A movie called Predators came out this weekend, involving a species of vicious aliens who drop a bunch of humans onto a “game preserve” jungle planet to hunt them.  On the same day, I published a story called “Predator Bait,” involving shlubby men who try to hook up with young girls on the internet.  I now realize both pieces could be improved by combining them, so that Adrien Brody and Laurence Fishbourne et al have to survive on a hostile jungle planet while fleeing shlubby men who want to molest them.

Just listened to Samuel ”Chip” Delaney (of Hogg and Dhalgren) read a long, amiable, detail-rich story about a fellow who likes eat his own excrement and semen.  Feel sort of fatalistic, for some reason.

Peter Straub, a few minutes ago (paraphrased from memory): “Literary writers working with a surreal or supernatural concept tend to be content to just describe it in detail.  A genre writer is more likely to feel compelled to turn it into a story, which may succeed brilliantly or fail miserably, but has more potential to be a satisfactory turn.”

Around this time last year, random people told me about Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg and seemed shocked that I never heard of it, much less read it.  So I bought it and read it, and it’s amazing.  Now the book the universe is telling me about is The Man Who Was Thursday by GK Chesterton.  On the list it goes.

Today I find myself at Readercon.  Surrounded by ravenous readers of genre literature.  These are my people, or some of them at least.  I love story.  I just got off a panel called “The Unknowable Character” (I think).  John Crowley said, “I don’t mean to channel Rumsfeld, but when it comes to unknowable characters, there are known unknowns and unknown unknowns, and each is useful to a writer.”  (I’m paraphrasing from memory.)

Merwin named Poet Laureate. Is this news of interest or relevance to you?  Genuine question.

Paula Bomer’s collection Baby & other stories is now available for pre-order on Word Riot’s website.  I am super-psyched for this collection.  Paula’s a friend of HTML Giant, a friend of mine, and an awesome writer.

Victor LaValle, author of Big Machine, The Ecstatic, and Slapboxing with Jesus (and, full disclosure, a guy who blurbed one of my books), on his early-20s period of obesity, depression, and phone sex: “Have you ever known men or women who don’t get any kind of loving for years? They get weird. The women become either monstrously drab or they costume themselves in ways that make them seem unreal; they externalise their inner fantasies and come to believe that – on some level – they really are elves or princesses or, most disturbing of all, children again. And the men? They’re even worse. Men who are denied affection for too long devolve into some kind of rage-filled hominoid. Their anger becomes palpable. You can almost feel the wrath emanating from their pores. Lonely women destroy themselves; lonely men threaten the world.”

I love HTMLGIANT commenter I. Fontana’s new story in Juked. Just as I loved his amazing Jean Harlow story in Spork a while back, which I think was the first short story I read of his.

“When I originally checked “Less Than Zero” out of the library, years ago, I found a pubic hair lodged between two pages, and this seemed significant.”

The Millions’ list of 20 More Under 40 includes Jesse Ball, Victor LaValle, Ben Kunkel, Salvador Plascencia, and many others.

Erin Hosier at The Nervous Breakdown has fiery stuff to say about Bill Clegg’s Portrait of the Addict as a Young Man.  And here’s Dwight Garner at the New York Times with a pretty positive review from today.  I haven’t read the book yet; it’s in the proverbial stack for this summer.

Katherine Dunn hasn’t published a novel in the 21 years since Geek Love.  But she’s been working on one, and an excerpt is coming out in the Paris Review soon, thanks to an entreaty from editor Caitlin Roper.  Also, remember that time last winter when she showed a mugger what’s up?