Neil Clarke's Blog, page 22

Frankly, Mr. Shankly, or perhaps Dear Madam Barnum

This past Friday, I resigned from my day job and career of the last twenty-eight years. My last day will be January 31st, but I might be doing some part-time/consulting work for them until they fill the vacancy. I could probably write an entire blog post about why I’ve done this—and I still might, someday—but that’s the past and I’m more focused on the future at the moment.

I’m quite excited—and a little terrified—by the prospect of taking the leap. There are a bunch of uncertainties, like healthcare costs and filling the income gap between Lisa’s new job and my old one, but we’re close enough to give this career switch a try. As some of you know, this has been a major goal of mine since my heart attack four years ago. At age fifty, and after ten years working part-time, I’m finally going to be a full-time editor!

Naturally, my first priority has to be those uncertainties I mentioned: income gap and insurance. As I see it, I have a few things to target:

I’ve altered the Clarkesworld Patreon goals to include direct salary and healthcare expenses. Would be nice if it was that simple, but I figure it’s worth putting out there.
I’ll be pushing the digital subscriptions a lot more and investing a little in marketing in hopes of bumping those numbers up a bit.
Now that I’ll have time, I can increase the number of anthology projects I do. I’m in the process of drafting pitches for my current publishers, but I should have extras if anyone else should be interested. I’d really like to do another original anthology sometime too.
I also have the Year Nine and Year Ten Clarkesworld anthologies to wrap up. That should be a lot easier to accomplish now.
I need to be more proactive in seeking advertisers for Clarkesworld. Even a small bump here could be significant.
While there’s still a gap, I’ll also try to expand on the ebook design work I do on the side. It’s mindless, but I find it relaxing and it helps pay bills.

I’m getting this shot at chasing a dream thanks to Lisa, my amazing wife. I also have to thank Sean and Kate for having my back, my boys for keeping me on my toes, my parents for their support and inspiration, my publishers for their faith in me, and everyone that has ever subscribed, donated, or become a patron of Clarkesworld.

Let the adventure begin!

PS. If you don’t understand the title, you might want to do a little musical research.

Frankly, Mr. Shankly

Dear Madam Barnum

The Best Science Fiction of the Year Volume 2 Reveal

At long last, I am happy to reveal the cover and table of contents for volume two of The Best Science Fiction of the Year!

The Best Science Fiction of the Year – Volume 2

Night Shade Books – April 4, 2017

ISBN-10: 1597808962

ISBN-13: 978-1597808965

The second volume in a new year’s best series. This book will feature science fiction short stories/novelettes/novellas originally published in 2016.

Available at:

Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, Amazon.es, Amazon.jp
Apple
Barnes & Noble
Google Play
Indiebound
Kobo
Powells

Table of Contents

“The Visitor from Taured” by Ian R. MacLeod (Asimov’s, September 2016)
“Extraction Request” by Rich Larson (Clarkesworld, January 2016)
“A Good Home” by Karin Lowachee (Lightspeed, June 2016)
“Prodigal” by Gord Sellar (Analog, December 2016)
“Ten Days” by Nina Allan (Now We Are Ten, edited by Ian Whates)
“Terminal” by Lavie Tidhar (Tor.com, April 2016)
“Panic City” by Madeline Ashby (CyberWorld, edited by Jason Heller and Joshua Viola)
“Last Gods” by Sam J. Miller (Drowned Worlds, edited by Jonathana Strahan)
“HigherWorks” by Gregory Norman Bossert (Asimov’s, December 2016)
“A Strange Loop” by T.R. Napper (Interzone, January/February 2016)
“Night Journey of the Dragon-Horse” by Xia Jia (Invisible Planets, edited by Ken Liu)
“Pearl” by Aliette de Bodard (The Starlit Wood, edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe)
“The Metal Demimonde” by Nick Wolven (Analog, June 2016)
“The Iron Tactician” by Alastair Reynolds (Newcon Press)
“The Mighty Slinger” by Tobias S. Buckell and Karen Lord (Bridging Infinity, edited by Jonathana Strahan)
“They All Have One Breath” by Karl Bunker (Asimov’s, December 2016)
“Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea” by Sarah Pinsker (Lightspeed, February 2016)
“And Then, One Day, the Air was Full of Voices” by Margaret Ronald (Clarkesworld, June 2016)
“The Three Lives of Sonata James” by Lettie Prell (Tor.com, October 2016)
“The Charge and the Storm” by An Owomoyela (Asimov’s, February 2016)
“Parables of Infinity” by Robert Reed (Bridging Infinity, edited by Jonathana Strahan)
“Ten Poems for the Mossums, One for the Man” by Suzanne Palmer (Asimov’s, July 2016)
“You Make Pattaya” by Rich Larson (Interzone, November/December 2016)
“Number Nine Moon” by Alex Irvine (F&SF, January/February 2016)
“Things with Beards” by Sam J. Miller (Clarkesworld, June 2016)
“Dispatches from the Cradle: The Hermit—Forty-Eight Hours in the Sea of Massachusetts” by Ken Liu (Drowned Worlds, edited by Jonathana Strahan)
“Touring with the Alien” by Carolyn Ives Gilman (Clarkesworld, April 2016)

