If you want to give a personalized gift of literature for the holidays, consider Anthology Builder at http://www.anthologybuilder.com/

As the name implies, you can build your own anthology of short stories. Here's how it works:

First, you chose a cover design and title. There are 480 designs to chose from right now, although artists are always adding more.

Then you can select up to 350 pages of fiction from 500 stories (right now) including classics like Poe or Jane Austen, children's stories, romance, thrillers, humor, and even a few stories by me. You can preview the beginnings of the stories to be sure you'll like them.

You can arrange them in the order you like and include a personalized introduction.

You can also select a ready-made anthology about a specific author, genre, or even "safe fiction" (age appropriate) for a teenager.

Then, you pay $14.95 and a professionally printed book arrives at your door. Except that you will get 15% off all anthologies ordered by December 5, which means they'll cost $12.70.

You can also buy an Anthology Builder gift certificate so your giftee can build their own anthology.

Just an idea. Sometimes we need them at this time of year.

— Sue Burke

We're British, Canadian, and American, sixteen writers with one common denominator: we came to Spain to live, so we see the country in a way that tourists never will.

In her introduction to the anthology, editor Sara E. Rogers says:

"Expatriate literature blends the worlds the writer has emerged from and the world the writer now lives in. In Spain, that heady cocktail is then spiked with a complementary, sometimes interchangeable and sometimes hostile multiculturalism — a necessary and exceptional cross-fertilization of life and art."

I'm in this anthology with "The Highest Mile," an essay about hiking the Camino de Santiago in the mountains northwest of Madrid, where I may or may not have glimpsed God.

The anthology is divided Essay, Fiction, and Poetry, and I think the essays are the strongest part of the book. If you've never loved overseas, you should buy the book to learn what living overseas is really like — or rather, why it can be so funny.

Michael Raphan and his Spanish girlfriend discover they don't have the bilingual language skills to communicate in an embarrassing situation. Anita Haas discovers just how unmotivated English class students can be. Linda Palfreeman and her family move to a small town and meet the very Spanish neighbors. Lenox Napier gets thrown into a Franco-era jail for a couple of days. Matthew Johnson gets locked in the subway at night. More seriously, Megan McNeil bids a teary farewell to Spain, and Amy Katz Kaminsky remembers her first job in New York.

The fiction is a little weaker, not for lack of good ideas but because the writers vary in their level of skill. Still, all the works deliver an insider view of Spain. The stories are by Anita Haas, Violeta Braña Lafourcade, Rob Innis, Megan McNeil, and Lawrence Schimel.

The poetry, too, varies in quality, and only some have connections with Spain. The poets are Marjorie Kanter, Shiva Roofeh, Christopher North, Ben Gutteridge, and Stewart Barclay.

Buy Courting the Bull at http://www.innoword.com

Sample it at an open mic at Café Concierto La Fídula, calle Huertas 57, Madrid, on Wednesday, November 18. Performing will begin at 9 p.m. See you there.

— Sue Burke

  Vampyr Verse contains 79 poems (one by me!), plus a short story, all devoted to the undead. These selections range from pensive haiku to whimsical limericks and deadly serious free verse. At 84 pages, the book makes an excellent gift for anyone aged 13 or older.

Take advantage of a 15% discount off the already low price of $7.99 if you order before Friday, Nov. 13.

http://www.vampyrverse.com/

— Sue Burke

I have an essay in the current issue of the Internet Review of Science Fiction. In "From Best-Seller to Oblivion: A Renaissance Literary Phenomenon" I tell how the novel Amadis of Gaul became Europe's first publishing mega-hit in the 1500s, and how and why it was forgotten.

I argue that Don Quixote de La Mancha did not cause its fall from grace. Fans of novels of chivalry enjoyed Cervantes' contribution to the genre, and they remained loyal readers. Instead, political attacks and bans on chivalric novels eventually eliminated them from respectable bookshelves.

Read the essay at:
http://www.irosf.com/

— Sue Burke

Tourists come back from Spain raving about tapas. If you go to a bar and order a drink, you get a free snack. I've been living in Madrid for almost ten years, and I've had a lot of tapas. (The verb is "tapear.") It's an exercise in luck, especially if you get out of touristy areas, because bartenders feel more free to be capricious or to give you food that might mystify foreigners.

A tapa can be anything from a tiny bowl of popcorn to specially prepared hot dishes. Some bars have restaurants attached and the cook doesn't want the dinner leftovers to go to waste, so you could get whatever they need to get rid of, in the quantities they need to move. Many bars give a small freebie but allow customers to order (and pay for) bigger servings.

Tapas I've known include anchovies, deep-fried tiny squids, small sandwiches of all description, sausages, peanuts, homemade hot potato chips, pork rinds, mixed nuts, ham, various kinds of cheese, slices of roasted pig ears, patatas bravas, fried peppers, miscellaneous salads, paella, tuna turnovers, croquets, shrimp, salt cod, tortilla, meatballs, olives, deep-fried beans, and, once, a full roast pork dinner (leftovers, as I said).

A landmark Spanish dish is the tortilla española, a potato omelet, and it tastes good hot or cold, so it's a great tapa. Here's the recipe:

1 pound of potatoes
1 onion (optional)
6 eggs
salt to taste
good quality olive oil

Peel and slice the potatoes. If you're using the onion, which adds both flavor and a nice moist texture to the omelet, slice that, too. Fry them gently in abundant olive oil with a little salt in a frying pan until very soft: soft enough to mash, but not browned. When they're ready, beat the eggs with salt in a large bowl. Scoop the potatoes from the pan and mix with the eggs. If necessary, add more oil to the pan. (This is not a low-fat recipe.) Pour the mixture into the pan and cook over medium to low heat. When it is cooked on one side, turn it over, and return it to the heat to finish cooking.

