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Fungi gets a release date

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The good folks at Innsmouth Free Press just announced the final cover and release date for their upcoming anthology, Fungi. I’m especially excited about this collection for many reasons, not the least of which is I have a story appearing in it!

You can get the full details at the link, but in short, there will be three editions: ebook, softcover, and hardcover (the hardcover will have three bonus stories to boot!) Preorders will be in November and official release day in December.

I won’t say much about “Last Bloom on the Sage,” right now (don’t want to spoil the surprise) except how much fun I had writing it. Special thanks are due to all of my beta readers (you know who you are) and to Silvia and Orrin for including me in this great collection of amazing authors. I’m humbled.

And now I want to go write more mushroom stories…

Awards & The Ink Gorilla

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It’s awards season again, and for the first time (and I hope not the last!) I have a few pieces that are eligible. Thanks for considering them when you nominate this year!

For consideration:

For Hugo & Nebula: “The Parting Glass,” Lightspeed Magazine, December 2011 (short story)

For Hugo: “Nor the Moonlight,” Broken Time Blues: Fantastic Tales in the Roaring 20s, Edge/Absolute XPress (2011) (short story)

For Hugo: “How the Goddess Came to Spring Flowering Alley,” Crossed Genres  May 2011 (short story)

2011 is also my first year of eligibility for the John Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

Thank you!

Winter-ish Updatery

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I guess winter is here, right? The Christmas lights are up, the leaves are falling from the trees, and the 90mph Santa Anas are setting the hills on fire…

You may have noticed my banner has changed (the first wave of some website changes to come). A new Ink Gorilla lurks in the banner, regarding visitors with a chary eye. The new banner is courtesy my amazing friend Galen Dara, who captured ole IG perfectly. Galen, he’s amazing. Thank you. Galen also drew another ape from a story of mine for her 30 Characters challenge, which I love. There are some other wonderful characters in her feed, so go check them out.

I’m still going full ahead on the novel, though some days it’s more like 1/4 impulse and the next day Warp 5. I’ve (mostly) grown used to the fact that this is the way that novels are made, or the way this novel is made, or that it’s the way I’m making this novel.

Anyway, the novel and I have come to an understanding of sorts. We try not to kill each other.

Finding the balance between long form writing and short-form writing is another skill I’m trying to learn. So far this mostly means I’ve just scribbled down notes and daydreamed short story ideas on my bike rides, but I’m about ready to put pen to paper as it were and crank a few out. Anyone have any pro tips on not losing momentum on the novel while I do that?

But speaking of short stories, my story “The Parting Glass” debuted yesterday at Lightspeed Magazine (if you follow me on Twitter & Facebook & Google+, you no doubt noticed!). The story won’t go live on the website until December 20, but you can order the ebook now if you just can’t wait (I couldn’t). I’m pleased to share the TOC with Vylar Kaftan, Pat Cadigan, and some guy named Arthur C. Clarke. I’m sure Mr. Clarke is as thrilled as I am. (There’s also a nifty non-fic piece by astrophysicist Alan Smale on doomsday asteroids pummeling the earth–one of my favorite subjects–that wraps up the issue. Alan, if I’d known you were a fellow asteroid freak, I might’ve gone fanboy on you at HallCon in Reno…)

I’ve also got a profile of Chris Miller, the director of DreamWorks Animation’s Puss in Boots at Lightspeed’s sister publication, Fantasy Magazine, this month too! It goes live on the site December 5th, but the ebook is available now.

And to relax after reading all of that, my new Booze Nerd post at The Functional Nerds should be just the thing. I detail “The Widow’s Kiss,” a rich, autumn-y drink that’s the perfect compliment to a warm fire on those chilly nights.

Speaking of booze, this weekend, I’m taking a class in how to make your own cocktail bitters. As I type these words, I’m bouncing up and down in my chair–I’m so stoked. As I understand it, you get to gather your own herbs and so forth from the gardens on-site, and then you make your own unique blend of bitters that you can take home! (Special thanks to my lovely wife, Hungry Passport, for scoping that out!)

