I am not Joe Lansdale!!!

If you read the previous post, you know who Edward Morris is. I emailed him later and thanked him for his kind comments. We''ve had a very nice exchange, and one observation he made just cracked me up:

"Honestly, my first thought was that 'Lou Antonelli' was a pen name for 'Joe-R.-Lansdale-trying-his-hand-at-very-creditable-sf', but I see I was wrong. "

It never occurred to me that I'd be mistaken as Champion Joe's s-f doppelganger, but now that I think of it, it makes perfect sense, because Joe has such a "Texas" sense in so much he writes, and of course, "Rocket for the Republic" is the best steampunk tall tale alternate/secret history ever written set the in the Texas Republic. Of course, it's probably the only steampunk tall tale alternate/secret history ever written set the in the Texas Republic...

Lawrence Person emailed yesterday. The next Turkey City workshop in Austin is slated for March 18. Of course, I accepted. Bruce Sterling will be in Austin and Lawrence got him to volunteer to be the guest author again. Bruce hosted the first Turkey City I ever attended in Oct. 2004.

I've replied to Lawrence and volunteered to bake a lasagna for lunch. As those of you who've had the pleasure of eating my lasagna know, it is the Platonic Ideal of the dish.

As we say in Texas, "It ain't bragging if you can do it."

This is great!

Posted on Tuesday, January 31, 2006 - 03:00 am:   
I was googling around the web - trying to keep up with my press, as it were - when I found this on the TTA discussion board. It was in a thread on writing with the subject "Show or Tell?". The comments were by a fellow named Edward Morris and posted Jan. 31, 2006:

#

One pearl of wisdom that I took from an absolutely loathsome 'New Yorker'-has-been college Fiction teacher was that if something's too told and needs more scene, it's too told and needs more scene and there's nothing else to be done.

Lou Antonelli's "A Rocket For the Republic" (Asimov's, Sept. 2005) is entirely 'told', and in vernacular, no less. I was going back through it bit-by-bit, trying to get technical and cut open the golden goose and all that... and it shouldn't work. The aforementioned New Yorker idiot would tear it to pieces. "Too told, more scene."

Yet it does work, to such a degree that it sent me into mad gales of laughter reading it on lunch break at work... because Antonelli threw in enough misdirected fictional rope-a-dopes and one-two punches that, while the reader focuses on the narrative, several other technically brilliant things are going on.

#

Bravo, Mr. Morris - one of the best, if not the best, analyses of the story written to date! You found me out! You hit on a lot of the inner direction I had in writing the story.

Four and counting

Well, in the past few days I picked up a couple more guest gigs. ConDFW said I could join the panels, and I also heard from SoonerCon in Oklahoma City. Together with my previous acceptances at AggieCon and Conestoga, that brings the total to four cons through July.
ConDFW in 2003 was the first Con I ever attended. Now three years later, I get to be a guest. Wow.
I mailed in my application for SFWA membership today. You need three pro-level sale to be a full member; I waited a while after the publication of "Rocket" to see if any more pro-level sales would be forthcoming, but I decided it was time to get off the stick. With only one qualifying sale, I get to be an associate member, which from all my investigations, gets me all the benefits and information except I don't get to vote in official elections.

Latest convention news

AggieCon has posted the biographies for its regional guests. Here's mine from their web site:

"Lou Antonelli has had 22 stories published since he started writing science fiction in August 2002. A journalist by profession, he is the editor of a semi-weekly community newspaper in East Texas. He is a graduate of two Turkey City workshops. He earned four honorable mentions in "The Year's Best Science Fiction, 22nd annual collection" (2005), published by St. Martin's Press, and one honorable mention the previous year.

"A Rocket for the Republic" was Lou's first SFWA-level sale. It also was the last story Gardner Dozois accepted for Asimov's before retiring after 19 years as editor. Tangent Online said of this story published by Asimov's Science Fiction in Sept. 2005: "Steam Punk fans who long for a wholly American twist on the genre will enjoy this story."

"Lou has had stories published in RevolutionSF, Bewildering Stories, Surprising Stories, Continuum Science Fiction, Astounding Tales, AlienSkin, Ultraverse, Beyond Centuari and Andromeda Spaceways In-flight Magazine.

I received word recently that ConDFW may still have some spots available. I'd be very happy to be a panelist there. Still awaiting word.

