James Dorr's Blog, page 64

“Mystery” Acceptance Fourth for New Decade, Contract Returned; Space Monsters Travel Fast

Two very quick items:  The first, a new story has been accepted, with email and contract received last night.  The problem, however, and not an unusual one, is that the market is still open and the editor has asked that I hold off on giving details until all acceptances have bee[image error]n announced.  At a guess, I’d suspect this might be in late January/early February at which time the news will be reported here; until then we’ll just have to wait together.

Then the other, on the 13th I announced that MONSTERS IN SPAAAACE! had sent out authors’ copies.  So yesterday evening my copy arrived, exceedingly quickly, and coincidentally at a time when I’d just finished reading another anthology.  So now I know how I’ll be spending my evenings the rest of this week. . . .

Third Prisoner on 21st? Flash In A Flash Subscription Info

Flash in a flash is a bi-weekly* newsletter of bite-sized stories from every genre under the sun.  New, professional, and experienced authors all bringing you their best in less than 1000 words.  So begins the FLASH IN A FLASH blurb, which can be seen/signed up for by pressing here.  And the thing is, it’s free.

But that’s not just the reason I’m noting it here. Today word came that my story, “The Third Prisoner” (see January 8), will be published there in the near future and the thing is, if you’re a subscriber you’ll be able to read it.

So, January 8’s acceptance email from Publisher Jason Brick put the 21st of this month as the planned publication date, so check here for the news.  Or, if you’re a subscriber you’ll probably get an email as well, but either way it’s a very short story and, as said above, will be able to be read for free.

 

*That is to say twice a week, I believe, not every two weeks.

Atoms, Monsters In Spaaaace Anthology Available on Amazon

This one goes back to late summer, cf. August 2, and an oddly unexpected acceptance of my story “Atoms,” originally published in the February 1992 FANTASTIC COLLECTIBLES.  The anthology’s title, by Dragon’s Roost Press:  MONSTERS IN SPAAAACE!  So last night the email came, not to announce it was finally published, but rather a notice that authors’ copies should be received shortly.
.
Well and good, with more to come here when mine arrives.  But, playing detective, that also implies . . . YES!  MONSTERS IN SPAAAACE! has indeed been published and, in fact, [image error] has been available for a bit of time in both print and Kindle.  Quoting the blurb:  One of the most common fears is the fear of the dark: what might be lurking in the shadows, what we can’t see.  All of the monsters from your childhood could be hiding in that darkness.  Given this, what could be more terrifying than the infinite void of space?  Who knows what creatures await you once you leave the comfortable confines of your home planet.  MONSTERS IN SPAAAACE! contains seventeen such explorations, classic monsters in off world settings.  This collection contains werewolves, vampires, ghosts, haunted items, and more all in the blackness of space or the terrifying settings of foreign worlds and abandoned starships.  Prepare to be scared out of your spacesuit.
.
So which describes my story, “Atoms”?  To find out (or at least for more information) press here.

Battered, Not Beaten: Beer-Enhanced Shrimp-Fest Not KO’d Quite Yet

This is another “anthology coming out from the cold” episode, for which we go back to late October last year (cf. October 29, 6, et al.).  The project, BEER-BATTERED SHRIMP FOR COGNITIVE RUMINATIONS, the “witty and wacky all-illustrated micro-story and saying compendium,” including my own 75-word fairy tale epic “As Fine as Frog’s Hair.”  An ambitious attempt, it didn’t fare as well at its kickstarter as it might have, and production costs (“all-illustrated,” rem[image error]ember?) were apt to be high.  Well, these things do happen, so. . . .

So yesterday (still late “today” as I write this) word came from Editor Jaleta Clegg:  Yes, I am still working on this project.  I hope to have it ready to send out within a few months.  I’m still waiting on most of the art.  I’ve started pulling together the pages that I have everything for.  Once I have most of the art, I will start sending proofs to authors and artists. . . .  Or in other words, the battered-not-beaten Shrimp is still a “go.”

Of all these, I find this especially heartening, BEER-BATTERED SHRIMP being one of those quirky projects that’s hard to describe, but promising to be a delight when it’s finally realized.  More to be announced here as it becomes known.

