James Dorr's Blog, page 143

Gold, Beauty of Death Available Now for Kindle Pre-Order

Wow!  A whole week of daily postings, with so much activity that half these cover more than just one announcement.  Busy, busy — as one imagines that during the hot, lazy days of July there’ll be weeks on end when I’ll be hard put to find one thing to post.  So, always, it goes.

But just a little announcement this time, THE BEAUTY OF DEATH including the premiere of my story “Gold” (see June 6, May 28, et al.) is now up for pre-order on Kindle . . . complete with a misspelling of my name on Amazon’s blurb, though I understand it should be correct for the book itself.  Ah, proofreading, proofreading.  According to Amazon, copies should be “auto-delivered” on Bastille Day, July 14.  Unfortunately there seem to be no plans at this time for a print edition (author’s contracts, in fact, were for electronic rights only), but some of the authors themselves, me included, have expressed a hope that this might change.

Be that as it may, for more information or ordering press here.

Another Bubba in Museum of Boom, Available on Kindle — Plus ToC, Cover Picture Revealed

“THE MUSEUM OF ALL THINGS AWESOME AND THAT GO BOOM is an anthology of science fiction featuring blunt force trauma, explosions, adventure, derring-do, tigers, Martians, zombies, fanged monsters, dinosaurs (alien and domestic), ray guns, rocket ships, and anthropomorphized marshmallows.”  So it says on Kindle where Upper Rubber Boot Books’s eclectic (to say the least) anthology has now been posted.  Curious or wish to order? press here.  Or for pre-ordering both print and/or electronic versions, plus a plethera of other info, one can visit the Museum’s own gift shop by pressing here.  So says Editor/Publisher Joanne Merriam.

As for me, remember the TERROR TREE PUN BOOK and “Olé Bubba and the Forty Steves” (cf. June 22 et al.)?  Well here we have another Bubba (a Bubba brother?) in a tongue-in-cheek tale of Christmas gone wrong, “Bubba Claus Conquers the Martians” (cf. June 13, March 17, et al.), originally published in HOUSTON, WE’VE GOT BUBBAS (Yard Dog Press, 2007).  With  . . .  zombies.

TABLE OF CONTENTS (so okay, you saw it March 17 too, but so much stuff in it. . . .)

Khadija Anderson, “Observational Couplets upon returning to Los Angeles from Outer Space”

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, “Photograph of a Secret”

Kristin Bock, “I Wish I Could Write a Poem about Pole-Vaulting Robots”

Alicia Cole, “Asteroid Orphan”

Jim Comer, “Soldier’s Coat”

James Dorr, “Bubba Claus Conquers the Martians”

Aidan Doyle, “Mr. Nine and the Gentleman Ghost”

Tom Doyle, “Crossing Borders”

Estíbaliz Espinosa, “Dissidence” (translated by Neil Anderson)

Kendra Fortmeyer, “Squaline”

Miriam Bird Greenberg, “Brazilian Telephone”

Benjamin Grossberg, “The Space Traveler and Runaway Stars”

Julie Bloss Kelsey, two scifaiku

Nick Kocz, “The Last American Tiger”

David C. Kopaska-Merkel, “Captain Marshmallow”

Ken Liu, “Nova Verba, Mundus Novus”

Kelly Luce, “Ideal Head of a Woman”

Tim Major, “Read/Write Head”

Katie Manning, “Baba Yaga’s Answer”

Laurent McAllister, “Kapuzine and the Wolf: A Hortatory Tale”

Martha McCollough, “valley of the talking dolls” and “adventures of cartoon bee”

Marc McKee, “A Moment in Fill-In-The-Blank City”

Sequoia Nagamatsu, “Headwater LLC”

Jerry Oltion, “A Star Is Born”

Richard King Perkins II, “The Sleeper’s Requiem”

Ursula Pflug, “Airport Shoes”

Leonard Richardson, “Let Us Now Praise Awesome Dinosaurs”

Erica L. Satifka, “Thirty-Six Questions Propounded by the Human-Powered Plasma Bomb in the Moments Before Her Imminent Detonation”

G. A. Semones, “Never Forget Some Things”

Matthew Sanborn Smith, “The Empire State Building Strikes Back!”

