Pomp and Circumstance

Sorry if anyone has been looking for me here for the past two weeks, but the end of May is a very busy time for me professionally. Being a community newspaper editor, I have a lot of things to cover at the end of the school year. My newspaper comes out twice a week, and this is the only time of tbe year I develop a news backlog, i.e. I actually have more news than I can print each issue.

Obviously, I haven't sat down for a few weeks to write any fiction, but on the other hand, I've been jotting down a lot of notes. As things slow down. I may have a half dozen or so stories hitting the slush piles. I have that many stories in various stages of repair, ranging from complete stories that need rewrites, to drafts written out but not typed (to ease my carpal tunnel syndrome, I will occasionally will write a story out longhand - it helps because I am right-handed, but it's my left wrist that has the worst pains) to stories that need a beginning or end (which I may have come up with during the past few weeks).

I have about a half dozen stories in the slush pile for the next issue of Sentinel S-F, which will be published July 15. I will be making a decision on July 1. The last issue was very well received. Jay Lake was happy for the story I published. If you have a story, you're welcome to submit it at plantonelli@valornet.com

I'm making plans for Conestoga in Tulsa in July, Archon (NASFIC) in August and FenCon in September. I still have to pick a story for the FenCon book. I need to go update my submission log.

I will NOT be going to ArmadillonCon this year. After Archon I should be taking a week's vacation and making a trip to the East Coast, and I will be coming back that weekend.

After the publication of "Insight" and "It's Wonderful, Life" in Twisted Tongue in May, the only thing I have pending is "My Ugly Little Self", which is also going t be published by Twisted Tongue, in September.