Preliminary Reading for New Anthologies

I have two more reprint anthologies scheduled for 2017:

More Human that Human (Night Shade Books, 250K words) – androids, synths, replicants, and other artificial humans.
War Machines (Prime Books, ~200K words) – the machines of war, whether they be independent in thought or controlled by an operator

There will be an open call for submissions for both projects within the next month, but at this point I am in the preliminary reading phase, looking for stories that I can build around and use to set the overall tone/direction. (I already have some in mind, but that could change as this process unfolds.)

If you would like to recommend some stories from the last twenty years that you think I should be considering, please feel free to leave a comment on this post or email me at neil (at) clarkesworldmagazine.com.

 

Amazon Echo Dot

Lisa gave me an Amazon Echo Dot for Christmas. If you don’t know what that is, just think of it as a little box (Alexa) that will try to do what I tell it to. Not a robot, but it’s as close as I’m getting for now.

We already had a WeMo Smart Plug connected to one of our lights, so fortunately, it has something to play with. On the down side, this means that all it’s really doing at the moment is turning the light on and off for me–something I am more than capable of doing myself. “Alexa, turn on the family room light.”

I had hoped this would also handle more of the entertainment side of the house, namely music and video. I figured I’d need something special for that, but it turns out that Amazon’s Fire Stick, the product that is supposed to compete with Google’s Chromecast, doesn’t talk to Dot. It has its own instance of Alexa. That seems like a fairly significant mistake on their part.

“Alexa. Can you do anything I want?”

“Hmm. I’m not sure what you meant by that question.”

It was suggested that I hardwire the Dot to the stereo via its external speaker jack, but unfortunately, that causes the on-board speaker to be disabled. If the stereo is off, which is typically is, I wouldn’t be able to hear the responses from Alexa. Fortunately, they weren’t as foolish with the design of Alexa’s bluetooth support. Unfortunately, my stereo doesn’t include a bluetooth receiver. I’ve had to buy one.

“Alexa. Order a bluetooth receiver.”

[Alexa rattles off some models from Amazon and I confirm an order for one of them.]

That solution will only take me part of the way there. I still can’t control the TV or Stereo. After doing some research, I’ve decided to go with a Logitech Harmony Smart Hub which Alexa can control through ifttt. That will allow me to tell the Alexa to change the source inputs for the different configurations we use that system for (TV, Roku, XBox One, Music).

We’ll see how all this works out. If it doesn’t, I’m still capable of getting out of the chair, finding all the remotes, and pressing the right buttons myself. At worst, I’ll be asking Alexa how she wants me to return all this stuff.

Welcome to the future.

All the Best

Wishing you all the best this holiday season. Our tree is up. Tacky Santa is in the window. Presents are (mostly) wrapped. My three-day Christmas marathon is about to begin.

Godzilla earned the top spot in the tree this year:

Clarkesworld Magazine: A 10th Anniversary Anthology Cover Art

More details to come on this special best of Clarkesworld anthology scheduled for 2017, but I had to share the amazing cover art we have received from Julie Dillon…

Philcon Schedule

From the 18th through the 20th, I’ll be at Philcon in Cherry Hill, NJ. Here’s my schedule:

Sat 12:00 PM in Autograph Table—Autographs: D.L. Carter and Neil Clarke 

Sat 5:00 PM in Plaza II (Two)—Can Interplanetary Governments Actually Work? 