Christina Sng, “Medusa in LA”

J. J. Steinfeld, “The Loudest Sound Imaginable”

Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam, “The Wanderers”

Lucy Sussex, “A Sentimental, Sordid Education”

Sonya Taaffe, “And Black Unfathomable Lakes”

Mary A. Turzillo, “Pride”

Deborah Walker, “Sea Monkey Mermaid”

Nick Wood, “The Girl Who Called the World”

K. Ceres Wright, “The Haunting of M117”

Ali Znaidi, “A Dolphin Scene” and “Australian Horoscope”

Modest Stalker Completes Run of Great Tomes Table; And Speaking of Bards and Sages. . . .

Contracts came Tuesday, were signed Wednesday, and went into the mail today.  And oddly they shared the same envelope, although they’re for very different projects.  For the first, in fact, there’s a funny story that goes back to when I had been in Boy Scouts, and of an over-zealous (though mercifully fictional) Scoutmaster who proposed a survival hike in which participants would spend a week in the woods with “nothing but a jock strap and a knife.”  And so, once upon a more recent time, I wrote a sort of absurdist story in which the horror trope of the defenseless woman lost in the woods being stalked by a monster would be ratcheted up, the victim becoming a college student in a “survival geology” course with nothing but a rock hammer, a thong, and a silver dollar.

The geology part, incidentally, was a spinoff from another story, “Ice Vermin,” which will be reprinted in Bards and Sages Publishing’s third volume in their GREAT TOMES anthology series (cf. June 9, et al.), THE GREAT TOME OF FANTASTIC AND WONDROUS PLACES (see specifically May 11), thus joining stories I already have in their first two entries.  And so by coincidence this new story, called “The Stalker,” seemed like it might fit in the fourth and last book, but there was a snag.  The editors thought the undies might make it too over the top, and so on request I rewrote a new, more modestly attired version.  And now the word has come (well, actually Tuesday), the new better dressed “Stalker” (well, actually the stalker’s victim, the stalker itself being more like fur-covered) has been accepted for Volume 4, THE GREAT TOME OF CRYPTIDS AND LEGENDARY CREATURES, set for a December 2016 publication — and so I have stories either out, or due out by the end of the year, in all four of the GREAT TOMES volumes.

But another coincidence now comes forth.  A new Bards and Sages project has been announced, THE SOCIETY OF MISFIT STORIES “to provide a loving home for those misfit tales that are too long for most periodicals but too short for print.”  This will be in electronic format only, with reprints allowed although unpublished stories are preferred, for tales between 5,000 and 20,000 words in length “in all speculative genres (horror, science fiction, slipstream, steampunk, magical realism, etc.).  We will also consider mysteries, thrillers, and action-adventure stories for this series.”  These will be bought for a modest sum, but only for a six-month period, subject to subsequent renewals by mutual consent.  And I have several stories that otherwise are doing nothing that fit the description.

So, long story short, Tuesday also brought a contract for my 9,800 or thereabouts word “By Force and Against the King’s Peace,” a fantasy-mystery originally published in ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE in December 1999, and now tentatively scheduled for this September.

Two Poems Accepted by Alban Lake; Terror Tree Pun Book Limps in From UK

And for poetry. . . .  Well, I really don’t market poetry as much as I should, but this time I did.  So, having dispatched a group of five poems mostly on subjects involving teeth to the Alban Lake family of magazines, the reply came Tuesday from Editor Tyree Campbell:  “Of these, I’ll take two.  ‘Her First Time’ in the Nov 2016 BLOODBOND and ‘Zombie’ in the Dec 2016 DISTURBED.  In each case you’ll receive payment with your contributor’s copy.”  “Zombie,” fully titled “Zombie Trouble?” is sort of a mock sales pitch from a hypothetical pest control company, pointing out first the disturbances zombies are likely to cause the average household and, then, what the company will do about them.  “Her First Time,” on the other hand, is more straightforward, detailing the joyous experience a newly made vampiress receives when imbibing her first blood dinner (and never mind the cleaning bill for that ruined gown).

