Author Archives: Dayle

Goose, 8/1/02–5/5/20

On Tuesday, we said goodbye to our beloved elder cat Goose.

All cats have personalities, and I don’t use this word lightly, but Goose…Goose was unique.

On the day she adopted him, his former guardian had visited the Spruce Goose, hence his name. He was a bottle baby, and he never stopped being a kitten. His greatest joy was rubbing his face against yours, just as a kitten rubs his face against his mother’s, or smushing his nose against your neck (or trying to shove it in your ear or up your nose) while he kneaded and purred.

When my friend, his former guardian, said that she had to give him up, at age 15, I said there was no way I will allow this cat to go to a shelter. I contacted local friends to see if any of them could take him, but no one could. So it fell to us to take him in.

Little did we know how Goose would change our lives.

It took a while to integrate him with our other cats at the time, Clara and Max.  They were friends and not entirely happy with a new arrival, especially since Clara is deaf and didn’t understand this new obsessive snuggler.

Because Goose was a snuggler. His happiest place was in your arms so he could commence with the face rubbing. I had to buy a baby sling to hold him while I worked at a standing desk, because otherwise I had to hold him in one arm and try to work with only one hand.

He would crawl under the covers and stick his face out and snuggle against you, but his favorite thing was to curl up on the pillow next to you, noses touching. He would snuggle with Ken when we went to bed, and I would wake up with him snuggling with me.

Recently, he has been losing weight, and we’d been monitoring his kidney disease as well as his heart murmur for some time. We took him Monday to the vet, and his kidney failure was worse, so she sent us home with a bag full of fluids and needles and appetite stimulants and anti-nausea meds, etc. But it became clear that he was having more and more trouble walking, and although he snuggled with us that night, we knew.

I tell all my cats when they get older that I promise if they tell me they’re done, I will respect that and end their suffering. Tuesday afternoon, I lay on the bed with Goose, and he wasn’t really interested in face snuggles, but he kept turning his head to look at me, and I understood what he was saying.

I cradled him in my arms, the way he loved to be held, as we said goodbye and watched the light go out of his eyes.

Despite three other wonderful, magical cats in the house, everything feels quieter and emptier. My heart aches.

“And then he was gone,
and all the colors and the light of the day
crumbled and went out.”
(Tanith Lee)

From the Mixed-Up Files of Ms. Dayle A. Dermatis

I’ve searched long and hard, high and low, for an organization system that works for me: One that incorporates my current/daily To Do list and one that reminds me of appointments/deadlines for the week and on that also gives me a place to put “do later” kinds of lists. One that incorporates my work life (which includes writing, publishing, marketing, and freelance work) and my personal life (home, errands, appointments, travel, you know). One that I can carry with me or otherwise have access to all the time.

I’ve tried lists, spreadsheets, day planners. Sometimes something works for a while and then doesn’t, which is perfectly normal, really. I’ve gone back and forth between things.

The longest-running has been two GoogleDocs pages, one for Today and one for Work to Do. These kind of morphed, but that’s essentially what they’ve been, with Today also including the next few days, plus a “later” list, yet Work to Do became the place I put the previous “today” lists (as “done” lists, plus any journaling I did) as well as another “later” list. Along with those, a Google Calendar for work and iCal (shared with Ken) for personal (which also included work travel).

It was just getting too unwieldly.

I’ve been reading about Bullet Journaling for a while now (I guess it became a thing about four years ago?) and even bought a gridded notebook to try it out. For months and months, I did nothing, even though the concept of Bullet Journaling made so much sense to me: a Today page, a This Week page, Monthly pages, pages for breaking down individual projects into steps (the steps that then can be moved to Today or This Week as needed), pages for Lists…. Finally I set up the first couple pages, using Post-It tabs for everyday things (writing time, supper) so I didn’t have to rewrite them.

And then…nothing.

I realized I hate my handwriting and I hate having to handwrite things other than jotting quick notes, plus since the advent of computers, my hand cramps if I write too long. (Hah! Tell that to the teenager who was writing pages and pages every day!) I still loved the idea of Bullet Journaling, just not the physical process.

Finally I twigged on the brilliant idea of searching online for “bullet journaling apps.” Presto whammo!

