John Joseph Adams's Blog, page 43

My 2011 Readercon Schedule

I'll be attending Readercon this year, held July 14-17, in Burlington, Mass. Here's my schedule:

Friday July 15

12:00 PM – Autographing.

John Joseph Adams

2:30 PM – Reading.

John Joseph Adams

Adams reads selections from his anthologies and magazines.

5:00 PM – De Gustibus Est Disputandum When Editing Anthologies.

John Joseph Adams, Ellen Datlow, Gardner Dozois, John Kessel (leader), Howard Waldrop.

While any anthology has its no-brainer must-include great stories, the anthologist usually needs to flesh it out with selections from a broader pool of merely good stories. When should an editor choose their personal favorites from that pool, giving the anthology more of a coherent flavor but possibly limiting its audience, and when should they make a conscious effort to choose stories that will appeal to a wide variety of readers, so that there is "something for everyone"? How do the rules change when one is editing a themed anthology or a Year's Best, or pitching to a larger or smaller publisher?

Saturday July 16

2:00 PM – Kaffeeklatsch.

John Joseph Adams

2011 World Fantasy Awards Nomination Period Still Open

This year's World Fantasy Award nomination period is still open. The 2011World Fantasy  Awards will be presented in San Diego, CA during the World Fantasy Convention (October 27-30). Deadline for nominating online is May 31.

Anyone who has a supporting or full membership from the 2010 World Fantasy Convention, or the upcoming 2011 World Fantasy Convention may nominate works. If you didn't attend World Fantasy last year, and you don't plan to attend this year, you can still nominate by purchasing a supporting membership.

Already registered? Go and nominate your favorite works! (Note: You may email your ballot to the award administrator, Rodger Turner, to the email address listed on the nomination ballot.)

Here's a list of works I edited that are eligible in the various World Fantasy categories. Linked titles are available to read online for free. (Note that the World Fantasy categories are slightly different than the Nebulas and Hugos in regard to word counts: World Fantasy considers a Novella to be 10,000-40,000 words and Short Story to be 10,000 words or less, whereas the Nebulas and Hugos divide those categories differently, and have a third category (Novelette) in between.)

Titles annotated with DATLOW, HORTON, GURAN, or JONES indicate that the story in question has been selected for inclusion in the editor's best-of-the-year anthology.

Novella (10,000 – 40,000 words)

Feeding the Feral Children—David Farland (The Way of the Wizard)
Life So Dear Or Peace So Sweet—C. C. Finlay (The Way of the Wizard)

Short Story (under 10,000 words)

Dating in Dead World—Joe McKinney (The Living Dead 2)
Alone, Together—Robert Kirkman (The Living Dead 2)
The Price of a Slice—John Skipp & Cody Goodfellow (The Living Dead 2)
When the Zombies Win—Karina Sumner-Smith (The Living Dead 2) DATLOW, JONES
Zombie Gigolo—S. G. Browne (The Living Dead 2)
The Other Side—Jamie Lackey (The Living Dead 2)
And the Next, and the Next—Genevieve Valentine (The Living Dead 2)
Pirates vs. Zombies—Amelia Beamer (The Living Dead 2)
Everglades—Mira Grant (The Living Dead 2)
Steve and Fred—Max Brooks (The Living Dead 2)
The Anteroom—Adam-Troy Castro (The Living Dead 2)
Mouja—Matt London (The Living Dead 2)
The Mexican Bus—Walter Greatshell (The Living Dead 2)
Who We Used to Be—David Moody (The Living Dead 2)
Last Stand—Kelley Armstrong (The Living Dead 2)
Flotsam & Jetsam—Carrie Ryan (The Living Dead 2)
Reluctance—Cherie Priest (The Living Dead 2)
Tameshigiri—Steven Gould (The Living Dead 2)
The Summer Place—Bob Fingerman (The Living Dead 2)
The Days of Flaming Motorcycles—Catherynne M. Valente DATLOW