Summer solstice, June 20, Monday, and still catching up!  Yes the poetry was Tuesday, but what a flurry of activity the beginning of this summer has brought.  The revelation of — count ‘em! — two reprint mystery acceptances.  Also technically Monday though not read till Tuesday, the “Flightless Rats” proof sheets.  And also, posted today because there wasn’t room to do it before, but also received late Monday afternoon — and eleven months after its official British publishing date (see July 7 2015, et al.), the appearance in the Computer Cave’s non-electronic mailbox of KnightWatch Press’s TERROR TREE PUN BOOK OF HORROR STORIES.  The writing life, yes, these things do happen — and kudos to early EditorTheresa Derwin for rounding the copies up and getting them out.

But all’s well that ends well, my story in this being in a semi-prominent second-from last position (these being the stories the readers remember after the book has been put away), “Olé Bubba and the Forty Steves.”  Originally published in INTERNATIONAL HOUSE OF BUBBAS (Yard Dog Press, 2005), “Olé Bubba” is a light-hearted tale of yuppified zombies, non-zombie good ol’ boys, bodily processes, and the running of the bulls in Pamplona Spain.

The Roots of Horror Magazine Culture? Before Weird Tales, Visit Der Orchideengarten; Proof Copy Sent Back for Flightless Rats

This came to me Monday afternoon via Robert Dunbar on Facebook’s LITERARY DARKNESS, an interesting, grotesque, and in its way beautiful piece by Josh Jones from OPENCULTURE.COM.  Titled  “Discover the First Horror & Fantasy Magazine, DER ORCHIDEENGARTEN, and Its Bizarre Artwork (1919-1921),” the article describes and offers examples from a German precursor to even America’s venerable WEIRD TALES (first issue March 1923), its title translated as THE GARDEN OF ORCHIDS.  To quote the article’s third paragraph, “[t]he magazine featured work from its editors Karl Hans Strobl and Alfons von Czibulka, from better-known contemporaries like H.G. Wells and Karel Capek, and from forefathers like Dickens, Pushkin, Guy de Maupassant, Poe, Voltaire, Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and others.  ‘Although two issues of Der Orchideengarten were devoted to detective stories,’ writes 50 Watts, ‘and one to erotic stories about cuckolds, it was a genuine fantasy magazine.’  And it was also a gallery of bizarre and unusual artwork.”

To see it all for oneself, why not press here (and also be sure to check out the links in the piece itself, including the “Related Content” down at the bottom)?

Yesterday also brought a missive from Alexandra Christian, to wit:  “Here is the very limited edit on your flash story.  I just wanted to make sure it was all good before it went out to the formatter.”  And so the writing life continues, the very few changes checked out this morning with my reply just sent back.  This is for the Mocha Memoirs Press chapbook that will include my New Orleanian “casket girls” tale of “Flightless Rats” (cf. June 8, et al.), as one of ten stories that placed in their last February’s Women in Horror Month flash fiction contest.  More on this to be announced when it happens.

Now All Can Be Told: The “Mystery” Acceptances of Monday and Tuesday Last Week Unveiled!

Quotation marks — do I sense a pun?  But first let us repair to the wayback machine for a journey to June 21 2015, “Now It Can Be Told. . . .” (cf., as well, November 4, August 7, et al.), where it was revealed that my reprint story from GOTHIC GHOSTS, “Victorians,” had been accepted for an omnibus volume of unworldly imaginings, both old and new, called CHILLING GHOST SHORT STORIES, to come out in Britain in a deluxe edition by Flame Tree Publishing.  In this case, neatly sandwiched between tales by luminaries Charles Dickens (“The Signal-Man”) and Arthur Conan Doyle (“The New Catacomb”).   And then to fast forward where we now discover that Editor Gillian Whitaker is at it again.

