Short Story News June 2018

Here's a post I've been holding off on for a while now, I guess because bad news only becomes actual bad news at the point when you share it.  Or at least because I've kept hoping that the horrendous dry spell I've been going through these last couple of years on the short fiction sales front might finally come to an end, and then I could spread a little good news instead.

To put that in perspective: since January 2017, I've literally sold more original novels than I have original short stories!  And honestly, this bites.  I mean, not the novel-selling part, that's great news.  But I know with utter conviction that I'm sending out some of the best short fiction I've written - indeed, maybe the best work I've written full stop - and the creeping certainty that some of it might never see the light of day is pretty gutting.  But what can you do?  Only give up or try that bit harder, and I'm not giving up yet.  So I've been submitting with all the energy I can muster, and more importantly, making a concerted effort to edit the remainder of the work I've got sitting about at first draft stage.  Because maybe something in that lot might fare better, right?

With that grumble out of the way, I have to admit that things could be worse.  At least I'm still selling the odd reprint, and at least I've landed them in a couple of really exciting markets.  The nicest surprise was when I was approached by the editor of Nowa Fantastyka to see if they could buy my story Jenny's Sick for translation into Polish.  Now that it's out, I'm probably safe to admit that I'd have likely let them have it for free; my family immigrated from Poland a generation or three back and it was extremely cool to have that link to what my dad jokingly refers to as "the old country."  Plus, Nowa Fantastyka is an utterly wonderful magazine.  I mean, I can barely read a word of it, but the presentation is fantastic, and the illustration for Jenny's Sick - rather, Jenny Choruje - is one of the very nicest I've had.

But family heritage issues aside, the bigger news is surely making it into a third of Flame Tree Publishing's utterly gorgeous gothic fiction anthologies (after Science Fiction and Lost Worlds).  This one's titled Lost Souls, and the story, Casualty of Peace, is one of my personal favourites, which I'm really pleased to be getting to yet more readers after its appearance in Eric Guignard's excellent Horror Library Volume 6 collection.  It's one of those rare tales that turned out just the way I intended, after a gestation period of months or maybe even years, and I'll be thrilled to see it between lavishly engraved hardback covers.  I'm not sure of a release date on that yet, but I'd guess it'll be towards the back end of the year; in the meantime, there's a full table of contents here.

And, thank goodness, there's always Digital Fiction Publishing!  I've already had one story out with them this year - Twitcher, in the Heinous Concoction horror anthology released back in February - and I've a couple more pending.  Again on the horror front, Great Black Wave will be coming up at some point, as will another personal favourite, my science-fiction tale of well-intentioned alien oppressors Free Radical.

Last up, I guess I should admit that there are one or two other things on the horizon, and those are original pieces.  But I don't know that I'm meant to be talking about them yet, so I won't.  Still, I do sincerely hope that things turn around before this year is out, because the way it's going, it's getting increasingly untenable to keep pouring time into writing and trying to sell short fiction - and it would break my heart to give it up.  So on that front as on every other, here's to the second half of 2018 sucking less than the first has!

Narrating is Hard, Who Knew?

It's not like I haven't always had a ton of of respect for narrators.  And I've had reasons enough to listen to them.  For some unaccountable reason, a disproportionate amount of my work has found its way into podcast or audiobook: all four of my novels, novella Patchwerk, and a dozen of my short stories have all had the audio treatment, and to the best of my recollection not once have I been less than thrilled with the results.  I've been really lucky on that front, and maybe that's one of the reasons I quickly started to notice how tough reading fiction out loud was, let alone doing so without stumbling over every other line, let alone while bringing genuine emotion and life to the work.

Still ... when you try it yourself, you discover that narrating is really damn tough, and that the people who do it professionally are really damn talented.  I mean, it's not like I've never had to read stories out loud, and sometimes I've even done so in front of quite large groups of people.  But if you fluff that then you can blunder through or make a joke about it, and really volume tends to be the main thing that matters in those situations, so if any actual subtlety or drama creeps in then I feel like I've done a decent job.  Actually making a recording of a story, though?  That's a whole other thing.  One significant mistake and you've had it and - as I discovered to my cost - just going in without the right amount of joie de vivre is enough to make for a rubbish end result.  Reading for thirty-five minutes without major slip-ups and without letting your energy flag is a heck of a challenge.

About now is when I should explain why I was even trying, right?  Basically, the answer is, because the folks at Great Jones Street asked me to, and those guys are cool enough that I didn't mind giving it a go.  If you haven't downloaded the GJS app by now, you really should; it's a huge library of short fiction by a ton of big name (and not quite so big name!) authors, and it's completely free.  More to the current point, it contains four of my stories: Jenny's Sick, Great Black Wave, and my two tales following master assassin Otranto Onsario, Ill-Met at Midnight and A Killer of Dead Men.  And the folks at GJS decided that it would be neat if their readers could be listeners too, so long as what they were listening to was authors reading out their own fiction.

In fairness, I should admit that I was largely extent imposing my own difficulties: Great Jones Street didn't ask for flawless renditions, and indeed specifically requested the exact opposite, suggesting that their audience would much prefer more warts-and-all renditions.  But, you know, you can tell a perfectionist not to try and get things perfect until you go blue in the face and it won't make a damn bit of difference.  Fortunately for my sanity, what did was sheer lack of time, not to mention a good deal of luck - otherwise I'd have been at this all year.  As it was, I managed to get by with only a few minor hiccups and one fairly major one, too far into A Killer of Dead Men for me to start over yet again.  What can you do, right?  "City" and "roof" sound awfully similar.