Michael A. Ventrella (mod), Neil Clarke, James Beall, Ariel Cinii, Tom Purdom, John Skylar

Empires, Federations, Alliances… there are many examples of various types of interplanetary, or interstellar, governments found in science fiction. But would any form of government actually work if it were extended between worlds, star systems, or even galaxies? We will examine how governing bodies might work over such long distances… or even if they can!

Sat 6:00 PM in Plaza III (Three)—The Care & Feeding of Editors

Neil Clarke, Phil Giunta, Stephen Mazur, Hildy Silverman

The best editor-writer relationship is highly creative and energetic, with both sides open to new ideas, and the focus on synthesizing something they can be proud of, rather than being concerned about egos. Developing a great relationship requires a combination of common human decency and good business sense. But what can you do if your editor- or writer- doesn’t understand that?

Sun 12:00 PM in Crystal Ballroom Three—Small Press Magazine Panel 

Michael D. Pederson (mod), Brian Koscienski, Hildy Silverman, Alyce Wilson, Neil Clarke, Diane Weinstein

The editors discuss what goes into creating their publications, from the economics of staying viable in the electronic age to getting appropriate submissions.

Clarkesworld Turns Ten – Part Four – The Beginning

I’m sure I’ve written about the birth of Clarkesworld before, but I can’t remember when or where. Over the course of ten years, details can become fuzzy, so I hope I have this right.

Clarkesworld was born in the aftermath of the closure of Sci Fiction, the SciFi channel’s online magazine edited by Ellen Datlow. It wasn’t the first–or even one of the earliest–but it was well-respected, which made it unique for its time. It’s loss prompted people to be worried and dismissive of the future of online magazines.

At the time, I was running an online bookstore, Clarkesworld Books, that featured a wide array of science fiction magazines. Working with the editors of some of those magazines, I started posting sample content on our website as a promotional tool. One of those editors was Sean Wallace at Fantasy Magazine.

During the Meet the Pros party at the 2006 Readercon, Sean and I fell into a conversation about that experiment, the death of Sci Fiction, and why the casualty rate for online magazines was so high. As the night wore on, we tried to come up with a plan that would allow one of these publications to survive. By the end of the night, we had convinced ourselves that we could do it. By the end of the weekend, we had the magazine fully staffed.

The original plan was to attach the magazine to the bookstore. It would feature one established author–someone we could promote books for and sell through the bookstore–and someone earlier in their career. From the beginning, it was important to us that new voices be a part of this. At the end of the first year, we’d publish an anthology and sales from that would make up the lion’s share of our income. The rest could be considered a marketing expense and there were always donations…

A lot of people were willing to provide advice. The most common thoughts were “don’t do it” and “it will be dead in a year.” A certain level of stubbornness, foolishness, and passion are required to enter this field and I was already over the edge. I doubt that anything said–unless it was from Lisa–would have deterred me at that point. There were a number of things that did help though, including the advice that I tell people to this day: “know how much you are willing to lose and don’t cross that line.”

About a year later, family matters dictated that I close the bookstore. The magazine, however, would become part of a publishing company I planned to launch in place of the bookstore. Again, lots of good advice from those in the know. Much of it similar and a lot more of it useful. The first book from Wyrm Publishing was Realms 1: The First Year of Clarkesworld. That book pushed us over into the black for our first year.

[Side note: The first two volumes of our anthologies were titled Realms largely because I never really liked the Clarkesworld name. The bookstore inherited it out of laziness from the family domain it started on and the magazine inherited it from the bookstore. I was never comfortable with my name being there front and center. I’ve since come to accept and embrace the name of the magazine for what it is. When the first two volumes go out of print, they will be reissued under the Clarkesworld name.]

The issues from our first year were nothing more than two stories–under four thousand words each–and a cover. Why so small? It’s all our budget permitted and what I felt comfortable producing. We started our second year by adding non-fiction and ended by adding podcasts, a slow growth that continues today. The learning curve during those first couple of years was steep at times and not without difficulty. The learning process continues, but that was the opening chapter that enabled us to find our stride/voice and set course for where we are today.

Clarkesworld Turns Ten – Part Three – The Podcast

As I’ve mentioned before, for our first year, each issue of Clarkesworld was just two stories and a cover. We launched the non-fiction in our second year and the podcast later at issue 21. That means this month we are also celebrating one hundred months of podcasting.

