James Dorr's Blog, page 106
March 23, 2018
SFPA Seeks Sponsors for Rhysling Antho by March 28; Smart Rhino Kickstarter for Plague of Shadows
Spring is upon us and, with it, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association’s annual “Year’s Best” anthology nears publication. Or to cop the tip from the horse’s mouth: Aside from STAR*LINE, the RHYSLING ANTHOLOGY is the SFPA’s single greatest contribution to the larger world of Speculative Poetry. It is a platform where Speculative Poets are nominated and acknowledged by their peers for single works of exemplary poetry. But ther[image error]e is a catch. Although dues-paying members of SFPA receive the anthology as a perk (while those not members may buy it as well), it does cost money. And so today’s email has brought a plea, that members — and non-members too! — may also contribute donations.
If interested, or for just more information on the Rhyslings and the anthology, one may press here. And if willing to donate, look to the right for the drop box marked Rhysling Sponsorship and take it from there.
In somewhat related news, Smart Rhino Publications is sponsoring a kickstarter for its and the Written Remains Writers Guild’s upcoming anthology A PLAGUE OF SHADOWS, more on which can be found here. This is a little unusual for me to report in that I don’t have a dog in this particular pack (though I don’t have a poem in this year’s Rhysling contention either, as it happens), but I have published with Smart Rhino before and, to quote their particular email this time, [o]ur main goals for this Kickstarter campaign are (1) to support the fruitful collaboration of amazing writers (regardless of their current stature in the publishing world), and (2) to bring the best horror and suspense fiction possible to you, the readers. Smart Rhino takes great pride in publishing quality books for our supporters — and our writers take great pride in providing you with the best stories they have to offer. My particular stories with them are in the anthologies UNCOMMON ASSASSINS, INSIDIOUS ASSASSINS, and ZIPPERED FLESH 3, and to help the cause one might buy one or more of those books as well.
March 20, 2018
Silent Night: A Lagniappe for Spring, 2018
The evening is quiet as dusk descends on this, the first night of spring, and . . . it’s snowing. It’s lovely. And this is the first night of spring, in Indiana, a land not known for its proximity to the North Pole.
Actually the snow had started as I was walking home this afternoon. I had been suffering from a bad cold, getting better now, but at doctor’s orders I was bearing meds from the drugstore downtown. My thought was then that it was nice as I crossed the University campus, still not too cold outside and only a few small flakes, much nicer than rain. But now it’s coming down with some fervor, covering the wet still almost too warm ground, though probably to amount to no more than an inch or two by the time it’s done according to the Weather Channel. And, once again, while snow even in early April is not unknown in Indiana, still it is the first night of Spring.
But it’s nice. And so to celebrate, herewith a poem — a lagniappe — of a previous season. “Winter’s Still” was originally published in PANIC (Sam’s Dot Publishing, 2005) and reprinted in the British e-zine DARK METRE, edited by Katy Bennett, on September 4 2011 (cf. for the latter September 4, June 8 2011). The text here is as it was sent to DARK METRE.
WINTER’S STILL
You know
how snow
blankets sound,
makes all white,
deadens sight,
blinding in sun —
silent —
new snow falls
covering steps
left behind.
Masking all.
Where is home?
Wind whistles now,
cold seeps
freezing bone,
shadows long,
lost — a patchwork
of woods, hollows,
mounds.
Quiet, white.
Heart beats then,
pounding,
fear sets in.
Attempts to flee.
Heaped drifts
inhibit flight,
tangled steps,
falling —
knees sinking —
and cloud
brings the night.
March 15, 2018
Science Prurience: Now That You’ve Moved Into Your New Space Home. . . .
Yes, what about the bedroom? So this is another example of serendipity via the web, a click on an email on a different subject, an article about prolonged time in space, then another click and . . . well, I hadn’t [image error]even thought to ask. But here it was: “Everything You’ve Always Wanted To Know About Having Sex In Space,” by Sam Diss (warning: may contain frank language) on SHORTLIST.COM. And, taking the previous post to its next level, it is an important aspect of life if to be spent in space for any length of time.
So be you warned, and — for scientific interest only, mind you — press here.
March 13, 2018
More Science Fact: Running and Operating Your New Space Home
Suppose you were the new civilian owner of the International Space Station? Do you just move in or, as one might suspect, could it possibly be a little more complicated than just that? In fact, Joe Pappalardo explains how much so in “The Owners Guide To Your New Space Station” on today’s installment of POPULARMECHANICS.COM. Or to quote from the subhead: Congratulations! [image error] You now own an outpost in orbit. Here’s how to dock with other spacecraft without breaking everything — and what to do about all that pee. And be admonished a few paragraphs later that [h]umanity’s big, dramatic future in space will depend on getting the small, everyday details right. Here are just a handful of the considerations of the future handyman-astronaut.
