Ellen Datlow's Blog, page 10

Twitter chat with me on sffwrtcht

Now on the site Grasping for the Wind-the reason my responses seem abrupt is that it was a twitter chat, which means--140 characters per tweet. So you learn to be succinct.

Terry Bisson & Blake Charlton read at KGB March 21st

FANTASTIC FICTION at KGB reading series, hosts



Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel



present:



Terry Bisson, who has a new novel, Any Day Now, an alternate history of 1968, just out from Overlook Press. Publishers Weekly describes it as "epic." It's not exactly science fiction, and not exactly not.

Terry is one of the founders of the Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series





&





Blake Charlton, who is author of the epic fantasies Spellwright and Spellbound from Tor Books.

Charlton is also a medical student in his last year of medical clerkships and is

currently working on Spellbreaker, the final novel in the Spellwright Trilogy..



Wednesday March 21st, 7pm at

KGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street (just off 2nd Ave, upstairs.)

www.kgbfantasticfiction.org

Subscribe to our mailing list:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kgbfantasticfiction/
Readings are free
Forward to friends at your own discretion.


Books will be available for purchase thanks to Mobile Libris



Sponsored in part by Cemetery Dance Publications

Cover of The Best Horror of the Year volume four

Home from my home away from home

I love London and happily spent the past two weeks there visiting friends, eating some excellent meals, doing business, watching episodes of A Touch of Frost with J & J. (Clute), doing the tourist thing--something I haven't done in decades by going to the Tower of London with John (Clute) and on the London Eye, with Pat Cadigan and Paul McAuley, going to several exhibits and art shows (I particularly loved the Saatchi gallery's exhibit Gesamtkuntswerk: New Art From Germany). The gallery itself is lovely, with a huge skylight in every room (or is it just a window if it doesn't open?). I loved most of the art, a rarity for me. I will be posting photos from the exhibit and of many other things in a few days.

Bella missed me -she sits on my lap a lot after I'm away, and then lies on her back so I can rub her tummy. Sophie? Who knows?

Temperature is balmy compared to London.
Arcs of After arrived and they look pretty.
Arc of The Best Horror of the Year volume four arrived and it looks suitably creepy.
Wild Justice is ready to be released but I asked Christopher Roden to wait till I returned from London before doing so. It will officially be released February 21 but might already be available on the Ash-Tree website http://www.ash-tree.bc.ca/WILDJUSTICE%20eBook.htm

I'm currently going over the responses to line edits from the contributors to Queen Victoria's Book of Spells -we're awaiting one more story and I have six more to line edit over the next few days.

I'm also reading for Ghosts and Other Hauntings, a reprint anthology for Tachyon. I've already committed to four stories and need to send up contracts for them. And I have a lot of reading to go. I'm looking for stories published between around 1985-2011 and would prefer stories that haven't been reprinted lately. I've chosen  stories by Peter Straub, Neil Gaiman, Joyce Carol Oates, Pat Cadigan, and Caitlin R. Kiernan and have several others I'm likely taking. But otherwise I'm open to suggestions. Shorter is better than longer and I'm willing to look at "hauntings" of all types, not just ghost stories. (and please don't suggest stories I've published --I'm already aware of them).

Cat Sparks in NYC

Cat Sparks, Australian writer and editor was in NYC for a few days and so I set up a dinner party at a place called The Crooked Knife. Here's the proof.
dinner at The Crooked Knife

The place had crappy acoustics with a low tin ceiling so it was very loud. Afterward, a few of us (including Cat) went to a much quieter Irish pub.

Bound Galleys of After are in!