Two titles were announced this time out, CRIME AND MYSTERY (to “feature whodunits, detective stories and mysteries bordering on the supernatural.  Probably the more gentle of the two volumes so think Sherlock Holmes, Father Brown and Poirot”) and MURDER MAYHEM (“more hard boiled and hard gore.  If your story features real monsters, human, serial killer or otherwise, this is the home for them, especially if the story’s POV is the killer’s”).  Ah, now, I thought. . . .  And so I submitted a total of three stories, actually (we were allowed to do that), two for the MURDER MAYHEM selection lest my favorite of them prove too extreme (good news:  it didn’t).  Then Monday and Tuesday last week the word came back, first for MURDER MAYHEM, then the next day for CRIME AND MYSTERY, but with the request that successful submitters hold off announcing the fact until all authors had had a chance to be informed.

So . . . to cop a cliché, now it can be told!  For MURDER MAYHEM my dog in the dogpile will be “Mr. Happy Head,” originally published in WICKED MYSTIC for Spring 1996 (and also reprinted and noted in the pages here in BIZARRO BIZARRO, cf. December 27, October 12, October 7 2013), about a dead man who’s still very persuasive and . . . birds.  For CRIME AND MYSTERY “Paperboxing Art,” originally seen in the Summer 1997 issue of NEW MYSTERY and subsequently an Anthony Award short story finalist at Bouchercon the following year, about an artist whose skill is in sculpting (wait for it!) paper boxes (and also reprinted in my collection DARKER LOVES:  TALES OF MYSTERY AND REGRET, for more on which one can click on its picture in the center column).

The expected publication date for both of these is August 2016, of which more will appear here as it becomes known.

Another Round of Proof Sheets Down as Everywhere Stories Nears Fall Publication

Another week, another weekend, the writing life goes on.  This weekend brought my writing group’s monthly meeting (my story critiqued, a short-short “steampunk romance” that got a better reception there than from editors so far) and, actually received Friday, a full galley proof of EVERYWHERE STORIES, VOLUME 2 (cf. May 10, et al.), with my one-time ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE story “The Wellmaster’s Daughter” number three in the contents lineup.

Her tale originally published in November 1991, and also reprinted in STRANGE MISTRESSES:  TALES OF WONDER AND ROMANCE (for details on which, one can press its picture in the center column) and Smart Rhino Publications’s 2012 UNCOMMON ASSASSINS, etc., the daughter in question displays poor judgment in making friends, something that can have dangerous overtones if one’s home is in the Sahara Desert.  But part of the subtext of EVERYWHERE STORIES is itself danger, according to Editor Clifford Garstang, along with more than just a touch of the mysterious, with story locations spread over twenty different nations, covering at least five continents.

And so, Sunday night, in the wee, wee late hours, my “okay” of my parts of the text went back, well ahead of a July 10 deadline.  The book is still on schedule for an October or possibly earlier release, and therefore should be out from Press 53, LLC, well in time (for those who might, *ahem*, contemplate giving gifts) for a worldwide Halloween celebration.

Remember, Remember the 5th of November — A Borrowed Review

. . . the class is about how science fiction, and speculative fiction in general, “is a favored genre for reimagining, reworking and critiquing gender roles, human sexuality, the relationship between humans and technology, war, and racial stereotypes.  It is a place where utopic and dystopic notions of government and power are explored, a powerful lens for looking back at our own contemporary reality.”

Yes, I’m quoting myself quoting something else, in this case the syllabus of Joan Hawkins’s media class on science fiction in which I and two other “SCIFI” critique group members took part (see May 24).  Apropos of this, last night’s DVD fare was V FOR VENDETTA, spurred by a review by Emily Asher-Perrin via yesterday’s TOR.COM email.  It was the second time I’d seen the movie, actually, and I hadn’t been all that impressed the first time. I suspect probably because I watched it as an adventure, dystopic, yes, but on the surface the exploits of a single dissident against “The Man.”  On that basis it wasn’t bad, mind you, but seemed a little too Zorro-like to my taste, too comic-book like maybe (notwithstanding that it is itself based on a graphic novel).

