UnCommonwealth

New story

My latest short story, "The Jack of Coins," is now available to read for free at the Tor Books website. If you prefer to read things on ereaders, you can get it for ninety-nine cents (US) for your Kindle or Nook.

A Few Things & The View From Here

A few things:

• Blackwood made the Locus recommended reading list in the first novels category. Sharing company with the other people on the list (including one Mr. Rowe in novelettes!) is an honor indeed. Completely thrilled.
• I'm over at The Mortal Instruments Examiner today talking about why I love these books so, my essay in Shadowhunters and Downworlders, and other things. Check it out.
• A couple of lovely posts about Blackwood that made my respective days: from the wonderful Mette Ivie Harrison and Kate Ormand.

We are all getting lots of work done, talking about books and publishing and silly things (my favorite). I am revising my heart at or, at least, starting to. This is the view from here.

via www.gwendabond.com

Gwenda blogs so I don't have to!

Also, as an aside, I have declared today Criminally Under-recognized Fantasists Day and put forth Barbara Hambly's name for recognition and celebration. Y'all go put forth somebody's name out in the world, too.

My Worldcon Schedule

Here’s my schedule of public appearances at this week’s Chicon 7, the 70^th World Science Fiction Convention, also known as Worldcon.

Friday, August 31^st, 1:30-3:00 pm, Haymarket. John Joseph Adams reading. JJA is the editor of many anthologies, and of Lightspeed magazine. This reading will consist of various folks reading stories from his publications. I’m subbing in for the sadly absent Genevieve Valentine, reading her fantastic story “Good Fences,” from the new horror magazine, Nightmare.

Saturday, September 1^st, 12:00-1:00 pm, Tachyon table in the Dealers Room. Signing. Along with other contributors to Tachyon anthologies, I’ll be signing Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology, edited by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel.

Sunday, September 2^nd, 10:30 am-12:00 pm, Wrigley. Short Stories to Order. I’ll be sitting on this panel with Pat Cadigan, Robert Reed, E. Lily Yu, and esteemed moderator Ellen Datlow.

Sunday, September 2^nd, 12:00-12:30 pm, Dusable. Reading. I’ll be reading “The Contrary Gardener,” a sort of companion piece to “The Voluntary State.” It’s scheduled to appear in an upcoming Nightshade Books project edited by Jonathan Strahan.

Replace "harassed" with "robbed"

Those of you who read this (yes, very intermittently updated) blog because you're somehow associated with the world of science fiction have almost certainly already heard about the sexual harassment incident at the recent Readercon convention and that convention's board's spectacular failure to deal with the incident appropriately. If not, well, I'll just point you to this links roundup and suggest you confine yourself to the top four or five listed unless you have a lot of time on your hands.

I don't have anything to say about the incident and its handling that hasn't already been said elsewhere, but instead am here to talk about much of the internet response. Specifically, I'm referring to the many instances of apologia, victim-blaming, subject-switching, and other reductionist tactics that people have engaged in. I won't name names, link links, or even describe specific techniques because they're not worth the time it would take me to type them.

But that mass of bullshit—which thankfully is a tiny portion of the reaction overall—has raised some questions in my mind that I would like to pose to you, assuming you know the details of this situation.

If the self-admitted wrong-doer, René Walling, had, instead of harassing a guest of the convention, stolen a large amount of money from the book dealers room, how do you think the convention would have reacted? How do you think Walling's friends and apologists would have reacted to a permanent ban from the convention in that case?

Because I'll tell you, I think nobody would have blinked at a permanent ban. And I think the apologists, victim-blamers, subject-switchers, and other reductionists would disappear.

Listen up!

Nifty. My story "Another Word For Map is Faith" is available as a podcast (you can also just listen to it through your browser) at the most excellent Podcastle website. Check it out, won't you?

Bibliographia

I'll figure out how to put this up as a permanent, linkable page or something around here sometime, but for now, since I was working it up for other reasons, here's my current bibliography for those who might be interested. At some point, I'll work in links to the stuff that's available online.