Avoid Killing a Seagull: Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse

It’s not a happy film, first off — but it is a fascinating one.  The docent at the Indiana University Cinema showing last night ended his introduction saying “the film must be soaked in.”  Soaked in . . . immersed?  Or, as I did, settling in my chair, leaving my mind open, and just enjoying the ride.  No thought, no attempt to decipher symbols — all that can come later; and, in the moment, I think the film worked.  A massively unreliable narrator (stay in his head, enjoy the ride!) and certainly not a happy one, but a film I think is worth seeing.

Here’s what the IU Cinema program book says about it:  From Robert Eggers, the visionary filmmaker behind modern horror masterpiece THE WITCH, comes this hypnotic and hallucinatory tale set in the 1890s on a remote island off the coast of New England.  Two lighthouse keepers (Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson), trapped and isolated due to a seemingly never-ending storm, engage in an escalating battle of wills as tensions boil over and mysterious forces — which may or may not be real — loom all around them.  The film evokes a wide range of influences, from literary classics by Herman Melville and Robert Louis Stevenson to the supernatural tales of H.P. Lovecraft, while presenting a story and film [image error]unlike any other.  Contains mature content, including violence and sexual situations.

But wait, there’s more.  The docent mentioned that one source of inspiration, some details of which may be in the film too (note, e.g., the names of the two men), was an incident at an actual lighthouse off the coast of Wales.  The old lighthouse brought about a change in lighthouse policy in 1801 after a gruesome episode, sometimes called the Smalls Lighthouse Tragedy.  The two-man team, Thomas Howell and Thomas Griffith, were known to quarrel, so when Griffith died in a freak accident, Howell feared that he might be suspected of murder if he discarded the body into the sea.  As the body began to decompose, Howell built a makeshift coffin for the corpse and lashed it to an outside shelf.  Stiff winds blew the box apart, though, and the body’s arm fell within view of the hut’s window and caused the wind to catch it in such a way that it seemed as though it was beckoning.  Working alone and with the decaying corpse of his former colleague outside Howell managed to keep the lamp lit.  When Howell was finally relieved from the lighthouse the effect the situation had had on him was said to be so extreme that some of his friends did not recognise him.  As a result, lighthouse teams were changed to rosters of three men, which continued until the automation of British lighthouses in the 1980s.  (Wikipedia, “Smalls Lighthouse”)

As for the seagull, well, killing one’s bad luck — the same, one recalls from high school English, as with albatrosses.  See, part of the fun is assembling pieces together after you’ve seen the film and decided you want to know more about it.  For instance the title, THE LIGHTHOUSE, as well as the movie’s initial idea came from a fragment by Edgar Allan Poe, though with just one character rather than two, which I’m not going to quote but which you can read by pressing here.  (And note the meerschaum pipe and the dog.)

Forbidden Unrepressed, In Print on Amazon

Just a quick note.  We may recall FORBIDDEN:  TALES OF REPRESSION, RESTRICTION, AND REBELLION had, after a longish delay, finally been published — at least in Kindle form (see December 18, et al.).  Today, via Facebook, fellow contributor Frank Roger[image error] notes it’s now available in paperback as well, and in fact has been for awhile.  This is the one where I actually have two stories, both reprints, “Fetuscam” and “The Wind” (and with Frank Roger’s tale as well, “Outnumbered,” about a dystopian society where numbers have been outlawed), and now can be found by pressing here.

Prisoner to Flash In a Flash Third New Decade Acceptance

They seem to be coming just days apart (one wishes!), acceptances first for “The Reading” from DEEP FRIED HORROR: CTHULHU CHEESE BURGER, then “River Red” for APPLES RED AS BLOOD, and now, yesterday evening, an email from Jason Brick re. FLASH IN A FLASH:  Thank you for your patience in how long it took to work through our massive pile of submissions. We are thrilled to accept PRISONER for our January 21st episode, if it’s still available. Just let me know, and we’ll get you set up.  The story in full is “The Third Prisoner,” like this month’s other two sales a reprint having first appeared in LVWONLINE.ORG in November 2008, on political repression in Latin America and . . . zombies.

Jason Brick, we may recall, was editor of the anthology ITTY BITTY WRITING SPACE that included the debut of my “The Junkie” (see August 28, July 9, et al.), another flash piece (with, also, a zombie).  As for “The Third Prisoner,” this acceptance is for “use in the FLASH IN A FLASH newsletter,” but also potentially publication in a FLASH IN A FLASH anthology for which there would be additional payment.  I might add also that “The Third Prisoner” has been around, including translated into Portuguese (as “O Terceiro Prisoneiro”) in the Brazilian anthology I ANTOLOGIA LUSIADAS (Ediciones Lusiadas, 2009).