Anyway, for anyone who's curious, here's me reading out Great Black Wave, which is perhaps my favourite of the four stories and, not at all coincidentally, probably the one I did the best job with.

And, again, you can find the Great Jones Street app and so listen to all four, as well as lots and lots of other stuff, here.

Great Jones Street is Live

So I've made the odd mention of a thing called Great Jones Street, and that they've published a couple of my stories, while being kind of vague on the precise details.  If I'm honest, that was partly because I'm habitually vague and partly because I didn't quite understand them myself.  But now I've watched a video explaining things and I'm much clearer!

Great Jones Street is a short story magazine that's also an app.  Currently it's only available for Apple devices, but that will be changing pretty soon - and this is largely why it's taken me a while to figure out the ins and outs, because I have no apple devices, or even any apples for that matter, except tinned ones that probably don't count.

In essence, and assuming I understand correctly, Great Jones Street is an e-reader optimized for use on mobile devices, one that comes pre-loaded with its own huge, cross genre library of short fiction.  Those stories are being cherry picked from the top tier of markets, with an emphasis on award-winning material, so there's as much of a guarantee of quality as you could reasonably hope for.  The pitch on the website is basically "why is there no Spotify for short fiction?" along with "short fiction is really great for reading on mobile phones," and I agree wholeheartedly with both of those statements.  In fact, this seems to me a lot like an app based version of what Digital Fiction Publishing have been up to, and I've made no secret of how I think that's a great concept.  So I feel safe in saying that Great Jones Street is shaping up to be something pretty amazing, and that it's well worth checking out.

With that in mind, you can get more details and a link to the App Store here.  And here's a rather long (and probably already out of date) list of the stories already available.  You may, if you're careful, spot my name among them...

"Visitation" Corinna Vallianatos
"The Mourning Door" Elizabeth Graver
"Grad School" Fred G. Leebron
"The Idiot, or Life in Wartime" Fred G. Leebron
"When It’s You" Fred G. Leebron
"That Year Off" Fred Leebron
"In Other Words" Jennifer Haigh
"The Truth and All Its Ugly" Kyle Minor
"Going To The Big House" Tom Bailey
"Ruby" Tom Bailey
"This Is Not A Love Story" Tom Bailey
"Zombies" Tom Bailey
"A Neighboring State" Corinna Vallianatos
"Islands Without Names" Elizabeth Graver
"Paramour" Jennifer Haigh
"A Wild Night and a New Road" John Dufresne
"Between" Elizabeth Graver
"Ghostreaper, or, Life After Revenge" Tim Pratt
"Jenny's Sick" David Tallerman
"Great Black Wave" David Tallerman
"Mono no aware" Ken Liu
"Paper Menagerie" Ken Liu
"The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species" Ken Liu
"Enter A Soldier" Robert Silverberg
"Keeper" Steve Adams
"Hart and Boot" Tim Pratt
"Impossible Dreams" Tim Pratt
"The Secret Beach" Tim Pratt
"Why We Came to Target at 9:58 on a Monday Night" Andy Roe
"Eagle, Globe and Anchor" Geoffrey Becker
"A Time and A Place" Hugh Sheehy
"The Experience Collector" Hugh Sheehy
"The Last Days" Hugh Sheehy
"To Build a Fire" Jack London
"Saving Bambi" Janet Burroway
"The Mandelbrot Set" Janet Burroway
"Cliff Walk" Jessica Treadway
"Down Here" Jessica Treadway
"Ghost Story" Jessica Treadway
"Dirty" John Affleck
"Fine Arts" Karin Lin-Greenberg
"Paying by Check" Karin Lin-Greenberg
"Theft" Katherine Anne Porter
"A Kidnapping in Koulèv-Ville" Kyle Minor
"Till Death Do Us Part" Leslie Pietrzyk
"Remember Me To The One Who Lives There" Michael Parker
"Sredni Vashtar" Saki (H. H. MUNRO)
"Junk Food" Sarah Harris Wallman
"Only Children" Sarah Harris Wallman
"The Dead Girls Show" Sarah Harris Wallman
"Saint Petersburg" Scott Laughlin
"The Fish" Steve Adams
"Holiday" Terri Leker
"What We See" Leslie Pietrzyk
"Benefit" Brett Beach
"Slim Jim" Brock Clarke
"You Would Have Told Me Not To" Christopher Coake
"Compliments" Erin McGraw
"L.A." Erin McGraw
"Love" Erin McGraw
"Crossing Cabot Strait" Geeta Kothari
"Dharma Farm" Geeta Kothari
"Small Bang Only" Geeta Kothari
"Given Ghosts" Jane McCafferty
"Game Winner" John Affleck
"Immaculate Obsession" John Affleck
"Winter Practice" John Affleck
"Small Worlds" Karin Lin-Greenberg
"The Splashing Carp" Karin Lin-Greenberg
"Eight Track" Matt McEver

Short Story News, September 2016

I remember thinking a few weeks back that nowhere near enough had happened on the short story front to warrant another of these posts.  Somehow, by the time I reconsidered, far too much had happened to reasonably cram in.  But I'm going to anyway, it's been a rotten week and a post full of good news might be just what I need to remind myself that 2016 hasn't been altogether a horror.

Firstly, I have books out!  At least, there are anthologies out with my stories in - a whole three of them, in fact.  Two of those are from Digital Fiction Publishing, making my total number of DFP anthologies out now a number bigger than I can be bothered to work out right now, but certainly no less than six.  And the reason I keep submitting to these things, other I suppose than that I keep getting accepted, is that they're really good.  I get the impression, as well, that readers are increasingly waking up to that fact: they've been pulling down some pretty tremendous reviews, one or two of which come from readers who've liked one book enough to try another, which is a heck of an achievement for a still relatively new small press.  Anyway, gushing aside, this time around I have Black Horticulture in the fantasy collection Uncommon Senses and Passive Resistance in the SF collection Operative Sequence.  That particularly story also recently got its own individual e-book release, as all these collected tales do: you can find it here.