Interested? Thinking to buy? To see the full article, plus a few extra links, press here.
March 11, 2018
Science Fiction Fans/Writers Note: The Modern Reanimators May Be Here
No, it’s not zombies. It’s actual people, some who by rights maybe should have been dead, but managed to be resuscitated, as explained in “How Scientists Are Bringing People Back From the Dead” on yesterday’s POPSCI.COM. One word of caution, though: researchers prefer not to say “suspended animation,” favoring the description “Emergency Preservation and Resuscitation” (or EPR) although in science fiction movies when people go into a spaceship sleeping container, as Ripley at the end of ALIEN, we could be speaking of much the same thing. To see all, press here.
March 10, 2018
Wash Day, Monstrosities Now Out on Kindle
Quoting the blurb: Third Flatiron’s new speculative fiction anthology, MONSTROSITIES, contains 20 short stories about things that are disturbingly large or outrageous. A flash humor section, “Grins and Gurgles,” is a[image error]lso featured.
An international group of new and established contributors to “Monstrosites” makes this an original and varied collection that is sure to please fans of science fiction/fantasy, humor, and horror. Writers include Keyan Bowes, Larry Hodges, Carl R. Jennings, Mark Pantoja, Ray Daley, Brian Trent, James Dorr, Liam Hogan, Salinda Tyson, Jennifer R. Povey, Ville Merilainen, Sita C. Romero, Martin M. Clark, Sharon Diane King, Julia August, Robert Bagnall, Barry Charman, Russell Hemmell, and Joseph Sidari. With a special reprint from Edward Bryant. Edited by Juliana Rew.
Yes, MONSTROSITIES is out on schedule including my story, “Got Them Wash Day Blues” (cf. February 24; December 28 2017), in Kindle format. A print edition should follow as well in about a week, but for now for stories of things more enormous than they ought to be — including my own of laundry gone wild — one may check what Amazon has to offer by pressing here.
March 9, 2018
Bloody Mary Has Sisters, or, (Film) Lovers Beware?
Asami, Marie, Annie Wilkes, Carrie’s mother, what do these women all have in common? As Jessica Ferri would have it, courtesy of THE LINEUP: Men have dominated the “killer” role in horror movies for decades. There i[image error]s, however, a certain level of dread inspired by the female horror villain that just doesn’t compare. Driven by revenge, psychosis, demonic possession, or something even more sinister, we would not want to incur the wrath of these women. Move aside, Freddie and Jason. So possibly these wouldn’t make the best girlfriends — or friends in general. Nor would Mrs. Voorhees, Samara, Lola . . . the list goes on. And let’s be glad Valentine’s Day is over!
The article is titled “Hell Hath No Fury: 10 Best Female Horror Villains,” and can be found here.
March 7, 2018
Read an Ebook Week Untreed Reads Sale Includes Short Stories, New Year’s Antho
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I would note this includes three short story chapbooks by me, New England set steampunk/mystery VANITAS, Christmas/horror tale I’M DREAMING OF A. . . , and near future science fiction novelette PEDS, plus a New Year’s Eve anthology YEAR’S END: 14 TALES OF HOLIDAY HORROR with my lead story “Appointment in Time.” To check these out, one may press here (from which, if one wishes, one may also navigate to the Untreed Reads store main pages).
March 6, 2018
The Eye of the Storm: A Leisurely StokerCon Review
So, as we know (cf. March 4, below) I made it home from Providence Sunday, though fate (and American Airlines) apparently would have preferred that it be Monday. A flight to Philadelphia cancelled (one does not get to Indianapolis without changing planes at some point in the journey)! But I persisted as the saying goes, and a way was found, via Washington DC, with only one small glitch — it left from Boston. Ha ha!
But I once lived in the Boston area a long time ago and Logan Airport is no farther from Providence than, say, Indianapolis from where I live now. There are trains and busses, though schedules might be chancy on Sunday. So going back to the Dean Hotel (a lucky connection with a Providence city bus from the airport there back into the city) where I had been staying, and technically wouldn’t have had to check out till 11 a.m., where they let me borrow my room key back to rest for an hour or two, then set up a ride for me via Uber for, still, significantly less than the cost of an extra night in a hotel.
So I got back to Bloomington three hours later than I had planned — big deal, big deal! I who had survived, and walked between hotels, and 7-11s and CVSs to cobble together a rustic lunch, what USA TODAY has described as a “bomb cyclone”!
So, weather disasters and airports aside, just what was I doing at StokerCon?