 The book will be out in October. TOC below the jacket

Introduction
The Segment by Genevieve Valentine
After the Cure by Carrie Ryan
Valedictorian by N.K. Jemisin
Visiting Nelson by Katherine Langrish
All I Know of Freedom by Carol Emshwiller
The Other Elder by Beth Revis
The Great Game at the End of the World by Matthew Kressel
Reunion by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Faint Heart by Sarah Rees Brennan
Blood Drive by Jeffrey Ford
Reality Girl by Richard Bowes
Hw th'Irth Wint Wrong by Hapless Joey @ homeskool.guv by Gregory Maguire
Rust With Wings by Steven Gould
The Easthound by Nalo Hopkinson
Gray by Jane Yolen
Before by Carolyn Dunn
Fake Plastic Trees by Caitlin R. Kiernan
You Won't Feel a Thing by Garth Nix
The Marker by Cecil Castellucci

Fantasticon 2012

I'm delighted to announce that I'm Editor GOH at Fantasticon 2012, The annual convention for science fiction, fantasy & horror in Copenhagen. It takes place June 1-3rd. My co-guest is British sf writer Alastair Reynolds.
Here's more info: Fantasticon 2012


I was last in Copenhagen in the early 70s and am very much looking forward to returning.

I'll be missing Book Expo, which will be a shame, but what would you choose? ;-)

Soldier's Girl/Six Feet Under

Why had I never heard of Soldier's Girl with Lee Pace, when it came out in 2003? I only discovered it after watching the series Pushing Daisies and then looking up everything else Pace has been in.

The movie (I see it actually was a tv mini-series, which might explain why I was not aware of it), based on a true story, was made in 2003 and it's about a young soldier(Troy Garity)who meets and falls in love with a transgendered performer (Lee Pace) in a nightclub--and the repercussions. All the acting was good but Lee Pace's performance is extraordinary. I see that he was nominated for several awards (but shamefully not the Emmy--the director and prosthetic artists got the only nominations)and won the Gotham "Breakthrough" award with his co-star. The character (and acting) of the soldier's roommate (Shawn Hatosy) is chilling. Rent it.

I'm deep into the second season of Six Feet Under--it's pretty manipulative, isn't it? Every time things are going well for the members of the Fisher family--the rug's pulled out under them--I come to expect this but am still affected by it. I've come to really dislike Lisa, (played by Lili Taylor)--there's something about her that gives me the severe creeps. I feel that Claire, the young daughter of the Fisher family is thrown into bad boy relationships not because she's screwed up but because the creator of the series merely wants to keep a tension in the plot. In other words, I don't feel her bad choices are organic to her character but manipulated. (I realize that of course all "drama" is manipulated as long as there is a script--that's the point. But keeping that overt manipulation from the viewer--at least while she's watching it--is crucial to great art). I'm still enjoying the series but the seams are beginning to show more than I'd like.

Photos from the KGB reading January 18-Link/Kelly

Here are the photos from the terrific reading last Wednesday at KGB Bar

In preparation for the e-pub of Wild Justice (aka Lethal Kisses)

I'm compiling a list of e-book reviewers for when Wild Justice is released. Bloggers and publications. The book was originally commissioned by Orion in the UK and was published there in 1996 as Lethal Kisses, a title which completely misrepresented the contents which were original stories of revenge and vengeance.

Here's the TOC (There was a reprinted Ruth Rendell story in the original print book that will not be in the e-book). The book was never published in the United States and I have no recall whether it was ever reviewed here (probably not, although possible by Locus)

Rare Promise by Mike O'Driscoll
Anamorphosis by Caitlin Kiernan
A Lie for a Lie by Pat Cadigan
The Screaming Man by Richard Christian Matheson
Touch Me Everyplace by Michael Cadnum
Unforgotten by Christopher Fowler
Ships by Michael Swanwick and Jack Dann
O Rare and Most Exquisite by Douglas Clegg
Back in the Dunes by Terry Lamsley
A Punch in the Doughnut by David J. Schow
A Grub Street Tale by Thomas Tessier
Martyr and Pesty by Jonathan Lethem
Foreign Bodies by Michael Marshall Smith
Butcher's Logic by Roberta Lannes
Keeping Alice by Simon Ings
Warmer…. By A.R. Morlan
A Flock of Lawn Flamingos by Pat Murphy
Leave Me Alone, God Damn You by Joyce Carol Oates