I decided on OneNote, since I already had it on my computer. Setting it up took longer than I would have liked, because whatever Microsoft account I used to have under my current email address, the password was lost in the mists of time. (To retrieve it, they wanted a shitton of information, including the zip code at which I was living when I set it up. Bahahaha!) So I set up a new account for work, and after a few hours of fiddling and researching and pounding my head on the desk, I got it to create a new Notebook and sync and all that jazz.

Since then, I’ve been having a blast setting it up. It has everything a Bullet Journal has, but electronically, and I can add pictures and arrows and whatnot (I haven’t, but I’ve added tables for calendars and a daily schedule, because oddly it doesn’t have any calendaring function, its only real downside). It syncs to all my devices. It’s, like, a miracle.

Much of what I’ve been doing is transfering notes, reminders, To DOs, and other ephemera into appropriate places in OneNote. Some of them aren’t organized at all yet; all I wanted to do was get them in there. To give you an idea of how scattered I was, here are places I had information to move:

  • GoogleDocs (the above-mentioned pages)
  • about 20 open Text files on my computer desktop (none of them saved)
  • about 10 Stickies on my computer desktop
  • various scribbled notes on my desk (I know I haven’t found all of them yet)
  • a ton of notes in the Notes app on my phone. Some kind of organized (one for TV and movies to watch, but not in any order; one for groceries I always buy when I go to Atlanta), others not so much (as in, a note from when I was hanging out with someone and in the course of the time together, that person recommended a TV show, a website, and a recipe for coconut milk in the InstantPot)
  • more open website pages and tabs than I want to admit to
  • more open website pages on my phone that I just realized were there, argh (still to do)
  • an old app we tried called Things, which was never as intiutive as I wanted it to be (still to do)
  • files all over my computer desktop (still to do)

I did the initial setup work over an afternoon, but since then I’m just spending a little time each day: organizing the TV and movies to watch (including where they’re located—streaming apps and DVDs and cable, argh!), adding notes from one source, etc.

And that pretty purple gridded notebook? It’s now going to be used for X Effect charts.

How do you keep organized? What are your favorite apps/tips? Is it “normal” or are you straight out of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler?


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Publication in AHMM!

My crime story “Pirate Pete’s” is in the July/August 2019 issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine!

“Pirate Pete’s” was inspired by an amusement park in Florida that my friend Gayle worked at as a teenager in the 1980s (the story is set then, too). However, I made this park up, and the events that take place are fictional. Just some of the details about the place come from her stories about it.


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5 Things Make a Blog Post

  • I’ve been diagnosed with golf elbow. It’s like tennis elbow, except on the opposite side of the elbow. I have exercises and I’m going to PT, and I’m going to make an acupuncture appointment as well (which might help my tight jaw too). Yippie!
  • The mouse situation has increased. Remember when we discovered Bonny Lass the Mighty Hunter had killed a mouse in my office? Well, then we had one running around the garden room (aka our lodger’s living room), but then it decamped to our living room because that room is cat free. We finally did catch one (we assume the same one) in a humane trap in the garden room. We’ll see what the future holds, rodent-wise….
  • Speaking of furry creatures that are not our cats, we definitely have a skunk in our back garden or using our garden as a path. We have a sensor light outside the garden room door, and awhile back Ken swore he saw a skunk set off the light, then slip through the wrought iron gate to our breezeway (which leads to the driveway). Last night, the sensor light went on, and there was an utterly adorable skunk nosing about. It finally wandered through the gate. Goose was verrrry interested. And the next night? TWO skunks pootling their way in the opposite direction up into the back garden.
  • I’ve been reading a lot of good fiction and watching a lot of good TV. Between Netflix, Amazon, and the library, we really are in a golden age of fiction. Too many to recommend, since all of you probably have different tastes. Explore!
  • I’m closing in on finishing a novel! Very exciting! (At least for me.) I’ll be posting a teaser on for my Patrons soon.

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The latest Uncollected Anthology: Beasties!

Enjoy the urban fantasy stories of the Uncollected Anthology: Beasties now collected in this bundle.

Discover how to deal with raising chickens and feathered serpents or enjoy some tasty ice cream with a side of monsters. Rid your apartment of something small and…blue? Commute with the dogs or take a strange-looking bird to the vet.

Explore the Uncollected Anthology with Beasties!

