So, I may not be quite as excited as Karen Meisner is (that picture is SO cute!), but I am mucho looking forward to the new Superman movie. (Christopher, on the other hand, is pretty much as stoked as Ms. Meisner. And doing better, by the by.)

Prompted by Karen’s entry, it seems like a good time to point again to this year’s Fountain Award-winning story "Girl Reporter" by Stephanie Harrell, which the good people at One Story have made available online in its entirety. Its an alternate universe take on the Big Guy; highly recommended. Here’s the opening:

You remember the day he first swooped into our lives, the sky bathed bright orange with zeta-rays. You remember that stray satellite that was crashing toward our fair San Angelo, and what emergency shelter you were fighting the mob to get into.

I, myself, oblivious to personal safety, was snooping around the power plant’s observation chamber, looking for the scoop on flawed disaster fail-safes. Suddenly the klaxon started to sound. Blast doors slammed. As the room I was standing in slid into a defensive domed shape, it wrenched me off my footing, leaving me to grasp and dangle from an inverted railing. On page 46 of Flight of Justice, his so-called memoir, he says he heard my screams from miles away.

Let me assure you, here and now, I did not scream, at least not till much later in our sordid little tale. I was too busy clutching onto steaming steel grillwork, a radioactive roar of heat below me, my hands slippery, wrists about to give. I never scream when these kinds of things happen to me.

See you at the movies.

Andy Duncan has a shiny new blog. Sure to be high-larious, if his personality and his entry about the Maryland state song are any indication. (Via Jeff Ford.)

And psst: check out the online classroom discussion for his class on 21st century fantasy.

Sara Gran says:

I don’t often give out writing advice here, becasue I doubt anyone wants to hear it, but here’s some: choose honesty over cleverness and coolness. Cleverness and coolness are quicksand that will kill you and your writing. There is always someone more clever, someone more cool, but there is no one who can be honest exactly like you can becasue there is no one who’s seen exactly what you’ve seen. Don’t be so scared of being a schmuck, or of making you characters schmucks. Don’t have people "lament" or "bemoan" when really, they’re whining. Never let your characters "inhale the smell of a fine book," and don’t even think about telling me you’ve done it yourself. Old books smell dirty and sweaty; it’s not something you want to inhale. You don’t stop loving old books, you just start describing them as what they are: dirty and smelly. Instead of trying to be clever and smart, you try to be honest. If you choose honesty, you will succeed even if you fail; but if your goal is to be clever and cool, you will fail at having done anything worthwhile even if you succeed.