The Asimov's Readers' Poll closes today. I've been pulling for "Rocket". Hope it gets a respectable showing

Second sale of 2006

My short story "The Runner at Dawn" has been accepted for publication by the quarterly e-zine Worlds of Wonder.Editor Sharon Partington has scheduled the story for publication in their summer issue, set for July 2006.Worlds of Wonder describes itself as "A Webzine of Fantasy & SF."bThis is my second story bought in 2006. NovaSF bought "Good Old Gal" immediately after New Year's.

On being a published author

I finished up my latest story yesterday. It's the first full-length story (not a flash) that I've completed since Oct. 25 - almost three months. That's one of the longest fallow periods I've ever had - but my production during the last half of 2005 dropped sharply, with my starting a new job June 1st (with a 70 mile commute for the first two months) and then being short-handed at the job for nine weeks from September to right after Thanksgiving. I really didn't have much time at home.
This latest story is called "Irredenta" and I've made an effort to develop the character of the protagonist a bit more. He's not a particularly sympathetic or even honest character, but I think he's well-rounded. Oh, well, off we go...
There has been a discussion on the Asimov's forum about whether editors tend to buy stories from already-established authors. Here is how I weighed in on the subject:
"I don't know about you, but when I see a book on the bookshelf by an author I already like (or who I know is good) I will stop and check it out first, before others whose names I don't recognize. That's human nature. Anything by Charlie Stross stops me in my tracks right now. Dave Marusek has only written one book so far, but you can be assured, his name on anything in the future will get skid marks from me.
"And note, I don't write anything like either of them, But I know they're good.
"That doesn't mean I won't read stories by people whose names I don't recognize. But I'll go for the known quantities first.
"So editors are no different than anyone else. That doesn't mean that they'll buy anything that flies off a famous author's printer. Heck, I think Gardner and Gordon both have rejected people like Niven and Card and Reed many times.
"The only thing being a published author will get you is a little kindliness.
"I like to think that when one of my stories lands in a slush pile, Sheila and Stanley and Gordon and others may think, "Well, here's something else from Lou. At least I know it won't suck."
"It may not be great or ground-breaking, but at least it won't make your eyes bleed when you read it. I think folks don't realize how much poorly-written ungrammatical drivel gets sent to editors by people who have no realistic self-awareness of their own capabilities."

My Hugo votes

Well, I mailed in my membership for Lagon IV (which is the World Con this year) and sent along my Hugo nomination ballot. I only nominated in the "literary" categories; I really don't have high opinion of the movies or TV shows out there. Here are my nominees:

Best Novel:
Effendi - John Courtenay Grimwood (Earthlight).
Counting Heads - Dave Marusek (Tor).
The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl - Tim Pratt (Bantam Spectra).
Accelerando - Charles Stross (Ace).
Rocket Science - Jay Lake (Fairwood Press).

Best Novella:
Shadow Twin - Gardner Dozois, George R.R. Martin, Daniel Abraham (Asimov's April/May).
Bank Run - Tom Purdom (Asimov's Oct/Nov.)
Sanctuary - Michael Burstein (Analog Sept.)
Boys and Girls Come Out to Play - Michael Swanwick (Asimov's July).
The Little Goddess - Ian McDonald (Asimov's June).

Best Novelette:
The King of Where-I-Go - Howard Waldrop (SciFiction, Dec.)
In the Loop - Brian Plante (Analog, July/August).
City of Reason - Matt Jarpe (Asimov's January).
Second Person, Present Tense - Daryl Gregory (Asimov's Sept.)
The Edge of Nowhere - James Patrick Kelly (Asimov's June).

Best Short Stories:
The Bravest Girl I Ever Knew - Howard Waldrop (King Kong Unbound original anthology)
A Horse of the Different Color (That You Rode In On) - Howard Waldrop (SciFiction, Nov.)
A Rocket for the Republic - Lou Antonelli (Asimov's, Sept.)
The Cast Iron Dybbuk - Lou Antonelli (Andromeda Spaceways In-Flight Magazine, June/July).
The Ice Cream Man - James Van Pelt (Asimov's June).

Best Professional Editor:
Ellen Datlow
Stanley Schmidt
Gordon Van Gelder

Best Semiprozine:
Andromeda Spaceways In-flight Magazine
Beyond Centauri
Continuum Science Fiction
Nova Science Fiction

Best Fanzine:
Pablo Lennis (John Thiel)

John W. Campbell Award:
Lou Antonelli