Soon, a Contest. Now for the Rooster!

I’ve never felt especially comfortable in front of a camera. Aim one at me and I tend to freeze up. I’m actually a pretty happy person, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at the family photo album. I suppose you MIGHT have seen me relaxed looking on TV some twenty years back when I was living in Terre Haute, Indiana and working as a production assistant at WTWO. With a limited budget, a lot of us 20 somethings on the production staff acted in the commercials when necessary, and I got to ham it up a few times. But that’s the difference — I was hamming it up, not trying to look respectable, or posed.

As to this picture… Astute viewers will note that I’m wearing the same paisley shirt that appears in the one and only publicity pic I ever use. (Yeah, I know, I need a new one. Maybe for The Bones of the Old Ones.) When my friend Bruce was snapping shot after shot of me to try and get a nice dust jacket photo, there were literally a hundred shots of me looking even more awkward than usual. Then my daughter ran and grabbed a rooster and shoved it into my hands. You see the result on the left.

After a few silly ones like this I looked considerably more relaxed, although I still think I look like a cardboard cutout rather than the real me.

What’s your take on this one? I think I look rather like an evil poultry wizard, or possibly Blofeld’s cousin from the midwest just finishing a monologue to James Bond.

Next week I’ll be announcing a Dabir and Asim contest, with the prize to be an advanced reading copy of The Bones of the Old Ones. This week, behave yourself, or the rooster will get you.

I almost forgot — I posted some more thoughts on revisiting Ray Bradbury’s work over at the Black Gate blog. Apart from relaxing with some old favorites, I ended up feeling rather melancholy during the reading. It’s hard to go home again, sometimes.