Black is the New Black

I mentioned last week that my key to successfully getting short stories accepted at the moment seems to be just to send out the same story, Caretaker in the Garden of Dreams, out over and over again, since it got picked up by two different markets within a week of each other.

Recent events have made me reconsider this rule slightly.  From now on, I'll only be sending out either Caretaker or tales that have the word "black" in the title.  Reason being, having recently had Black Sun accepted by Digital Science Fiction, I've now sold Black Horticulture to long-standing, consistently great webzine Abyss and Apex.

According to my dubious records, Abyss and Apex was the thirteenth market I ever sent to, way back in early 2006.  Since then, I've been hammering them with submissions on a regular basis, at a rate of roughly three a year.  So all told, it only took me sixteen attempts to find one they really liked!  Sometimes determination really does pay off.  Then again, sometimes they call it "stalking" and throw you in jail for it; I guess telling one situation from the other is just one of those life lessons we all have to learn sooner or later.

Anyway, Black Horticulture's kind of a special story, and I'm really glad it was the one A & A finally caved on.  In 2007 or 2008, I wrote a small handful of tales where, for the first time, I really felt like I'd nailed something, even if I wasn't completely sure what it was or what to do with it.  Black Horticulture was one of those.  If I remember rightly, the others were  Rindelstein's Monsters, which ended up in Comet Press's The Death Panel anthology, In the Service of the Guns, which landed in Space and Time, and Dancing in the Winter Rooms, coming up in Electric Velocipede.  So they've all done good, and Black Horticulture is no exception.  If it's taken a bit longer than the others, it's because - in another one of those crucial life lesson things - I discovered that sometimes you don't have to start with five pages of back story covering your hero's entire life from birth, you can just tuck that information away in a couple of lines in dialogue.  Eureka!


Right.  I'd better get back to work on my new story.  It's called Black Caretaker in the Black Garden of Black Dreams - the uplifting tale of one 1940s African-American groundskeeper's struggle to defend the baseball stadium where he works as a nightwatchman from interdimensional aliens.  Seriously, this one's gonna make me rich...

June Reviews

I linked a couple of weeks back to a review of Space and Time # 107 that was less than complimentary about my story In the Service of the Guns. Thankfully, a recent trawl revealed a few more generous comments on my stories.

Taking In the Service first, this review from SFRevu is considerably kinder to it than the last, and very positive about the issue as a whole.

Next up, SFCrowsnest features a thorough review of Murky Depths # 8, and has the following to say about my Peachy:

"A cat named 'Peachy' goes strangely still and quiet in David Tallerman's tale of how ordinary life can be interrupted by unimaginable disaster. The very ordinariness of everyday life allows the finale to stand out pointedly. Short but thoughtful."

Lastly, here's another reviewer picking out Stockholm Syndrome as a favourite from the Living Dead anthology.

In the Service of Equity

I don't normally draw attention to negative reviews of my work, as I imagine most writers don't. Still, it's been a while since I've posted (due entirely to lack of news this month, either good or bad) so here's a link to a detailed commentary on Space and Time # 107 by author and editor Robert J. Santa.

Needless to say I don't agree with his comments on In the Service of the Guns, but he does justly praise some other stories in the issue - Bits and Pieces, Catted and Chocolate Kittens From Mars are all marvellous, though I wasn't quite so impressed by Ebb - and it's the only review I've found so far.

Space and Time in hand

My contributor copies of Space and Time # 107 arrived this morning, and my but it's a beautifully put-together magazine. One of my biggest gripes with the genre publishing industry is that art has become a poor second to story; many editors have given up on it altogether, and many of those that haven't pay it far less than the attention it deserves. Not so S & T. I've already commented on Steven Gilberts's gorgeously lurid cover; thankfully the interior art more than keeps up. My thanks and huge respect go out to Martin Hanford, whose superb illustration accompanies my In the Service of the Guns.

I'm sure I've said this before, but getting a story illustrated is just about my favourite part of being a writer. To see something you've imagined through someone else's eyes, in a different medium no less, is a weird and wonderful experience. Before I settled on writing I wanted to be an artist (and still have vague plans of taking up drawing again) and I have huge respect for anyone who can draw well. I've learned to appreciate that there's far more involved than mere technical skill - a good genre illustrator needs just as much story-telling ability as the writers he illustrates.

So thanks again to Martin, and to the Space and Time crew for putting together something I'll be proud to wave in the faces of frightened strangers.