Getting ready for Tulsa

I'll be off this weekend to Tulsa for Conestaga 11. Here's my intinery:

Saturday at 11:00 a.m. - Salon F: "Secret and Pocket Histories: Is history really that fun?"

Sun at 10:00 a.m. - Salon F: "As you know, Bob. The positives and negatives of infodumps."

Sun 1:00 p.m - Chickasaw: Reading.

I think I'll read "Avatar", the story that was publised by Darker Matter in April. It's certainly my high point for the year (so far) and the ONLY story I've ever had that got unanimously positive reviews!

Conestoga will be my first con since ConDFW in February. Fencon, which is also in Dallas, in September, will be publishing my near future disaster story "Body by Fisher" in its program book.

I got my panels for Archon, which is the NASFIC. I have seven panels on Friday, Saturady and Sunday, plus a reading. I'll post those later.

The nice thing about Archon, which is in St. Louis, is that I'll be able to take the Texas Eagle Amtrak train overnight both to and from. That should be comfortable.

I'm starting a new job at another newspaper July 30. When I accepted the post, I asked that I could still have Friday, August 2, off because I had already accepted the Archon invite and made my room reservation.

Nice egoboo

Jerry Wright of Bewildering Stories passed along this comment he received about a story he published in October 2005, "The Queen of Guilty Pleasures":

"As a writer of detective stories and other fiction and non-fiction, I want to
pass along my thanks for writing such a good piece. Dialogue and plot
development were top-rate. I'm also a Bettie Page fan, so I'm biased. Now,
back to BW to see if there are others there you've written."
--Walt Giersbach

Well, thanks Walt.

I'm getting for Conestoga next weekend, and NASFIC (Archon) two weekends after that.

OK, here's the Video of the Day.

Pretty coincidental

Just a few days after I got that letter about the honorable mention from the Writers of the Future, I received an email - at my newspaper address - from Galaxy Press, Turns out they offered a review copy of the latest edition. I said "sure!"

Reminds me of the first con I ever attended, ConDFW in 2003. I didn't pay, I got in on my media pass.

Here's the Video of the Day. If you ever see a story by me entitled "Holly with and 'E''', think of this tinny piano version of "Peggy Sue" - like you'd hear in an Old West Saloon.

Latest from Writers of the Future

I got a letter in the mail from the Writers of the Future. This is maybe the fourth of fifth time I've sent them a story. They said I was considered an honorable mention for the quarter January 1 through March 31. They said that means my story finished in the Top 10 to 15% of the entries. That's the first time I've received that type of letter.
I looked up more information on the web, and saw on a web site that "Honorable Mention" means quarter-finalist. Since WOTF conducts its contest on a quarterly basis (so it said) they decided to use the term "Honorable Mention" because quarter finalist caused confusion - some people apparently thought it meant they were a finalist for the quarter.
Back in 2002 I sent WOTF a story, which didn't do anything (It was "Dialogue", which was published by RevolutionSF in 2005 and was one of my three HMs in the YBSF that year). My next entry they lost for over a year. They later said a box of mail had been misplaced during a move. Needless to say, I stopped submitting.
Last year, though, at FenCon I attended a panel on WOTF. K.D. Wentworth got me interested and I started submitting again. My entry for the last quarter of 2006 didn't do anything (although the administrator hand-wrote on the form letter 'submit again soon'); this last letter is for the next entry, "Twilight on the Finger Lakes", which I later sent to a magazine called Pedestal. They returned it this week, but I got a "good" rejection; you know, "send more soon".
I got the 2007 SFWA directory in the mail a few days ago, and I see that a few new venues have been qualified as short fiction venues, including Pedestal and also Subterranean, Baen's Universe and Dark Wisdom.
OK, today's video is probably the WORST Star Trek parody even done. I stumbled across this piece of silliness while doing research on South Africa. It's
done by a comic called Caspar DeVries. Of course, it doesn't help that it's in Afrikaans, but I really don't think it would have made sense in any language. DeVries is like a Boer Benny Hill, but even more manic (if'n ya' kin believe that). I understand the AWB once put him on a hit list. No wonder.

The TPA, Fencon, and Metroplis - a grab bag

The Texas Press Association held its annual awards luncheon
Saturday in San Antonio. The annual competition is called the Better Newspaper
Contest. Of course, I didn't go, with the price of gas being what
it is, but when they posted the winners on-line I found I took
third place for News Writing in semi-weekly newspapers. That's
the first personal award I've taken since 2001. Last year my
paper took first place in Community Service, but that was a team
effort.
I've been dithering about which story to submit for the Fencon
program book. The deadline is July 15. I have two stories in
mind, but they're so different I am really having a hard time
making a choice. I emailed Tim Miller, the convention chair, and
asked if maybe they'd like to make the choice. He said they'd be
willing to read them both, so I sent them off Sunday night via
email.