Nextly, the Mysterion anthology that I seem to have gone on about quite a lot over the last few months is finally out to buy.  You can pick it up on from Amazon, iTunes, Barnes & Noble and Kobo.  It only really occurred to me as I was thumbing through my contributor copy that perhaps it's strange that I, an avowed atheist, would have a story in a collection subtitled "rediscovering the mysteries of the Christian faith."  And to my eyes, Golgotha is a story upon the topic of religion clearly written by a non-believer, albeit one who's always found the subject fascinating.  But honestly, I think that's why (asides from the gorgeous cover) I've been so enthused about this project from day one: Donald and Kristin have put together exactly the book that they promised, one that digs about in those weird and fascinating corners of Christianity that normally get politely overlooked.  This spirit is nicely summed up in a comment from Kristin's introduction: "Mysterion is about Christianity.  But we're not sure it is Christian."  From what I've seen, I'd agree, and for that reason among others, I do hope this book gets the attention it deserves: it's a genuinely interesting project upon a genuinely unique topic, which is more than many anthologies can claim.  And Golgotha is among the top tier of short fiction that I'm proudest of, a nasty, wriggling thing full of difficult questions and uneasy answers.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, I've been selling more stories.  What's particularly unusual this time around is that fully half my sales from the last couple of months were effectively commissions; that's definitely never happened before.  A couple of those I can't talk about yet - I wish I could, they're exciting! - but the other two I probably can.  In perhaps my most surreal sale ever, Alasdair Stuart and Marguerite Kenner, respectively owner and editor of Cast of Wonders, happened to be in the audience when I was reading from The Sign in the Moonlight and Other Stories.  And they enjoyed the story that I read - the deeply screwed up My Friend Fishfinger by Daisy Aged 7 - enough that they decided they'd like to podcast it.  Would that all readings went that way!  Meanwhile, at around the same time, one of my favourite editors pushed new publisher Great Jones Street my way, and they picked up both Jenny's Sick and Great Black Wave, with possibly - finger's crossed! - a couple more to follow.  (Great Jones Street, by the way, I'm sure I'll be talking about more, as they're up to some rather interesting and exciting things.)


The traditional sales front hasn't been going so shoddy either.  Br(other) is down for the middle volume of the three volume Let Us In anthology from Time Alone Press, which is due to start appearing next month.  And I enjoyed last year's Gaia: Shadow and Breath anthology enough that I thought I'd try for this year's entry in the series; as such, they'll be publishing my Feet of Clay, Mind of Coal, which I probably do no favours by referring to as my golem sex story.  (Hey ... I see an overlooked niche and I jump on it!)  Finally, I overhauled one of my earliest publications and gave it the title I realised it should have had approximately the moment after it saw print, and now Old Skin for the New Ceremony will be appearing in the sci-fi issue of Creepy Campfire Stories (for Grownups).

I'll finish up by noting that my slush reading for Digital Fantasy Fiction has come to a temporary halt, as they're closed to subs for a few weeks, but it was fun while it lasted.  Now I'm getting excited for the fact that at some point there's going to be an anthology coming out where I picked most or all of the stories, which is certainly as close as I've ever come to wearing an editor's hat.  And as much I may have grumbled at points, we did get a few really good subs, along with a couple of absolute stunners; if both of those make it into the same volume then I'll be very excited indeed, and probably pushing it a lot harder than I ever do my own stuff!

Going Gothic

It occurred to me recently that I can trace my desire to write short genre fiction pretty clearly back to a certain time in my youth, and that in fact I can go further than that: I can pin it down to the two books that introduced me to just what short fantasy and science-fiction stories could accomplish and how awe-inspiring that could be.  They were anthologies by the now apparently long-defunct Chancellor Press, who used to have a thing for knocking out cheap but rather brilliant editions of classic work: these two books in particular had the imaginative titles of The SF Collection and Great Tales of Fantasy and Science Fiction.  And only recently, as I was hunting around for some strong opening paragraphs to share at my Nine Worlds short fiction-writing workshop, did I realise just how terrific those books were, and how much they'd lit the fuse on my passion for genre stories.  Looking back, I suspect there was a part of me, even then, that longed to see my name in a book like that, in the company of all those awesomely talented individuals.

Cut to the present, when I discovered that Flame Tree Publishing, (who seem to be doing not dissimilar things to Chancellor Press, though in infinitely classier fashion), had opened submissions for three anthologies that would mix classic fiction with more modern work, in outrageously sexy deluxe hardcover editions.  Needless to say, I went for it, though without much hope of getting in, and I suppose also needless to say since I'm blogging about it, I did in fact manage to land a story in one of them.  That particular story was one of my all-time favourites, (and yeah, I know I shouldn't have favourites, but what can you do?  I bet even people with loads of kids do the same), Jenny's Sick, as originally published in Lightspeed back in December of 2010.