(The Living Dead 2 / Dark Faith)
He Said, Laughing—Simon R. Green (The Living Dead 2) GURAN
Are You Trying to Tell Me This is Heaven?—Sarah Langan (The Living Dead 2) GURAN
Lost Canyon of the Dead—Brian Keene (The Living Dead 2)
Good People—David Wellington (The Living Dead 2)
The Skull-Faced City—David Barr Kirtley (The Living Dead 2)
Zero Tolerance—Jonathan Maberry (The Living Dead 2)
The Orange-Tree Sacrifice—Vylar Kaftan (The Way of the Wizard)
The Sorcerer Minus—Jeffrey Ford (The Way of the Wizard)
Too Fatal a Poison—Krista Hoeppner Leahy (The Way of the Wizard)
So Deep That the Bottom Could Not Be Seen—Genevieve Valentine

(The Way of the Wizard)
Street Wizard—Simon R. Green (The Way of the Wizard)
Card Sharp—Rajan Khanna (The Way of the Wizard)
Endgame—Lev Grossman (The Way of the Wizard / Borders.com)
The Secret of Calling Rabbits—Wendy N. Wagner (The Way of the Wizard)
The Magician and the Maid and Other Stories—Christie Yant

(The Way of the Wizard) HORTON
Love is the Spell That Casts Out Fear—Desirina Boskovich (The Way of the Wizard)
The Trader and the Slave—Cinda Williams Chima (The Way of the Wizard)
The Go-Slow—Nnedi Okorafor (The Way of the Wizard)
The Ereshkigal Working—Jonathan L. Howard (The Way of the Wizard)
Mommy Issues of the Dead—T. A. Pratt (The Way of the Wizard)
Family Tree—David Barr Kirtley (The Way of the Wizard)
One Click Banishment—Jeremiah Tolbert (The Way of the Wizard)
The Thirteen Texts of Arthyria—John R. Fultz (The Way of the Wizard)

Special Award, Professional

John Joseph Adams (for editing: The Living Dead 2, The Way of the Wizard)

Cover Art for My Anthology, ARMORED (Baen, 2012)

Check out the artwork for my forthcoming anthology ARMORED (Baen, 2012). The artwork is by Kurt Miller.

Here's a description of the book: From Starship Troopers and Iron Man to Halo and Mechwarrior, readers and gamers have long been fascinated by the idea of going to battle in suits of personal, powered combat armor or giant mechs. This anthology explores the range of what can be done with the trope, from the near-future powered exoskelton technologies we might be seeing just a few years from now, to the combat armors of Starship Troopers and Halo, to the giant bipedal mechs of Mechwarrior. Featuring original stories by: Alastair Reynolds, Dan Abnett, Jack Campbell, Jack McDevitt, Simon R Green, Sean Williams, Genevieve Valentine, and more! (Full table of contents not yet final.) For more, see this article on io9 about the anthology.

Way of the Wizard Giveaway on Goodreads

I'm giving away 10 copies of my anthology The Way of the Wizard on Goodreads:

The Way of the Wizard
by John Joseph Adams

Released November 15 2010

Giveaway ends in 20 days (May 31, 2011)

giveaway details »

Enter to win

Hugo! Award! Nominations!

So this year's Hugo finalists have been announced…and I'm up for the Best Editor, Short Form award! Additionally, Lightspeed is up for Best Semiprozine, and a story we published in Lightspeed, "Amaryllis" by Carrie Vaughn, is a finalist for Best Short Story!

To say I'm thrilled would be a huge understatement. It's been so hard to keep this quiet until the results were announced, so it's great to finally be able to share the news with you all. It is a huge, huge honor to be nominated, and one I will always cherish.

