Hearing from an old friend

Earlier this year I read a story online on the web site of the Massachusetts paper in the town I grew up in about one of my high school English teachers who was taking retirement. I graduated from high school 37 years ago, so I think she was the last of my teachers to retire.

I sent her a copy of "Fantastic Texas" as a retirement present, for when she had some time on her hands, and wrote in it, "I bet you thought I didn't pay attention in class!" I believe I took a class in Creative Writing.

I got a nice thank you card in the mail today. She wrote that now that the school year is over and she has no more papers to grade, she started reading my stories. She was very complimentary.

She noted that while she has retired from most of her classes, she will still be teaching journalism. The next timer I visit my childhood home (Rockland, Massachusetts) I will have to drop in.

Cons to the left of me, cons to the right of me

It's kinda funny this weekend, that ComicCon was going on on the West Coast and ReaderCon was on the East Coast. I'm sure if I had a teleporter and dropped into either one, I would have run into a lot of people I already know and have met at other cons, but honestly, I hate to travel and I was quite happy to stay put.

John Teehan had a table for his Merry Blacksmith Press at ReaderCon, and he had copies of "Texas & Other Planets" for sale. Here is a photo I copied from his Facebook page.

The incorporation papers for SASS (Society for the Advancement of Speculative Storytelling) have been drawn up and are being checked by the interim officers. After they are filed and approved, we can move towards going public and taking paid memberships. I'm very happy how this new writers' group has moved forward. It will fill a vital niche for aspiring, newbie, semi-pro and casual writers. As someone who has official status as a pro - as least as defined by the SFWA - but who is a casual writer with a real job, it will be nice to have a genre home.

Nothing to report...

...on the writing front. This week I was pretty much struck down by my two ongoing health problems. First, my carpal tunnel syndrome flared up, badly, to the point I lost feeling in my right thumb. I had to wear a wrist brace to bed for a couple of days.

Second, after eating at a local hamburger shop Wednesday I got very sick with a blood sugar flare-up. I think they made the milkshake I asked for with regular ice cream instead of sugar free ice cream. My blood glucose went over 250, and worse, I had a very painful leg cramp when I tried to go to bed. This was so painful I screamed at the top of my lungs and banged on my leg with my fists to try to numb it. More medicine and some muscle cream set me on the road to recovery.

I've been recovering from both problems for the past two days, and I'm feeling much better, but it was all I could do to get to work on Thursday and Friday, so there's been no fiction writing going on.

67 stories

I just realized that with the publication of "The Starship Theodora" in Nova Science Fiction, I've had 67 short stories (or flashes or novellettes) published since June 2003. I only began writing for publication in the fall of 2002.

My first story was published by Jayme Blaschke at Revolution S-F in June 2003. He introduced it thusly:

"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 at the Revolution S-F web site:

http://www.revolutionsf.com/article.php?id=1867.html

"The Starship Theodora"

I received my author's copies of the summer issue of Nova Science Fiction in the mail Saturday. This small print magazine has been run by Wesley Kawato for a number of years. I had a story, "Good Old Gal", published in Issue No. 18. This current issue in No. 29 and features my story "The Starship Theodora" as the cover story.

Another contract signed

I got the contract in the mail today for "Barsoom Billy" from David Riley of Science Fiction Trails. I've signed it and it will be back in the mail Tuesday.

I spent some time on the phone Sunday talking to some of the interim officers of SASS (Society for the Advancement of Speculative Storytelling). The group is being incorporated in Texas, it will probably be accomplished some time in July. We look forward to inviting the 24 members of the bylaws study group to became permanent members, and after we get a membership roster will will have a vote on a final version of the bylaws and permanent officers.

"Barsoom Billy" and "The Clock Struck None"

The latest on the writing front:

I had promised David Riley at Science Fiction Trails a rewrite by July 1st on "Barsoom Billy" for his special Martians & Earthlings issue. It mostly involved a beefing up, with a new ending, that added about 1,250 words. Got it off to him by Saturday. He liked it, so it will be published this fall. "Pirates of the Ozarks" will be coming out in the regular Science Fiction Trails, which will be No. 8

I also compiled a proposal for my latest collection, "The Clock Struck None". These are time travel and alternate history stories. The idea for this collection "struck" me - pardon the pun - after my two latest stories in Daily Science Fiction, which both involved quantum universes. My table on contents starts with "Double Exposure" and ends with "Great White Ship". Most of the other ten stories sandwiched between the DSF tales have been published this year or last, although I reach a little further for a few of them.

I put together the file and sent it off to a small press publisher this afternoon whom I had queried earlier.