Fleur Fliegen Begins

An illustration of Fleur Fliegen, Fly Girl Detective, from character creator and writer David Nelson

It’s live! I’m proud to say I had a hand in helping David Nelson edit his short story Fleur Fliegen and The Bafflement of the Bus Banshee! This is such a cute story about a fly girl detective, and one of many that David has in the works. When some kind of transparent, translucent ghost bus appears in front of young Billy’s house one night, he calls on the investigation skills of one Fleur Fliegen to help him solve the case!

I honestly think Fleur is a really cool character, one that I would have loved when I was a kid/preteen. I could really see her as a protagonist of a silly and fun YA series. David’s got a flair for the ridiculous, and it was a joy to get to see him play around with that. I loved helping him flesh out more of her character here and look forward to seeing more of her in the future!

To check out the story (and more of David’s delightfully absurdist) works here, please visit his substack!

Afternoon at the Museum

Working view from the National Portrait Gallery’s atrium.

Lately, I’ve taken on a couple of editing projects for some folks I know personally!

Firstly, I’ve been working on editing a short story for a customer of mine at the comic shop. He’s been with us for a few years, and in that time I’ve gotten to chatting with him plenty about movies, books, video games, and just life stuff. He’s been working on a bunch of pieces with absurd themes, and I’ve had the honor of getting to edit one of them! That’s actually what I was working on in the photo above; I took a few hours this past Saturday to hole up in the atrium courtyard of the National Portrait Gallery / Smithsonian American Art Museum with hot tea and some earbuds. No spoilers for the story, but there are ocelli involved.

I’ve also been talking with a friend (full disclosure, one of my best friends) about editing a horror novel she’s been working on here and there for the last five years or so. She’s a very talented writer, and we share a passion for horror, so I’m already looking forward to help her develop the story! I’ve read her pitch, and I think she has some fabulous stuff already.

Finally , since this is MY BLOG, and I’ll post whatever I want (it’s not a phase, mom), I’d like to start injecting posts here and there about…well, things I like! Probably primarily books/graphic novels/manga that I’ve really enjoyed, but I’m not above talking about a video game or movie too. Just whatever, really! One of my favorite parts of working at the comic shop is getting to share things I love with people, and maybe helping them find something new to love, too. I’ve been lucky enough to get to bond with some incredible folks over shared interests in my time at the store, and I’d love to do the same with whatever audience I may end up cultivating here.

Signing off for now!

Blog in progress…

A photo of some shelves in my store! These are some of the first you see when you walk in — a rotating featured shelf and New Releases.

If you’re reading this, welcome! This site has been a long time in the making. As I take this step to make my tiny footprint on the internet, I think back to late elementary and middle school, and all the time I spent playing around on what we now call “the early internet.” I spent almost every day on Angelfire making Sailor Moon fansites, building web designs in Jasc Paint Shop Pro 8, decking out my forum posts with the choicest 100x100 pixel icons, and clicking through blog rings. I think at one point I had even claimed a scent for my page - I can’t remember what the terminology used for this specifically was, but I DO remember having a button on my site that let folks know that it was, in fact, supposed to smell like clean laundry. (Feel free to imagine that this site does, as well). Today, I hope to use this blog to share myself with people — potential future coworkers and employers, for sure, but I also hope this is a space I can share my occasional thoughts and feelings as both an established bookseller and lifelong fangirl, in a more informal, personal way. If you like what you read here, I’m always open to making new connections, both professionally and personally! So definitely contact me if the feeling strikes.

Thanks for reading, and talk soon!