A Newsletter from Joanne Merriam
Just published: 50-Word Stories posted my micro flash “Miners for Valles Marineris.”
Currently reading: I’m on a Graham Greene run right now, after last month’s search for “The Ministry of” in Libby offered “The Ministry of Fear” and I thought, oh, I’ve never read any Graham Greene and he’s supposed to be quite good. The Ministry of Fear (a WWII amnesia lark actually published during the war) was great fun, and then I read Travels with My Aunt which I found rather lackluster and weirdly (since it was published in 1969 and has one very-’60s-hippie character) more typical-mid-20th-Century-British-supremacist than the one set in WWfrickinII, but I thought I would try one more and so I am currently reading Our Man in Havana, which I can’t really decide if I like. The main character is pretty gormless and no character is likable (and I don’t need a book to have likable characters if it’s a choice, but I have this sneaking suspicion Greene thought the main character was quite a good chap), but the basic concept of a vacuum salesman pretending to be a spy is pretty funny and I’m interested to see how the spy aspect works itself out. Also, content warning, the first sentence drops the n-word.
I also read Meredith Hambrock’s She's a Lamb! which is an absolute riot.
Currently writing: Anyway I’ve been inspired to use a Ministry of title and so the current WIP is The Ministry of Fae. We’ll see if I can figure out the ending, which is giving me fits.
Title is from “The Twenty-One Second God” by Peter Watts, which was in last month’s Lightspeed, which the book club I just joined read for their last meeting.
Thanks for being here with me, friend!