Posts Tagged ‘Automobiles’
Since the first automobiles rolled down a street, the range of human emotions attached to these machines has run from love to hate, humor to horror, joy to sadness. This book is a sampling of how fiction writers have viewed the automobile, from yesteryear to tomorrow.
Famous writers, experienced story tellers, and new literary voices are mixed together between these covers.
Automobilia is the first in a trilogy of stories and poems featuring that one machine that has changed the face of the earth, for the good and for the bad . . . the automobile.
Authors include: Jack Finney, George Clayton Johnson, Richard Christian Matheson, Richard Matheson, J. P. Seewald, Bruce Boston, Marge Simon, Kevin David Anderson, Katherine Tomlinson, James S. Dorr, William F. Nolan, Dean Wild, Sarah Key, Robbie Sheerin, and J.R. Hayslett, among many others.
This spark any memories? No? Well in fairness there was a mention — that it had been finally published! — as recently as January 22 this year, but prior to that we must journey back to January, two years before, for when I’d received payment; then December, 2021 (contract received); then November, 2020 (story accepted), for a tale which had been submitted in late spring 2016. For a book about cars, that’s some pretty slow driving.
But anyhow, my author’s copy is finally here, chock full of both stories and poems with mine on page 325, “The Christmas Vulture.” And a big book too, at more than 440 pages!
So my story, originally published in UNTIED SHOELACES OF THE MIND, Fall 2010, is about pretty much what its title says — and with automobiles too! But for more, you will just have to read the book — which looks to be a winner! — for further details on which press here!
First seen on Facebook Sunday night: AUTOMOBILIA is finally available in Trade Paperback and Kindle Digital from Amazon.com. Now starts the work of promoting the book to benefit the contributing authors and provide some great reading entertainment for fans of that one machine that affects everyone’s life, the Automobile. The hardcover version will be available in February 2024. Please SHARE if you are inclined to help spread the word. In that it happens I have a story of my own in it. . . .
Or, via Amazon: Since the first automobiles rolled down a street, the range of human emotions attached to these machines has run from love to hate, humor to horror, joy to sadness. This book is a sampling of how fiction writers have viewed the automobile, from yesteryear to tomorrow.
Famous writers, experienced story tellers, and new literary voices are mixed together between these covers.
Automobilia is the first in a trilogy of stories and poems featuring that one machine that has changed the face of the earth, for the good and for the bad…the automobile.
Not much more is said, though it is a whopping 494 pages (“41 stories, 9 poems”), according to the site. And as for my small part, to quote this blog from some time past (cf. November 3 2020): I’d sure forgotten it, yes, a story originally sent on May 26 . . . 2016! Yes, that’s four and a half years. But today the word came from Editor Jason Marchi.
This will come as a shock to you after all this time . . . but after many interruptions, long waits on a number of permissions, and factors beyond our control, the AUTOMOBILIA book is finally nearing completion and will be published in August 2021.
We would like to include “The Christmas Vulture” in the anthology.
“The Christmas Vulture?” Originally published in Fall 2010 in UNTIED SHOELACES OF THE MIND, as well as elsewhere (cf. March 21 2012; December 23 2010), a tale of poor driving habits and an unexpected just-before-holiday rescue, this highway horror will now re-emerge in AUTOMOBILIA in, tentatively, August 2021. Other details were offered involving contracts and payment, to which I sent back my “yes” this evening.
As for AUTOMOBILIA, original guidelines having long been lost, I can still quote from THE GRINDER from way back when: as the title suggests an automobile should be such an integral part of the story that if removed the story collapses. While as for the rest, well, time will tell.
So, yes, such is the writing life, that some things may take a little more time than others. Re. the waitup from 2020 in this blog, see also January 11 2022, and December 10, 2021. And this isn’t even academic publishing, as with Dennis Wise’s SPECULATIVE POETRY AND THE MODERN ALLITERATIVE REVIVAL seen more recently (cf. January 15, et al.) in these pages.
But it has come, at last, and with it my “Christmas Vulture,” for more on which — and for possible ordering — one may check here.
So, yes, one is “firster” than the other, the payment for “Hanging Vines” received from BLACK INFINITY (see January 1, December 11, et al.) for their just-published ROCKETSHIPS AND SPACESUITS issue recorded on January 8. But it being by PayPal which has a policy of not telling people when they’ve gotten money, I didn’t find out until yesterday, the 10th. But the only reason I checked up on PayPal was my receipt of the second, by check from Fahrenheit Books for “The Christmas Vulture” for AUTOMOBILIA (see December 10, et al.), yesterday as well.
So that’s two stories, the second not quite published yet but expected this month, with two payments, just two days apart. (And, yes, at the start of the 22nd year of the second millennium, but one can take this “twos” thing too far.) But that’s still pretty close and it’s worth celebrating, both being reprints (“Vines” from CONADIAN SOUVENIR BOOK, September 1994, and “Vulture” from the Fall 2010 issue of UNTIED SHOELACES OF THE MIND) but with a combined payout of enough to buy groceries for a whole month. Or perhaps even two.
But the thing is, also, that we all can use reasons for celebrations in these, the years of the COVID pandemic, however large or small, or coincidental. And for a writer, the first cash acquired in a new calendar year is quite reason enough!
Well, maybe not quite Christmas, the email received Thursday night specifying a hoped for publication date for January. But then, the acceptance was a while back too (cf. November 3 2020), for a story submitted some four and a half years before then, on May 25 2016.
But better late than never, eh? As received from Editor Jason Marchi: Publication for AUTOMOBILIA is coming up in 2022. The copyright/publication year was moved to January 2022 so the book can be entered earlier into more contests.
So, finally, here is the contract I owe you . . . [a]ttached is a PDF of the contract, which you can sign and send back as a PDF if you are tech-savvy. I’ve attached the WORD version too if that’s easier for you, but your fonts probably won’t like it.
Next, I will send a PDF galley of the story for your review for changes, if any.
Or those are the highlights, with the contract, signed, going back just after midnight. As for the book, AUTOMOBILIA, while some details have been lost in the quicksand of time, this much is recalled: as the title suggests an automobile should be such an integral part of the story that if removed the story collapses. And the story to be in it, “The Christmas Vulture,” originally published in UNTIED SHOELACES OF THE MIND, Fall 2010, is the tale of a compassionate carrion bird that cruises the freeways on Christmas Eve, searching for crashes and food for its chicks.
But what of crash survivors?
I’d sure forgotten it, yes, a story originally sent on May 26 . . . 2016! Yes, that’s four and a half years. But today the word came from Editor Jason Marchi.
This will come as a shock to you after all this time . . . but after many interruptions, long waits on a number of permissions, and factors beyond our control, the AUTOMOBILIA book is finally nearing completion and will be published in August 2021.
We would like to include “The Christmas Vulture” in the anthology.
“The Christmas Vulture?” Originally published in Fall 2010 in UNTIED SHOELACES OF THE MIND, as well as elsewhere (cf. March 21 2012; December 23 2010), a tale of poor driving habits and an unexpected just-before-holiday rescue, this highway horror will now re-emerge in AUTOMOBILIA in, tentatively, August 2021. Other details were offered involving contracts and payment, to which I sent back my “yes” this evening.
As for AUTOMOBILIA, original guidelines having long been lost, I can still quote from THE GRINDER from way back when: as the title suggests an automobile should be such an integral part of the story that if removed the story collapses. While as for the rest, well, time will tell.
jamesdorrwriter 