Archive for March, 2023
(Her cousin, however, may have celebrated a little too much)
Ah, the writing life. We may recall a headline around a month and a half back: Nightmare Abbey/Great Man Reprint First Sale for 2023 (cf. January 30). The story, “The Great Man,” a reprint first published in THE STRAND MAGAZINE, Spring-Summer 1999. And now accepted by Editor/Publisher Tom English for the third issue of NIGHTMARE ABBEY.
But it’s never just that, the publishing game — acceptance today, magazine or book in hand next Tuesday. Tomorrow. Whenever. It has its own rhythm, this writing life does: acceptance, agreement, editing, proofreading. . . .
And so, another step advanced today. Late yesterday evening the contract arrived, dated for today, Monday, March 13, for the literary work entitled: “The Great Man.” These things work their own ways, mine for this a trip to the public library and their equipment — more than I have at home — to download, print, physically sign the contract, FAX the result to my own email, then attach and send that back to the sender. Another day in the Writing Life.
Then to look ahead, a new day will bring an edited copy, a round of proofreading . . . eventually the completed magazine, for all of which keep posted here.
It came late this morning, under the tagline A Hero of a Different Stripe contributor copy. The message: Here’s the USPS tracking number for your contributor copy of A HERO OF A DIFFERENT STRIPE: [tracking number redacted, but it said that “it,” whatever it is, would come today]
Thank you again for contributing to the LTUE Benefit Anthologies!*
Say, WHAT!
So a little detective work on my part — these mysteries aren’t as rare as one might think — and the tale led to a another “mystery” of sorts, but one published by me, a year and a half old entry here for October 6 2021 (yes, 2021, books sometimes take unexpected time to be actually published), under the headline Mystery Acceptance: Contract Signed, Scanned, and Sent Back.
The email came earlier this afternoon, but with one deviation from how these things usually go. It was an acceptance, but what it was an acceptance for was to remain a secret.
Thus: We would like to use your submitted story _____ in the _____ anthology. The contract is attached to this message. Please read through it carefully and let us know if you have any questions or concerns. If you do not have any questions, please sign it, scan the full document, and send it back ASAP.
Please do not publicly announce any specifics regarding this yet. . . .
And that was that. Hearing nothing else, I more or less assumed at some point the project was cancelled — these things happen too. But, by golly, a check with Amazon revealed it has indeed now been published, on February 16 2023, by Hemelein Publications, Joe Monson and Jaleta Clegg, editors. The Amazon blurb: Not Your Standard Hero
We all know what heroes are like, right? Brilliant smiles, superpowers, above average beauty, love to pose for the cameras and bask in the limelight? The heroes found here are not your standard hero. Here you’ll find shapeshifting (but ditzy) detectives, considerate sidekicks, avid romance readers, lunar garbage collectors, and more!
In other words, the unsung heroes, the unappreciated sometimes but who do the real work. With my story in it (a reprint originally published in NIGHT LIGHTS by Geminid Press, cf. April 1 2016, et al., as well as SPACE OPERA LIBRETTOS, Digital Science Fiction, February 28 2020): “The Needle-Heat Gun,” the comic tale of a sidekick, yes, but not only just unsung, but also the one who, at every step, pulls the “official” hero’s fat from the fire.
And who also has his own tastes in music (while as for the book and this morning’s message, yes, as of 6:00 p.m. it has arrived!).
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*LTUE stands for the Life, The Universe, & Everything Symposium, an annual conference in Provo UT aimed at authors and artists new to the SF/Fantasy field.
It seemed like a relatively small, but attentive crowd at this afternoon’s Bloomington Writers Guild “First Sunday Prose” at Morgenstern’s Books (see February 5, et al.), despite a high-powered lineup of featured readers. But then it was also a sunny and not-too-chilly afternoon starting a week forecast to get colder, so that may have provided a competing draw.
Of the featured, first up was poet, story, and essay writer John Irvin Cardwell, with multiple books as well as a career as (among other things) a policy advocate and member of numerous private boards and public commissions, with two stories: the first, “Misery,” exposing the plight of the urban homeless, followed by “Hanging Out with Frank,” a memoir of times spent with one-time Indiana Governor Frank O’Bannon when he’d led the Indiana Senate Democratic Caucus, as illustrative of the meaning of friendship. Then he was followed by multi-published short fiction mystery writer, as well as Edgar and Derringer Award nominee and Bill Crider Prize, et al., winner, Joseph S. Walker, with a just released piece in the current ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE, “Moving Day.”
After the break, the “Open Mic” portion was also small, with Walker drafted in as third of three readers with another brief story, “Kindling Delight,” following usually final place MC Joan Hawkins, with me — also unusually — leading off with “The Mermaid Vampiress” (who, as we found out, does not wear a seashell bra). Also of the mermaid, taking a lead from my “Casket Suite” of five related-tale readings on successive months at the Guild’s “First Wednesday Spoken Word” (cf. March 2, below), this was the first of a three month series to be continued in April and May.
And music too. Opening March’s multi-co-sponsored (cf. February 1, et al.) Bloomington Writers Guild’s “First Wednesday Spoken Word” at the downtown Backspace Gallery, singer/guitarist/songwriter Nathan Dillon presented groupings of songs under a general theme of “collaboration” — songs, that is, that he and one of a number of other local songwriters created together — interspersed with descriptions of methods of collaboration and idea creation for songs in general.
Then came first featured reader, poet and live sound effects artist Tony Brewer with longer works, including from two of his published books, PITY FOR SALE and HOT TYPE COLD READ, bracketing a flurry of shorter poems from “Poetry on Demand” tables at various events. Then, following, came multi-award winning and current Indiana Poet Laureate Matthew Graham with poems from his most recent book, THE GEOGRAPHY OF HOME, as well as “a couple of new ones,” ranging in subject from early school “Dick and Jane” reading texts, things (as from his father) that combine to define us, New Orleans and music, and, ending, new poems from various parts of Indiana as part of his being appointed Poet Laureate.
Then intermission, snacks, and seven (of fifteen in person, but with the session also being livestreamed, an unknown number “attending” from home) “open mic” readers, including me just past the middle with Aimée and the Casket Girls — speaking of New Orleans! — in “A Surfeit of Poe,” the second of the five-part “Casket Suite” which began last month, and in which we also meet the poetic Yvonne, the jokester Claudette, and the always glamourous Lo.
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