Two new stories and one reprint out this month

I’ve somehow neglected to post about this, but I have two original science fiction stories and one reprint out this month (plus a translation of the reprint, interestingly enough).

The first story is “Just Another Night at the Abandoned Draft Bar and Grill” in the May issue of Galaxy’s Edge. This story is a meta-fictional dig at some of the harmful, clichéd stereotypes which tend to permeate less-than-stellar writing—it features a woman named Mary-Sue, a black man named Alphonse, and a Chinese man who’s so much of a stereotype he barely exists beyond his peasant hat.

You can read “Just Another Night at the Abandoned Draft Bar and Grill” at Galaxy’s Edge for free through the end of June, along with stories by Tina Gower, George RR Martin(!!), Kij Johnson(!!!), and many other super-talented writers.

The second original piece is my story “Images Across a Shattered Sea,” which was my first-place story from Writers of the Future volume 32! I like to tell people it’s an anti-war story about post-apocalyptic Morocco, time travel, and the Open Access movement. (Wait, what?!)

Here’s a teaser:

The air on the cliffs above the Shattered Sea was hot as a furnace and twice as dry. Still, Driss couldn’t suppress a shiver at the way the shimmering message-globe moved through the sky, dozens of meters above the churning, black waves of the sea.

He had seen the globes before, of course, but only after they’d been captured and put on display in the village’s little museum. It didn’t quite seem real, the way the little ball bobbed and danced on the breeze, drifting ever so slowly towards Fatima where she stood atop a heap of boulders at the edge of the cliff.

“Here it comes,” she said, waving her net back and forth as she hopped from foot to foot.

Her eagerness just made the dangers of the place worse, Driss thought. It was as if she didn’t care that one misstep would send her tumbling to her death. He himself would have been happy never to have seen the coast in person. It had always been a deadly, desolate place, even in the days when the message-globes blew across the sea in huge clouds which blotted out the sun. And those days were long since past: They had seen only three globes during their two week hike, and this was the first that had come anywhere near them.

“Gotcha!” Fatima leapt into the air, hooking the bubble-like ball in her net and pulling it down from the sky. “What do you think is in it?”

The story (like all others in the anthology) is gorgeously illustrated, in my case by the talented Seattleite Paul Otteni.

You can buy a copy of Writers of the Future through various retailers, all listed at http://www.wotf32.com along with information about the anthology’s writers and illustrators. If you want to try it out before you buy, I have electronic samplers to give away. E-mail me and I’ll send you one! :)

On the reprint front, my Nature story “Love and Relativity” is now up at Flash Fiction Online, along with three wonderful original stories by Gary Emmette Chandler, Lynette Mejía, and Evan Dicken.

“Love and Relativity” is also due to be translated into Croatian by fanzine Eridu later this month, which is pretty cool.

“No Shit, There I Was…” anthology Kickstarter, now with 100% more Baker & Dovey

Some time in late autumn last year, Matt Dovey and I both (separately) stumbled across the call for stories for No Shit, There I Was: An Anthology of Improbable Tales.

Alas, both of us were convinced we had neither the time nor inspiration necessary to write a decent story in time.

Fast-forward to mid-December, and an off-hand comment about weasels, and we hit upon a plan so mad, so daring, so genius that it was a daringly, madly genius plan: we would co-write a story!

Neither of us had ever done this before, but were we going to let that stop us? NO! No we were not.

Fortunately(?) for all of you, we succeeded, churning out the 5500-odd words of “How I Became Coruscating Queen Of All The Realms, Pierced The Obsidian Night, Destroyed A Legendary Sword, And Saved My Heart’s True Love” in a paltry 6 days.

Even more fortunately(??), we had a few brave volunteers willing to critique it on short notice despite the fact that it was December 26th. Big thanks to Martin L. Shoemaker, Krystal Claxton, Seánan Forbes, Eleanor R. Wood,
and K.D. Julicher for their speedy and insightful comments!

But here, ALAS!, our tale takes a turn for the potentially portentous. And probably pompously pretentious, if we hadn’t passed that particular point previously. Ppppppp.

The Kickstarter currently still has about $3000 to go before it successfully funds, and a little under 3 weeks to do it in.

