I just discovered Lily and Madeleine today. Beautiful, haunting music that you can get on NoiseTrade for a tip!

An EP is available on NoiseTrade now, and you can preorder their LP on iTunes!

Armies of the Crimson Hawk status: Chapter one is done! More details at the link.

I know a lot of you are excited about the sequel to The Sword of Six Worlds, and I just started writing it. Our young heroes are already in hot water, and we're only at the end of chapter one. My ten year old previewed the chapter last night and she wanted you to know that it's great and me to know to hurry up and what's going to happen.

Anyway, I'll keep you updated on the progress as we go along so you can see how close we are:

3179 / 40000 words. 8% done!

Here's a little teaser of what's to come:

The Armies of the Crimson Hawk.  There are six worlds which the paladin, Validus Smith, is responsible to defend with the Sword of Six Worlds.  Now one of those worlds has cut off all communication and is trying to destroy the passageways from their world to ours. Validus and the Stone Mage, Alex Shields, are sent to investigate.  Validus and Alex discover a new enemy so terrifying and powerful that to destroy him seems impossible.  Until they get an offer to make an alliance with The Blight….

Trailer for the new Muppets movie!

I'm pretty excited about this. I will even forgive Scooter's use of the "Moves Like Jagger" song. What say you?

If you like soccer or football or laughing, this is for you

A quick preview of my next book

My friend, pastor JR. Forasteros, has been doing a read-through of my next book to make sure that I am not saying anything heretical. Part of the book involves re-imagining stories about Jesus to help them make (emotional) sense to a modern-day audience. He asked if he could use an adaptation of a parable I had written in his sermon this week and I said "of course" so here it is. It's a great sermon, you would be wise to listen to the whole thing. If you only have a few minutes and want to listen to just my bit, it starts at about the 11 minute mark.

There have been other little previews along the way, including:

A Trip to the Zoo
The Old Woman Who Almost Loses It
Frank Chases His Dreams in Hollywood
The Lost Son
You can hear some of my own talks coming out of the content from the book, as well, here. (ETA: uh oh. Looks like those talks were taken down. Never mind!)

I'm really excited about this book, which will come from Baker Books next year. We're working hard to figure out the best title right now. I'll let you know what it is as soon as I know!

My 4 year old shares some thoughts on racism

My four year old, M, got the Little People Disney Princesses you see on the left for her birthday.

She immediately said that she did not like the one on the right because she's "ugly."

Concerned, my wife and I both told her multiple times, no, she's really pretty. You should still play with her. She was adamant. She would not be playing with that particular toy.

I decided to get to the bottom of it.

Me: Why do you think she's ugly?

M: Because of her color. She's ugly.

Me: But we have lots of friends who look like that.

M: I don't think so.

Me: What don't you like about her color? Why don't you like it?

M: I don't like green. I don't like green dresses.

Me: Oh.

Mary Poppins remixed into awesome song called "What I Likes." It will make you happy.

Ever felt like a balloon animal in a cactus field? Then this charming video is for you!

Via Neatorama

I stayed in Mountain Home, ID last night. Right down the road from the rapping weathermen.

Here's the Cru city gates video #cru13.

Here's a video that explains a little bit about what Krista and I do in Cru now. I wrote the script for this, after several meetings with our leadership and a lot of help from a variety of people. Simple Bulldog and Chris DeGarmo spearheaded getting this thing made, but the real hero of the whole video is certainly Cheryl Boyd, who kept us all on track and put up with a lot of harassing from each of us.

Enjoy.

Cru City Gates from Cru City on Vimeo.

Man of Steel -- How it should have ended.

It's my birthday today, and I'll do whatever I want.

Like show you the "How it should have ended" for Man of Steel, which made me really happy, made me laugh and reminded me that Superman is still awesome.



Also, I'm not going to say "spoiler warning" because it's my birthday and I don't have to.

And I'm going to use dangling participles all day. If I want to.

You are invited to hang out with me for my birthday tomorrow #cru13

Also there might be elephants.

