Angela N. Hunt

Her Cup Full of Sand
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$125

Alone on the beach, blood sea at sunset, sand martini running dry…

Cthonic deities of vengeance for Samhain…

Last night, right before I went to bed, I found out that Jens H. Altmann had killed himself apparently a few days ago. He was a comic book creator, a novelist, a translator and commentator. He is my friend. Death doesn’t change that.

I was one of his beta readers. We never got to physically meet, but we “met” on Warren Ellis’ Engine forum and he was one of the core group of people who insisted I go to Italy when the opportunity came up in 2007.

But he had depression. That was obvious to me and it was sometimes hard talking to him, because he lived in the hole. I told him to keep swinging, to not give up, even when he told me it was pointless and that he felt he should just admit he was a total failure and give up on it all. He said he wasn’t going to write anything new. I asked him not to give up. I told him that I believed in him.

And then he rather vanished on the internet. He did that from time to time. I hoped he was just regrouping and getting himself together.

Apparently, it was too much to hope for.

I sent him an email this morning. I had to. I won’t share that here.

…

I’m angry.

Not at Jens.

Oh, for so many other reasons. I’ve never had patience for people who cause grief, or suffering; who ostracize others; who pretend to be too cool for school; who denigrate others’ enthusiasms; the glossy cruelty. This isn’t the first of my friends I’ve lost to suicide, to the black maw at the bottom of the pit, the despairing thing. Watched them crumple under the callousness that the world can dish out sometimes. I’m fucking sick and tired of losing friends this way. I’m fucking sick and tired of howling into the wind about this.

But I’ll keep screaming defiance at Bitch Entropy.

I don’t have to like any of this. This world is duality, the bitter with the sweet, and Entropy always wins. But oh, I’m going to make Her motherfucking work for it. I’m grieving and alternating between going numb and having it wear off.

Samhain’s going to be very interesting tonight. I didn’t expect to have someone else to throw in the cauldron tonight.

I’m going to miss you, Jens. I miss you already.

Exhibit A

Yeah.

So, after being enjoined unanimously to never throw out Mr. Nightlight and to keep it forever and ever, I was also enjoined unanimously to take photos.

Voila.

Photo. There’s another on Ye Olde Flickr, but it’s a little blurry.

That’s my girl?

I do not have a Cute Bean Story to tell you.

First off, the Bean is perfectly fine. Subdued and unhappy this morning, but unharmed and so is her sister, the Mouse. But I do have a Terrifying Bean Story to tell you. Which will only prove that Hyatt genetics are unkillable and my father is laughing himself sick on the astral.

Last night? The Bean used a brass bangle to A) destroy her nightlight; B) destroy the power outlet; C) (thankfully) trip the breaker.

She arc welded the bangle to the night light. It’s sunk a good
quarter inch into the prongs now and is one solid metal piece.

ARC WELDED.

I was barely able to go to sleep.

I suggest you send your bribes in now. The world clearly has no chance. Her rule will be both adorable and terrifying. There is now duct tape until such time as we acquire GFCIs for all the unused outlets. The tape is covering the scorch marks around the defunct outlet on the wall. It took me forever to go to sleep and I made my husband promise on a stack of Bibles to not come to bed until he was *certain* that she was passed out.

I lay in bed after that, thinking, I can’t call my grandparents or my father and ask, “How do I keep her from killing herself?!” When I ventured the question on the astral, all I heard was my father’s laughter. Though I got the sense that he is *inordinately* proud of his granddaughter. *headdesk*

He would be. Lightning was his stock in trade.

Arc. Welded.

Aiya.

This? This is up there with the hobby rocket my father launched as a teenager that nearly decapitated Grandpa and the nitrogen tri-iodide that he spilled and then forgot about till it dried on the laundry room floor to my Grandmother’s great dismay. The Bean is, without a single doubt, genetically and spiritually descended from her mad scientist grandfather.

*goes to drink tequila out of flask when no one’s looking*

Yay, more processed photos!

This one still needs a tiny bit of tweaking, but I’m loving how these came out and wanted to share already.

Response has been very lovely and positive about putting on a campaign to crowdfund the gallery show next year, so officially, here and now, I’m letting you all know that there will indeed be a campaign to do so next year.

Alice Assassin, the novel, is tentatively scheduled to come out next August, but that may move dramatically, depending on where other titles fall out over at Hunt Press. If it moves up (which it very well could), the campaign would probably launch two months before release date of the book, so to have adequate time to run and to book the gallery space.

Earliest I could see it coming out though is May. So call campaign launch at the earliest, March? Just in time for me to be running the LA Marathon.

Man, I am crazy…

By the Shore of the Blood Sea III
Limited to 25
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And we’re back to the beach.

I admit to some melancholy as I come to the end of processing the series. It was a lot of fun to shoot. I don’t know when I’ll have money or time to do another shoot of this scale. Probably 2013, with the way 2012 looks.

Just typing 2013 hurts my head.

But it is what it is.

Luckily I have a lot of negatives to scan to keep me busy until then…

Want to win a copy of Dark Lightning?

Lookie!

Because I have nothing new processed, here, have the black and white version of the cover.

So, my darlings. I am wrestling with a conundrum. The cost of putting Alice Assassin, the entire series, in a gallery for a month/six weeks is going to run a little less than $4000.

How much interest is there in seeing me put Alice Assassin on in a gallery next year?

Because I’ll have to crowdfund this, but it won’t be flex funding. It’ll be all or nothing. All the extra funds I normally have are going to the press for the 12 in 12 initiative we’re aiming for next year (publishing twelve titles in twelve months). I’m running a marathon next year and I’m going on a long trip with my entire family for the first time in twelve years. The bandwidth isn’t there. Nor is the money.

I also will not do a stripped down version of this show, as I did with Between Heaven & Hell. This series is an entire narrative arc. I don’t print and show all of them, I’m gutting the narrative. I don’t feel like it. I’ve worked too hard to do that. So have all the models and the volunteers.

If there’s enough interest, I’ll keep the campaign ready to launch a month out from when the novel comes out as well (sometime mid next year). If not, well, the series won’t see the physical light of day. Possibly not for a very long time. I won’t say never, because who knows? But I know if I don’t raise the money, it’ll be a long time before “ever”. Because I move on. Because I have other projects that I want to work on.

Which leads me to the other piece of this.

If I can’t pull this show off, it also means the postponement of any additional series. I can’t afford it. So, as much as I want to do my Frida inspired dark huntress, or my nudes in a wooden box or half the other ideas I have in the idea folder, they might have to all stay there for a while.

And that breaks my heart a little.

*deep breath*

But it is what it is.

So if you want to see this in a gallery or just know it showed in a gallery, let me know. Otherwise, aside from the virtual, it’s going in the trunk.

Check out the inscription there.

Books Invite All, They Constrain None

That? That right there is why I became a publisher. Why I started writing at five-years-old. Why I read like a starving woman eats. Voraciously.

Here’s the thing about books. They’re always an opportunity, even the bad ones. They’re a chance to learn. They’re a chance to live another life. And more than once, they can save someone’s life. The right book at the right time changes everything.

It doesn’t care who you are. It doesn’t care what you are. It can’t see the color of your skin, the shape of your eyes or whether you like boys, girls or none of the above. A book just invites you in.

And opens *you* up.

If you let it. If you’re willing. If you’re not afraid to change. Yeah. Let me be more like a book.

Invite all. Constrain none.