Cat Rambo's Blog, page 66

You Should Read This: The Forest of Forever by Thomas Burnett Swann

"I am three hundred and sixty years old and I pride myself, not unjustly, on having enjoyed twice as many lovers as I have years. I have loved Men, Minotaurs, Centaurs, and Tritons and no one has ever complained that Zoe, the Dryad of Crete, has failed in the act of love."

Here’s one of my favorite speculative fiction authors, and it was hard picking a reasonable book to represent him. I have a stack of his paperbacks, garnered over the years in used book stores and thrift shops, and they are some of the books I’ve held onto through any number of rigorous book purges.

What: The Forest of Forever, by Thomas Burnett Swann, was originally published in 1971. Many of Swann’s slim little volumes appeared during that decade, lovely retellings of Greco-Roman myths and alternate histories full of mythological creatures. Dryads, centaurs, minotaurs, and fauns fill the pages. Swann depicted same-sex relationships as a matter of fact in a way that nowadays seems well ahead of his time.

Who: If you love gentle fantasy, this is a splendid entrance into Swann’s world. Particularly for those who love mythological creatures, you’ll find a full cast, including some magical creatures invented by Swann.

When: Read this when you’re a little down. You may well find that Swann becomes one of your comfort reads. It’s not a thick fantasy by any means, (my copy is 155 pages) but if you finish it too fast, there’s a sequel to Forest of Forever, Day of the Minotaur.

Why: Read Swann for an interesting take on fantasy. I’ve always thought that his world would be a fabulous one in which to set a role-playing game. Also read him to see same-sex relationships worked in seamlessly, without the “OMG look how socially conscious I am” flavor that sometimes intrudes.

Where and how: Curl up in a corner for this one, with a mug of some pleasantly flowery tea. Be aware the time will pass all too quickly. Be aware there’s plenty more Swann out there, though you may have to hunt for some of the rarer titles.

You Should Read This: About Writing by Samuel R. Delany

Delany says: "A reasonable concern -- in many a worry; and in few a hope -- is whether a creative writing teacher wishes to teach her or his students to write the way he or she writes. Emphatically that is not my enterprise. But the agenda here is no less personal. The thrust of these pieces is to teach writers to produce works I would enjoy reading. "

I can’t think of a better book to begin with than a writing book I go back to over and over again, both for teaching and to apply to my own writing. Be aware that many of these essays are also contained in The Jewel-Hinged Jaw.

What: About Writing, by Samuel R. Delany, is a book of writing advice that includes seven essays, four letters, and five interviews. Two essays are ones I go back to over and over again, “Thickening the Plot,” and “Characters.”

Who: People who will enjoy this book include all manner of writers, as well as anyone interested in Delany’s own awesome fiction.

When: You should read this when you’re feeling uninspired about your own writing or if you want some assurance that “writing to discover” is as valid an approach as plotting things out thoroughly.

Why: Delany is one of the foremost SF writers of our time. His work speaks not just to those beginning to write, but those well along their path. If, like me, you love his fiction, you’ll find About Writing sheds new light on those works.

Where and how: Read it someplace quiet, where you have space to stay off into the distance, thinking about what Delany has said. Read it straight through or else do what I do and dip in at various places. No matter what angle your approach takes, it’ll be rewarding.

You Should Read This: A New Blog Feature

The "You Should Read This" feature will focus on the books I love and find myself pressing on people. Commentary and suggestions are welcome.

One of my goals in 2014 is to be better about blogging. Towards that end, I’m implementing a daily post, “You Should Read This,” in which I’ll briefly describe a book that I recommend. The plan is to range around a bit, and include notable new fiction, some forgotten classics, some writing books, and some books that I just plain love.

In doing this, I’ve followed the classic quintet of questions: what, who, where, when and why (and sometimes how). I’ll try to keep those brief, to the point, and yet still entertaining.

But why, I hear you saying, should we believe you’ll follow through on this?

Because I have already written a number of these, and they’re lined up in the queue and ready to go. Take THAT, forces of disorganization.

If you’re a writer that has a book coming out and would like a guest spot in which you can share a recommendation for a book (other than your own) you think people should read, drop me a line.

Bring Me Back!

Lightspeed's Women Destroying Science Fiction issue is edited by Christie Yant and Rachel Swirsky. It will contain both original stories and reprints.

This is for all those people at conventions who tell me how much they miss me editing Fantasy Magazine. I miss it too. But I’ve got some new editing projects in the works…and one of those could bring me back to Fantasy for another issue.

