Bards and Sages Quarterly, April 2014

So it's finally out, a story I wasn't sure would ever see the light of day but remain forever locked away in a dark drawer because it was a bit too, well, you know, weirdy-fun?  Instead, it was picked up by Bards and Sages Quarterly the sixth time I subbed it.

The story of which I speak is A Moveable Buffet,  my humorous piece set in a swank restaurant in Paris in 2029, which features 3 human law enforcers - a Frenchman, an American, and an Aussie - as well as a colourful alien from a distant galaxy. There is international crime, a mystery, a spot of action, and possibly... well, you'll have to read it to find out more.

Presently, you can procure e-copies by either popping over to Amazon or Smashwords.

I hope you enjoy it.

Aaaah, I love the smell of a new publication in the morning.

Look What I Just Found:

I was just checking on a link repair, when I discovered they'd put up the cover for the first issue of Lakeside Circus:

 

 

It's odd - my stories are often labelled creepy, and yet I never set out to write creepy. It just sort of happens. Creepy.

Aliens Favourably Received

Lazily scooting around the blogs before I sit down for my first session of serious 2014 writing, I discovered over at Alex Dally MacFarlane's blog that Aliens: Recent Encounters, the anthology she edited (which includes my short story Nullipara) is on io9's list of The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of 2013.  

io9 writes:

There were a lot of anthologies this year, including several with ambitious themes — but this one blew us away more than any other.

Mostly because of the sheer volume of greatness contained in these 32 stories, ranging from Ken Liu's "Bookmaking Habits of Select Species" to Ursula K. Le Guin's "Seasons of the Ansarac." These are classic stories of alien encounters, from some of the best science fiction writers working today.

 Nice. Very nice. I'm loving 2014 already.

All my Sequins are Polished, I'm Ready to Go.

I'm up!

I've hiked up my spangly tights, smoothed down all articles of clothing spandexy, warmed up with a few back flips and pranced into the ring to strut my stuff before a hopefully appreciative audience. So, should you require a quick read before the evening's festivities, my story Winds of Change is up for your perusal over at Lakeside Circus. Slated for December 13, 2013, it has only just now appeared in the main arena.

There have been a few teething problems with the new Lakeside Circus site (must send them an email about the a certain link at the end of my piece), but after much whip cracking to bring the internet lions into line and the glittery dust settling, you can now pop on over and enjoy a new story every few days.

End of the Month Report: November 2013

Submissions: 9 (3 to the same antho)
Rejections: 6
Acceptances: 0
Published: 1 (Winds of Change)
Stories out in the wild: 11
New stories completed: 1 (has already been sent out and rejected for the first time)
Mood: Slowly but surely, I'm getting more done writingwise. Will now slowly but surely get on with doing some more :)

Should You Choose To Accept It

A huge congratulations to Steve Cameron, who has just made his first professional sale to Mike Resnik's magazine Galaxy's Edge. Yaaaaaaay!

Writing is not the easiest of career paths to walk, and anyone, aside from the occasional genius, who undertakes the scribe's long journey (and remember, no-one forces you to take that particular road in the yellow wood) should be prepared for lots of rejection and disappointment, so it's great to see that all Steve's hard work and persistence has paid off, and that he's well on his way to a SFWA membership.

Also - and this is the bit that's all about me - it's wonderful to actually know someone you met when they were starting out their mission to become a writer, someone who has stuck to their guns and steadily worked their way upwards to professional success, because it makes me believe that maybe, just maybe, I can do it too. It's not a certainty, and possibly it may never happen, but knowing a real, live, flesh and blood person who has achieved a goal you're also aiming for certainly makes it less pie-in-the-sky and more feasible. Do the work, do it well, weather the storms, keep your eyes on the prize, enjoy the process and things will happen, is the message one absorbs. Steve's success certainly inspired me today; I hit my desk and tackled a particularly stubborn story I have to write, and resubbed a piece everyone seems to likes but no-one buys. I suppose that's why positive mentors and role models and supportive peers are so important in all areas of life.

So once again, congratulations, Steve. This is, I'm sure, just the first of many pro sales.