My story, “Telling the Bees,” is another Holly and Willow Hedgewitch tale. Enjoy!


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Where I’ve Been, or, Fuck Cancer

Some of you might have noticed I haven’t been as active online in the past six months or so. This is in part because I’m becoming increasingly disenchanted with Facebook (more on that later), but also because last year life hit us with a big nasty bomb, and we chose not to speak publically about it until things were resolved. We kept it close to focus on the tasks at hand.

In September of last year, Ken was diagnosed with cancer. He had a biopsy late in the month—two days before his birthday, in fact—and then it took some time for the exact cancer to be determined. Why? Because if you know Ken, you know he can’t have some kind of garden-variety, bog-standard cancer. Oh no, he had to have something unusual.

The final diagnosis was embryonal carcinoma, a rare, fast growing cancer that normally occurs in much younger men.

Rare cancers call for unusual treatments. We’re amazed and impressed at how specifically chemo can be targeted to an individual and their cancer. For Ken, it was three different drugs that took about twelve hours to administer along with other medications and fluids. For five days in a row. So from October to late December, he was in the hospital four times for a week, with two weeks off in between treatments.

Providence St. Vincent is a spectacular place in so many ways. Every single person was competent, smart, on top of things, personable—from doctors and nurses to the staff in the most excellent cafeteria I got food from twice a day during Ken’s weeks in hospital.

Ken’s oncologist studied under the oncologist who cured Lance Armstrong’s cancer, which gave us a lot of hope. Plus she was direct and clear about what was going on, and always available for questions. The oncology ward nurses were also wonderful. Of course, Ken charmed them to the point that they’d fight over who got to be his nurse for the day. One even came in early to change the schedule. (No, seriously!)

The only downside was that the hospital is thirty to forty-five minutes (or more) from our house, depending on traffic. I can probably drive the route in my sleep now. It made for long days, especially with the autumn time change; I’d get home at 7 or 7:30 pm and think it was bedtime. (I’d leave after traffic in the mornings, and eat dinner with Ken and leave after traffic in the evenings.) Then during the in-between-chemo weeks he had to go back for blood draws and bandage changes twice a week.

The chemo itself went very well. His oncologist said he was making it look easy. Almost no nausea, no pain, no swelling, no real side effects. We were told that at some point, he’d very likely develop some sort of infection (because chemo kills white blood cells that fight infection), but he was careful and followed all the rules, so he never did.

The first week he was home after chemo, he was wiped out and mostly sitting/napping in an easy chair. He’d start to feel better on the second week—and I knew he was better when I’d wake up to the sound of power tools. One time it was rewiring the Internet in the house. Another time it was pulling stumps from the yard. (Me? I’d go back to sleep, succumbing to the cat gravity of felines cuddling with me on the bed.)

He was done with chemo as of December 21. We had out-of-town friends visiting in December/January, and we had a quiet Yule at our house. Our friends rented an Air BnB for New Year’s, so the cat-allergy folks could safely hang out. They made sure there was a comfy recliner for Ken, which we greatly appreciated.

So. The surgery, on February 25 (almost exactly five months from his biopsy surgery), was to remove the remaining masses that were showing up on scans. They could have been dead, they could have been holding some cancer; we wouldn’t know until a post-surgery biopsy. It ended up being a ten-hour operation that the surgeon said in his notes was in the top ten most difficult surgeries he’d performed. We’d expected about five hours and a four-day stay in the hospital, which ended up being a week. The masses were around his aorta, and there were also lots of delicate nerves and blood vessels involved. The post-op complications were apparently not unexpected, but it seems I wasn’t clear to be expecting them, so all in all it was a pretty stressful situation.

The first few weeks after surgery, Ken was pretty wiped out, but he’s slowly regaining energy and strength. He’s starting to do more around the house, although projects that would normally take a short while end up taking several days with lots of rest breaks…and that’s okay. He goes back to work next week, although he’ll be focusing on paperwork, and will be limiting travel. Ken’s company has been absolutely supportive during all of this, and has kept his job safely on hold for his return.

Most importantly: on March 6, 2019, he was declared cancer free. The oncologist said the chemo had “The best of all possible outcomes” and the surgeon said, “Everything is clean—there’s nothing more I can do for you.”