For MY BIRTHDAY tomorrow, we will host a POPSICLE party at our home RAMS VILLAGE EAST L121 from 3:30 to 5. All are welcome. If you are reading this you are not only invited, but it would be a great honor if you were able to join us.

Please RSVP on this blog post, on facebook, twitter or G+. This will allow us to purchase the vast number of popsicles that will be necessary for a celebration of this magnitude.

Another free short story from @mattmikalatos on the Dark Expanse game site

Last week you got to read my short fantasy story Portal Worlds and Your Child at Daily Science Fiction.

This week you get the science fiction story A Small and Secret Freedom on the Dark Expanse website. It's the story of a theocratic society that decides to do an intervention with the alien race that used to enslave them.

Dark Expanse is a real time, massive multiple-player online strategy game in which you try to rule the universe. I've been playing it for a while in preparation for writing for the game, and I've been enjoying it. I've colonized about 12 planets and all is going well, except this 20 year old named "Blood Bones and Gold" keeps sending terrorists and subversives to harass a few of my planets.

This week I'll be with Cru at CSU #cru13

Hi friends,

You may have noticed the absolute lack of Internet Activity from me the last few weeks. I've been huddled in meetings, helping plan the bi-annual Cru staff meeting in Fort Collins, Colorado. There will be about 5,000 of us together for the next week. A lot of my tweets and posts this week will likely be related to that conference.

Some of you may enjoy being a part of that. You can see our basic schedule here, and much of the time will be livecast at that same link. We have a lot of great speakers coming in, too. If there's a certain speaker you're excited about leave me a comment and I'll make sure to let you know when they're speaking.

Meetings start tomorrow morning at 9 Mountain time.

My friend Sunish shared this quote with me this morning. #cru13

“You Christians look after a document containing enough dynamite to blow all civilisation to pieces, turn the world upside down and bring peace to a battle-torn planet. But you treat it as though it is nothing more than a piece of literature.”

― Mahatma Gandhi

If you're a blogger/author with Cru, be sure to come to this event on Monday. I'll be there. #Cru13

A free short story from Matt Mikalatos and @dailySF

Those who have read The Sword of Six Worlds already know that I love stories about children who stumble into other worlds and embark on amazing adventures.

But what about their parents? 

Here's a story for anyone who loves a child who occasionally disappears to distant, magical places.

Portal Worlds and Your Child: 

A Parent's Guide (With Examples).

If you enjoy the story, please share it!

And, as always, your comments are welcome here or at the Daily Science Fiction site.

Portlandia "Bicycle rights." It's funny because it's true.

I know I've been quiet. I'm working in Colorado all summer and by the time I get home from work I am exhausted. So I haven't been keeping you updated as much as I would like.

I'm missing Portland, though. So here's a little Portlandia clip to keep you happy.

Welcome Daily Science Fiction readers!

Hey there --

I'm guessing some of you are dropping in today because you received a copy of my story "Portal Worlds and Your Child: A Parent's Guide" from Daily Science Fiction last night.

Welcome!

I'm a huge fan of DSF and honored to have my story appear there.

If you enjoyed that story, you'll probably like my novel, The Sword of Six Worlds.

Sword is a traditional portal fantasy that I wrote for my three daughters. From the back of the book:

Validus Smith has three goals. Stay alive. Save the world. Finish her homework.

For centuries the paladins protected the Earth from a creeping darkness known as the Blight. That all changed when a new enemy destroyed the paladins, plunging the free worlds into danger. Validus Smith—an ordinary girl in an ordinary town—is next in line to become the paladin. Untrained, unsure of her destiny, and hunted by monstrous forces, she must recover the fabled Sword of Six Worlds, the only weapon capable of defeating the Blight. The Sword, however, is not on Earth, but in a strange fantasy world connected to her own. In an unfamiliar world of monsters, talking animals and living rocks, can an ordinary girl like Validus survive?

In any case, welcome to the site. Your comments on "Portal Worlds and Your Child" are welcome, along with any questions you may have or whatever. I'll be coming around to comment on the DSF Facebook page and so on eventually, as well.

Glad to have you here!

What if Shakespeare had written Star Wars?

Methinks thou wouldst hie thee to a theatre were this on the screen of silver.