That’s right. One of the stretch goals for the Women Destroying Science Fiction kickstarter is a special issue where I get the chance to destroy fantasy. AND there’s one for an issue of Nightmare where Ellen Datlow destroys horror. If you donate $5, you’ll get copies of all three (if the stretch goals are met).

I’m excited about this prospect. How about you?

Looking for a Little Help

Right now you can find Creating an Online Presence on Amazon. The book covers the basics of creating and maintaining a presence on the Internet for writers.

One of the things I’ve realized is that I need to outsource a few things coming up. I’m hoping to find someone interested in swapping either time in my classes or else editing in exchange for their expertise. (Or I can pay you in recently decluttered books. )

The two things I need done:

Take the Kindle version of Creating an Online Presence and do a Smashwords version. I don’t think much tweaking is necessary but I’d rather find someone familiar with the process than bang my head against it.
Take the same book and do a print version that I can release through CreateSpace. Here I think there’s a chunk of work to be done making it fit a print version.

I’m open to paying for either of these if you think you can do them so cheaply it would be preferable to a class space. Interested? Mail me at catrambo@gmail.com and tell me what your experience is with book formatting (if you could point me at a sample, that’d be awesome) and what you think would be a reasonable swap.

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Taken near the Five Spot in downtown Seattle.

If you’d like to get news about new classes when they are scheduled, along with special advance deals, sign up for my mailing list.

Upcoming classes include the Flash fiction workshop, the First Pages workshop, Establishing an Online Presence for Writers, Literary Techniques for Speculative Fiction, Moving a Story from Idea to Draft, and Character Building. #sfwapro

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Editing 101 This Sunday

Revising skill is often the thing that separates a pro writer from the not-quite-there. In the class, I'll lay out a process that can be used to find a story's heart, flesh out missing information while trimming the extraneous, and giving the story a final polish that lets you feel happy about sending it out.

I’ve still got slots in the Editing 101 class taught online this Sunday.

This class, a shortened version of the three session class, targets editing both other people’s works as well as your own. Students have found that learning to trust their editing skills has made them more productive when producing early drafts. Topics include how to edit at both the sentence and story/book level, working well with writers, theory of ToCs, electronic publishing, copyright, and making a living as an editor.

Sunday, January 19, 9:30-11:30 AM PST.

$99, $89 for former students

Limited to 8 students.

To register, mail catrambo@gmail.com and indicate whether you’d rather pay via Paypal or check or some other means.

Why take a class with me? As both writer and editor, I bring a focus that lets me advise you from both sides of the desk. My experience as the fiction editor of award-winning Fantasy Magazine as well as short story collections and anthologies combined with the fact that I’m a working, selling writer helps me provide you with solid, up-to-date market advice for both online and print publishing. I have been shortlisted for the Endeavour, Locus, Million Writers, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award.

My teaching experience includes Clarion West, the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars, Towson State University, and Bellevue College. I’ve studied with John Barth, Stephen Dixon, Grace Paley, Octavia Butler, Karen Joy Fowler, John Crowley, and Connie Willis, among others. Former students can testify that I’m an engaged and entertaining instructor who motivates you to write while providing feedback on the work you produce. See what they’ve said about the class.

These classes are taught online, using Google+ Hangouts, which has proven robust and easy to use. If you’re worried about the degree of technological skill required, my 70+ mother can testify that when she attended the First Pages workshop, we had her computer ready to go within a couple of minutes and she had no trouble with the technology. You do need a computer with a microphone at a minimum, but headphones are suggested and a webcam is best so people can see you participate.

#SFWApro

Let’s Retain ALL the Rights!

One of the questions being raised repeatedly on a discussion board I participate on is the question of electronic rights. Should a magazine be able to buy a story and display it on their website in perpetuity without additional payment? Does it make a different whether or not it’s behind a paywall? If there’s no additional payment, when should rights revert? What happens with something like an anthology that is in electronic form and hence won’t go out of print the way a hard-copy edition does?

I’m presuming that most people reading this know that normally when you “sell” a story to a publication, what they’re actually buying is the right to publish it in a particular form. You, the author, retain any rights not spelled out in the contract. You can (and I encourage you to) sell the story again as a reprint, and you may want to look at forms like audio or in another language.

This is something that’s still very new, and it’s not something that’s been factored in when lists like SFWA-qualifying markets were put together. It’s not mentioned on sites like Ralan.com or the Submission Grinder. As a writer, though, you need to be aware of what you’re selling.