A big congrats to Carrie Vaughn–it's her first sf award nomination!–and to all of the other authors who have appeared in Lightspeed. And also a sincere congratulations (and HUGE THANKS) to everyone who works with me on the Lightspeed team. I'd like to especially single out my assistant editors Christie Yant and Erin Stocks, my former assistant Jordan Hamessley, my editorial assistant Stacey Friedberg, our podcast/audio editor Stefan Rudnicki, our former nonfiction editor Andrea Kail, and our amazing webmaster Jeremiah Tolbert–you guys helped shape Lightspeed pretty much from the very beginning, and we couldn't have done it without you. Thanks too to all of the current team members who have helped keep the ship afloat–managing editor Molly Tanzer, current nonfiction editor Esther Inglis-Arkell, editorial assistant Robyn Lupo, and everyone who works on the slush team. And, last but not least, we all owe a huge debt to Lightspeed's publisher, Sean Wallace, for taking the bold step to launch the magazine and for giving us all the tools to put out a great product that we're all really proud of.

And more generally, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Gordon Van Gelder for being such a fantastic editorial mentor; I wouldn't have the career I have today if not for his tutelage. And thanks too to Ellen Datlow and all of my other editorial colleagues who have helped me along the way (both directly–and indirectly, by showing me the way with their great anthologies).

For a full list of the finalists, check out Locus Online's reportage of the nominees.

Lightspeed Wins Million Writers Award for Best New Online Magazine!

The storySouth Million Writers Award have announced the best online Notable Stories of 2010, and Lightspeed has been named the best new online magazine:

The winner of this year's Million Writers Award for best new online magazine is Lightspeed Magazine. Edited by John Joseph Adams, Lightspeed has quickly established itself as one of the premier professional markets for science fiction and landed four nominations on this list. Equally as impressive, "Arvies" by Adam-Troy Castro was selected by more Million Writers Award judges than any other story in the history of our award."

Here are the notable stories from Lightspeed and Fantasy:

Fantasy Magazine

http://www.fantasy-magazine.com/

"The Seal of Sulaymaan" by Tracy Canfield

http://www.fantasy-magazine.com/fiction/the-seal-of-sulaymaan/
"Whisper's Voice" by Elena Gleason

http://www.fantasy-magazine.com/2010/04/whispers-voice/
Mademoiselle and the Chevalier by Mari Ness

http://www.fantasy-magazine.com/fiction/mademoiselle-and-the-chevalier/

Lightspeed Magazine

http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com

"Arvies" by Adam-Troy Castro *

http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/arvies/
"Hindsight" by Sarah Langan

http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/hindsight/
"Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain" by Yoon Ha Lee *

http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/flower-mercy-needle-chain/
"Standard Loneliness Package" by Charles Yu

http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/standard-loneliness-package/

(* Selected by more than one preliminary judge)

The top ten finalists for the Million Writers Award will be announced in May, at which point the voting will open up to the public to determine the winner. Congratulations to all of the finalists, both at my magazines and elsewhere!

The Book of Cthulhu Update

Sad news, friends: I will no longer be editing The Book of Cthulhu for Night Shade Books. Thanks to everyone who made recommendations and sent in stories.

The good news is, the project will be moving forward, but with a new editor at the helm: Ross Lockhart of Night Shade Books. I've turned over my materials to him, and forwarded along any stories authors sent to me. If you want to get in touch with him, you can reach him at ross [at] nightshadebooks [dot] com.

My decision to step away from this project was part of some issues I had with Night Shade. For what it's worth, resolution of those issues is now largely in place; Night Shade remains the publisher of several of my books and it continues to publish an innovative and exciting list in a difficult publishing environment.

The Proposal

As many of you reading this already know, I recently proposed to my girlfriend, Christie Yant, who I have been seeing for about a year now. Because several of you were asking for details, here's how the proposal happened.

The Ring

The ring had belonged to my grandmother, who I took care of and lived with for several years (and who helped raise me as a kid). My grandmother and grandfather were married for 60+ years, so the ring seemed to have a lot in its favor. Getting the ring sized was a bit of a challenge; I didn't know Christie's ring size, so I had to do some detective work. There weren't a whole lot of rings laying around for me to borrow and take down to the jeweler's, so at some point I was kind of despairing. I didn't want to ask her daughter Danni, or any of her friends, lest I tip my hand too early. Thankfully, eventually I saw her wearing one of her rings, then later saw that same ring in the bathroom. But I didn't want to take that one since she'd just been wearing it, in case she went back looking for it to put it on again. So I dug around and found another ring and compared the two to make sure they were the same size.