Prisoner to Flash In a Flash 3rd New Decade Acceptance

They seem to be coming just days apart (one wishes!), acceptances first for “The Reading” from DEEP FRIED HORROR: CTHULHU CHEESE BURGER, then “River Red” for APPLES RED AS BLOOD, and now, yesterday evening, an email from Jason Brick re. FLASH IN A FLASH:  Thank you for your patience in how long it took to work through our massive pile of submissions. We are thrilled to accept PRISONER for our January 21st episode, if it’s still available. Just let me know, and we’ll get you set up.  The story in full is “The Third Prisoner,” like this month’s other two sales a reprint having first appeared in LVWONLINE.ORG in November 2008, on political repression in Latin America and . . . zombies.

Jason Brick, we may recall, was editor of the anthology ITTY BITTY WRITING SPACE that included the debut of my “The Junkie” (see August 28, July 9, et al.), another flash piece (with, also, a zombie).  As for “The Third Prisoner,” this acceptance is for “use in the FLASH IN A FLASH newsletter,” but also potentially publication in a FLASH IN A FLASH anthology for which there would be additional payment.  I might add also that “The Third Prisoner” has been around, including translated into Portuguese (as “O Terceiro Prisoneiro”) in the Brazilian anthology I ANTOLOGIA LUSIADAS (Ediciones Lusiadas, 2009).

River Red Tapped for Fantasia Divinity Reprint

Perhaps we’ll recall FANTASIA DIVINITY which we’ve met before concerning a reprint of “Flightless Rats,” a tale of the “casket girl”/vampiress Aimée and her problems with dating in 19th century New Orleans (cf. September 27 2017, et al.).  Fast forwarding to September last year, the publisher emerged again with a call for TWISTED FATE VOL. I: APPLES RED AS BLOOD, [t]he first in a new series featuring retellings of fairy tales!  This one will fea[image error]ture Snow White.  We will be looking for new and fresh takes on the tale, however it has to be easily recognizable as a Snow White story.  . . .  We want you to elaborate on the original short tale, give depth and feeling to the characters, motivations, desires, hope, and despair. . . .  Reprints would be okay and the deadline was listed as September 5.

As it happens I ran across the call on September 4, so the time would be short.  But I also realized I had such a reprint, “River Red,” a “Tombs” universe story originally published in ESCAPE CLAUSE (Ink Oink Art, 2009) and reprinted in my 2013 THE TEARS OF ISIS, so out it went the next day, deadline day, with a cover letter hoping it wouldn’t “be too far afield for use.”  Living on the edge, yes?

Then yesterday evening the email arrived — and a happy ending:  Congratulations!  Your story has been chosen to appear in our upcoming anthology APPLES RED AS BLOOD.  We will be in touch soon with the contract.

Details to appear here as they become known.

Essays Main Feature at 2020’s First First Sunday Prose

Sunday afternoon brought the new year’s opening Bloomington Writers Guild “First Sunday Prose Reading and Open Mic” (see December 1, et al.) at local tavern Bear’s Place, with both featured readers presenting essays.  First up was poet and Writers Guild regular Eric Rensberger with “Some Old Books 3,” which is to say the third in a series of prose pieces on several books in his collection discussing not so much their actual contents, but rather their provenance.  Thus old children’s readers with successions of past owners’ names in the front, speculation about how they were passed on, anecdotes about family members who’d had them before they came [image error]into his hands — in short, the human side and what may have been made of the contents rather than what the contents themselves may have said.  He was followed by writer, freelance photographer, actor, and director Darrell Stone who, noting America may once again be moving toward “the fog of war,” presented three essays based around kindness, the first on the sole souvenir her father had kept from his service in World War II, the second on a transformative sixth grade teacher, and ending with a humorous piece about three nuns and the joy of their laughing over an absurd item found in a store.  In all just over thirty people attended, a possible record, of which about 25 remained after the break where I was second of five walk-on readers with a post-Christmas tale — or rather a dark-humored sequel to Charles Dickens’ A CHRISTMAS CAROL, which I had premiered about two years before — “The Christmas Cat.”