Jews vs. Aliens

It's not properly out until March 17, but I have a short story in a new collection called Jews vs. Aliens. (There's also a companion volume, Jews vs. Zombies, which will be released at the same time.) My story is called "The Ghetto," and I will try not to give anything away but it's about an alien abduction in Crown Heights. And it was just featured on BoingBoing, which for a very small percentage of the population is roughly equivalent of getting a Nobel Prize in Weirdness. Oh, and here's the cover.

My favorite-person-ever (and Big Bang Theory producer) Eric Linus Kaplan also has a story, and so do a bunch of other wonderful people. And the whole batch is edited by Rebecca Levene and Lavie Tidhar, that latter of whom might be the most bitingly satirical and wise Israeli expat science fiction writer ever to exist. Not that there's much competition, but if there was, he'd wipe them out like a bunch of Space Invaders.

Thank G-d I Didn't Name This Book "Kosher Jesus"

Okay, this is a big time for Jupiter. Next week, there's a new Jupiter story coming out -- chapter two of Enemies, the sequel to Losers, if you're keeping track. (If you aren't keeping track, Enemies is sort of a scavenger-hunt novel, where each chapter shows up in a different place -- chapter one is in this anthology, for instance.)

So I just got asked for a biography, and I wanted to include the title of the first story. I know I should really have it memorized, since I wrote it and everything, but you know that's not how these things always play out. Plus, the editor was British, and I'd originally titled it "Girl Jesus on the Uptown Train" and she didn't know what uptown meant, or that trains are what we call aboveground subways in Philadelphia (actually, we call it The El, but I knew nobody would have any clue what I was talking about if I wrote that)....anyway, we called it something like "Girl Jesus on the Inbound Subway," or maybe it was originally "Inbound Train" and we switched it to "Uptown Subway," and I'm not even sure if "uptown" should be capitalized in the title since it's sort of a preposition--

(And this is the way anxious people think. And I am an anxious person.)

(And there really is a reason I used "Jesus" in the title. You'll find out, eventually. But I can't spoil all the stories at once.)

So I turned to Google. Basically just searched my name + Jesus, and to my great surprise and immense pleasure, found a bunch of reviews about it. Which I didn't know existed at all for maybe almost a year, and  which I incredibly apologize for not blogging about sooner.

• This one is just awesome, in which my story is called "swift" and "beautifully written" and "with a stinging twisty bit at the end," and that's not even the nicest thing she says about it. (Spoiler: I now have a couch to crash upon in London any time I want to.)
  
• And I freaking got picked for Short Story Saturday! I wish I could say it was just because it was Shabbos and I was off the Internet, but, no, this was months ago. "I love how troubled and prone to fantasy he was." I think they're talking about Jupiter but I know they're really talking about me.

Okay, sit tight. The next chapter hits soon in Apiary magazine, which will be (a) online and (b) free, and which will (c) feature Bates, who is Jupiter's gay death-metal best friend/antagonist/confidante. I'll let you know exactly when it's up. And if you haven't read "Girl Jesus," I'm pretty sure there's at least part of it in the preview on Amazon.

And, bonus, double update: This is the cover of Cornered, which will have the next Jupiter story! Okay, end of excitement. Yeah, right.

Jupiter Is Back (or, A New Book! Sort Of)

I'm publishing a new book! Well, in a way. Here. First, check out the new teaser site for Enemies:

Ready? OK. So here's the story.

Last year, an editor named Liz Miles asked me if I'd ever written any stories that were a little funny and a little edgy. Hey, I said, I do edgy for a living.

A few months before, my awesome agent-at-the-time, Suzie Townsend, had sent around my manuscript for Enemies. It wasn't a direct sequel to Losers, my last book, but it had the same lovable Russian hacker/geek/girl-anti-magnet, Jupiter Glazer. She'd tried to sell it with remarkably little success. Most publishers were reticent. The few candid ones told a remarkably depressing story: They weren't buying books for teenage boys. Most Young Adult (marketspeak for "teen") fiction was selling to girls. Guys were either buying adult books, or they weren't buying anything.

I took a chance. I sent Liz the first chapter. She liked it.

And now it's the first story in her new anthology, Truth & Dare, which is coming out next month in the US (but which is available on Amazon now!) and also in the UK with a much bubblier Britpop cover.

  
butwaitthere'smore...
So that's just the beginning. Chapter 2 is going to be published in Apiary this spring. And the other chapters are going to be pouring out, bit by bit -- five chapters are in upcoming anthologies. One is already out. It's sort of like a scavenger hunt, except that we're all on the same page.
Thanks for reading this! And, hey, thanks for paying attention to Jupiter and to me in the first place. You rock the rock.
(And one more thing: if this isn't too desperate a plea, please like the Enemies page on Facebook! And send the page around to everyone you know! It's pretty easy, http://bit.ly/heyjupiter. I know it's ridiculous to hope that, if a million people click "like," then Scholastic or someone will publish it. But I'm a ridiculously hopeful person.)