The Ring

Ring in hand, my next challenge was to find a way to get down to the jeweler in secret. One of the nice things about both of us working from home is that we can basically spend all day with each other. But that can make things a bit difficult when you want to plan a surprise. We also only have one car that we share between us, and we usually go to the gym together, so I don't really have any good excuses generally to go out by myself. Fortunately, after I found the ring for size-reference, one day Christie didn't feel like going to the gym, so I was able to stop by the jeweler on the way and drop it off. I also had my grandparents' wedding bands, so I got those rings resized too.

The Place

Nearby where we live in Lompoc is La Purisma Mission, one of the Spanish missions in California, a series of religious and military outposts established by Spanish Catholics of the Franciscan Order between 1769 and 1823 to spread the Christian faith among the local Native Americans. The Purisma mission is now a California state park, and is nearly fully preserved: the old buildings are still there and restored, so it's kind of a combination of museum and park. Christie took me down there on my first trip out to visit her here in Lompoc, as it's one of her favorite places, and we go down there for walks fairly regularly.

[Christie's note: We intend to rebuild civilization there after the Apocalypse.]

The Plan

The day I proposed (March 17) is our dating anniversary. I suggested we go down to the mission for a picnic, so we packed up a lunch and headed down there around noon…or rather we tried to, but the car wouldn't start. That's a recurring problem of ours–the battery doesn't hold a charge very well–so we have a battery charger, and we just had to delay heading down there for an hour while the battery charged. We also narrowly averted disaster when we left the keys in the car and very well could have locked them in there; luckily the passenger side door was unlocked!

[Christie's note: John never used the M Word in conversation, but very recently he had started telling me about all of these different writers who had met their wives at conventions. (We met at WFC.) [John's note: I recently sent Robert Silverberg a royalty check and he noticed I had moved to Lompoc, and so I explained that I had moved in with my girlfriend, who I had met at WFC; he said that he too met a woman at a convention...and that he's still married to her after all these years. And then S. M. Stirling sent me his bio for an upcoming anthology, and in his bio he describes meeting and then marrying his wife at a convention.] It was kind of a dramatic shift from what had seemed almost like avoiding the topic to directly comparing us to long-married couples. Then when he first suggested the Mission he had this LOOK on his face, like he had something up his sleeve. Our boy does not do guile very well. (One of the things I love about him.) Based on that, I suspected it *might* be happening that day. I went so far as to just double-check with my teenaged daughter and make sure there were no objections JUST IN CASE. So I went in kind of prepared, as you'll see.]

After the battery charged, we headed over to the mission. Once on the grounds, we had some debate as to where to have the picnic; Christie had attempted picnics there before and seemed to be wary of yellow jackets descending upon us. I had suggested we go over by the Spring House, which seemed to be Christie's favorite spot at the mission, based on what she had said during previous visits. She was a bit concerned about the potential yellow jacket problem over there, and we considered doing the picnic over by the main building, which has a church and historical housing and offices and stuff (for display, not in use by anyone). In the end, we decided to chance the Spring House. (And it was all fine! No bugs!)

So we laid down our blanket and set up camp on the shady side of the Spring House. No one was around; it was just us and the ground squirrels, which we could see out on the field in front of us. We ate our lunch. There MAY have been some hugging and kissing and whispers of "happy anniversary" and discussion of that an awesome year it had been.

When we finished up, Christie asked if we should walk around for a bit before heading back, and I said sure. So we stood up and gathered our things and ended up in a hug. When we broke the hug, I pulled a matchbox out of my pocket.

