serrefine - n. - A small spring forceps used for approximating the edges of a wound, or for temporarily closing an artery during surgery.
Another word that I don't think I'll be able to use in every day conversation. Other than today, when I can say things like, "Did you see Even O'Dorney win the Scripps National Spelling Bee last night with the word 'serrefine'?" Ah, the spelling bee. The inspiration for my anthology Logorrhea: Good Words Make Good Stories. It's now become a standard at the end of May for my household to watch the bee.
My wife and I shout at the kids who keep asking for definitions and alternate pronounciations. Sometimes I feel bad for the kids, though. You can tell they're trying to suss out the spelling, and they're just asking questions without thinking about them so they don't feel the pressure of silence. Like the one boy, Prateek Kohli, who got a word (oberek) for which the definition was "a Polish folk dance" and then he asked the country of origin. Not surprisingly it was Polish. Without the pressure of the spelling bee, I suspect that Mr. Kohli doesn't ask that question.
Nice things said about Logorrhea:
"Delightful.... A treat for dictionary hounds and vocabulary-challenged word lovers everywhere."—Booklist
"This book is a logophile's dream—a left-field collection of stories inspired by winning words from the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Anyone who has ever spent an hour or two happily browsing the pages of a dictionary will find something to love here."—Kevin Brockmeier, author of A Brief History of the Dead
"Your book pays a beautiful tribute to the beauty, potential, versatility and history that lie within so many words and the English language as a whole. In other words, it encapsulates what it was that drove my competition in spelling bees and what drives my passion for language today."-Nupur Lala, winner of the 1999 National Spelling Bee (winning word: logorrhea)
"Buy it immediately."-The Agony Column
Showing posts with label spelling bee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spelling bee. Show all posts
Friday, June 01, 2007
Monday, April 30, 2007
Logorrhea in stores now!
Tomorrow (May 1) will see the publication of the anthology that I edited for Bantam Books. The book is called Logorrhea: Good Words Make Good Stories. Every story in the anthology is based on a spelling-bee winning word. Here is the full table of contents:
Hal Duncan - “The Chiaroscurist”
Liz Williams - “Lyceum”
David Prill - “Vivisepulture”
Clare Dudman - “Eczema”
Alex Irvine - “Semaphore”
Marly Youmans - “The Smaragdine Knot”
Michael Moorcock - “A Portrait in Ivory”
Daniel Abraham - “The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairy Tale of Economics”
Michelle Richmond - “Logorrhea”
Anna Tambour - “Pococurante”
Tim Pratt - “From Around Here”
Elizabeth Hand - “Vignette”
Alan DeNiro - “Plight of the Sycophant”
Matthew Cheney - “The Last Elegy”
Jay Caselberg - “Eudaemonic”
Paolo Bacigalupi - “Softer”
Jay Lake - “Crossing the Seven”
Leslie What - “Tsuris”
Neil Williamson - “The Euonymist”
Theodora Goss - “Singing of Mount Abora”
Jeff VanderMeer - “Appoggiatura”
I'm very excited about this book. It's been a lot of work in a short amount of time. I sold the book in January of 2006. There were only two out of 21 stories written at that time. To get more than 100,000 words written, edited, and pushed through the publishing process in just over a year took a great amount of effort. I've gotten the chance to work with a lot of authors that I admire.
Those of you that know me better also know that during that course of time I completed my MLIS, my wife gave birth to our first child, I took a full-time job at a great public library in NJ, changed to a full-time job in IA, and moved halfway across the country from NJ to IA. I'm not sure what I'll do with my free time now that the work on the book is essentially done.
The link above takes you to the Amazon page for the book. It's currently $11.05 on Amazon. Not bad for so much great fiction! Go out and buy! Get some for your friends!
If you're in the Quad City area of Iowa, I have events set up on May 19 in the Borders in Davenport and on May 20 at the Barnes & Noble in North Park Mall. Hope to see you there!
John Klima
Editor
Hal Duncan - “The Chiaroscurist”
Liz Williams - “Lyceum”
David Prill - “Vivisepulture”
Clare Dudman - “Eczema”
Alex Irvine - “Semaphore”
Marly Youmans - “The Smaragdine Knot”
Michael Moorcock - “A Portrait in Ivory”
Daniel Abraham - “The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairy Tale of Economics”
Michelle Richmond - “Logorrhea”
Anna Tambour - “Pococurante”
Tim Pratt - “From Around Here”
Elizabeth Hand - “Vignette”
Alan DeNiro - “Plight of the Sycophant”
Matthew Cheney - “The Last Elegy”
Jay Caselberg - “Eudaemonic”
Paolo Bacigalupi - “Softer”
Jay Lake - “Crossing the Seven”
Leslie What - “Tsuris”
Neil Williamson - “The Euonymist”
Theodora Goss - “Singing of Mount Abora”
Jeff VanderMeer - “Appoggiatura”
I'm very excited about this book. It's been a lot of work in a short amount of time. I sold the book in January of 2006. There were only two out of 21 stories written at that time. To get more than 100,000 words written, edited, and pushed through the publishing process in just over a year took a great amount of effort. I've gotten the chance to work with a lot of authors that I admire.
Those of you that know me better also know that during that course of time I completed my MLIS, my wife gave birth to our first child, I took a full-time job at a great public library in NJ, changed to a full-time job in IA, and moved halfway across the country from NJ to IA. I'm not sure what I'll do with my free time now that the work on the book is essentially done.
The link above takes you to the Amazon page for the book. It's currently $11.05 on Amazon. Not bad for so much great fiction! Go out and buy! Get some for your friends!
If you're in the Quad City area of Iowa, I have events set up on May 19 in the Borders in Davenport and on May 20 at the Barnes & Noble in North Park Mall. Hope to see you there!
John Klima
Editor
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