Turning it over is the tricky step. I have a set of two frying pans made for tortillas that fit together, so I put a little more oil on top of the tortilla, fit on the upper pan, pick the whole thing up, and quickly flip it. I also have a tortilla turner, which resembles a wide, shallow bowl on a stand. (See photo. I bought my tortilla turner in Toledo.) You slip the tortilla into it, cooked side down, then put the frying pan on top, pick it all up (with hot pads), and flip it over. A properly shaped wide bowl or pot lid could work, too.

If you have trouble turning the tortilla, the worst that can happen is you get scrambled eggs and potatoes. In fact, all Spanish cooks wind up with scrambled eggs the first few times they try to make a tortilla. It will still taste great, so it's okay.

You can add a little cooked ham, seafood, green or red pepper, sausage, or other tidbits to the omelet and still be authentic.

A tortilla can be served at any meal except breakfast, because Spaniards don't eat breakfast.

— Sue Burke

Also posted at my website: http://www.sue.burke.name

Today is All Saint's Day. Cardinal Cinzio Passeri Aldobrandini Personeni (1551-1610) didn't make sainthood, but his tomb in the Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli, in Rome, did achieve a certain height of style.

I took this photo during a vacation visit in 2007. The basilica is best known for Michelangelo's statue of Moses, part of the funeral monument of Pope Julius II. It also houses  the relic of the chains that bound Saint Peter when he was imprisoned in Jerusalem.

Cinzio Aldobrandini, a nephew of Clement VIII, was raised to cardinal in 1593. He became known for his generosity to the poor and as protector and supporter of the arts and letters. I couldn't find out if his tombstone was his idea.

Here in Spain, people place flowers on family graves on All Saint's Day, so there are big traffic jams at the major cemeteries today.

— Sue Burke

These salt and paper shakers are gift from a Spanish friend who knows how much I supported Barack Obama and Joe Biden — and to her, they represent the executive duo. What better way to celebrate the first anniversary of their November 4 victory?

Well, I truly appreciate the generosity, but I think they're ghosts. What better way to celebrate Halloween?

Hope.
Boo!
You decide.

— Sue Burke

Just in time for Halloween, Ediciones Efímeras, in Spain, has published Nocte de Dinfuntos, a 24-page anthology of short-short stories in Spanish. Its contributors are members of NOCTE, the Spanish Association of Horror Writers. You can download it free in PDF, FB2, and EPUB formats at:
http://www.edicionesefimeras.com/noctededifuntos.html

This is a great way to practice your Spanish and celebrate Halloween.

If that were not enough, Ediciones Efímeras has also just published Bilis, a collection of Twitter-length stories by Santiago Eximeno, master of horror. It contains 140 texts as his Halloween gift to you. "If you would have preferred death," he says, "you should have told me earlier." Download it as a PDF, FB2, or EPUB at:
http://www.edicionesefimeras.com/bilis.html

A sample:

He vuelto a casa... para vengarme, dijo el redivivo, su cuerpo medio descompuesto. Nosotros nos mudamos ayer, lo siento, respondió la mujer.
I've come home... to get revenge, said the revenant, his body half-decomposed. We just moved in yesterday, sorry, the woman responded.

Jamás te olvidaré, me dijo el robot instantes antes de que borrara por completo su memoria.
I'll never forget you, the robot told me the instant before I erased his memory completely.

Tengo un papá de cartón. Sí, ni habla ni me abraza ni me dice buenas noches, pero es mejor que el tuyo. No me grita. No me pega. No me odia.
I have a cardboard dad. Sure, he never talks or hugs me or tells me good night, but he's better than yours. He doesn't shout at me. He doesn't hit me. He doesn't hate me.

The downloads are free, but a PayPal donation are always welcome:
http://www.edicionesefimeras.com/en/acercade_en.html

— Sue Burke

Monsters. Dead Air. Halloween at the End of the Universe. A Bloody Baker's Dozen.

The Science Fiction Poetry Association's 2009 Halloween Poetry Reading is available in convenient mp3 and wave files for you to enjoy at your computer or with your portable media player.

At http://www.sfpoetry.com/halloween.html you can hear these poets read their poems:

Lyn C.A. Gardner, Gwynne Garfinkle, Peg Duthie, J.C. Runolfson, Karen A. Romanko, David Lee Summers, David C. Kopaska-Merkel, Marcie Lynn Tentchoff, Stephen M. Wilson, Mary Turzillo, Geoffrey A. Landis, John S. Tumlin, G.O. Clark, Julia Rios, Ann K. Schwader, and Elizabeth Bennefield.

You can even follow links to the 2008, 2007, and 2006 Halloween Pages . . . if you're not easily frightened.

— Sue Burke, SFPA member

The safe level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is 350 parts per million. More than that and we get climate change: http://www.350.org/about/science. Right now, we're at 390 parts per million. It's time not just to stop, but to go backwards.

On October 24, more than 5200 events in 181 countries marked that goal as part of the 350 Day of Action. Here in Madrid, three organizations — Emisióncero (Zero Emissions), The Climate Project Spain, and Democrats Abroad Spain — jointly organized a Carrera ContraCO2rriente/March Backwards in downtown Madrid.

Participants marched backwards 350 meters down Fuencarral Street, a pedestrian area and an example of sustainable city living. Children happily led the way.

Adults followed more slowly.

"¡Tres ciencuenta es la meta!"

The backwards march entertained Saturday shoppers and tourists, and attracted media attention.

At the end, marchers gathered beneath the centuries-old olive tree at the Mercado de Fuencarral, and everyone received a olive sapling.

— Sue Burke