As an editor, I feel some personal responsibility to see to it that our stories are seen by as many people as possible. Knowing that there was a significant audience for audio fiction that didn’t necessarily have reading time–or liked reading online–I started looking into the possibility of adding a podcast to Clarkesworld. Sometimes the universe conspires to put the right person in your path. In this case, it was Mary Robinette Kowal, an accomplished narrator, who had just sold us “Clockwork Chickadee.” She agreed to narrate it for us and a very bare-bones Clarkesworld podcast was born.

For the next few months, Mary and Cat Rambo provided us with a single narration per issue. When neither was available for our January 2009 issue, Mary suggested that I reach out to Kate Baker. I hadn’t heard any of Kate’s narrations before, but Mary’s recommendation was sufficient for me. After a few emails went back-and-forth–Kate likes to tell the story about how she almost priced herself out of that first narration–Kate agreed to narrate “Celadon” by Desirina Boskovich.

I had Kate record a few more stories for us throughout 2009 and was consistently impressed with the quality of her work. When we finally crossed paths that year at the Montreal Worldcon, we chatted for a while. I’m pretty sure that this is where I invited Kate to join our staff as the–we didn’t know what to call the position then–podcast director. Clarkesworld lost the Hugo Award to Weird Tales that weekend, but we gained an incredibly valuable addition to the team. Best hire I’ve ever made.

Under Kate’s leadership, the podcast continued to grow and improve. While I understood the technology, podcasting was never an area of expertise for me and I made several rookie mistakes. Kate knew what it took to have a professional show and quickly placed us on the right track. Over the next few years, the audience grew steadily, the number of shows increased, and Kate became known as “the voice of Clarkesworld.”

If you’ve never listened, give it a try sometime. You can listen right from our website or…

To have each episode sent to you via iTunes or email, visit this page.
If you use Stitcher, you can find us here.
Listening via Google Play? Subscribe here.

WSFA Small Press Award 2016

This weekend, the WSFA Small Press Award winner was announced at Capclave. We had three stories on the ballot (“Cat Pictures Please” by Naomi Kritzer, “The Empress in all Her Glory” by Robert Reed, and “Today I am Paul” by Martin L. Shoemaker) and a long history of other finalists since this award first launched. On several occasions, it has been joked that we are the Susan Lucci of this Award… many nominations, but never a win.

Sadly, Naomi, Robert, and Martin were not able to attend. I have a small stack of unread acceptance speeches from our prior finalists, but nothing in hand from this year’s crew. Naturally, this was realized just before dinner that evening–the award ceremony was to follow–, so I came up with a quick emergency plan.

When they announced that “Today I am Paul” won, I made my way to the stage, briefly stopping to thwack a friend (I believe he started the Susan Lucci reference). When I reached the stage, I said something along the lines of:

“So, I’ve been told that we’re the Susan Lucci of this award, so at dinner, I decide to see what she had to say when she finally won her Emmy and it works, so…”

I then read a slightly reworded version of the first paragraph of her acceptance speech and then went on to say that in all seriousness, thank you. I know that Martin would have liked to have been there, but the cost of travel being what it was, etc. Instead he was at a convention more local to him that weekend. I mentioned that I knew the story was very personal to Martin and that this award would mean a great deal to him. I forget what else I said, as is typical to these moments.

At one point, the crowd mentioned I should call him, but I didn’t have his number, so we took pictures instead. The audience cheered while I took their picture, then had me capture shots of the screen and, for some reason, the ceiling. I then retreated to the sidelines to try to reach Martin by email and Twitter. The actual award showed up later, so I took pictures of that and his certificate as well. After I noticed he surfaced on Facebook, I posted photos to his wall for all to see.

I couldn’t be happier for Martin. Aside from publishing it in Clarkesworld, I made it the lead story in the first volume of Best Science Fiction of the Year. It’s an amazing tale and as I mentioned, a personal–and very moving–one to boot. If you ever have the chance to hear him read it, do so.

By the way, later Martin asked if I started the speech with “Today I am Martin.” That’s why he’s the writer and I am not. Wish I had thought of that one!

Here’s a photo of the actual award. They give one to the publisher and one to the author–which I think is a really nice gesture on their part–so I’ll have one on my shelf too. I’ll be sending Martin his when the post office reopens tomorrow.

Thank you WSFA!