Anyway, we're now mere weeks from publication, and here's what those puppies are going to look like:

Now I guess what I'm trying to say, in typically roundabout fashion, is that this is pretty much a dream come true.  These are just extravagantly beautiful books; I mean, if you want to get an idea of how gorgeous they are in the flesh - um, the paper-flesh - no, wait, that sounds worse - then you can read about it here.  But as much as that's a big deal, (and this is, after all, the first time I've had anything out in hardcover), it isn't the big deal, and it certainly isn't what got me thinking about those old Chancellor Press books.  No, that was more to do with some of the names I'm going to be in there with.  Like I said, all three editions have a mix of classic and more recent work, and those classic stories - well, there's a few people in there I'd heard of, let's put it that way.  Like, in the case of the Science Fiction volume, oh say, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  Or H. Rider Haggard.  Or Jack London.  Or Jules goddamn Verne.*

So ... beautiful book, amazing company, possibly the story of mine that I'm most proud of.  Yup, this is pretty much the short story sale to end all short story sales.  Wait, no, I shouldn't say that, that makes it sound like I'm never going to sell anything again ever.  Or that I'm going to die.  Fortunately I just did - sell another story that is, not die - but even if I hadn't, this would have been a hell of a note to end on.  As it is, I'm just thrilled to be a part of something that would have made the teenage book-geek me go weak at the knees, and maybe think that growing up to be a writer might not be the absolutely worst idea in the world...




* I'm reliably formed that this is how Jules Verne used to introduce himself.  Jules Verne was kind of a hardass.

Signs and Nightmares

One of my regrets this year is that I've been so busy with novels and other big projects that not have I not been able to write any new short stories, I haven't even had time to send out the ones I've already written.  In fact, until recently, the closest I've come is editing some of the backlog I've been stockpiling over the last four years.

That's changed a bit in the last couple of months, with the first draft of Prince Thief done and dusted, and the extra hard work of beginning to tout some twenty stories began to pay off last week, when John Joseph Adams accepted my The Sign in the Moonlight for his new horror webzine Nightmare.  Considering that my first sale to John, Stockholm Syndrome, appeared in the World Fantasy Award nominated anthology The Living Dead, and my second was Jenny's Sick, published in Lightspeed during its multi-Hugo nominated first year, I've got to admit I have some hopes and expectations for this one.

As for The Sign in the Moonlight itself, I'm sure I'll talk about it plenty when it comes out.  For the moment, suffice to say that it was one of the most satisfying but also bizarre writing experiences I've ever had.  Acting completely out of character, I did a ton of research - into Alesteir Crowley, rock climbing, Tibet and the mountain of Kanchenjunga, amongst other things - and the stuff I came up with was almost too perfect for the tale I wanted to tell ... so much so that I got quite spooked before I was done.  Then, once it was finished, I weirded myself out even more when I discovered that the final word count was 5555; an odd coincidence given how significantly and often the number five occurs throughout the story.

(Go on, just guess how many points that sign in the title has!)

Help Kickstart a Nightmare

It's always good when life just hands you a wacky blog title post out of nowhere.

Don't go through the scary door.

In this case, I had an e-mail earlier this week from John Joseph Adams, who you may or may not - but probably have - heard of as editor (and as of recently, publisher) of professional web magazines Lightspeed and Fantasy, not to mention any number of anthologies - one of which, The Living Dead, provided my first big short fiction break.  Turns out that John is looking towards completing his genre publishing empire by adding a little horror to that line-up, in the form of a new webzine to be known as Nightmare.

Obviously, this is very good news - because there just aren't that many pro horror markets, and John is a terrific editor, both in the sense that he puts out some fine fiction* and in the sense that he manages to achieve commercial successes in a field that people are constantly trying to declare unprofitable, unfeasible or downright dead.

Both of those points are particularly relevant here, because the reason John got in touch was that he's planning to fund the initial getting-off-the-ground of Nightmare using Kickstarter.  For anyone unfamiliar, Kickstarter is basically a method of funding creative projects, which lets people pledge potential investments, in return for rewards should the project go ahead.  In this case, the rewards are things like issues and subscriptions, or if you really have some serious cash to throw around, unique print editions and samples of John's blood and toe nail clippings**.

Basically then, the idea is that you get to read an issue of or subscribe to what will inevitably be one of the best horror magazines around, based on the facts that John knows his stuff, is already editing excellent fantasy and sci-fi magazines and has some top fiction cued up for issue one.

A completely and utterly irrelevant picture I found somewhere.

This makes an emminent amount of sense to me, so I have no problem with promoting it in whatever limited fashion I can - even though other people who were quicker off the mark than me have already helped John kickstart the crap out of his target.  Still, all that means is that if you choose to chuck a bit of money at Nightmare now, you know for sure that you'll be getting an issue / subscription / unique genetic sample.***

Anyway, here again is the official Nightmare Kickstarter link, which explains everything at least nineteen times more coherently than I just did.


* In my ridiculously biased opinion, obviously, since John also took my story Jenny's Sick for Lightspeed.
** An obvious lie on my part.
*** Still a lie.

Lightspeed Year One Anthology Out (Also, Gigantic)

For a long, long time I made a point of reading every word of every publication I had work out in.  It was partly to judge what I'd signed on to, of course, and partly to see what other writers were up to.  But mostly it just felt like the right thing to do.  So much effort had gone into that book or magazine, some of it was mine, and knowing how much it meant for me that people read my story seemed a damn good reason to read everyone else's.

So it's been one of the sadder aspects of this crazy year that I haven't had the time to do that anymore.  My reading time is more limited that ever before, a few stolen minutes before bed and the occasional lunch break.  But maybe more than that, there's been the tectonic, life-redefining game-changer that is the Giant Thief deal.  As my writing focus has shifted drastically towards novels, my reading has necessarily followed, leaving me next to no time for short stories or anything much else.

One thing's for sure, though.  I'm going to read the Lightspeed Year One anthology from cover to cover if it kills me.

