This is a random welcome post, to give a brief introduction to people who may have found me or my work only recently, and therefore might not be entirely sure of what’s going on around here. Don’t worry, it happens to everyone. Also don’t be surprised if you see this post again in six months; it’s become clear to me that I have to start doing these once in a while. Feel free to ask questions in the comments section and I reserve my right to answer them, ignore them, or block your IP address from ever commenting again, depending on what you ask. You’ve been warned.

First, the easy questions:

Who are you?

I am a (currently) 38 year old author and editor, living in the Northeast with a medium-sized child and an ever-expanding To Be Read pile. I grew up in California and have lived in the Central Valley, in a former-Gold Rush town in the Sierra Nevadas (near Yosemite), in Oakland near the Mother’s Cookies factory, in San Francisco near the corner of Sutter and Van Ness, and finally in downtown Sacramento, near 19th & K, before moving East in 2008. I have a couple of degrees in History of Art and Fine Arts, and another that I haven’t quite finished yet but I’m not giving up. I started my own publishing company in 2012, Dagan Books, and our first title, Cthulhurotica, got great reviews. Our second title, IN SITU, comes out tomorrow (7/12/10). Read my About Me page to learn more.

Do you have a dayjob?

I’m not currently working for anyone else at the moment, though I plan to go back to it at least part time in the fall, because income is good. Besides writing (fiction and non-fiction), editing, publishing, and the occasional piece of art, I mainly spend my time taking care of my son, who has Autism and a speech disorder. The way I look at it is, being a parent to a special-needs kid is my full-time job, and I pursue my writing and editing career in whatever time I have left. But, this does leave us on the poor side of the tracks, so until I sell my first dozen novels, I work pt as much as my son’s school schedule allows. I primarily work in office administration and tech support, if you’re wondering.

Are you going to talk about your son a lot?

Hardly ever, actually. I think that the best thing I can do as a parent is to protect my child until he’s ready to decide for himself what he wants the public to know. The more I become a public figure, the more it actually becomes dangerous for Internet strangers to know too much. Let’s just say that I love him, adore him, and I’ll keep the rest to myself for now.

Where can I see your writing?

I keep an updated list HERE with links to anything that’s available to read free online (a lot of it is) and links to buy the rest.

You said you write non-fiction?

Yes. I write a monthly “Tech Nerd” column for Functional Nerds, regularly do book reviews and guest spots on other writers’ sites, and have written for SF Signal as well. I am working to expand my list of non-fiction credits.

Do you have a Facebook page?

Yes but I’m on Twitter a lot more often, @carriecuinn. I don’t automatically add people back but if you tweet at me and are interesting, I probably will follow you too.

Is that picture of you recent?

The one in the upper right-hand side of the screen was taken June 2012.

Are you going to talk about who you’re dating, your sex life, etc?

Rarely. My mom reads my blog.

What do you talk about?

Writing, mostly. A lot of other subjects that interest me get mentioned, like Jazz and movies and knitting and cooking and traveling and so on, but I try to tie them back to the art and craft of writing, somehow.

Now for the fun questions:

What qualifies you to be an expert about writing?

Nothing and no one. I don’t think I am an expert on writing, or reading, or much else, and I aspire to live a long and healthy life so I can spend it learning as much as I can. What qualifies me to have this blog, which I think is the real question you’re asking, is simply that I bother to write it. Whether you want to follow my advice, or example, is entirely up to you. Here, have a DISCLAIMER.

You say you write “speculative fiction – including science fiction and apocalypse stories and magic realism and fucked up fairy tales” but what does that mean?

Speculative fiction is a great umbrella term that means all of the things I mention above and a few other things as well. For me it means I write genre fiction, a subset of literary fiction most known for it’s lack of dependence on realism (though much of it is realistic). In my writing that manifests as science fiction, with researched and thought-out science, and urban fantasy stories with modern-day characters dealing with fantastical things, like ghosts that won’t go back to their murderous ex-wives, and little boy ghosts that live under the surface of the pond, waiting for their mothers to drown themselves to be with them. I write about robots and I write about monstrous animals and I write about sex.

I have a novel I’m working on that combines a viral apocalypse with a resurgence in fairy tale magic, kind of “The Stand” meets “Grimm’s”. But mostly I write about dead people.

You write erotica. Weird erotica. Are you a freak?

Yes I do. I publish it too! And, yes, according to someone’s standards somewhere in the world, I probably am. But I like to think that I’m a kind and well-adjusted sex freak, with a good sense of hygiene and respect for other people’s personal space. Also, outside of my fiction I won’t be talking about my freakishness, cause, dude, my mom.

Do you really ban people from commenting?

Yes. But I don’t want to. Don’t be a dick and it won’t be a problem. People argue with me all of the time, and as long as your comment is reasoned, polite, and not demeaning to other commenters, you’re fine. You can think I’m completely wrong, just say that, and why you think that, and I won’t complain. If your comment is simply that I’m wrong because of my race, gender, sexuality, or something similar, then we have a problem.

Anything else we should know?

I’m an introvert, I love Jazz, I review books I really like, I’ve been on a couple of podcasts, I love going to writing conventions, I’m a huge fan of roller derby, and you can find a list of my bulletproof kinks here. (all links go to blog posts on the subject)

Any questions?