 

Novels

Sandstorm, Wizards of the Coast, 2011.

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Collections

Bittersweet Creek and Other Stories, Small Beer Press, 2003.

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Short Stories

“The Contrary Gardener,” Eclipse Online, edited by Jonathan Strahan, forthcoming.

“Nowhere Fast,” Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories, edited by Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant, Candlewick Press, 2011. Reprint: Steampunk Revolution, edited by Ann VanderMeer, Tachyon, forthcoming.

“Feast of the Moon,” Realms of the Undead, edited by Susan J. Morris, Wizards of the Coast, 2010.

“Gather,” The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction & Fantasy, edited by Ellen Datlow, Ballantine, 2008.

“Another Word For Map is Faith,” The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, August 2006. Reprints: Science Fiction: The Best of the Year 2007, edited by Rich Horton, Prime Books, 2007; The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Twentieth Annual Collection, edited by Ellen Datlow and Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant, St. Martin’s, 2007; The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, edited by Jonathan Strahan, Night Shade Books, 2007; The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction/Czech Republic Edition (Czech translation), March 2007; The Tenth Dimension (Hebrew Translation), April 2007; The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction/Poland Edition (Polish translation), 2010. Long list: The Best American Short Stories 2007.

“The League of Last Girls,” Aegri Somnia, edited by Jason Sizemore and Gill Ainsworth, Apex Publications, 2006. Reprint: Trechu Divné Kusy 3 (Czech translation), edited by Martin Sust, Lazer, 2007.

“Two Figures in a Landscape Between Storms,” Twenty Epics, edited by David Moles and Susan Marie Groppi, All-Star Stories, 2006.

“The Queen of the Moon,” Apex Digest Online, February 2006.

“Whether to Go Through,” Electric Velocipede Autumn 2004. Reprint: Apex Digest, Summer 2006.

"The Voluntary State,” Sci Fiction, May 2004. Reprints: Science Fiction: The Best of 2004, edited by Karen Haber and Jonathan Strahan, iBooks, 2005; The Year’s Best Science Fiction, Twenty-second Annual Collection, edited by Gardner Dozois, St. Martin’s, 2005; Beyond Singularity, edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois, Ace Books, 2005; Hayakawa’s SF Magazine (Japanese translation), June 2005; Nebula Awards Showcase 2006, edited by Gardner Dozois, Roc, 2006; Rewind: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology, edited by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel, Tachyon, 2007.

“Relativity in the Gospel: Five Looks at Matthew 2:9-10” Ideomancer, December 2003.

“Men of Renown,” Bittersweet Creek and Other Stories, Small Beer Press, 2003. Reprints: Apex Digest Online, February 2006; Hayakawa SF Magazine (Japanese translation), June 2009.

“The Children of Tilford Fortune,” Swan Sister: Fairy Tales Retold, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, Simon & Schuster, 2003. Reprint: The Dark of the Woods, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, Aladdin Paperbacks, 2006.

“The Force Acting on the Displaced Body,” Trampoline, edited by Kelly Link, Small Beer Press, 2003. Reprints: lcrw.net, October 2003.

“Seared Scallops and Steamed Green Beans,” Infinite Matrix, July 2003. Reprint: Scattered Covered Smothered, edited by Jason Erik Lundberg, Two Cranes Press, 2004.

“Interim Discussions,” Beyond The Last Star, edited by Sherwood Smith, SFF.Net, 2002.

“Leadership Secrets of the Prince of Darkness,” The Journal of Pulse-Pounding Narratives, 2002.

“The Dreaming Mountains,”  Ideomancer Unbound, edited by Chris Clarke and Mikal Trimm, Decadent Moon Publications/FictionWise, 2002. Reprint: Bittersweet Creek and Other Stories, Small Beer Press, 2003.

“Horsethieves and Preachermen,” Ideomancer, July 2002. Honorable Mention, Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Sixteenth Annual Collection.

“High Water,” The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Spring 2001.

“VFD Adventures,” Quantum Speculative Fiction, edited by Kurt Roth, Obscura Press, 1999. Reprint: Ideomancer, September 2002.

