New story acceptance and sundries

British publisher Fox Spirit Books has this lovely-looking series of international monster stories that I've been eyeing for a while. Volumes have been finalists for the British Fantasy Awards and editor Margrét Helgadóttir has been getting lots of acclaim for her work. I scored an invitation to submit for American Monsters Part 2 (they're all divided by geography and focus on each writer's local monsters) a few months back so I set nose to writing grindstone and produced "Hunger," a jolly little tale about toxic masculinity and wendigos and elderly ladies who know the truth behind old stories, and sent it off. It just got accepted and I'm quite thrilled! Why wendigos or wiindigos? They're a regional Native American monster, one that shows up in Chippewa and Ojibwe stories so they are a part of Minnesota lore. I tried to be respectful of their origins as creatures born of greed, hunger and lines that should not be crossed and hopefully, I did a reasonable job with it. More bulletins as I have them!

Twin Cities Pride was very nice yesterday. Got to see some friends, do a bit of shopping, eat interesting food, check out a new to us comic book shop, admire people's costumes and make up, scritch rescue dogs and all the good things. Favorite new amusing thing: local Lutheran church handing out stickers that said "Not all Christians are assholes," along with Mom and Dad hugs. The weather held up well, despite rain predictions. Today, not so much so I hope people didn't get too soggy.

Furnace. Going into Week 3. We might get done this week. Or we might need a new fuse box. Suspense mounts. So far, one cat has gotten stuck in a wall, the other got covered with cobwebs and both have required sponge baths. The house is in chaos with boxes stacked everywhere and little boxes and mayhem. It's going to a be rough week on multiple fronts so I'm off to go see Tessa Thompson rock a suit for a few hours.