Some of you reading this know that I am one of the founders of a website called Your Mom’s Basement. YMB, as we affectionately call it, was created to be a source for coverage of the so-called geek culture. We wanted to produce articles about the things were geeked out about – books, comics, games, movies, and more. And we have. For just about three years we’ve done articles and interviews, reviews and parodies, and even the occasional video. And it’s something we’ve been proud of.

But we are all doing this for free, and real life has a way of intruding, and lately there hasn’t been much content.

That is soon about to change. In order to increase our content while decreasing the amount of time it takes to produce it, we are moving to a group blog approach. Think BoingBoing or Engadget. Since we have some great people working with us, we selected seven, and we will be putting up content as we can, covering the same things we did before, but with a bit more of our unique personalities thrown in.

I invite everyone to come take a look at what we have to offer. There’s just the announcement right now to speak of, but there will be more to come. And there’s some previous content from the past three years that is still up and available. We’re looking forward to entering our fourth year and I’m looking forward to increasing our audience. Maybe you’ll want to stick around.

On the subway this morning, I looked across the car and a man was sitting down reading a Marvel Comics Avengers collection. To my left was someone reading a Jonathan Lethem book. To my right was someone playing a videogame on their PSP. At a later stop, someone got on reading a Terry Pratchett novel, and another person came on reading Edgar Rice Burroughs. And I thought to myself, when did the rest of the world start moving closer to me? Has there really been this shift in tastes or was I just not seeing it before?

It was a strangely surreal moment.

Thanks to everyone for both your sympathies and your congratulations. Both are appreciated.

As a quick update, my mother started her chemo treatments. And she has a new puppy, too. With all that cuteness and love around her, she’ll have no choice but to improve.

Thanks again.

Life continues to be a rollercoaster lately, and my hopes for 2008 being more calm and settled seem to be hopeless right now. What helps things is that there is some good news along with the bad, but really, I could use some regularity.

Bad news first:

My mother has cancer. I hesitated posting about this because it’s personal, but it’s happening and it’s a big part of my life right now, and it will continue to be so for the coming months. She has adenocarcinoma of the lung and she’s started chemotherapy.

It was a shock at first, but right now the family is being optimistic. Because we have to be, and because my mother needs that. She’s a trooper. She is adamant that she’s going to beat this thing and she’s being strong. How can we be anything less?

The chemo is rough, though, and she’s only now experiencing the first effects. But she has support – all of us and her friends and I hope that it will make a difference.

I am not a religious person, but I would appreciate people’s thoughts, and indeed prayers, if you feel like it.

The good news:

I was accepted to the <a href=”http://www.clarionwest.org/”>Clarion West Writer’s Workshop</a> and, barring any unforeseen circumstances, I will be attending this summer.

Clarion is something I’ve thought about for a long time and gone back and forth about in the past. Oftentimes work was uncooperative, or my financial situation. This year I’ve run out of excuses. And I want to go. I feel like I need to go. So, I am.

I’m really looking forward to it. Chuck Palahniuk is one of the instructors, so is Connie Willis. It should be a great time. And I will be following in the footsteps of some of my friends – Eugene and Erin and Kris and many others.

So, wish me luck.

Also, advice would be appreciated.

More to come later…

If you are familiar with Sybil’s Garage you know that it is a brilliant magazine of fiction and poetry, publishing imaginative and evocative work of the fantastic. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s time you changed that.

Sybil’s Garage 5 is now out with fiction from Jason Erik Lundberg, Veronica Schanoes, Vylar Kaftan, and more. Full information for the issue can be found here, and you can buy it right from that page as well. I highly recommend it.