Holly Black - Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd

Hope Larson is the author and illustrator of several graphic novels, including Gray Horses and Chiggers. Her short stories have been featured in the New York Times and several anthologies, notably the Flight series and Image Comics Tori Amos?inspired Comic Book Tattoo. Larson has been nominated for awards in the United States, Canada, and Europe, and is the recipient of a 2006 Ignatz Award and a 2007 Eisner Award. She holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and lives in Asheville, North Carolina, with her husband and four cats. She used up all her geek points when she started drawing comics professionally.

Bryan Lee OMalley was born in London, Ontario, Canada. In high school he joined choir, chess club, the trivia team, and the computer programming club, got his first job in order to purchase a Sega Genesis, attended LAN parties, played Starcraft from dusk til dawn while drinking Coke and eating pizza, tried to get his friends to read comic books that he thought were really cool, and hung out with the theater and band geeks. The head of the arts department still speaks of him fondly. OMalley went on to become an award-winning cartoonist, with a film, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, in development at Universal. He lives in the United States.

by kelly link

Dear Paul Zell.

Dear Paul Zell is exactly how far Ive gotten at least a dozen times, and then I get a little farther, and then I give up. So this time Im going to try something new. Im going to pretend that Im not writing you a letter, Paul Zell, dear Paul Zell. Im so sorry. And I am sorry, Paul Zell, but lets skip that part for now or else I wont get any farther this time, either. And in any case: how much does it matter whether or not Im sorry? What difference could it possibly make?

So. Lets pretend that we dont know each other. Lets pretend were meeting for the first time, Paul Zell. Were sitting down to have dinner in a restaurant in a hotel in New York City. Ive come a long way to have dinner with you. Weve never met face-to-face. Everything I ever told you about myself is more or less a lie. But you dont know that yet. We think we may be in love.

We met in FarAway, online, except now here we are up close. I could reach out and touch your hand. If I was brave enough. If you were really here.

Our waiter has poured you a glass of red wine. Me? Im drinking a Coke because Im not old enough to drink wine. Youre thirty-four. Im almost sixteen.

Im so sorry, Paul Zell. I dont think I can do this. (Except I have to do this.) I have to do this. So lets try again. (I keep trying again and again and again.) Lets start even farther back, before I showed up for dinner and you didnt. Except I think you did. Am I right?

You dont have to answer that. I owe you the real story, but you dont owe me anything at all.

Picture the lobby of a hotel. In the lobby, a fountain with Spanish tiles in green and yellow. A tiled floor, leather armchairs, corporate art, this bank of glass-fronted elevators whizzing up and down, a bar. Daddy bar to all the mini-bars in all the rooms. Sound familiar? Maybe youve been here before.

Now fill up the lobby with dentists and superheroes. Men and women, oral surgeons, eighth-dimensional entities, mutants, and freaks who want to save your teeth, save the world, and maybe end up with a television show, too. Ive seen a dentist or two in my time, Paul Zell, but we dont get many superheroes out on the plain. We get tornadoes instead. There are two conventions going on at the hotel, and theyre mingling around the fountain, tra la la, tipping back drinks.

Boards in the lobby list panels on advances in cosmetic dentistry, effective strategies for minimizing liability in cases of bystander hazard, presentations with titles like Spandex or Bulletproof? What Look Is Right for You? You might be interested in these if you were a dentist or a superhero. Which Im not. As it turns out, Im not a lot of things.

A girl is standing in front of the registration desk. Thats me. And where are you, Paul Zell?

The hotel clerk behind the desk is only a few years older than me. (Than that girl, the one whos come to meet Paul Zell. Is it pretentious or pitiful or just plain psychotic the way Im talking about myself in the third person? Maybe its all three. I dont care.) The clerks nametag says Aliss, and she reminds the girl that I wish wasnt me of someone back at school. Erin Toomey, thats who. Erin Toomey is a hateful bitch. But never mind about Erin Toomey.

Aliss the hotel clerk is saying something. Shes saying, Im not finding anything. Its eleven oclock on a Friday morning, and at that moment the girl in the lobby is missing third-period biology. Her fetal pig is wondering where she is.

Lets give the girl in line in the hotel lobby a name. Everybody gets a name, even fetal pigs. (I call mine Alfred.) And now that youve met Aliss and Alfred, minor characters both, I might as well introduce our heroine. That is, me. Of course it isnt like FarAway. I dont get to choose my name. If I did, it wouldnt be Billie Faggart. That ring any bells? No, I didnt think it would. Since fourth grade, which is when I farted while I was coming down the playground slide, everyone at school has called me Smelly Fagfart. Thats because Billie Faggart is a funny name, right? Except girls like Billie Faggart dont have much of a sense of humor.

Theres another girl at school, Jennifer Groendyke. Everyone makes jokes about us. About how well move to California and marry each other. Youd think wed be friends, right? But were not. Im not good at the friends thing. Im like the girl equivalent of one of those baby birds that fall out of a nest and then some nice person picks the baby bird up and puts it back. Except that now the baby bird smells all wrong. I think I smell wrong.

If youre wondering who Melinda Bowles is, the thirty-two-year-old woman you met in FarAway, no, youve never really met her. Melinda Bowles has never sent late-night e-mails to Paul Zell, not ever. Melinda Bowles would never catch a bus to New York City to meet Paul Zell because she doesnt know that Paul Zell exists.

Melinda Bowles has never been to FarAway.

Melinda Bowles has no idea who the Enchantress Magic Eightball is. Shes never hung out online with the master thief Boggle. I dont think she knows what a MMORPG is.

Melinda Bowles has never played a game of living chess in King Nermals Chamber in the Endless Caverns under the Loathsome Rock. Melinda Bowles doesnt know a rook from a writing desk. A pawn from a prawn.

Heres something that you know about Melinda Bowles that is true. She used to be married, but is now divorced and lives in her parents house. She teaches high school. I used her name when I signed up for an account on FarAway. More about my sister Melinda later.

Anyway. Girl-liar Billie says to desk-clerk Aliss, No message? No envelope? Mr. Zell, Paul Zell? (Thats you. In case youve forgotten.) Hes a guest here? He said he was leaving something for me at the front desk.

Ill look again if you want, Aliss says. But she does nothing. Just stands there staring malevolently past Billie as if she hates the world and everyone in it.