Take some time to skim through the contract and find out what the publication is buying. What’s the “exclusive period,” the period where they are the only ones that can print it? What forms are they planning to release your work in? Here’s a Columbia Law School resource that may be helpful in trying to decipher legalese.

If you’re publishing, how do you feel about perpetual rights? Is the horse already well out of the barn as far as that goes, or can writers push back on the practice of acquiring perpetual rights without payment?

For Forensics Students: A Story Breakdown

Amanda C. Davis recently blogged about the success of a post doing a breakdown of her stories for forensic students. It seems free forensic pieces are in demand for students looking for something to use.

In that spirit, here’s a breakdown of some of my stories that are both short enough to be read with a minimum of trimming and available online for any forensic students, speech class students, or other performers looking for something to read. Because I’ve got a lot of stories, I’m still working through the list and I’ll continue adding stuff as I go. For the complete list, see my publications page.

Prose Pieces for Forensic Students

In each category, I’ve listed the story, where it originally appeared, its length, type, and voice considerations.

Prose pieces eligible by National Forensics League Rules

The Accordion. Originally appeared in The Walden Review in 1991, reprinted in EYES LIKE SKY AND COAL AND MOONLIGHT. 4 minutes, humorous fantasy, first person, gender unspecified.
Bigfoot. Originally appeared in 13th Moon, 1992. 6 minutes, humorous fantasy, third person, voices include a female Bigfoot and a woman.
The Coffee Cup Song. Originally appeared in The Cornfield Review in 1992. 12 minutes, humorous, first person, young girl.
Falling. Originally appeared in Cream City Review in 1991. 3 minutes, dramatic, first person, gender unspecified.
Hands. Originally appeared in Dreams and Nightmares in 1991. 1 minute, surreal fantasy, 3rd person, gender unspecified.
Planet Crabby. Originally appeared in Asylum Magazine in 1990. 3 minutes, humorous science fiction, first person, gender unspecified.

Additional Prose pieces eligible by National Catholic Forensics League Rules

(Anything under NFL should also be eligible for this, if I am reading the rules correctly.)

The Dead Girl’s Wedding March. Originally appeared in Fantasy Magazine in 2006, reprinted in EYES LIKE SKY AND COAL AND MOONLIGHT. 7 minutes, dramatic fantasy, third person, voices include a young woman, her father, a male doctor, and a male rat.
Grandmother’s Road Trip. Originally appeared in Chiaroscuro in 2005, reprinted (electronic version only) in EYES LIKE SKY AND COAL AND MOONLIGHT. 12 minutes, dramatic horror, first person, voices are a young woman, her mother, and her grandmother.
Magnificent Pigs. Originally appeared in Strange Horizons in 2006, reprinted in EYES LIKE SKY AND COAL AND MOONLIGHT. 15 minutes, dramatic fantasy, first person, voices are an adult male, a young girl, and an elderly Jewish woman.
Swallowing Ghosts. Originally appeared in Daily Science Fiction. 3 minutes, dramatic fantasy, first person, voices are a young man, his grandfather, and the ghost of James Joyce.
Wickedness. Originally appeared in Flash Fantastic. 1 minute, humorous horror, 3rd person.

If you use one of my pieces in a forensics competition, please let me know!

On Awards: To Be Pushy Or Not To Be Pushy

Sometimes putting something up for award consideration feels uncomfortable, but if you're not going to toot your own horn, who is?

Amal El-Mohtar has a great blog post up right now about writers and posts where they list what’s eligible for awards. I get as squicky about writing my own as anyone else, I’ve got to admit, and I thought this was a terrific reminder that it’s okay to toot your own horn a bit.

So in that light, if you’re reading for the Hugo, Locus, Nebula, Tiptree, or World Fantasy Award, here you go.

I had twenty original pieces published in 2014. Of those, I’m pushing two, one SF short story and one fantasy story. The first is “Elsewhere, Within, Elsewhen,” which originally appeared in BEYOND THE SUN, edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt, which I am happy to mail a copy of to people interested in considering it. The fantasy story is “Superhero Art,” which appeared in DAILY SCIENCE FICTION. If you’d like to see the full list of 2013 pieces with links to the online ones, you can find it in my 2013 wrap-up post.

I myself am reading for the Hugo, Locus and Nebula and am not sure yet about WFC. I am also on the Norton jury this year, so if you’ve got a YA or MG novel that came out in 2013, I’m very interested. Feel free to leave pointers in the comments on this piece; I pledge to make sure I read any listed there. If you want to mail me something, please send it in mobi or pdf format.