For this, and all of the good things that have come my way this fall, I am unreasonably excited.

And also very grateful.

 

 

Sale! (or, how I learned to stop worrying and write science fiction)

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This will be very old news to those of you who follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+, but I’ve made my first pro sale!

Lightspeed Magazine has picked up “The Parting Glass” for its December 2011 issue. I’m very proud of this story. I wrote it during Week Six at Clarion West in 2010, and as someone who’s a long-time self-avowed fantasy writer it was kind of a big deal for me to write it.

Science fiction is often perceived by readers and would-be writers to always involve loads of hard science, complicated astronomical or biological theory (with attending formulae worked out in the text), and brainy scientists who save the day because of their intimate understanding of quantum mechanics. Okay, science fiction is sometimes these things.

But it doesn’t have to be.

Speaking as a writer who is more right-brained than left, I’ve always been intimidated by the idea of writing science fiction. Of course, I’ve read countless tales by folks like Le Guin, Silverberg, and Bradbury, where the setting was clearly science fiction but the emphasis was more on the speculative story than the hard scientific facts. Somehow, this never mattered to right-brain me, who insisted any foray into spec-fic had to steer wide around anything with the word “science” in it. I’m glad I stopped listening to that voice!

Every week at Clarion West, I challenged myself by trying to write a different kind of story than I had the week before. I knew I wanted to try to write at least one science fiction story while I was there, but we had some really smart people in our class who knew science and were very thorough in their critiques*. Ulp.

I waffled. Time flew past and suddenly there weren’t many weeks left. I had this rudimentary idea for a story, but I could see making it fantasy as easily as science fiction. I was tempted to take the “easy” way out. And then I had a conversation with Nisi Shawl and Eileen Gunn at the end-of-week 4 Clarion West party. They waved away my concerns and insisted I shouldn’t be intimidated by writing science fiction. “Write the story,” they said. And so I did. Thank you Eileen and Nisi!

The story fared relatively well in class, by the way. I got some great feedback from my classmates and instructor Ian McDonald. Such surprisingly positive feedback, in fact,  that it helped turn my “I can’t write science fiction” mantra into my first professional fiction sale. So thanks to everyone who helped shepherd this story along.

If I can do it, you can do it. Never thought you could write science fiction?

You should try it. You never know what might happen.

 

*Very thorough but very constructive, I might add.

Broken Time Blues is available!

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Everything’s Jake! Broken Time Blues: Fantastic Tales in the Roaring 20s from Edge/Absolute XPress is now available for purchase over at Amazon.com.

This nifty collection of twelve weird tales set in the grit and glamor of the Jazz Age is the bees knees, and I’m honored to share the Table of Contents with some swell writers, including Clarion West classmates Jack Graham, Frank Ard, and John Remy.

Here’s the full lineup:

The Sharing by James L. Sutter
Chickadee by Frank Ard
Semele’s Daughter by John Nakamura Remy
The Automatic City By Morgan Dempsey
Button Up Your Overcoat by Barbara Krasnoff
Nor the Moonlight by Andrew Penn Romine
Jack and the Wise Birds by Lucia Starkey
Madonna and Child, In Jade by Amanda C. Davis
Der Graue Engel by Jack Graham
The Purloined Ledger by Ari Marmell
Fight Night by Ryan McFadden
A Drink for Teddy Ford by Robert Jackson Bennett

That’s a hell of a list!

Broken Time Blues is edited by Erika Holt and Jaym Gates who are a couple of Real McCoys, let me tell you. It’s got one keen cover by Galen Dara, who also contributed interior art along with Evan Jensen.

Don’t be a wet blanket – go and nab your copy today!

Broken Time Blues officially launches at Renovation/WorldCon. Edge/AXP is hosting a reading from 2-3:30pm on Saturday, August 20th. Several of us will be there reading and if you’re lucky, Galen Dara may even doodle a sketch for ya. If you’re going to be at WorldCon, come on by!

I’m excited to be part of this book with so many good friends and colleagues. Days like today are what make all that scribbling in the dark and being a writer worth it.

 

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