So if you’d like to read a tale of ridiculous fantasy parody by Matt and I, as well as fine examples of storytelling and splendor from dozens of other wonderful authors, go back the Kickstarter for No Shit, There I Was! (As a bonus, today’s update features our gestalt author identity‘s origin tale.)

I mean, just look at this cover:
No Shit, There I Was: An Anthology of Improbable Tales edited by Alex Acks

You know you want that cover.

Writers of the Future Volume 32 “Guess My Title!” Contest: And the winner is…

Greetings and Salutations, hoo-mans!

A month ago, I posted a little giveaway for a free copy of Writers of the Future, volume 32, with the challenge being that you had to guess which of the four first-place stories was mine.

If you happened to catch the awards ceremony on the Writers of the Future website, you already know the answer: The first-place story I wrote for the anthology was: “Images Across a Shattered Sea.”

If you happened not to catch it… I just told you the answer. Shocking!

I have consulted Ye Great Random.org and LO! The RNG hath spoken.

The winner of the giveaway is none other than… Daemon H! Daemon was one of three who did in fact correctly guess which title was mine.

I’ll be in touch with you shortly to get your mailing address, Daemon.

If you are not Daemon (we can’t all be, alas), be ye not bummed! I have heard secret murmurings that Galaxy Press may be giving us electronic sampler copies to distribute in exchange for honest reviews. More about that if and when I hear. And, of course, you can always pre-order a copy from various places, as conveniently listed on the Writers of the Future volume 32 website.

Win a signed copy of Writers of the Future, volume 32 (plus, info about the wotf32 website)

The incorrigibly English Matt Dovey and I (although mostly Matt) have put together a website for volume 32 of the Writers of the Future anthology, which will feature a story I’ve written (the title of which cannot yet be shared).

The site features author information, illustrator information, blurbs and snippets for each story, and general information about the anthology, as well as where you can pre-order it.

Hooray!

So go check it out: Writers of the Future, volume 32.

Some time in the next few weeks, the site will be updated to feature thumbnail illustrations for each story, as well as information on which 1st place winners wrote which story.

I’d be interested to see if anybody can guess which is mine from the 4 titles featured on the “Stories” page.

In fact! Let’s do a little giveaway.

Everyone who wants to can leave a comment on this post with the title of the story you think is mine, based on the little blurb and synopsis included on the wotf32 website. You can comment with your Facebook, Google, or Twitter accounts, or with a Disqus account if you have one. Or you can comment as a guest if you don’t have any of those.

I’ll give everyone who guesses correctly 3 entries, and everyone who guesses incorrectly 1 entry, and will then randomly select one entry and mail that person a copy of the anthology signed by me and maybe a few other authors/illustrators (depending on if I can get my hands on a suitable copy during the workshop in the first week of April).

So giveaway! Much excite! Wow!

Direct links to the 1st-place stories:
Star Tree

Images Across a Shattered Sea

Squalor and Sympathy

The Sun Falls Apart

I’ll announce the winner on Thursday, April 14th here on the blog. If you want to be sure you don’t miss it, you can sign up for updates using the little “follow” button on the bottom-right-hand corner of the browser window.

(A few details:
1. I will never share subscriber e-mails with anyone, and you’ll get roughly 1 update e-mailed to you per week in the mean-time.
2. Shipping on the signed copy will be free but may be really really slow if you live outside the continental US of A.
3. You will have to give me your address at some point to receive the signed copy, should you win.
4. I will happily purchase a Kindle e-book version of the anthology for the winner instead, if they prefer.
)

Up and Coming: Stories from the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors – Free download!

The inimitable SL Huang and equally awesome Kurt Hunt have put in some serious hustle and created an anthology containing over a million words of fiction(!) from the authors who are eligible for the Campbell Award this year.

For those not in the know, the Campbell Award for Best New Writer is awarded each year concurrently with the Hugos, and is awarded to a SF author who has had their first professional fiction publication in the past two years. Past winners include luminaries like Lev Grossman, Sofia Samatar, and Wesley Chu, and–the further back in time you go–Cory Doctorow, Nalo Hopkinson, Ted Chiang, CJ Cherryh, and Spider Robinson.

So you know you’re in for a treat with this anthology.

And did I mention that it’s free to download?