Which it might.  Because the thing is huge.  We're talking forty-eight stories here ... if you drop that on your toe, it's going to hurt.  And if that happens while you're driving a car or piloting a zeppelin or some such, there's a very real chance of violent death.  

Not that I'm planning to read it under those circumstances.  I'm more thinking of curling up with it over my Christmas break, maybe with a glass of cheap sherry close at hand.  In fact, I'll be doing everything I reasonably can to minimise the life-threatening aspects of the experience, because I'd really like to just chill and enjoy this one.  SF's pretty much my favourite genre when it comes to short fiction, and by most accounts, the stuff John Joseph Adams put out in his first year is high amongst the best that anyone's published over the last twelve months.  Plus there are those reprints of classic tales, quite a few of them by people I'm hopelessly in awe of.  I mean, Joe Haldeman?  The Forever War was one of the books, maybe even the book, that brought me back to sci-fi after a far-too-long sabbatical - and later, Forever Peace blew my mind almost as much.  Then there's Orson Scott Card, Stephen King, Ursula K. Le Guin - all writers who changed my perceptions of what it was possible to do with genre fiction, not to mention teaching me what I wanted to do with it.  One thing I haven't stopped doing this year is geeking out to a ridiculous degree when I see my name alongside my writerly heroes.

Finally, while I'm nearly on the subject ... it was great to stumble over the news that John J Adams has taken over ownership, on top of his existing editorship, of both Lightspeed and Fantasy from Prime Books. John's a terrific editor, I'm sure he'll be a terrific publisher, and I wish him the best of luck.

Passive Resistance Sold to Redstone ... and Other Excitements

I mentioned a looooong time ago that my cyberpunk-for-people-who-can't-work-computers story Passive Resistance had been picked up for an anthology, the title of which escapes me, by a publisher called Mythica Publishing.  Well, that was one bit of excitingness that fell flat on its face, what with Mythica turning out to be the kind of unscrupulous self-publishing type outfit that couldn't put out an anthology if ten thousand copies of it materialised from nowhere and proceeded to sell themselves to an unsuspecting public.

Which seemed like bad news at the time.  What I obviously couldn't have predicted is that it was in fact completely brilliant - since if Mythica hadn't keeled over like a geriatric donkey, I couldn't have just sold Passive Resistance to Redstone Science Fiction.  Since Mythica were planning to pay me precisely nothing, (and would probably have picked my pockets given half the chance), and Redstone just gained their SFWA professional market pointy magic hat, it's hard to see this as any other than a profoundly lucky escape.  Which, funnily enough, is precisely one of the things that Passive Resistance is about.  At times like this, it almost feels like the universe isn't a big chaotic bubble of meaningless crazy!

In other news ... I knew on a vague intellectual level that there was probably going to be a Lightspeed Year One anthology, including my Jenny's Sick, but the discovery that it was both real and a mere four months away still set me bouncing round the room like a trained seal.  Halfway through the day, it struck me that a significant percentage of that excitement came not from the promise of more exposure for what I consider one of my better stories, but from the prospect that I'd be spending my Christmas holiday reading a year's worth of fiction from Lightspeed.  Of the many 'zines out there, it's high on my list of ones I wish I had the time to follow, so I can't help but look forward to the prospect of catching up on twelve months worth of Lightspeed goodness.

Lastly - and only leastly in that it doesn't directly involve anyone paying me money - I discovered yesterday that Digital Science Fiction's issue #1 anthology First Contact (which included my Black Sun) recently hit the number one sales spot in Amazon's science fiction anthologies kindle list, and is still riding high in the top ten.  Hats off to DSF for not only putting out an excellent first issue but for actually managing to persuade a sizeable number of people to read it.

One Sale, a Couple of Reviews

Just when it seemed that things were quieting down and all the eventful stuff for the year was done with, a couple of bits of good news and some other interesting odds and sods appeared to enliven my week.

Actually, that's a small fib, in that the particular bit of good news I'm typing about now arrived a week or two ago, but there were a couple of contractual doodads I wanted to clarify, and now that they're clarified I think it's okay to consider it a new bit of good news all over again.  The long and the short of it is that once print-zine, soon to be webzine Kaleidotrope have picked up my languishing horror story Fall From Grace. 

As I whimpered about here, Fall was going to appear in an exciting anthology from Northern Frights Publishing until Northern Frights enigmatically imploded.  That was decidedly sad, because they were great and so would the anthology have been, but from my point of view at least, it's cheering that Fall has found a new home so quickly.  And what a home!  Kaleidotrope introduces itself with the line, "...if you dig Martians, robots, and people with melting heads...", and who doesn't dig those things?  I mean seriously, who?  Find me the man or woman who doesn't dig those things and I'll tweak your ear and call you a liar.

Elsewhere and elsewise, I stumbled over a couple of reviews / write-ups of my stories that had somehow slipped under my radar.  Firstly, SFSite had some fairly positive things to say about The Burning Room, as published in Bull Spec:

In "The Burning Room" by David Tallerman, Miss Taversham is boarding in an attic room, and her landlady Mrs. Faraday whose odd behaviour is of deep interest to her as she surveys the room she will stay in for awhile. Mrs Faraday hides a secret about this particular room, though, and the new tenant must find out more about it, or risk losing her sanity. "The Burning room" is a haunting tale that seems to linger in the mind long after the reader moves onto another story.