OK, here's the YouTube Video of the Day. I found this while screwing around a few days ago. I first saw Metropolis on PBS when I was about 12. It really impressed me - probably to the detriment of my ultimate s-f career, since the story combined equal parts valid sociological extrapolation, s-f hand waving and romantic BS. But it LOOKED great, and this trailer - which was made for the latest digital restoration a few years ago - hits all the high points. It reminds me of the sense of wonder I first felt when I saw the movie so many years ago. So here's it is:



When I was a teenager, I hand copied in pencil the B&W still photo of when Rotwang confronts Frederson, arms upraised, with the robot behind his shoulder, and hung it on the wall of my basement office.

Another story set for publication

I'm always on the lookout for magazines and ezines where I can get my stories printed, especially when they've run the gamut of the major venues. My attitude s pretty much if I can't get much money, at least I'll get some exposure and name recognition.
(I talked about getting exposure when I moderated a panel at ConDFW in February. Fellow panelist Stephen Brust said "exposure is what you die of in the Arctic." Hah-hah. Well, I have a day job, so I get a regular paycheck. With what little money I've made writing fiction, I think I enjoy the recognition more - much more).
In my last post I mentioned a Yahoo group called FictionMags. One of the members, Shelby Vick, runs an ezine called Planetary Stories. I think I've heard of it in the past, but it came up in the group recently. I checked out the guidelines and realized I have a story that's been kicking around a while called "Fermi's Fraternity" that they might like. PS likes stories with an old-fashioned pulp feel, or at least stories that are fun. So I sent "Fermi's" off last Wednesday. Vick got back to me with some suggested changes, and after I made them accepted the story, so it will be published in September.
I battled sinus trouble all last week, and by Friday I was coughing so bad I slept on the couch to give Patricia some peace. I also slept on the couch most of Saturday night. It sounds like a cold but feels like am allergy. I have no idea what I've got. I bought some Benedryl allergy and sinus formulation last week, but it actually seemed to make things worse. It like increased my drainage. I usually take Benedryl cold and sinus. I think I will swing by CVS Monday morning on my way to the county courthouse and go back to that.

OK, here's the video of the day, which was sent to me via YouTube by my brother. I's not a Spalding Gray monologue, but it's still a classic"

Regarding Roger Elwood

I belong to a Yahoo news group called Fiction Mags, moderated by Paul DiFillipo. Today Robert Silverberg reported that apparently the well-known and rather controversial anthlogist Roger Elwood passed away. Elwood is best known for cranking out so many anthologiess in the 1970s that he essentially crashed the market. Raising his ghost generated a lot of conversation. I weighed in in what was certianly the longest post I've ever made, and since it has some funny anecdotes, I thought I'd repeat part of it here.

"As someone who's s-f consumption over the years has been almost all short stories, I appreciate anthologies and I hunted up many over the years. I've found them in some pretty strange places, too. I found a pristine 1950s copy of "Adventures in Time and Space" used as a book shelf decoration in a used furniture store. The owner was bumfuzzled when I offered to buy the book. I think I gave him a dollar.
That being said, over the years I've picked up and put down most Elwood anthologies I've found. His taste and modus operandi was obviously scattershot; I always could find any worthwhile stories he included in another, better. anthology someplace.
"The only Elwood anthology I ever picked up was "Visions of Tomorrow: Am Interstellar Collection", and that was because it had a Gardner Dozois story I had never read, "The Storm".
"That book also led to a funny incident. It has a stupid, garish cover, with some of demon open-armed in a desert landscape. It obviously was some kind of pre-existing art work that the publisher slapped on the cover. It has nothing to do with anything inside. It's so ugly that I once sat the book down in an armchair and while I was gone my dog growled and attacked the book! I ran back and saved it, but she ate the TOC and the first page of acknowledgments. Now that's a bad cover.
"Before that, I once took the book with me to a school board meeting. As a community newspaper editor, I sometimes have to occupy myself while a board meets in executive session behind closed doors. I will often sit and read a book. One time I took this ugly-ass Elwood book. I was sitting there in the board room, with a few of the school administrators who were also waiting for the board to reconvene, holding the book up chest-high and reading it when I looked over and saw the other people giving me strange looks. I forgot about the cover; they probably thought I was reading a Satanic bible. I put the book down and explained what it was. Since then, I take the cover into consideration when I toss a book in the briefcase.
"Oh, and I agree that Gardner is probably under-rated as an anthologist. He certainly tries to be comprehensive. If you read the honorable mention list in the back of each annual edition, you appreciate how much work he does. He goes through some very small publications and e-zines. I've had eight HMs in the past three editions of his YBSF; six of them were from small e-zines. In two cases, the e-zines were so small I'm the only HM they ever received. I'm amazed he saw the stories in the first place, so he certainly works very hard. He also has good taste and discernment."