Ken’s amazing mom, Jackie, flew up for his first week of chemo and recovery at home, and again two days after his surgery for another week plus, to help out. Thanks also go to my mom and sister for sending lots of cards and get-well gifts; our friends Thorn and Leslie, who organized funding for professional house cleaning right before Ken came home from chemo each time (to minimize the risk of infections); my friends who bought me a concert ticket and let me stay in their room for a Styx concert in Vegas because I “had” to be there (even caregivers need a break now and again); and everyone who wrote, called, sent gifts, and sent energy and well wishes. We wouldn’t have made it through this without all you.

We’re still processing that we made it through, honestly. “Cancer free” is the most beautiful and astonishing phrase in the universe.

So now we return to “normal life,”, with a much better appreciation for what makes it special. And with much more appreciation for family, friends, and most especially, for each other.

Aaand another new publication

More publication news! When it rains, it pours, as they say, so forgive me for inundating you with news.

My story “The Florentine Exchange” is now available in Fiction River Special Edition: Spies.

“The Florentine Exchange” is not the first story I submitted to the anthology. The first story was a YA set in the 1980s based on experiences I had in middle school. But editor Kristine Kathryn Rusch already had a solid YA story. She charged me with writing “a thrilling action/adventure spy story, something pulpy and fast-paced, filled with intrigue and double-cross.”

To say I was a bit daunted is an understatement. But I surprised myself with the double-crossiness, as I dug into memories of my visits to Italy and had so much fun in the process.

Of my story, editor Kristine Kathryn Rusch (aka Edgar award-nominated author Kris Nelcott), says,

“‘The Florentine Exchange’ was nearly the volume’s opening story, because it seems traditional, although it does subvert traditional spy story gender norms. But, surprisingly to me, I didn’t get many other stories like it, so I decided that as the lead-off, this story would lead readers to think they’d find more stories like it…and there are no stories like this one.”

And…

“…highly suspenseful twists and turns and some fascinating spies.”

I can live with that. I hope you enjoy the story too!

Surprise publication news!

My YA SF story “Get Inside” is the lead story in Fiction River Presents: Among the Stars! This is a reprint anthology (“Get Inside” originally appeared in Fiction River: Feel the Fear) and I had no idea it was going to be reprinted, much less be the lead story in a volume. Hurrah!

Even better, Among the Stars is currently part of the Space Opera Storybundle that just went live. Get TEN ebooks for just $15! That means you can get Among the Stars and nine other space opera books. That’s a helluva deal.


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Another Anthology Workshop in the books (haha!)

Last week I once again attended the Anthology Workshop, which is now in Las Vegas. I had the great privilege of once again being an editor as well. Two years ago I edited a volume of portal fantasy called Fiction River: Doorways to Enchantment (due out this summer), and this time I was buying for Fiction River: Secrets.

Coming July 2019!

I had an amazing time, and bought some spectacular stories. The quality was so high that I more than once begged for a second anthology to fit everything in. Some of the stories I couldn’t take were purchased for Pulphouse Fiction Magazine, which made me very happy, and one will be included in the annual editors’ choice issue, which is all of the stories the editors thought should have been purchased. That’s always a fun debate (again in front of all the writers), arguing for the stories we felt were slighted.

Because of a personal crisis (more on that soon), I had to fly out late, arriving in time for the Sunday session having missed Thursday through Saturday. So my trip flew by, and I didn’t get to hang out with nearly enough of the wonderful authors and great friends there. I’m stunned that a couple of the authors from whom I bought stories were fairly new writers. Apparently they’d taken a number of workshops via WMG Publishing, and that was obvious from the skill they showed.

Fiction River: Secretsis going to be a kick-ass volume.

I was back home as of very late Wednesday, and life is good. Now that I’m done reading all those stories for the workshop (I got waaaay behind), I’m immersing myself in all the books I’d set aside. I’ve written one short story, and now I need to tweak the end of one and write another before I dive into a nonfiction book that now has a hard deadline (eep!). I get to cuddle with Ken and all the cats.