Perhaps a bit more exciting - in that it really pins a few of the things I was trying to get at - is this extract on Jenny's Sick from Tangent's review of Lightspeed #7:

How do you stand out in a world where everyone is perfect? In “Jenny’s Sick” by David Tallerman, all disease has been eradicated, or so it would seem. When a college man intent on pursuing a career finds his roommate suffering from influenza, gastroenteritis, and other maladies, he discovers she’s been taking pills to make herself sick. He ignores her addiction and moves out rather than try to dissuade her from her self-afflicting tendencies. Troubled by guilt, can he find it in his heart to help his former lover and friend in her time of need, or will his life and career take precedence?

Science takes a back seat to the smooth prose and identifiable characters in “Jenny’s Sick.” Turn the disease-inducing drugs into modern illegal street drugs and the story wouldn’t change . . . much. But there is an underlying current that paints a scary picture of life where everyone can have a flawless body and the boundary between sane and insane is blurred. I recommend “Jenny’s Sick” based on the characters and its thought-provoking nature.

Many cheers to Rhonda Porrett for such a thoughtful commentary.

Jenny's Sick, In Need of Love

Hi there, person I may or may not know.  My, you're looking handsome / beautiful / androgynously attractive today.  Have you done something with your hair?  No?  Your teeth, maybe?  Well, whatever it is, trust me, it's working.

Anyway ... funny thing you should happen by.  You remember that story I had out in Lightspeed the month before last ... I think it was called something like Jenny's Sick?  You know, the one you really loved / quite enjoyed / barely tolerated?  Well, it just so happens that Lightspeed are having a reader's poll to pick the best story of their inaugural year.  So, since you happen to be passing by, why not head over to this here link and cast your vote?  Jenny's Sick is the one right at the bottom.  Which is kind of the new top, am I right?

Not that I'm suggesting you should vote for Jenny's Sick if it wasn't your favourite.  Or if, heavens forbid, you haven't read it.  That would be just plain wrong.  It's perfectly possible that you didn't enjoy my story at all.  Maybe you hated it.  Maybe it made you want to go out and garrote a badger.  And that's completely understandable.  In that case, obviously I wouldn't expect you to vote for my lovingly and time-consumingly manufactured tale just because I asked you nicely.

And I have asked nicely.  Haven't I?

All things considered, though, since you're here, and presumably with nothing better to be doing, wouldn't it kind of make sense to just click on that link and hurl your precious vote into the electric void?  I mean, ultimately, what does it matter if you thought Jenny's Sick's sucked like the world's biggest hoover?  We're talking about a few seconds of your life here.  More if you move really quickly.  We're all adults here.  Why not just do the reasonable thing?

But maybe you're not the reasonable type.  Heck, some people aren't.  There are people in the world who like to talk in cinemas, condone genocide and think boy bands are the future of modern music.  And those people are entitled to their opinions, just like everyone else.  So ... if you didn't enjoy Jenny's Sick ... and if you think seal-clubbing should be made an Olympic event ... then it's safe to say that no-one, let alone I, would criticise you in any shape or form for not voting for my delicately hand-crafted labour of love.

I did mention how nice your teeth are looking, right?

Not, you understand, that I'm just asking for my benefit.  Because if you not only vote for Jenny's Sick but also leave a comment as to why you liked it so goddamned much you'll be elligible for the $50 prize that Lightspeed are offering.  Fifty shiny, glistening, dollars ... just imagine them sitting in your moistened palm.  It's almost too good to be true.

Which might lead you to think I'd just made it up to get you to say nice things about my story.  I didn't.  Really.  Check it if you don't believe me.

Anyway, we could stand around here all day talking about how damn shiny your teeth are, but some of us have got polls to go vote in.  Personally, I'm going for Ted Kosmatka's brilliant In Fall.

Which isn't to say you should.

Jenny's Sick Makes a Best-Of List

Responses are starting to drift in for Jenny's Sick, as published in the December 2010 issue of Lightspeed.

The good news is that the general reaction seems positive.  That goes for the comments on the Lightspeed site, anyway, this from blogger Philip Weiss (aka King Rat), and - the point of the post title - fellow writer Alex J Kane picking it as one of his favourites for the year.  Should you read this, Alex, much thanks, and I'm glad you dug it.

The actual reviews I've come across didn't go for Jenny's Sick so much.  Harry Markov's fairly negative commentary at The Portal is thoughtful and intriguing enough that I actually kind of enjoyed reading it; Lois Tilton's non-comment at Locus Online gets a mention more for the sake of completeness!

Jenny's Sick now up at Lightspeed

I'll keep this brief, since I've already plugged this sale about a half-dozen times already: my story Jenny's Sick is now up to read for free at Lightspeed - or, if you're not a reading person, to listen to in a superb podcast by actor Mirron Willis.*  And afterwards, there's an interview with your truly, and a related non-fiction article by Genevieve Valentine explaining exactly how we're all going to die really soon in impossibly unpleasant (but undeniably interesting) ways.

This is probably the biggest sale I'm made thus far, and perhaps the best story, so if you're going to read just one then I guess it should be this one.  Plus, Lightspeed is utterly great, and deserves the support of all sentient life on earth.


* I can't say for sure that the Mirron Willis reading Jenny's Sick is the same Mirron Willis who's on IMDB, but if it is then my story was read by someone whose CV includes Star Trek, Babylon 5 and Independence Day, and that's so absurdly cool that I'm just going to let it slide.

December Lightspeed out in E-book

As of the first of the month, the e-book edition of Lightspeed issue #7 is available for purchase in every format you could possibly want.

Not only does it have my story Jenny's Sick in it, I also got to be interviewed about it at some length by Editorial Assistant Erin Stocks (who insisted on posing really difficult and interesting questions), and not only that but said story and interview are followed up with a related non-fiction article, Five Upcoming Plagues (We’re Doomed) by Genevieve Valentine ... and (deep breath) not only that, but when Jenny's Sick becomes readable for free a couple of weeks from now, it'll also be available in podcast - something I only just discovered.

