Archive for August, 2021
The publication was to be THINGS WITH FEATHERS: STORIES OF HOPE from Third Flatiron Publishing, known for the eclecticism of its separately-titled quarterly anthologies (cf., e.g., March 10 2018, et al.). The story submission was “The Wise Sister,” sent July 20.
Today came the reply, from Editor/Publisher Juli Rew: We’d be pleased to accept the story, “The Wise Sister,” for inclusion in Third Flatiron Publishing’s Fall/Winter 2021 anthology, with the tentative title, “Things with Feathers: Stories of Hope.”
Please let us know if the story is still available and is a first publication.
. . . .
We greatly enjoyed the story of two sisters who make different preparations for a tsunami. Though it is on the long side, we will probably include it in the Grins & Gurgles section.
“Grins & Gurgles” is a section for short, under 1000-word humor pieces while “The Wise Sister” comes in at more like a mainstream 1500-plus, though the story does take a black-humored approach to the prospect of hope (in this case, of course, being for survival — though maybe with a little bit of sisterly rivalry on the side). But the pay is “pro rate” and an acceptance is an acceptance so this afternoon I sent back my assurance the sister in question is indeed unattached and still available.
Unable to resist noting, however, that somehow that sounds more like a dating site reply.
Two quickies this time around. The first from BLACK INFINITY Editor/Publisher Tom English (cf. also January 17): Hope all is well with you. Here’s the contract for “Hanging Vines”. I’m sending it as a Word DOC to facilitate signing. I’ll send a story proof for corrections sometime in September. Thanks again!
Due to vagaries of the vintage equipment in the Computer Cave (and area thunderstorms preventing a trip to the public library) it proved less simple than may at first seem. But in not too much time it was downloaded, signed, and sent back, with more to come here (the issue theme: “Starships and Spacesuits,” the story itself originally published in CONADIAN SOUVENIR BOOK for the 52nd World Science Convention, September 1994) as it becomes known.
Then, second, the payment was for just one horror story, and was for a whole year, but still it was surprisingly hefty given that my part was one twenty-fifth of the anthology pie. I will continue the custom of outing neither publisher nor amount (nor the story’s title), but what went ker-plunk in the PayPal pot this time would cover more than just one fancy dinner — or even perhaps a month’s worth of groceries to cook for myself.
And that’s more like the writing life as it should be lived.
Strange are the ways of the publishing biz. The following came to me roundabout via the Short Mystery Fiction Society (shhh, I think even Editor/Publisher Weldon Burge may not have known it until yesterday).
From Amazon: Synonyms: absurd, balmy, brainless, bubbleheaded, cockeyed, crackpot, crazy, cuckoo, daffy, daft, dippy, dotty, fatuous, featherheaded, fool, foolish, half-baked, half-witted, harebrained, inept, insane, jerky, kooky, loony, lunatic, lunkheaded, mad, nonsensical, nutty, preposterous, sappy, screwball, senseless, silly, simpleminded, stupid, tomfool, unwise, wacky, weak-minded, witless
The 24 stories in the ASININE ASSASSINS anthology involves characters (e.g., assassins, guns for hire) with the above synonyms in mind. ASININE ASSASSINS is an anthology of stories about inept, brainless, ridiculous hired guns, assassins, and murderers. This is the third in the “Assassins” series, which also includes UNCOMMON ASSASSINS and INSIDIOUS ASSASSINS. Here is crime fiction with a difference! And, while not scheduled for Kindle until September 14 (or so Amazon says), ASININE ASSASSINS, originally set for early next month (see July 19, et al.), appears to have been available in hard copy since last Thursday, August 19!
So that’s only a few days ago anyway and there’s no rule that says publishers can’t be early — the target, after all, could have been as soon as just ten days from now. My story in this, “Shooting Fish,” is a science fiction crossover of bungling an alien invasion of Earth — that is, if the titular aquatic creature fails to be put down — one of two dozen tales in all, all of which can now be ordered in paperback form by pressing here.
And that’s not a bad thing.
Another excursion down memory lane, this time to two years in the past with a story, “Flute and Harp,” accepted for a future copy of HELIOS QUARTERLY. It would be a reprint, originally published in WHISPERS AND SHADOWS (Prime Books, 2001) as well as part of my 2017 novel-in-stories, TOMBS: A CHRONICLE OF LATTER-DAY TIMES OF EARTH, but there was one catch: due to backlogs it most likely wouldn’t appear until mid-2021 (cf. August 12, June 17 2019, et al.).
