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.

Another dead soldier

Here’s A Flight Mishap, an orphan that’s been floating about in the submissions basket for awhile that no one seems to want.

It’s just a little bitty thing — 200 words — and like This Little Piggy, everyone told me they had heard the joke before. But I still think it’s funny. That probably says something about my sense of humor, huh?

I hope you like it.

What the frak?

This has nothing to do with writing, but this question begs to be asked, so let me rant for just a moment. What substance were the suits at The SciFi Channel ingesting when they made the decision to change the name of the network to SyFy?

Uh huh; I swear. That’s what they plan to do on July 7, which now will join December 7 as a day that will live in infamy.

Dave Howe, President, SCI FI, made that pronouncement in a news release this past Monday. He said, “By changing the name to Syfy, which remains phonetically identical, the new brand broadens perceptions and embraces a wider and more diverse range of imagination-based entertainment including fantasy, paranormal, reality, mystery, action and adventure, as well as science fiction.”

He went on: “Syfy — unlike the generic entertainment category “sci-fi” — firmly establishes a uniquely ownable trademark that is portable across all non-linear digital platforms and beyond, from Hulu to iTunes. Syfy also creates an umbrella brand name that can extend into new adjacent businesses under the Syfy Ventures banner, such as Syfy Games, Syfy Films and Syfy Kids.”

Of course, they already have Syfy Wrestling, so how about Syfy Home Shopping and Syfy Elevator Music?

And before you tell me that I should have more respect, that this is the network that gave us science-fiction geeks a show as fraking great as Battlestar Galactica, let me remind you that even a blind squirrel stumbling across an acorn once in awhile.

We now return you to regular programming.

Two more babies out into the world

Two more of my stories — And Bay the Moon and Pisces Ascendant — are now in print.

And Bay the Moon is in the March issue of The Absent Willow Review, which hit the net this morning. It’s an urban cautionary tale, set right here in Seattle, and it suggests that jogging at night just might be hazardous to your health.

BTW, I love the way this web site looks!

Pisces Ascendant is in the March issue of Moon Drenched Fables, out yesterday. This one is flash, a modernist take on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid. None of those sappy, happy Disney endings here.

This site has a cool retro feel to it; perfect for the sort of tale they present.

Check out both stories, if you get a chance, and let me know what you think.

Don’t pay the ransom

Almost two weeks since I last posted; sorry about that.

It’s been a crazy fortnight.

I was sick for a time; it seems that I have developed allergies as I have aged. We went to see Watchmen one afternoon and decided to have lunch at California Pizza Kitchen before settling in at the theater. I had a couple of Thai spring rolls and slathered on the peanut sauce. Tasty!

But as we exited the movie, my throat was beginning to feel scratchy and by the time we got home it hurt to swallow. An hour later, I felt as if all my joints had been pumped up to 36 p.s.i. and my throat was filled with mucus.

A trip to Urgent Care cleared it all up, God bless modern pharmaceuticals, but I have had my last taste of spicy peanut sauce; maybe any sort of peanut. I do not want to go through that again.

I am also waiting for notice as to whether or not I will be going to Clarion West this summer. The deadline for submissions was March 1st; I mailed mine the last week in January, so I am beginning to feel like the two fools in Waiting for Godot.

And I began working as a slush reader for Every Day Fiction the first of the month. It has been an eye-opening experience. I have read seventy-five stories over the past two weeks and it is amazing the things that people will submit, thinking that it is flash fiction.

Vignettes and memoirs and diatribes. Jokes — both fair and foul. Some of it very well written; most of it disjointed, confusing and structurally awful. So that when the occasional genuinely good story pops up, it shines!

That’s what keeps me reading. I feel like the optimistic little girl who searches that big pile of manure on her birthday, because she’s convinced there’s a pony in there somewhere.

I have managed to get some writing done. Doctor Sue’s Dr. Seuss is done and it’s longer than I thought it would be. 4,200+ words. It’s about a child psychologist whose best buddy is a big blue talking elephant named Horton and he lives within the walls of her office.

I’m cleaning it up now to get it into the mail. I’ll let you know if anybody likes it well enough to put it in print.

The girl, the blue elephant and everything

I fully expected to work on Grampy’s Dance this morning, add another thousand words or so.

But when I logged into Google, so that it was open and ready, in case I needed to do research, the blurb on the home page informed me that it was Dr. Seuss’ birthday.

And as I considered that (he would be 105 today if he were still alive), four words floated to the upturned window of that magic eight ball that is my imagination.

Doctor Sue’s Dr. Seuss.

And I began to imagine where that had come from and where it might be going.  I began to doodle about and before I knew it, I had written 1,273 words toward what will probably be a three-thousand-word short.

Grampy’s Dance will have to wait just a bit; this one arrived all in a piece and fully formed.  And so, I only stopped writing because I wanted to get something to eat before going to bed.

Doctor Sue’s Dr. Seuss. Boy, is this one out of thin air and off the wall.

And I mean that literally.