26. Color Plates loves } Worse Than Myself

I don’t know what it means to be on the Small Press Distribution (SPD) bestseller list, but Color Plates is on that list. In September, the month the book was published, CP was no. 7, just below the Starcherone Books title Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls by Alissa Nutting; CP moved up to no. 2 for the October / November list. The result of that activity: CP is no. 26 on SPD’s 50 bestselling titles in 2010. Right now, SPD is promoting their top 50 with the “Kiss-Off 2010 Sale”—use the code “kissoff” and your copy of CP will be shipped to you for 30% of the cover price, which is, uh, $11.16 + tax and shipping.

Brian J. Showers informed me that he and I were among the Speculative Fiction Junkie’s “top 5 reads of 2010”—I for Worse Than Myself and Brian for The Bleeding Horse & Other Ghost Stories. I recently came across a review of Datlow's first best of for Night Shade, that dwells enthusiastically on “The Man From the Peak,” a story from that collection. Thoughtful reviews take time to write. I do appreciate the effort.

At about this time in 2008, I was in a branch library in Harrisburg, PA, revising and writing the stories for Worse Than Myself. At that library, in a box marked $1 CDs, I made some finds: Mono’s Walking cloud and deep red sky, Flag fluttered and the sun shined, a beautifully designed Gregor Samsa EP, a Naxos recording of Gorecki’s Symphony No. 3, paired with “Three Olden Style Pieces” (which are excellent), Albedo 3.9 by Vangelis, and set fire to flames’ signs reign rebuilder. That library also had a heap of 331/3 book/CD sets. I read Chris Ott’s book about and listened to Unknown Pleasures. Joy Division doesn’t mean much to me, but at that moment, it was absolutely the right record.