Here’s what Lisa has to say about the anthology:

This anthology includes 120 authors — who contributed 230 works totaling approximately 1.1 MILLION words of fiction. These pieces all originally appeared in 2014, 2015, or 2016 from writers who are new professionals to the SFF field, and they represent a breathtaking range of work from the next generation of speculative storytelling.

All of these authors are eligible for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2016. We hope you’ll use this anthology as a guide in nominating for that award as well as a way of exploring many vibrant new voices in the genre.

This anthology will be offered as a free download through March 31, 2016 only.

You can download the anthology in various formats over at Bad Menagerie: http://www.badmenagerie.com/up-and-coming-stories-from-the-2016-campbell-eligible-writers/

Hey! You can now pre-order Writers of the Future 32, featuring a short story by me.

As I am pretty sure I have announced multiple times already, I was a first place winner in quarter 2 of the Writers of the Future contest last year.

Well, now it’s this year, which means the book will be coming out soon and my story will be in it.

Indeed, thanks to fellow Writers of the Future winner J.W. Alden‘s eagle eye, I can share some exciting information: Writers of the Future volume 32 is now available for pre-order.

So if you’d like to buy a copy of a book with a short story in it by me (not to mention stories by a bunch of great writers), now’s your chance: Pre-order Writers of the Future volume 32 on Amazon.

There are a lot of awesome stories in the anthology (I’ve read quite a few!), and it will have fantastic art as well—although I haven’t seen any of that yet.

Plus it has a really spiffy cover:
Writers of the Future Volume 32 cover image

Quantum Shorts voting period extended to January 31st

As I’ve probably already mentioned a few times, my story “How to Configure your Quantum Disambiguator” is on the short-list for the Quantum Shorts flash fiction competition.

The “people’s choice” voting for the contest has been extended to the end of the month, so if you haven’t checked it out and voted yet, go give it a look! There are a lot of strong stories in the top ten, and still a whole 11 days to read ’em.

Also, don’t forget the youth division: http://shorts2015.quantumlah.org/shortlisted-stories

My story “How to Configure your Quantum Disambiguator” up for people’s choice award at Quantum Shorts

A few days ago, I received an e-mail from the administrators of the Quantum Shorts contest letting me know that my entry, “How to Configure your Quantum Disambiguator,” was in the short-list of ten entries that will be judged for first and second prize.

So huzzah(!) for that good news about this quirky little humorous flash, which first appeared in Nature‘s Futures column back in February.

My story is also eligible for the people’s choice award, so if you enjoy that particular piece of mine, I’d appreciate your vote on the shortlist page. (Each person can only vote one time, though, so make sure you read the others before you decide! There’s some tough competition.)

Story sale! “The Plumes of Enceladus” to Abyss & Apex

Thrilled to announce that I have sold “The Plumes of Enceladus,” a roughly 7,000-word science fiction story, to Abyss & Apex. It is by far the “hardest” story of mine to see publication to date. Most of my skiffy is much squishier…

This one was originally written for the Baen Memorial contest back in February of 2013(!), and has lived a long and varied submission life since then, including an “almost” from Giganotosaurus and Future Fire’s Accessing the Future anthology. It’s been through a number of revisions for clarity and scientific accuracy, and I’m very pleased with where it ended up.

The story follows two pilots, Andry (who is disabled) and Jim, as they race to Enceladus to harvest water from its cryovolcanic plumes. They start the race as bitter rivals, but distance from Earth and isolation from the rest of humanities can have a surprisingly mollifying effect. You’ll have to read it to find out the rest.

Anyway, the publication date is October of 2016, by which time I will probably have forgotten I sold the thing. All the same, I’ll post a link when it’s out!

Want to appear in a story I write? Now’s your chance!

“Tuckerization,” for anyone not familiar with the term, is the practice of including real people in fiction as a sort of in-joke, either using their real name, an obvious parody of it, or just similar interests/quirks.

For anyone who’d like to appear this way in one of my stories, I’m offering Tuckerization as a backer reward on the ongoing Plasma Frequency Kickstarter. For $20, you’ll not only get written into a story, you’ll also get a year’s e-subscription to the magazine.

If you’re not familiar with Plasma Frequency, you can read through their back issues, which include two weird little flash pieces by yours truly:
Some Salient Details about Your Former Lives

After the Ascension