversityIS, magazine article)

And finally… Stories We Tell After Midnight came out this month. It’s the first anthology from Crone Girls Press, and I’m delighted to have a story in it. You can pick it up on the Literary Underworld, or click through to Amazon here for the ebook. If you’re a Patreon subscriber, you get it FREE! Isn’t that worth subscribing?

spooooooky.