Chiaroscuro has a new review at Fallen Angels Reviews.

Something Beautiful will be out June 25.

Subject to change.

Looking through some old files the other day I found another Chiaroscuro snippet I’d written a while back, so I’ve added it to the site. It’s a little drabble called The Happy in my -ness.

Damalepazhur is the king of a land long ago and far away, and he really needs the fabled diamond he’s heard of for protection. The diamond is a young man named Ketu, a fisherman, and he reluctantly joins the palace household, and learns to have a fondness for the king, even if court life is strange to him.

When a stranger comes to the city and tries to turn the people against Damalepazhur, Ketu steps in to do his job, revealing the identity and the plot of the stranger, putting himself right in the path of danger. Will Damalepazhur be able to thank Ketu the way he wants to?

Purchasing information is here.

(Now I’m going to go jump up and down for a bit.)

It was bound to happen eventually: My first contest!

I got the cover art for this novella today, and it’s absolutely gorgeous. So I’ve created a page where its information will be centrally stored come Wednesday.

The big version is below the cut.

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Today is CSS Naked Day.

Web design, when I first started getting interested (back in the early 90s and get off my lawn, ya damn kids), was about tables and ornate graphics and slices; and web standards was something that only concerned the W3. (Which is not to say it wasn’t a lot of fun. It was, and it was really beautiful, too.) But it wasn’t practical by any stretch; and I’ve enjoyed the move away from what web design was to what it has become: sleek, clean, and simple, with an emphasis on usability.

But no matter how obsessed I get with making things pretty (and I do get a little wiggy about it sometimes) the basis of the web is information. The prettiest site is completely useless if you can’t find the content you’re looking for—and this is where CSS Naked Day comes in. A well-designed site will still be useful even without the pictures and colors.

So today, the site will be naked.

The King’s Diamond comes out in a week and a day (always something so poetic about “and a day”, don’t you think?) so here’s a taste. (I’m so excited about this story, y’all. Trying something completely new is so much fun.)

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This weekend I’m switching to a new webhost, so there may be some interruptions with site availability starting tonight.

Update: the change has been made, and I’m currently working on rebuilding and updating. It will be a few days before everything is back in place. Thanks for your patience.