Not schmoozing in the ConSuite for one thing. They didn’t have one — which is rather amateur in my opinion, the hospitality suite even more than proverbial, though over-noisy hotel bars being where people get together during lulls between panels and other activities. On Friday night, however, after 4 [image error]p.m.’s Dark Poets Face to Face Redux, several of the poets and I kind of faked it with order-in pizza (the “bomb cyclone” beginning to wind down) in one of our number’s room. And at 8 p.m. repaired from there to the Third Annual Final Frame Horror Short Film Competition, won by the very funny — and horrid — Great Choice (dir. Robin Comisar, “A woman gets stuck in a Red Lobster commercial”), with 2nd place going to Exhale (a.k.a. Expire, dir. Magali Magistry, “A toxic fog, the Smog, blanketed the planet forcing people to live confined. But when you are 15 like Juliette, real life truly begins outside) and 3rd to Winston (animated, dir. Aram Sarkisian, “A man is driven mad by his obsession and paranoia), some of which once the film festival season has ended may begin to be seeable on YouTube.
Other things I wasn’t on, but attended on Friday, were panels: Pulp Horror 2018, How (Not) to Win the Bram Stoker® Award, a post-lunch final half hour of What’s Vlad Got to Do with It? (“a tour thru Romania with Dacre Stoker”), How to Make Ordinary Things Scary (having noted to Dark Poets moderator Marge Simon that my TOMBS: A CHRONICLE OF LATTER-DAY TIMES OF EARTH, on the other hand, seeks in a way to make scary things ordinary), and DARK CARNIVAL: The Writing Prompts of Ray Bradbury. A very full day!
Saturday, following coffee Americano and a huge pecan donut at the Dean Hotel’s coffeehouse (very good, but nevertheless apart from the convention, still not a ConSuite) I shared a prose reading (Block Thirteen, 10 a.m. in the official program) with participant and host for the previous evening’s poetry and pizza Karen Bovenmyer and Nathan Carson, with me reading the Part III chapter called “Carnival of the Animals” from TOMBS. Afterward it was back to my hotel and one block farther to Providence’s public library, to use a computer to reconnect, briefly, with the outside world. Then, back at the Biltmore a panel attended, The Classic Weird in 2028, and out again for a late lunchette before 4 p.m.’s Vampires: The Next Generation which I moderated, and a final panel, Unspoken Clichés.
And that was pretty much that — with nothing planned for those who might not be going to the awards banquet, after some chatting with folk in the Biltmore lobby, etc., it was to the Subway across the street for a sandwich to go, then reviewing a busy and enjoyable weekend at my hotel and an early bedtime. And thus, well rested, I could find out at something before 7 a.m. Sunday that, re. getting home, the adventure had actually not quite yet ended.
But we already know about that.
March 5, 2018
Smashwords Sale Includes Smart Rhino Assassins Duo
Publisher/Editor Weldon Burge has noted that Smashwords has several Smart Rhino Publications titles on sale for the month of March. Or, from the as it were horse’s mouth: Smashwords is holding its annual sale of ebooks! Now’s the time to get most of the Smart Rhino books at a 50% discount. Browse the sale page or search for the [image error]specific titles. Just use the following codes before checking out. Look for the codes on the list below, but I’d also note that I’ve two specific hounds in this hunt (a third, ZIPPERED FLESH 3 with my “Golden Age,” seems not to be included, however), the “Assassins” books UNCOMMON ASSASSINS including my story “The Wellmaster’s Daughter” and INSIDIOUS ASSASSINS with “The Labyrinth,” for all of which on the Smashwords site one may press here. And, for the list of all Smart Rhino sale offerings:
Promotional price: $1.50
Coupon Code: CY79N
Expires: April 5, 2018
Description: Get GREEN TSUNAMI, the horror/SF novella at a 50% discount!
Promotional price: $1.50
Coupon Code: MK84N
Expires: April 5, 2018
Description: Get THE BOX JUMPER by Lisa Mannetti at a 50% discount!
Promotional price: $2.00
Coupon Code: DT99X
Expires: April 5, 2018
Description: Get INSIDIOUS ASSASSINS at a 50% discount. Get it while the sale lasts!
Promotional price: $1.98
Coupon Code: JZ46D
Expires: April 5, 2018
Description: SOMEONE WICKED: A WRITTEN REMAINS ANTHOLOGY now 50% off!
Promotional price: $2.00
[image error]Coupon Code: AE27W
Expires: April 5, 2018
Description: UNCOMMON ASSASSINS now at a 50% discount. Get it while the sale lasts!
Promotional price: $1.50
Coupon Code: JJ76E
Expires: April 5, 2018
Description: The first ZIPPERED FLESH is now at a 50% discount!
Promotional price: $2.00
Coupon Code: PB42R
Expires: April 5, 2018
Description: ZIPPERED FLESH 2 now discounted at 50%. Get it while you can!
Promotional price: $1.50
Coupon Code: FX52L
Expires: April 5, 2018
Description: Get Lisa Mannetti’s THE NEW ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER AND HUCK FINN at a 50% discount.