There are some downsides, sure. The fridge stopped working before I left for the workshop, and although it’s working now, it still needs a part that had to be ordered, and so it won’t be completely fixed until Wednesday. So we haven’t put much back in it, in case it gives up the ghost again before then. Then this morning, our lodger woke us up at 5:30 a.m. to let us know the water heater was flooding the basement. He took the day off (did some work at home) so he could help us sweep water towards the drain, mop, and repack boxes that had gotten sodden on the bottom. Ah, the life of a homeowner!

I have more news, but that can wait for another day!


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Our hearts expand…welcome to Hamish and Bonny Lass!

About a week and a half ago we increased our household by two! The main reason I haven’t posted until now is that I couldn’t get good pictures. Well, screw that. Mediocre pics will suffice. The important thing is, kittays!

(Since the new kittays, I’ve obtained another battery charger for my good camera, because the charger and extra battery are still lost in the unpacked offices boxes KEN I’m looking at you. Better pics will follow.)

Here was our thinking: Goose is old (don’t tell him that, nor the vet who says he acts like a cat four years younger) and just starting to show signs of kidney issues. Clara came to us with (dear departed) Max, the only cat she really accepted. She and Goose ended up fine; not friends, but co-existing without much issue. All good, except what happens when Goose crosses the Rainbow Bridge? We worried that Clara (who’s deaf, which adds another hurdle to integration) wouldn’t like the surprise of new cats. So maybe a younger, bonded pair now, so when we say goodbye to Goose, she’d be at least comfortable with the new additions?

Ken found Hamish and Bonny Lass online at local shelter House of Dreams, and although they’re about the same age as Clara, off we went to meet them, and…oh, oh my heart.

Excuse me, exactly why are you taking my picture?

Bonny Lass (formerly Bootsie, ugh, so we renamed her in a Scottish vein to go with Hamish) is grey with a white mustache, stripey legs, and emerald eyes. She likes toys, but not laps—however, she wants to be near you. At the shelter, she gave me her belly for rubs (and continues to do so, but she has a soft limit), gently patted my leg for more pats, and followed me into another room for more attention, at which point I melted into a puddle of love. Since coming home, I’ve learned that she also insists on being in the bathroom with me; if I close the door, she taps it until I open it, then hangs out and asks for pats. She’s not a lap cat, but needs to be near you (she leaps from one arm of my writing chair to the other, then asks for pats). She makes an adorable quiet trill if she makes any noise at all, especially with her favorite toy. Oh, and she makes biscuits at the drop of a hat, including with her back paws.

Oh yaass yes I lurve da belly rubs.

Hamish. Oh, sweet Hamish. (His name was Hammish when we met him, and indeed he is enormous and overweight and rather ham-shaped.) When we went to HoD, he lay in his bed and wasn’t much interested in us or the toys, although he wasn’t cranky either. I was concerned that we didn’t have chemistry, but we wanted a bonded pair and hoped he would come around. Well. After being introduced to my office and writing room, when I sat down, he jumped up and into my lap and purred like a mad cat. We soon learned that anywhere he is, if you reach out to him, he’ll start purring and flop over for belly rubs, stretching out his legs in ecstasy. He’s orange and has cauliflower ears from a past issue, and is enormous (he’s just shy of 17 lbs but he’s hefty and has a giant head, so…), and the best way I can describe him is stoned. Totally mellow and loving and trusting. Other than purring, the only noise he has made so far is to eke out a ridiculously tiny peep or two.

Integration was surprisingly uneventful. Clara hissed at the newcomers, as did Goose, but within four days we had opened up all the barriers/doors, and last Thursday morning I awoke to find all four cats on the bed (which is why I slept so late, honestly—the cat gravity had doubled and that’s my excuse). Clara still gives desultory hisses, as does Goose, but Hamish doesn’t really care (again, he’s so mellow I think he’s somehow permanently stoned) and Bonny Lass removes herself until the energy has mellowed. There are occasional spats, but they’re less and less as time goes on.

Hamish is due to some dental surgery in March and that will include the extraction of his fangs. Bonny Lass had a mammary carcinoma removed and based on the size of the tumor, the vet estimated a median lifespan of two years. Despite this diagnosis, we were committed to the pair, and we hope she’ll buck the odds and be with us longer. We wanted to give her a happy, warm, loving home until she must go, and we can only hope that Hamish weathers the transition well.

At any rate, our love for Goose and Clara isn’t lessened; after all, more cats mean more love for all. Squee!