Hi,

It’s been a while. Things have been busy, and I haven’t had time to work on Kudzu, sadly. It’s not dead, it’s just resting. Mostly I have had too many things pressing in on various levels that have prevented me from pushing on with this novel. It’s about 2/3rds of the way through, and I have a good idea of where it needs to end up, and fair idea of things that have to happen on the way from here to there, but only a vague idea of the path that that entails. What I need is a couple weeks to immerse myself in just this novel to pull all the pieces together. That time isn’t now.

I’d like to tell you a little of what’s going on.

If you’re unaware, I publish and co-edit The Journal of Unlikely Entomology, an online magazine of fiction about or involving bugs in some interesting and non-trivial manner.

This month, the bugzine is molting, growing into something that remains true to itself, but more: bigger, better, and more diverse. The new zine is called Unlikely Story, which is an umbrella for the continued exploits of the bugzine, and also for other unlikely studies. Our first issue of Unlikely Story will be The Journal of Unlikely Architecture, which will come out before the end of the month. The next issue will be another bugzine issue, in November, and then The Journal of Unlikely Cryptography will be out in Jan/Feb of 2014.

Along with this comes a new website: http://www.unlikely-story.com. At this time we’re about 2-3 days away from being done the testing phase. And 1-1.5 weeks away from posting up The Journal of Unlikely Architecture.

Good news for writers and artists: along with the name change comes an increase in pay rates. Check out our submission guidelines at http://www.unlikely-story.com/submission-guidelines-2/.

Another languishing project is The Flesh Made Word – an anthology of erotica involving the act of writing, to be published by Circlet Press. There are some fantastic stories that have come in for this book, from some great writers, and I’m looking forward to sharing them with you. And once I get the Architecture issue done and out, it’ll be time to concentrate on this.

Are there other stories in the works, y’know, written by me? Yes. “A Taste of Gold” is coming out this month in Big Pulp’s Apeshit issue, which you can pre-order through their indiegogo fundraiser. (63 hours to go – go help them out, and get yourself a fantastic book of monkey stories!)

In October I have a story slated for the debut issue (October) of Betwixt Magazine. I’m excited to be part of Ms. Crelin’s new venture; she’s a fantastic editor, and I have no doubt she’s putting together a treat.

There are also a few stories in the writing queue. Somewhere in between all this stuff, I’m hoping to get some work done on at least some of them.

So, Kudzu is not dead, but it’s taking a back seat to some other stuff that’s a bit more pressing. I hope to get back to it soon, and bring this grand adventure to it’s inevitable conclusion. In the meantime, come visit us at Unlikely Story, and check out the further adventures of yer humble author at http://www.kappamaki.com.