While the Triffid Ranch by
necessity remains
headquartered in Dallas, Texas, we've been known to make trips and set
up events outside the immediate area from time to time.
Please
feel free to check back for further events, and should you be
organizing an event where the Triffid Ranch might fit, also feel free
to contact me.
It's quite funny that the individuals in the goth community who most enjoy gardening are also severely heliophobic, but I sympathize all too well. It's one of the reasons why I'm now contributing a regular column on gothic gardening to Gothic Beauty magazine. The fourth installment, on wasps, should be out shortly, and feel free to check out the archives.
It's been a particularly poorly-hidden secret that I used to be a pro writer before I came to my senses and got hooked on carnivores. Earlier this year,Fantastic Books published two collections of my old essays and articles, entitled Greasing the Pan: The "Best" of Paul T. Riddell and The Savage Pen of Onan: The "Best" of the "Hell's Half-Acre Herald". Both may be ordered from your friendly independent bookstore or from Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and I'll be conducting several book signings throughout the next year.
The final schedule is still open, but look for Triffid Ranch lectures at the 27th annual Dallas Home & Garden Market show on September 11 and 12. Details will follow as available.
The last FenCon was so much of an unexpected pleasure that the Czarina and I signed up to come out for FenCon VII in Dallas, running from September 17 through 19. While FenCon started life as a science fiction convention, it's been mutating into a pop culture expo for several years now, and the Triffid Ranch is one of the many groups and organizations appearing at the show. As of this writing, look for the Triffid Ranch in the dealer's room, but the Czarina and I plan to do a bit of wandering around during the evenings.
Due to unavoidable issues with weather this last spring, the planned Triffid Ranch show at the March Funky Finds Spring Fling wasn't able to happen. Thankfully, the success of the March show for everyone else meant that the Triffid Ranch gets two days at the Funky Finds Experience on November 6 and 7. Better yet, since the available exhibition spaces are larger than at most shows, this gives the opportunity to display larger installations than usual.
I couldn't tell you the names or numbers of guests for the 2011 Texas Frightmare Weekend. I couldn't tell you anything about the schedule, or the parties, or even who's going to attend. I will say that all of this doesn't matter, because I'm already telling anyone making plans for the first weekend in May that I'm busy. Really, really busy. The 2010 show was the largest Frightmare yet, and the crew promises a special surprise for the next one. (The Triffid Ranch will be showing in conjunction with Tawanda Jewelry, so those who haven't met the Czarina will finally get their chance.)
I had a lot of fun at the 2009 Texas Frightmare Weekend, and met a simply incredible number of people who had no idea of the sheer variety of carnivores other than Venus flytraps. The booth at Frightmare was interesting enough that the roving photographer crew from Dallas's Pegasus News included me in a pictorial of Frightmare attendees and guests. This wasn't the only factor that cemented my decision to set up a booth at the 2010 show, but it certainly didn't hurt.
And with the 2010 Frightmare show? Horrorsquad.com sent a crew out there to cover the spectacle, and out of the top five best things about Texas Frightmare Weekend, the Triffid Ranch made Number Two. Take that in a The Prisoner sense or in a Beavis and Butt-Head sense (or mix the two for the mashup that dare not speak its name), but I'm not complaining.
Speaking of Pegasus News, Sarah Baskovich covered the Triffid Ranch as part of her "Labors of Love" series for Labor Day 2009. At least I didn't scare her too badly.
In other publications, Amanda Thomsen of the famed gardening blog Kiss My Aster interviewed me for Horticulture magazine, with the usual results. You weren't expecting to know about my dream job, now did you?
Jessie Milligan wrote a generally very positive interview in the Home/Garden section for the October 30, 2008 Dallas Morning News. "Generally" means that everything was valid except the first sentence, which is a blatant libel. (And when the people who know me in real life finish wrapping their ribs with steel cable after rupturing their ribcages with laughter, they might actually read the rest of the interview.)
Andrea Grimes, the only writer at the Dallas Observer in a full two decades whose work caused me to smile instead of gag, was kind enough to write about the Triffid Ranch in December 2007. As I like to point out, while I'm flattered that she described me as "resembling an off-duty superhero", I'm not sure if the superhero in question is Alec Holland or Irwin Schwab.
Previously, while I wasn't quoted in Erin Covert's article in the Dallas Morning News on rainwater harvesting, the first of the Triffid Ranch's rainwater storage tank was featured prominently in Natalie Caudill's photography for the article. Without looking at the captions, just guess which storage tank was which.
When the site went live, Ben McKenzie, famed Australian science enthusiast and comedian, took the time to bring up that it went live right around Australia's Daffodil Day. Considering that I use daffodils and daylilies to gauge spring every year (the daffodils come up right at the end of winter, and the daylilies come up when we're sure that we won't see any further frosts), this was more touching than he knows.
Oh, and Jeff Somers at the zine The Inner Swine had good things to say about the first issue of the Hell's Half-Acre Herald in 2007. Jeff is a good guy, even if he has a thing about going through life without pants, and his long-suffering wife deserves better treatment, so buy lots and lots of copies of his novels and zines.
That's it so far. Should anyone come across other examples of newspaper, magazine, or blog coverage, please let us know.