Clearly, this is all quite awesome.  But none of it holds up to the fact that I get to have my work appear alongside, respectively, a story by and an interview with Ursula K. Le Guin and Greg Bear.  Having just recently read (again, respectively) The Lathe of Heaven and Blood Music, and having found both to be brilliant beyond words, it's quite an honour to share a contents page with their authors.

All told, it's another stunning issue of what, let's face it, is pretty much the best sci-fi ezine out there, wrapped up in a beautiful cover by World Fantasy Award-winning artist John Picacio - and available for about the price of an egg and cress sandwich.

Spotlit at Lightspeed

It's been a fair few weeks since I've posted anything here, mainly because not a damn thing has happened that's been good enough - or resoundingly bad enough - to be worth mentioning.  That only makes me that bit more grateful to Lightspeed Magazine for giving me something to talk about - and even making it a pleasant something.

I now have a definite month for Jenny's Sick appearing in Lightspeed, December this year, but that's not the news; the news is that I also get to be the spotlighted author for that issue.  And what that means is that I get to answer a load of really, really difficult (but also really considered and interesting) questions about my story, and both the questions and my rambling answers will appear in Lightspeed for the world to try and make sense of.

What the team at Lightspeed don't know is that I never have the faintest idea of why anything happens in my stories!  Unfortunately for me, I'm guessing that answers like "I only write this stuff" or "the moon was in the forth quarter and I'd eaten too much peanut butter that day" probably won't cut the proverbial mustard.  So I should probably stop posting about it and start coming up with some vaguely coherent answers!

Lightspeed Launches!

New Online Science Fiction Magazine Lightspeed Launches

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Contact: publicity@lightspeedmagazine.com

ROCKVILLE, MD, JUNE 1 -- Lightspeed, lightspeedmagazine.com, the new online science fiction magazine published by the award-winning independent press Prime Books, launches today with the publication of "I'm Alive, I Love You, I'll See You in Reno" by Vylar Kaftan.

Lightspeed is edited by John Joseph Adams (Fiction Editor), the bestselling editor of anthologies such as Wastelands and The Living Dead, and Andrea Kail (Nonfiction Editor), a writer, critic, and television producer who worked for thirteen years on Late Night with Conan O’Brien.

Lightspeed's focus is exclusively on science fiction. It features all types of sf, from near-future, sociological soft sf, to far-future, star-spanning hard sf, and anything and everything in between. No subject is considered off-limits, and Lightspeed writers are encouraged to take chances with their fiction and push the envelope.

Each month at Lightspeed, you will find a mix of original and reprint fiction, and featuring a variety of authors—from the bestsellers and award-winners you already know to the best new voices you haven’t heard of yet. When you read Lightspeed, it is our hope that you’ll see where science fiction comes from, where it is now, and where it’s going.

Lightspeed also features a variety of nonfiction features, fiction podcasts, and Q&As with our authors that go behind-the-scenes of their stories.

Lightspeed's regular publication schedule each month includes two pieces of original fiction and two fiction reprints, along with four nonfiction articles. Fiction posts on Tuesdays, nonfiction on Thursdays. Additionally, award-winning audiobook producer Stefan Rudnicki, will be producing the Lightspeed Magazine story podcast, which will feature audio adaptations of two Lightspeed stories every month.

Lightspeed's debut issue features four all-new, never-before-published stories: from newcomer Vylar Kaftan, an interstellar love story dealing with the perils of communication and time-dilation; from bestselling, award-winning author Jack McDevitt, a tale about Earth’s moon and the mysteries it might still possess; from David Barr Kirtley, an adventure of a young catman who must face the last of the dogmen and something else entirely unexpected; and from bestselling author Carrie Vaughn, a cautionary tale of the near future that shows some of the extremes we might be pushed to if we don’t start implementing now the seeds for a sustainable future.

Additional features include an article about relativity and the speed of light by astronomer/author Mike Brotherton; a list of the top ten reasons why genetically-engineered animals won't make good pets by humorist Carol Pinchefsky; a profile of astronaut Eugene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon, by Genevieve Valentine; and a primer for sustainable living by ecologist Amanda Rose Levy.

As a special feature of the debut issue, in conjunction with the popular podcasts Escape Pod and Hugo Award nominee Starship Sofa, Lightspeed will present two bonus podcasts: "I'm Alive, I Love You, I'll See You in Reno" by Vylar Kaftan will appear on Escape Pod on June 1 and "Cats in Victory" by David Barr Kirtley will appear on Starship Sofa on June 15. This is in addition to the Lightspeed Magazine story podcast's offerings, which will present "The Cassandra Project" by Jack McDevitt and "Amaryllis" by Carrie Vaughn.

Future issues of Lightspeed will include fiction by the likes of George R. R. Martin, Joe Haldeman, Ursula K. Le Guin, Carol Emshwiller, Catherynne M. Valene, Tobias S. Buckell, Tananarive Due, Yoon Ha Lee, Cat Rambo, and Adam-Troy Castro, as well as from newcomers such as Genevieve Valentine, Alice Sola Kim, David Tallerman, John R. Fultz, and Corey Joshua Mariani.

Lightspeed held a launch event at the science fiction convention Wiscon, in Madison, WI on Memorial Day weekend. Limited edition Lightspeed Magazine samplers in digest magazine format were made available for free to all members of the convention. This special hardcopy edition of Lightspeed features "I'm Alive, I Love You, I'll See You in Reno" by Vylar Kaftan, "Is There Anybody Out There That Wants to Go Fast" by Mike Brotherton, "Amaryllis" by Carrie Vaughn, and an Author Spotlight on Carrie Vaughn. The launch event included readings from Vylar Kaftan, Alice Sola Kim, Cat Rambo, and Genevieve Valentine.