Bards and Sages Quarterly, October 2013

My plucky little NASA Martian rover and assorted other personable space probes tribute short story The Stars Their Hesitation in the Bards and Sages Quarterly, October 2013 issue is now available in a multitude of formats to suit all reading predilections, budgets and technological tastes (I was waiting for all the info to come together before posting):




Amazon Paperback

Amazon Kindle

Smashwords  (EPub, .mobi, PDF, LMR and PDB)

Please enjoy!

End of the Month Report: June 2013

Submissions: 8
Rejections: 5
Acceptances: 0 (but there's a very nice maybe...)
Published: 1 (Nullipara in 'Aliens: Recent Encounters')
Stories out in the wild: 10
New stories completed: 1 (I just sent it off.)
Mood: I'm writing much and feeling good about it. Also, I'm in anthology sharing a TOC with names that make my head spin. What's not to grin about?

Note From Editor: Aliens Spotted in Dallas

Even though the official release day for Aliens: Recent Encounters is 17 June 2013,  editor Alex Dally MacFarlane reports here on her blog that she saw, and actually fondled, copies of the anthology  in a Barnes & Nobles in Dallas. She even provides a cool shelf photo.
  
Sooooo, things are hotting up. It's sooooo exciting. I sooooo still can't believe I somehow squeezed into that amazing TOC!

There's also an interview with Alex about the anthology and her own writing over at SF Signal.

Now to get some writing done in between loads of washing. Here in Australia, this is the Queen's Birthday long weekend, so I'm eager to get the domestic stuff out of the way so I can catch up with my muses, a few movies, some rest, and hopefully a day of socialising with the good folk down at Continuum tomorrow.

Dead Deals Coming Your Way

And so my personal publishing Day of the Dead has finally arrived - the anthology of undead creatures large and small Return of the Dead Men (and Women) Walking  featuring my 1920s Aussie vampire droving yarn The Snowy River Feral is finally out!

Purchasing links are HERE, although it looks like the print version isn't quite ready yet (but I know they're sending our contributor copies out at the end of the week, so it shouldn't be long).


The TOC looks like this:

Bring Me the Head of Pepe Cortez!
by J. Tanner
Putting the Romance Back into Necromancy
by Sarina Dorie
The Snowy River Feral
by Gitte Christensen
When the Rain Stops
by Mark Charke
Duppy
by Kurt Bachard
Tainted
by E.M. MacCullum
Deadest in Show
by Karissa B. Sluss
The Body in the Water
by Marilag Angway
For All Your Carpeting Needs
by Matthew D. Johnson
The Baby
by Brian Rosenberger
Fixing Nancy
by Jonathan Templar
Sacrifices
by Dawn Lyons
The Heart of the Storm
by Matthew Smallwood
Three Strikes
by Aurelio Rico Lopez III

The Horror in the Attic
by Julie Ann Dawson
 
And there are a couple of great opportunities to win free copies of the anthology. The one is an invite by Bards & Sages Publishing for me to get a competition going on my blog for promotional purposes, and they'll provide a print copy as a prize for the winner. I have an idea for easy participation and a random choosing of the winner, more a lottery than a sweat-it struggle - I'll just have to run it by the B&S people first. Cross fingers it's okay.

Until then, if you'd like a shot at winning a free e-copy of Dead Men, there's this offer from B&S Publishing to join them at the eFestival of Words Virtual Bookfair site to play Horror Bingo. All you have to do is sign up to get your free bingo card,  follow @festivalofword or @bardsandsages on Twitter, and then watch your Twitter feed daily to catch the Horror Bingo word of the day. Complete your bingo card and who knows, you might win a free digital copy of the anthology in your choice of Kindle, epub or PDF format. Easy as!

Good luck.

***The links are all fixed now. Go forth and win!  

Put on your pith helmet

With much whooping, I can now officially announce that my story Whale of a Time** will appear in the anthology 'Dark Tales of Lost Civilizations', edited by Eric J Guignard. This anthology is a collection of dark tales of Horror, Speculative Fiction and Science Fiction relating to civilizations that are lost, or have been forgotten, or have been rediscovered, or perhaps merely spoken about in great and fearful whispers.

It will be published by Dark Moon Books, and be released next spring (US) for the 2012 World Horror Convention in Salt Lake City.