But of course things change. First, on July 26 this year: This is Olivia, the publisher behind Aurelia Leo (formerly Radiant Crown Publishing).
I’m writing to you all to ask if you’d be interested in having your work bound into a new anthology project.
It would contain the stories featured in the illustrated anthology projects UCHRONIA & HYPERION & THEIA, as well as MYSTIQUE.
The new anthology would be tentatively named UCHRONIA: ALTERNATIVE HISTORIES & ALTERNATE WORLDS, with new cover art by J. Querioz (unless our agreement falls through).
And now today’s (August 20) email: You’re one of twenty-three authors that expressed some interest in this reprint anthology (that will contain a handful of new stories that don’t fit properly anywhere in the publication schedule anymore).
Unfortunately negotiations fell through with J. Queiroz. However, I now plan to repurpose some of Stefan Paris’s illustrations used in the original edition of UCHRONIA. That or pay for 2-3 black and white illustrations to keep the feel of the older works. Send any recommendations my way.
You can share the cover, your story, and release date of January 4, 2022 now if you’d like! But if you give me about two weeks, I’ll have a pre-order up and an ARC ready that may be more useful to share.
Included: a contract, now signed and sent back, as well as the cover which is rather cool! And so, too, a hoped-for release date the first week of next year, with more details to come.
WATER TURNS RED is a collection of 21 chilling stories that explore the various shades of this ghastly color red. Within these pages lie the corpses of those killed in cold blood, the cunning minds of their killers, and the wits of detectives. Together they paint a disturbing image of the human psyche.
So says the back cover copy for WATER TURNS RED, The Great Void Books’ dark crime fiction anthology (see July 17, 10, June 23, et al.), which has now arrived in its more than 500-page glory in ye olde Computer Cave mailbox. Twenty-one stories are present in all with, at the number ten spot, my tale, “Madness,” of disenchanted office employees, visions of toothed creatures, and crazy love. Or is it just love, or perhaps something deeper, more ancient?
Well, now one can find out, the print edition actually available for a few weeks by now, as well as the e-book. A hefty read, as noted, with mine actually the longest story there, one of my few at novelette length*. Will it hold up taking nearly a tenth of the whole volume’s length?
For more or for ordering, one can check here.
.
*Editor Aditya Deshmukh seems to like to use some of my longer work, cf. “The Garden” at about 10,000 words in The Great Void’s UNREAL. This one is longer.
It took until late Monday for the print edition to be there as well but, as promised (cf. just below, August 14, etc.), CRUNCHY WITH KETCHUP can now be ordered on Amazon, et al. This, of course, is the WolfSinger Publications “bad ass” dragon anthology or, to quote the blurb: It has been said that one should never meddle in the affairs of dragons — for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
Come enter the dragon’s lair.
Take your chances with other would-be heroes and heroines who decide to face off against one of the biggest, baddest predators ever.
Witness a dragon civil war.
Hear the true story of the Battle of New Orleans.
Find out what it’s like in the belly of a dragon.
Discover why cats can spell disaster when stealing a dragon’s egg.
Meet a group of dragon riders who protect us from nuclear devastation.
Follow legends of modern dragons, only to find something very unexpected.
And more . . .
And so, for 26 stories in all including my tale, “The Bala Worm,” of a modern-day dragon hunt in Wales, for ordering or for more information one need but press here. Or if preferred, go to the WolfSinger site by pressing here.
A little journey down memory lane and how, as COVID-19 lockdowns began, I reserved a year’s worth of weekends, March-to-March 2020/21, for writing new (albeit mostly flash) stories. Fifty-Four stories resulted in all — the two extras super shorts that just “came up,” at least one, I recall, based on a Bloomington Writers Guild Third Sunday challenge — the first of which, “The Seven” (cf. July 25), sold only a few weeks ago to DAILY SCIENCE FICTION. Now there is a second.
From Editor Lori Michelle: Congratulations, your short story has been picked for publication in NIGHT FRIGHTS. Please respond to me with a YES! so I can get it sent to a story editor. The story, “Upward!,” was 15th in the series written around June, one “extra” having sneaked in just before it, and concerns what amounts to a conventional horror subject, but from that subject’s rather more rarely considered point of view. While NIGHT FRIGHTS is a special young adult edition of DARK MOON DIGEST, the quarterly flagship of Lori and Max Booth III’s Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing.
