B. Morris Allen's Blog, page 3

Songspiration – He Don’t Love Nobody

He Don’t Love Nobody

SongArtistStoryShe Don’t Love NobodyNick LoweHe Don’t Love Nobody

Sometimes, just the title or rhythm of a song is enough to kick my story engine into gear. In this case, Nick Lowe’s “She Don’t Love Nobody” gave me all the direction I needed to write a story about an ex-revolutionary who betrayed his fellows to a repressive government, and why.

CoH review – Bibliopeeks

From @Bibliopeeks

Chambers of The Heart contains unique, out of the box stories that are richly written with poignant thought provoking matters of the heart. … These short stories are like a finely aged scotch, which is best when savored slowly, in order to fully enjoy the one of a kind experience.

Playing favorites

Chambers of the Heart

I have favorites among my own stories. Some, frankly, are just better than others — in my view. Other readers disagree strongly, and I sometimes find that the stories I thought were strongest aren’t the ones people fix on.

Recently, I needed to choose one of my stories to include in an anthology, and I thought that, along with my own preferences, I would include some empirical data.

My latest story collection, Chambers of the Heart, got very positive reviews from quite a fe...

Awards eligibility 2022

As a writer

After a breakneck pace last year (two stories), I’ve kept things simple this year, with just one story (but a nice one):

 

“Adjectives of Annihilation”
Cossmass Infinities
July 2022 ($)

My parents could never describe it. The ravages of an increasingly stratified world, of bitter philosophical division, of a climate run amok. The devastation of war. The nightmare of departure.
“Nothing survived,” said my poet father.
“Probably nothing survived,” amended my mother, who’d been a pa...

Awards eligibility 2021

As a writer

I published only two stories this year, but they’re good ones!

“Minstrel Boy Howling at the Moon”
Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
March 2021 ($)

The red dirt of the plains was baked into his hands, making rivers of the creases in his palm, flowing off the low hills into the grasslands of his wrist. A summer of post-setting had left his hands as hard as brick and just as red.
“I’m gonna call you Gomda from now on,” Matt at the Lov’n’Stop had said, sarcastically, “’cause yo...

Reaching the peak

Conscious or unconscious, realistic or fantastic, we all have goals of one kind or another. My goals as a writer have always been fairly understated, and more a background “that would be nice” than a true ambition. But I’ve just reached one of my summits, and it feels pretty good.

I’ve written before about how I came to science fiction and fantasy, and the role of Ms. X – the middle school teacher who gave me her boyfriend’s old pulp magazines – Analog and F&SF. I was immediately enthralled, and...

#CaptiveReader – Spring and the Arachnodactylist

During this Covid-19 pandemic, songwriter Carrie Newcomer has been singing a song every night from her living room. I was inspired by that to try reading an occasional story from my living room. The result is my first ever attempt at video. Its a bit low-fi, but fun nonetheless. I used Spring and the Arachnodactylist, my most autobiographical story, and one that every editor said was nice, which seemed like a good fit for the present need.

I tagged the video #CaptiveReader, since, like the...

Writing by the Numbers

Since my writing career is so neatly encapsulated by the 2010s, I thought I’d take a look at some more detailed statistics. Note that the overall picture includes all my submissions, not just 2010s, but the difference is trivial.

Overall picture

Overall, I sent over 1,000 submissions, and got 30 acceptances: 3%. About 83% were rejected (17% personally). While there are a number of withdrawals listed, I rarely withdraw stories, so I suspect that includes some grey areas. About 5% never got a...

What I Did Last Decade

Words from an Absent Willow

An overview of my literary endeavours in the 2010s.

Tl;dr:

I got published I started to take writing seriously and wrote over 100 stories I joined SFWA I started a magazine ( Metaphorosis ) I self-published a few collections (gathered as Allenthology ) and a novel (Susurrus) I started a small press ( Metaphorosis Publishing ) I wrote over 500 book reviews ( Metaphorosis Reviews ) I got published

The very first e-mail in ‘Submissions’ folder is from Bob Griffin, the...

Awards eligibility 2019

The year’s not over yet! But while I’ve got somethings in train, none seem likely to publish before next year, so here are my stories published this year.

[image error] Story cover art by Shevon Lewis

“Memory and Faded Ink”
AE: The Canadian Science Fiction Review
July 2019 (read here)

She liked to watch me sleeping. “I always remember you like this,” she would say. “Drowsing in a pool of sunlight, dawn pouring off you like gold. That is how I know you are rich.”

When she was young, rich to Tseleng meant time enough to weed millet,...