Tag: writers of the future

My Writers of the Future winning story “Images Across a Shattered Sea” is now live at Kasma

Posted on by Stewart

Last summer, I submitted what I knew would be my last entry to the Writers of the Future contest: a post-apocalyptic, timey-wimey story called “Images Across a Shattered Sea.”

Of course, I thought at the time it would be my last entry because I was soon to be disqualified for having too many published stories, not because I would win the contest with it.

But I did! Huzzah, and etcetera!

That winning story is now available to read for free from the fine folks at Kasma SF, with some shiny original art to boot. (That makes this the only story I’ve ever had two pieces of art done for, I think.) Double huzzah! Double etcetera!

Go give it a read: “Images Across a Shattered Sea” at Kasma SF.

(And in case you missed it, the story is also available to play as a piece of interactive fiction over at Sub-Q! An audio version is forthcoming. All the huzzahs!)

New story in IGMS and an (interactive!) reprint in Sub-Q — Also, I’m a Baen Fantasy finalist!

Posted on by Stewart

It’s July! And I have a few stories out or otherwise newsworthy.

First, in Intergalactic Medicine Show, my hard SF story about space elevators and the end of the world (and family, and belonging, and loss, and responsibility, and a myriad of other things), “The View from Driftwise Spindle.”

Here’s the opening paragraph:

The plural for meeting, thought Gayatri Anwar, ought to be headache. And even for a surface stint, where meetings always played a heavy role, she’d had a lot of headaches since the Martian Disaster. The announcement that a rogue planetoid had struck their sister planet, and that meteor-sized pieces of ejecta would crash into Earth in five months’ time, had everyone scrambling to get off-planet. Driftwise, as the only spindle with no ties or obligations to a particular nation, seemed to be bearing the brunt of the attention.

You can read most of the first scene (and see the glorious full-colour illustration which won’t make sense until you’ve read the full story) over at Intergalactic Medicine Show, so go check it out! There are also great original stories by Rachael K Jones, Kat Otis, Aimee Pichee, Andrew Neil Gray, and Shane Halbach, along with an essay and reprint from Kameron Hurley. (Note: the full issue is behind a paywall, but an annual subscription is only $15.)

Second, my Writers of the Future winning story “Images Across a Shattered Sea” is now available as a free-to-read piece of interactive fiction at Sub-Q Magazine. Interactive fiction is perhaps not that well-known, so if you’re confused by the word, just picture those old Chose Your Own Adventure books, but on your preferred web browser and without the ability to cheat by reading straight through. Think of it like a text-only video game combined with a short story.

If that sounds like fun, I hope you enjoy the interactive version of “Images Across a Shattered Sea.” There are several new passages in this version of the story, and a few new endings, so even if you’ve read the story before there’ll be some things that are new to you.

I also want to thank Paul Otteni for letting me use his amazing illustration of the story for the cover art of the Sub-Q version of the story. Thanks, Paul!

Last, but certainly not least, my story “Fox-Sign” is a finalist for the Baen Fantasy Adventure Award, hosted by Gen Con. The winners will be announced August 6th.

Two new stories and one reprint out this month

Posted on by Stewart

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.

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

Posted on by Stewart

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)

Posted on by Stewart

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.
)

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

Posted on by Stewart

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

Writers of the Future V32 Q2: A winner is me! (With bonus rules clarification!)

Posted on by Stewart

I’m pleased to be able to announce that–after entering the Writers of the Future contest every three months for about four years–I’ve finally managed to break into the winner’s circle! And not just that, the story I submitted for the 2nd quarter this year (Volume 32) managed to snag first place in the quarter.

Woohoo!

If you’ve been following the contest’s blog (or if I have you friended on Facebook), it may seem a bit odd that I’m announcing this on my blog now, about a month behind the official announement.

Part of that delay has just been logistical: I have family visiting, and haven’t had much time to sit down and write anything. Another part, though, is squishy-feelings-related.

In particular, it has to do with the contest’s reason for existence, which is to give “new and amateur writers” a fairly high-profile break-through to pro-writer-dom. Once a person has had four short stories published professionally (i.e. At 6 cents per word and with a high enough circulation—in practical terms, published by an SFWA-qualifying market), they can no longer submit to the contest.

So how do I, who currently have something like 27 stories on my bibliography, still qualify? Heck, I qualify for membership in SFWA, the professioal association of science fiction and fantasy writers. I feel more than a small amount of imposter syndrome at work—if, weirdly enough, in the opposite direction than usual.

The short version is: I didn’t have enough pro-paying short stories published yet to disqualify me.

The long version (quite long!) is below:

A large number of my publications are not at pro rates. Also, the contest does not count flash fiction (1000 words or below) as a short story. Technically, none of the stories on my bibliography are disqualifying, so far as the contest is concerned. This is because of the other fine-print style detail in the rules: the word “published.”

I do have two sales on my bibliography that would count against me: “Fugue in a Minor Key” to Galaxy’s Edge and “Behind the First Years” in a reprint sale to Flametree Publishing’s Gothic Fantasy: Science Fiction anthology.

However, neither of these has actually been published yet, so they don’t count against me as far as Writers of the Future is concerned. Since none of my actually published pro-paying works are longer than flash-length, they don’t either.

But that (to me) feels weird. I like flash fiction, and it’s most of what I write and publish, so I decided to count flash fiction as short stories even if it meant disqualifying myself before I was actually disqualified. (Micro-fiction and other super-short stuff, I didn’t count.)

When I sumitted in April, I had the following three pro-paying pieces of flash fiction published:

“Oubliette,” at Flash Fiction Online (April 2014)
“Little More than Shadows,” at Daily Science Fiction (November 2014)
“Configuring Your Quantum Disambiguator,” at Nature (February 2015)

One below the four publications required by the contest (flash notwithstanding).

After submitting my last entry, I published another two pro-paying pieces of flash in August and September:

“Concerning Your Recent Creation of Sentient Horse-things on the Next Planet Over” at Flash Fiction Online (August 2015)
“Love and Relativity” at Nature Physics (September 2015)

That would put me at five publications at pro rates (but still zero short stories—so far!), over my personal comfort level and what I feel is the spirit of the rules, if not the letter. (Of course, now that I’ve won the thing, I can’t enter again anyway, but even if I’d gotten a form rejection I would have stopped submitting.)

It does make me feel better to know I’m not alone in this. Friend and former winner Martin Shoemaker voiced similar sentiments in a Facebook post recently, and Anaea Lay (ditto friend and former winner) also talks about the weirdness of “backwards imposter syndrome.” (Although in my case, I’m more surprised than having feelings of being too worthy to be worthy.)

I’m in good company, in other words.

Once I’m all the way over the weirdness of reverse-imposter syndrome, I’ll be pretty excited about this win. I’ve been entering the contest for a long time, and even though I’ve proven to myself via other publications that this isn’t a fluke, I definitely appreciate the boost to morale that my fiction is winner-quality. And I’m sure that on a practical level, I’ll learn a lot at the workshop which is part of the prize. I still have more misses than hits, when it comes to submissions-to-sales ratio. Anything that can help with that will definitely be appreciated.