About John Joseph Adams (Fiction Editor)

John Joseph Adams (www.johnjosephadams.com) is the bestselling editor of many anthologies, such as Wastelands, The Living Dead (a World Fantasy Award finalist), By Blood We Live, Federations, and The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Barnes & Noble.com named him “the reigning king of the anthology world,” and his books have been named to numerous best of the year lists. Prior to taking on the role of fiction editor of Lightspeed, John worked for nearly nine years in the editorial department of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. In addition to his editorial work, John is also the co-host of Tor.com’s Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast.

About Andrea Kail (Nonfiction Editor)

Andrea Kail (www.andreakail.com) is a graduate of the Dramatic Writing Program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and has spent the last two decades working from one end of New York’s television spectrum to the other: HBO, MTV, A&E, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, as well as thirteen years at NBC’s Emmy Award-winning Late Night with Conan O’Brien. Her fiction has appeared in Fantasy Magazine, and her novella, “The Sun God at Dawn, Rising from a Lotus Blossom,” was a first-place winner in the Writers of the Future contest and appeared in Writers of the Future Vol. XXIII.  Since 2005, Andrea has also been writing lively film criticism for such venues as Paradox Magazine and CinemaSpy.

About Stefan Rudnicki (Audio Editor)

Stefan Rudnicki is an independent director, producer, narrator, and publisher of audiobooks. He has received more than a dozen Audie Awards from the Audio Publishers Association, a Ray Bradbury Award, a Bram Stoker Award, and a GRAMMY Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children for The Children’s Shakespeare. Outside of the audiobook industry, he’s probably best known for the dozen books he’s written or edited, from actor’s resource anthologies to a best-selling adaptation of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. He is also president of Skyboat Road Company, Inc. (www.skyboatroad.com), the most respected independent audio production team on the West Coast. 

About Prime Books

Prime Books (www.prime-books.com), edited and published by Hugo Award-nominee and World Fantasy Award-winner Sean Wallace, is an award-winning independent publishing house specializing in a mix of anthologies, collections, novels, and magazines. Some of its established and new authors/editors include John Joseph Adams, KJ Bishop, Philip K. Dick, Theodora Goss, Rich Horton, Nick Mamatas, Sarah Monette, Holly Phillips, Tim Pratt, Ekaterina Sedia, Catherynne M. Valente, and Jeff VanderMeer.

Contacts

Sean Wallace, publisher, sean@lightspeedmagazine.com
John Joseph Adams, fiction editor, john@lightspeedmagazine.com
Andrea Kail, non-fiction editor, andrea@lightspeedmagazine.com

Lightspeed's complete posting schedule for June 2010 follows:

June 1

Fiction: "I'm Alive, I Love You, I'll See You in Reno" by Vylar Kaftan
Author Spotlight: Vylar Kaftan
Podcast: "I'm Alive, I Love You, I'll See You in Reno" by Vylar Kaftan (on Escape Pod)
Editorial by John Joseph Adams

June 3

Nonfiction: "Is There Anybody Out There That Wants to Go Fast" by Mike Brotherton

June 8

Fiction: "The Cassandra Project" by Jack McDevitt
Author Spotlight: Jack McDevitt
Podcast: "The Cassandra Project" by Jack McDevitt, narrated by Stefan Rudnicki

June 10

Nonfiction: "The High Untresspassed Sanctity of Space: Seven True Stories about Eugene Cernan" by Genevieve Valentine

June 15

Fiction: "Cats in Victory" by David Barr Kirtley
Author Spotlight: David Barr Kirtley
Podcast: "Cats in Victory" by David Barr Kirtley (on Starship Sofa)

June 17

Nonfiction: "Top Ten Reasons Why Uplifted Animals Don't Make Good Pets" by Carol Pinchefsky

June 22

Fiction: "Amaryllis" by Carrie Vaughn
Author Spotlight: Carrie Vaughn
Podcast: "Amaryllis" by Carrie Vaughn, narrated by Stefan Rudnicki

June 24

Nonfiction: "Every Step We Take" by Amanda Rose Levy

Jenny's Sick at Lightspeed

It's always nice when these blog post titles make a degree of sense.  It seems perfectly likely that Jenny (whoever she might be) would get a little green around the gills if she was travelling at the speed of light.  And, by coincidence, I've just sold my story Jenny's Sick to new pro-rate market Lightspeed.

It would be hard to exagerate just how awesome this news is.  To give an idea, though, a few facts: when it launches in June of this year, Lightspeed will be the sisterzine of the established and hugely respected Fantasy Magazine.  It's editors are no less than Writers of the Future winner Andrea Kail and best-selling anthologist John Joseph Adams.  Yeah, that John Joseph Adams - the one who accepted my Stockholm Syndrome for his zombie anthology, which went on to become The Living Dead, which went on even further to sell shocking amounts of copies, be a finalist for the World Fantast Award, be named one of the best books of the year by Publisher's Weekly, and to generally kick ass. 

I think John - who, by the way, is one of the downright nicest and most positive editors I've worked with - may possibly be my patron saint or something.  He's certainly done my bank balance huge favours.  I could sing his praises all day, and I could sure as hell go on about how excited I am to be appearing in Lightspeed, but I've run out of fizzy wine so here instead is Lightspeed's press release, saying everything I'd want to say in a much calmer fashion.