Two cons coming up

This is my last weekend in a while when I will be in town; I am traveling next weekend to Colorado Springs to the GalaxyFest convention, and the weekend after that is ConDFW in Dallas. This particular ConDFW will mark the tenth anniversary of my first visit. ConDFW in 2003 was the first s-f convention I ever attended; I didn't know s-f conventions even existed before then.

I went years as an s-f reader without knowing there was an s-f fandom; I suppose because I didn't know any  fans (since I moved to Texas in 1985) and never ran across any. There aren't many in journalism. The only reason I learned about ConDFW in 2003 was because someone sent a news release out, and it crossed my desk at the newspaper where I worked then. In fact, I attended on a press pass.

I was flabbergasted by all the information I picked up from panels, and at the very last panel I learned from Jayme Blaschke about Revolution SF. I asked him if I could send him a story. When he published "Silvern" that June, this was his intro:

"New writer Lou Antonelli isn't really a new writer at all. A longtime newspaper editor and reporter with multiple awards from Texas Press Association in editorial, column, and feature writing, Antonelli has recently turned his hand to science fiction with impressive results, as evidenced by the following story."

The story is still archived on-line. It had a nice piece of art, too, which I've included here (The Maguffin is a silver dollar.)

My second story published in, "Silence is Golden", was published in August 2003 and was the first story of mine to receive a Honorable Mention in Gardner Dozois' annual anthology. I sold Gardner "A Rocket for the Republic" the following spring/

I think I've been able to attend at least some portion of ConDFW ever since.

This will be the first time I've attended GalaxyFest. I wanted to go last year, but health and other plans intervened ( in general, I don't like to attend cons only a week apart, it's a physical strain). They asked me again this year, and this time I was able to swing it.

I'm looking forward to getting the panel schedules for both cons soon.

Latest story published, "Damascus Interrupted"

The Phantasmagorium web site has published by Alternate History/Christian Horror story "Damascus Interrupted". You can find it on-line 

Ed Morris, fiction editor at Phantasmagorium, said "It follows our guidelines to the letter, and still manages to be pure, unadulterated Antonelli Brand Alternate History. Lou Antonelli, you are a cross-genre surgeon who delivers such hybrid children with skill, wit and panache. Pleasure to be running this one this week..."

It is my oldest unpublished story, I wrote it in January 2003. It was originally supposed to be my first published story, but the small print mag that originally wanted it went out of business beforehand. When I attended my first con, ConDFW in February 2003, this was the story I had sold. A big reason I wanted to attend the con was to learn about the markets, because I realized that if my stuff was actually publishable, I needed to know what I was doing.

At ConDFW I met Jayme Blaschke, fiction editor at Revolution S-F, and it was Jayme who ultimately published my first story in June 2003.

"Damascus" is my 70th published story since then, and my ninth this year.