So I've got the hat, but where did I park my Lear Jet?

**And yes, there are cetaceans in this story, Jim, but not as we know them.

End of the Month Report: October

Submissions: 2 (not many rejections, my stories are being kept longer, and I have a lot of almost ready to go stuff but it's all in need of a final spit and polish)
Rejections: 3
Acceptances: 0
Published: 1 (Quick Fix in Bards and Sages October Issue)
Stories out in the wild: 7
New stories completed: 1 (the harpy story - but it needs to sit a while)
Mood: Optimistic about the way my backlog of stories are slowly finding homes. I keep a diary in which each story has its own section, and I diligently record its ups and downs in the world, and give it a gold star when it's accepted (childish, I know, but fun and immensely satisfying). Some stories are snapped up "quickly" i.e only rejected once or twice, which is about six months worth of waiting, while others take years to find the right editor at the right time, so one's sense of continuity easily becomes skewed. However, sticking in a star for the latest antho acceptance, I realised that I have a section where eight consecutive stories have all been published, small gaps on either side, and then more sporadic stars. Perhaps some of those earlier stories will never find homes, but it was a very visual and very encouraging reminder to me that writing and publishing work in time frames that are almost geological. I know I've been through a few Ice Ages.

So, once more, the key words writers need to cling to are our old friends PATIENCE and PERSISTENCE.

Tiptoe to the Tuber

I completely forgot to mention that Moonlight Tuber #3, which seems to be called Derek, is out now. It's free. And it's here.

While you're at it, you can also pop over for a freebie Aurealis #45 here. Apparently, this venerable old Aussie mag of over twenty years, which over a decade ago had the good taste to publish a science fiction story of mine called Voyage to Abydos, will eventually become a monthly emag. Editor Dirk Strasser (whose TAFE science fiction writing course I once attended for a semester and even got a certificate for, she casually name dropped) writes: Up until issue #44, the magazine has been confined by paper pages and the three dimensions of the book format. Now we've escaped. And there's no going back. We believe a publication devoted to fantasy and science fiction should be at the forefront of change. So here we are. Right on the edge.

So, electric Aurealis? Indeed the publishing times they are a changin'.

What a rush

I almost didn't get to the Arvo Job yesterday. As I was hurrying out the front door, I literally bumped into the postie, who was holding an excitingly book sized package. Could it be, could it be? I signed, seized the package from the poor man and ripped it open. And yes indeed, it contained real, live, physical copies of The Year's Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2010 that I could, after all the proofs and photos, actually hold and fondle. I stuffed one into my book bag, ran for the train, just made it, then sat perusing the pages all the way to Woodend. I even imagined a scene in which the train crashed and they found me with a smile on my face clutching YBAF&H 2010 and it didn't seem at all morbid to me, but rather a reward from the gods in the best Greek-myths-about-hubris-dying-while-you're-happy way.

Anyway, I've read the blogs of a few of the other contributors, and some of them have wondered, in the nicest way, who the heck folk like me are, but I'm only too aware of who they all are and how lucky I am to have squeezed into this volume. And I'm also determined to enjoy the experience as much as possible, for who knows when or whether I'll get a joy-hit like this again?

And congratulations to Steve Cameron, who is not only on the Recommended Reading List, but also scored a mention on page 22 in the 'Year in Review' section as 'an antipodean author'. See how I scoured the pages? :)

Bards and Sages Quarterly, July 2011.

But, by golly, wait, there's more! The July 2011 issue of Bards and Sages, which includes my story Found in Translation, is also out now.


You can puchase it here at Amazon.com.

In the current issue:

An interview with Visions of Mars author Eric S. Rabkin on Why Speculative Fiction Matters.
An intergalactic con artist realizes too late that some words, when taken literally, have deadly outcomes in Found in Translation.
A copper dragon's goal to dance in Swan Lake stumbles over an obvious problem in The Dream.
A demonic detective investigates the murder of a fallen angel in Faces of the Fallen.
Plus more original stories!

Ah, what a day (I'm pretty chuffed that B&S used my story to advertise the contents.) I've celebrated by not doing any housework, pottering around the house and this blog a lot, and soon I'll be off to the movies to see Meek's Cutoff.