Then a crunchy quickie from WolfSinger Publications Editor/Publisher Carol Hightshoe: Everything is set up to go on sale on Monday 8/16. I’m going to approve the print files on Amazon today — so it may be available a little early, but I prefer that to not having it available when the ebook goes on sale. The publication is CRUNCHY WITH KETCHUP, the “badass dragon” anthology (see July 26, 5, et al.) with my story in it “The Bala Worm.”
More on both to be here (you know the drill) as it becomes known.
From Tom Easton, Monday: I have now finished going over the stories selected for SPAWN OF WAR AND DEATHINESS, looking for typos and occasional infelicities. Nothing major was found, but in the nature of things there are always more typos! Please go over your stories (attached) to seek such things, and perhaps even to make last-minute changes.
And so, proofing done, my okay went back just a tad after midnight with the next step, from Tom (cf. also just below, August 8), [o]nce all is in hand, I will assemble the book and hand it off to Bob Brown, who at some point in the near future will send out contracts.
More here as it’s known.
Just a quickie: Saturday B cubed Press released an informal listing of contents for SPAWN OF WAR AND DEATHINESS (see August 3), the overflow anthology of reprints offered for its “war” and “deathiness” ALTERNATIVE anthologies. It’s not an actual order of the 25 stories as far as I know — I certainly hope my two entries, “The Sidewalk” and “Refugees,” end up with plenty of distance between them, with “The Sidewalk” (which I consider the better story) second of the two, nearer the end, though that’s a personal thing with me — but rather in alphabetical order by authors’ first names.
So, as a sort of partial preview:
SPAWN OF WAR AND DEATHINESS
Edited by Tom Easton
Dante’s Unfinished Business Alex Shvartsman
Sickle Claws Hesperonychus Monstrous Alicia Hilton
The One About the Last Prayer, Alma Alexander
Reading Coffee Anthony Panegyres
Dream Chair Bob Brown (Writing as Melvin Charles)
Mr Wetzel and His Wurlitzer Bruce Taylor
Motorway Maintenance Christopher M. Geeson
Dirt Moon Dan Koboldt
Starship Scion David F. Shultz
Caretaker in the Garden of Dreams David Tallerman
The Schrodinger War Dwayne Minton
Transgression Comes With A Time Stamp Selective Service Gerard Sarnat
The Inn of the Dove Gordon Linzner
After the Atrocity Ian Creasey
The Final Choice Phyllis Irene Radford
Godotât’s Eternal Taxi Service J. J. Steinfeld
The Sidewalk James Dorr
Refugees James Dorr
Daddys Girl Jennifer R. Donohue
Power of Attorney Louis Evans
The Soul Man Mike Murphy
Empathy for Others Patrick G Moloney
A Fresh Start Rob Butler
The Last Death Sarah Seddon
Wallflower Tom Easton
First off it’s late again, the Bloomington Writers Guild Third Sunday Write (cf. June 29, et al.), both for getting the prompts but also for my post. That is, I did post on Facebook July 28, at least the right month, but with much more interesting things going on, I haven’t gotten around to it for the bloggo until now.
So anyway, herewith, not one of my best. I love the way the prompts are handled, giving us in effect our choice of one out of four, as opposed to the “live” pre-COVID version where we’d stab at all of them, even if only one really “spoke” to us. Though one might argue, of course, that that’s the point — to find inspiration of some sort in anything that is offered.
But back to business, this is the July essay, the prompt being a poem from which we were to select just one line.
4. The Sunday Poem: “I Would Like” by Jane Hirshfield,
— “inhabit a fig or apple”
But what DOES inhabit a fig or apple? I close my eyes, see subdivisions in trees, split-level figs? Apple ranchettes? Does homeowners insurance cover picking? A surreal world, maybe, but in real-world apples aren’t actual inhabitants generally worms? I recall, for instance, an old joke from childhood: What’s worse than biting an apple and finding a worm? The answer: To find half a worm. But now are we to worry, we who eat the apple, about finding families, young couples inhabiting starter apples, moving up when the first wormlets arrive? Big apples. Small apples. Fitting all families. Or can, for a premium, one still find vacant fruit, new neighborhoods hung on freshly built branches? Such are life’s great mysteries — though, as for figs, I’ll say I don’t eat them that much.
jamesdorrwriter 