And yes, there are plot holes, if one wants to see them.  But on this second viewing I was looking past the surface, this time at the background, which, sometimes even in comic books as well, offered a richness of context in detail which, I would say now, is the point of the film.  And, as Asher-Perrin argues in her review, perhaps the film is more important now than in any time during its ten-year history, especially given events of last weekend.

How do dystopias work, anyway, and what are their  details?  In Joan Hawkins’s class, one story I described was one of my own, “Invisible People” (cf. October 30, May 30 2015, et al.), with MATRIX-like implications of a semi-voluntary brainwashing, an avoidance of viewing the truth straight on fueled by a desire to conform with others, to not rock the boat.  To blend into the background, even if that background is dishonest.  In V FOR VENDETTA it’s more direct — the background is fear.  In “Invisible People” there may be an echo more of the past, of a mid-century, 1950s America where there was fear too, of “Godless Communism” just as there is now of “radical Islamic terrorism,” but also, as now, an underlying more general fear of those (things and people) that are just . . . “different.”  In V FOR VENDETTA it’s more direct, though with echoes also, accented perhaps by its setting in England, of Orwell’s 1984.

In 1950s America there was ultimately a rebellion of sorts, the shakeout of which is still with us.  Rock ‘n’ Roll, for one thing, as a sort of precursor but, more, the counterculture movement that grew up in the late 1960s.  When the ‘80s came, perhaps it was sold out, what parts remained of it — in economic terms the growing prosperity for those at the bottom as well as the top, what once we thought of as “the American dream,” has yet to return too.  While in the world of V FOR VENDETTA. . . ?

For a look at Asher-Perrin’s view, “Apologize to No One — V FOR VENDETTA Is More Important Today Than it Ever Was,” one may press here.

2nd Surprise Acceptance — Reveal to Be Monday; Top 10 Flash Fiction Mill Grinds On

For starters, Tuesday brought a second “mystery” acceptance, with contract attached, with the same proviso as with yesterday’s, that details cannot be released until all aspirants have learned their fates.  Or something like that.  The idea is not to have rumors flying until everyone concerned knows whether their stories have found new homes or not.  Again, fair enough.  But in the meantime, another thing learned:  that all can be unveiled next Monday.

Also, harking back to June 8 (cf. that date, also February 23 this year), we have an update on “Flightless Rats” and Mocha Memoirs’s Top Ten Flash Fiction Finalist chapbook.  Stories are in the editing process (“not planning on doing any huge changes, but I do want you to look them over”) with proof sheets to come in, probably, the next few weeks.  Also a cover is being designed, according to Tuesday morning’s email from Editor Alexandra Christian.  “We don’t have a final release date yet, but we’re looking at getting this out by the end of July.  It’s going to be a whirlwind, but I think we can do it.”

(Again the picture could be of the vampiress Aimée after an extremely satisfying night, but it’s actually early 20th century American film actress Theda Bara.)

The Writing Life: Proof Copies, Contracts, Release Date Given for Awesome Museum

Today brings some of the ancillary aspects of writing, the major bit being to go over proof sheets from CEMETERY RIOTS for “The Re-Possessed” (cf. May 5, et al.), my tale of the business side of Victorian funerals.  First, to be sure, one must find an honest undertaker — but then the bereaved must be certain that he is honest himself as well.  If things stay on schedule the book is expected later this month, so corrections, if any, should go back tonight.

Then, unrelated, an acceptance and contract came today, the latter of which must be read over, signed, and popped into the mail tomorrow.  For what, one may ask?  But here’s the odd part.  That must be a secret, at least for a few days in deference to other writers who may still be awaiting word.  Which is fair enough.  So stay tuned and, in time, all will be revealed.

And then, speaking of timetables, I now have an expected release date for “Bubba Claus Conquers the Martians” and Upper Rubber Boots Books’s THE MUSEUM OF ALL THINGS AWESOME AND THAT GO BOOM (cf. March 17, et al.).  “Bubba Claus,” of course, is a Christmas story — in this case one that also has zombies — and so, for visions of sleighs and snow (or at least a space shuttle) in the height of summer, it’s slated for publication next month on July 26.