Don’t fence me in

Lyn Perry e-mailed today to say he had accepted my poem, The Cards You’re Dealt, for CyberAliens Press’s up-coming print anthology, Silly Westerns.

The Cards You’re Dealt is a medium-long narrative poem about a poker game aboard a train headed for the California gold fields in 1849.  Not miners, mind you; One-Eyed Bob, Fat Ned, Dapper Bobby Kirk and the others were the sort that wore suits.

According to Lyn, the book will feature “hilarious stories of the Wild West, some sappy Prairie Romance, and even a little bit o’ SteamPunk, as long as it’s knock-us-on-our-butt funny! We’re also lookin’ fer cowboy poetry and limericks, art and comics, and anything else that’s sure-as-shootin’ silly.

Publication is set for October 1, 2009.  I’ll post order information when it’s available.

K.C. phone home

Dial Tone is a little bit of silliness, a 216-word goof that has never left home. Still, I think it has its charms.

Writers of the future

It’s official. I’m one of the eight finalists in the 1st quarter 2009 Writers of the Future competition.

The contest, sponsored by the L. Ron Hubbard Foundation, is open to writers of science fiction or fantasy who haven’t yet placed three or more of their short stories in pro-level publications.

Four times a year, eight finalists are selected from a field of 1,000+ entrants by novelist K.D. Wenworth, a two-time Nebula Award finalist, and those eight stories are passed along for final judging by a team of judges that includes the likes of Algis Budrys, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, Orson Scott Card, Kevin J. Anderson, Greg Benson, Tim Powers and other notables.

The seven other finalists for 1st quarter are Alex Black of Oregon, Tom Crosshill of Connecticut. David Gullen of Surrey, England, Vincent Jorgensen of California, Robert Pritchard of California, Lee Seentes of New Zealand and Brad Torgersen of Utah.

Three winners — first, second and third — will be selected by the judges and that’s when things get a bit giddy.

The first place winner receives a cash prize of $1,000; second place gets $750 and third, $500. Each of the three winning stories also earn a place in the annual Writers of the Future anthology.

There’s more.

Each August, the twelve winners from the previous year are invited to attend a week-long workshop, all expenses paid by the Hubbard Foundation, and at the end of the week, the winners are honored at a black-tie awards ceremony.

I haven’t made it that far yet, but I can dream. And I am pretty psyched about making finalist with my first entry in the contest.

If you’re interested in knowing more about the competition, check out the Writers’ of the Future web site. Jordan Lapp, managing editor of Every Day Fiction, and 1st place winner in the 3rd quarter 2008 competition, also has a raft of great links at his blog, Without Really Trying.

Wish me luck, if you will. Winning this would be a real leg up.

At big pulp

Signed the publishing agreement with Big Pulp just now.  Tin Man will appear at the magazine’s on-line site May 11, 2009.

Tin Man is a 2,500-word short; urban fantasy and as close as I get to weird. It’s about a fellow from Seattle who comes down from a long, hard drunk, after receiving bad news, with a tin can sprouting from the back of his left hand.

I’ll post a reminder on the 11th.

Bummer

We Who Still Labour, the 4,800-word urban fantasy I wrote for The Blackness Within, a British anthology, has come home with it’s tale tucked between it’s legs.  (Pardon the pun.)

It was a swell rejection, though. The editor said some nice things about the story and then explained that he wouldn’t be taking it because he thought my interpretation of Moccus, the Celtic god upon which the anthology is based, was “too benevolent”.

He went on to say he liked the way I wrote, though, and if I had something darker and “not set in the States or Great Britain”, he would love to look at it.

I don’t, of course.

I had never heard of Moccus until I spotted the advertisement for the anthology and I don’t know diddly squat about any place outside the U.S.A., not enough to write about it with any measure of comfort.

But, hey; it was nice of him to offer.

We Who Still Labour is set at the North Junction Diner, a hole-in-the-wall place outside Coshocton, Ohio, and it involves the reincarnation of Moccus, Celtic god of fertility and the hunt, a couple of escaped convicts, a feisty waitress named Darlene Comer and fifty Landrace pigs.

How could anyone say “no” to that?

BTW, the “u” in the titular Labour was because the story was intended for a Brit market. I suppose I need to Americanize it before I send it out to make the rounds here.