Couple new pieces up at Wily Writers
For those unfamiliar with Wily Writers, all of their stories are available in both text and MP3 formats. You can also find the audio versions on iTunes as free podcasts.
I am back in Seattle, parked in front of a fan and enjoying the balmy 65 degree weather. It’s a beautiful change in pace from Kansas, where they had a heat index of 110 on some of my final days there. It was just muggy and awful. I’m glad we’d gotten milder weather for most of the early part of my stay. I’d never even heard of a heat index prior to this. Seattle is a civilized place that has no such things.
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First, pimping of others:
There’s a new story up at Wily Writers, “The Tunnel” by Matt Cowens.
A.M. Dellamonica, who taught my UCLA extension course, has been short-listed for the Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic. There’s also some other people on the list.
Crossed Genres has announced the winners of their flash fiction contest.
The location of the Seattle stop of Jennifer Brozek and Seanan McGuire’s “Murder and Mayhem” tour has changed. It is now as follows:
SEATTLE
July 10, 2010, 6pm+
Wayward Coffeehouse
8570 Greenwood Ave N
Seattle WA 98103
And, my own personal news is that I sent off two short stories off for consideration a couple days ago, for a total of three that are awaiting response. I have another one that is almost ready for prime time that is due in a couple weeks and I’m hoping to get another written and submitted by the end of the month. I’m pretty excited about this because I’m aggressively pursuing other markets beyond Crossed Genres and, even if they don’t get picked up, I’ll have a fleet of stories representing a lot of lessons learned over the last few years that I can shop around to other markets.
In a move that surprises no one, I am not one of the finalists for the PNWA Literary Contest. Though I did discover that Nathan Everett, known as Wayzgoose among the NaNoWriMo set, is a finalist! So rock on for him.
The news of the finalists is mainly of note to me because the notes from the judges are supposed to be back this week. I can then turn around and roll that feedback into the manuscript I’m working on. I may have to have a few beers before facing the criticisms, though.
In other news, Jennifer Brozek is going to be on her “Murder and Mayhem” tour with Seanan McGuire. Jennifer has a collection of short stories coming out, In a Gilded Light: 105 Tales of the Macabre while Ms. McGuire will be featuring her series, Sparrow Hill Road. I have a couple locations from an email she sent out if you want to check those out. There is probably also info to be found by examining Jennifer’s Web site
SEATTLE
July 10, 2010, 6:30pm
Third Place Books
17171 Bothell Way NE
Lake Forest Park, WA 98155
SAN FRANCISCO
July 17, 2010, 3:00pm
Borderlands Books
866 Valencia St.
San Francisco CA 94110
There’s also new flash fiction up at Wily Writers. I encourage you to go check out “The Time-Share by Fred Warren.
First, some pimping!
This month, Wily Writers has been providing flash fiction weekly instead of short fiction every other week. The great thing about Wily Writers is that (a) it’s free and (b) they provide MP3 readings of all their stories. This week’s story is, “Grand-Monster” by Sasha Janel McBrayer.
(And, you know, I have a story there too if you want to look for that. *ahem*)
In other news, I spent Saturday night at a reading at Third Place Books for Apex Publishing’s Close Encounters of the Urban Kind. Jennifer Brozek, the editor of the anthology, coordinated the five authors that read and did signings. I meant to post information about the reading earlier, but have been too busy with deadlines to poke at this blog. Especially since most of my update is, “Still working on it.” And I also haven’t read the anthology.
BUT! That said, the readings I heard were marvelous. I felt definitely out of my league among some of these people, and I play D&D with a couple of them. Really top notch stuff. The authors present were:
(I feel I should add: Nate, Rosemary and Eric all had good readings as well. But I already knew they were going to be good. Alma Alexander and Shannon Page were unknown variables.)
Anyway, a quick update on the honeydew. New stuff is italicized, unless I screw up the HTML again.
I received word that my flash fiction piece for 10Flash has been accepted. I believe that will come out in October. I have come to no conclusions regarding my general feeling about flash fiction. I think if I try to write more flash, I will shoot for Every Day Fiction. (Unless, of course, I feel inspired by the next theme for 10Flash.)
Also, I finally finished the last steps in my Web site upgrade. You can see it here. I feel like I’ve entered the 21st century. Only took me a decade.
Other writing projects are inching along. I realized I was a month off on my submission for the Rock is Dead anthology. In a good way, even. It’s due in July and I thought it was June. I’ve shifted focus to my submission for Cobalt City Timeslip. It’s not my most pending deadline, but I don’t feel inspired regarding my other projects these days.
My friend, Nathan Crowder, recently received word that his story “Ink Calls to Ink” had been chosen for Night-Mantled: The Best of Wily Writers Year One. It also features such authors as Angel Leigh McCoy and Jennifer Brozek. A fine crowd to be mixing with.
I’ve been constantly impressed by all the accomplishments Nate’s had this year. Just prior to this he had a story appear in the anthology Close Encounters of the Urban Kind. And before that his magnificent piece “Deacon Carter’s Last Dime” not only appeared in Crossed Genres Year One, but was a finalist in the storySouth Million Writers Awards Notable Stories of 2009.
I’m really proud (and more than a little envious) of Nate’s success. He’s been an excellent friend, peer and mentor and I’m excited that he’s doing so well. Excelsior!
How can you tell they are pimping pants? Because of the leopard print and purple marabou trim on the the legs.
But I digress.
In the mail today I got my pre-ordered copy of Close Encounters of the Urban Kind, edited by the lovely and talented Jennifer Brozek. It features some stories by Pacific Northwest writers that I have the distinction of knowing and loving: Nathan Crowder and Rosemary Jones.
I also see that there are contributions by other writers that I got to see at Norwescon that seemed pretty nifty, such as Alma Alexander, Erik Scott de Bie and Joshua Palmatier.
I haven’t read the stories yet, but I have enough faith in the people involved to say it’s gonna be good. I’ve missed the first two readings they’ve done, but I’m hoping to make their next one. If I recollect properly, it will be June 12th at Third Place Books.
It’s been almost two weeks since I last updated. Yowzers. My usual venues for screwing around have dwindled up, so I haven’t had much time to update this. If I’ve had time for writing, I’ve tried to use it for writing. So I got that going for me.
Well, I got word last night that Crossed Genres is not going to pick up “Thus Have I Heard.” They didn’t cite any problems with the story, which they are usually kind enough to do when I fumble something. And I don’t mean that sarcastically. The fact that they usually take the time to point out weaknesses means a lot to me, and influences my desire to continue submitting to them. So that may mean the story is fine, despite my self-critical frustrations with my execution. Or it may mean they were just crazy busy this month. ;)
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