“Sally Harpe,” Realms of Fantasy, October 1999. Reprints:  Bittersweet Creek and Other Stories, Small Beer Press, 2003; lcrw.net, December 2003. Honorable Mention, Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Thirteenth Annual Collection.

“Baptism on Bittersweet Creek,” Realms of Fantasy, April 1999. Reprint: Bittersweet Creek and Other Stories, Small Beer Press, 2003.

“Long Live the King,” Pulp Eternity, September 1998.

“Kin to Crows,” Realms of Fantasy, June 1998. Reprints: Ideomancer, August 2002; Bittersweet Creek and Other Stories, Small Beer Press, 2003. Honorable Mention, Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Twelfth Annual Collection.

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Poems

“Our Prize Patrol Will Find You, No Matter Where You Are,” Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, 2001.

Updates

Here's some news on the family writing front for those of you who don't follow Gwenda and/or me on the social networking sites.

• My story "Another Word For Map is Faith" will be produced in audio by Podcastle in the near future.
• Another story, "Nowhere Fast," which originally appeared in the Candlewick anthology STEAMPUNK! will be reprinted in Ann VanderMeer's upcoming anthology, Steampunk Revolution.
• "The Contrary Gardner," originally announced as being published as part of Jonathan Strahan's Eclipse anthology series, still will be, sort of. There are some exciting developments there that will be announced in the next couple of weeks. The story is a companion piece to "The Voluntary State."
• Most exciting of all, Gwenda's debut novel, Blackwood, has had its "cover reveal" at the Book Smugglers site. Go there and comment on the cover or the book and you'll be entered for a chance to receive an advance reader's copy of the book months before its September release!

In non-writing news, I'm greatly looking forward to Sunday, when I'll get to watch the Tour of Flanders live on the NBC Sports network, and then see the return of Game of Thrones. Best tv day ever!

Finally, go Cards!

NOOK customer service

For what it's worth, I'm loving my NOOK Color. And the apps for Mac and PC are searchable.

>Christopher: Initial Question/Comment: Is there a way to search the text of a book on my new Nook Color? For example, if I wanted to find every instance of the word "voluminous" in a novel I'm reading?

Book List, and a bit of news

As announced elsewhere already, I've just sold another short story. "The Contrary Gardener," which serves as a sort of companion piece to "The Voluntary State," will be in the next volume of Jonathan Strahan's Eclipse series of anthologies. I think the book will be out sometime in 2012, and I'll say more about it closer to publication time.

I'm spending most of my time this summer working on my next novel, but my first semester as a graduate student in Eastern Kentucky University's MFA program will start in a week or so. The two courses I'm taking (one of which is a fiction workshop) combine to yield this list of assigned books. I've read about half of them before, but look forward to reading or rereading all of them in an academic setting.

• The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich
• Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, translated by Lydia Davis
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
• The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
• Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
• After This by Alice McDermott
• Beloved by Toni Morrison
• Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage by Alice Munro
• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, annotations and other apparatus by Alfred Appel, Jr.

All but the García Márquez and the Kundera are available for the Nook (well, the Nabokov isn't quite available yet, it'll be out on the 16th, I think, and here's hoping that the notes &c. are hyperlinked) which brings up the point that I've lately learned to enjoy being a reader of screens. I've even been reading on my computer, just this week having read the first four of Elizabeth George's Inspector Lynley mysteries on my laptop. I like having other windows open with the OED and Wikipedia live so I can flip back and forth when I come across a word or something else I'm not familiar with. In the case of Elizabeth George, that means I now know what secateurs are (well, I guess I already knew what they were, just not their proper name), and now know a lot more about the furniture makers of England than I ever thought I would.

AJC Decatur Book Festival

Blowing the dust off the blog to invite any and all to come see me (and many, many other writers) at this year's Decatur Book Festival over Labor Day weekend down in Georgia. My particular event is Sunday afternoon at 2:30 on the Eddie's Attic stage. Sneak away from Dragon*Con for the afternoon and come here me talk about Sandstorm and other such stuff!