The Proposal, And More Background (In Which Christie is Totally Not a Crazy Person at All)

Christie has been known to make these little boxes that she calls "wish boxes" in which, as the name implies, she inserts a wish. [Christie's disclaimer: I SWEAR THIS DOES NOT MAKE ME A CRAZY PERSON. Also this was a SECRET. Nobody knows about those but you. Until now. It's okay though, it's needed context.] The wish boxes are made out of matchboxes, which she paints with acrylics and to which she sometimes adds other accouterments. When she started falling for me, she made up a wish box and wrote "John Joseph Adams

Christie's original wish box

The matchbox I took out of my pocket was a wish box of my own. Luckily, in the weeks prior to the proposal, I had a D&D miniature I needed to paint, so I had a handy excuse to take her paints out into the garage so I could work on the wish box in secret. (Also luckily, she tends to sleep in on the weekend, whereas I can't help but get up at like 7 every day.)

So I handed her the wish box and let her open it. On the slip of paper inside, I had written: "CY

The Proposal wish box

So when she was done reading the wish, I dropped to one knee and asked "Will you marry me?" to which she said "Oh hell yes!"

[Christie's note: I think it went, "Oh hell yes! Yes. YES. Yes." Eloquent to the end, that's me. This was followed by hugging and getting him to stand up--because even in the midst of all of this I was gravely concerned about his knee being on the hard ground; funny the things one thinks of during LIFE-CHANGING MOMENTS OF GREAT IMPORTANCE--before we fumbled with shaky hands to get the ring on. [John's note: I tried to put the ring on the wrong finger at first. My bad.] First thought: He had it sized right! How did he do that? Second thought: MY GOD IT'S BEAUTIFUL! He must have been going through my bookmarks. Well done. I was surprised to learn that it was his grandmother's because it suited my tastes so perfectly. That it had that extra layer of meaning made it even more wonderful.]

(When she saw the ring, Christie couldn't stop looking at it, both because of what it means and because of the beauty of the object itself; unbeknownst to me, my grandmother's engagement ring was very much like a ring Christie had been coveting online, discovered during her periodic "sparkle therapy" sessions (i.e., browsing the internets for pretty things to make you feel better).

We hugged and kissed, and she said "Oh!" and handed me a wish box of her own:

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The post-proposal wish box

Breakdown of Lightspeed Honors

At Lightspeed, we had a great 2010. Ten out of the sixteen original stories published in Lightspeed in 2010 have now been either reprinted in a best-of-the-year anthology or nominated for a major award.

Here's a breakdown of all the honors our various stories have received thus far:

"Arvies" by Adam-Troy Castro

Nebula Award finalist
Reprinted in The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy edited by Rich Horton

"I'm Alive, I Love You, I'll See You in Reno" by Vylar Kaftan

Nebula Award finalist

"Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain" by Yoon Ha Lee

Reprinted in The Year's Best Science Fiction edited by Gardner Dozois
Reprinted in The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy edited by Rich Horton

"In-Fall" by Ted Kosmatka

Reprinted in The Year's Best Science Fiction edited by Gardner Dozois

"Amaryllis" by Carrie Vaughn

Reprinted in The Year's Best Science Fiction edited by Gardner Dozois

"How to Become a Mars Overlord" by Catherynne M. Valente

Reprinted in Year's Best SF edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer

"The Cassandra Project" by Jack McDevitt

Reprinted in Year's Best SF edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer

"No Time Like the Present" by Carol Emshwiller

Reprinted in The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy edited by Rich Horton

"Standard Loneliness Package" by Charles Yu

Reprinted in The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy edited by Rich Horton

"The Zeppelin Conductors' Society Annual Gentlemen's Ball" by Genevieve Valentine

Reprinted in The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year edited by Jonathan Strahan

Lightspeed Nominated for TWO NEBULA AWARDS!!

The Science Fiction/Fantasy Writers of America have announced this year's Nebula Awards ballot, and it includes TWO STORIES from Lightspeed!

Short Story

''Arvies'', Adam-Troy Castro (Lightspeed Magazine 8/10)
''I'm Alive, I Love You, I'll See You in Reno'', Vylar Kaftan (Lightspeed Magazine 6/10)

Check out the rest of the nominees here. Congratulations to all of the finalists but especially to Vylar and Adam-Troy!