B. Morris Allen's Blog, page 4

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,...

Beginnings 110 – Auld Lang Syne, Ch. 10

It’s Saturday. A day for sleeping in, for pretending I’ve successfully played sick and avoided school, for luxuriating in having nothing to do. The sun is shining through the window, flickering shadows of new green leaves over the carpet and the clothes I didn’t put away last night. There’s a cardinal singing outside the window.
…

“Auld Lang Syne, Ch. 10”
NIAD 8
Published 26-Jan-2019

About the story: My latest entry in the Novel in a Day effort.

Beginnings 109 – The Humblebract Expedition

“He needs to have fun.” The guildmaster put his hand lovingly on the back of a pudgy adolescent boy about my age. “I want him to have fun.”
…

“The Humblebract Expedition”
Score: an SFF symphony
Published 02-Mar-2019

About the story: Love and Fun for the Score anthology of emotions from Metaphorosis.

Beginnings 108 – Fountainhead

“I’m sorry,” she said at last. She had been staring out the window – a ‘phore’, they called it here – watching starbirds hover in their pastel stacks, like floating towers of origami. She wondered how they did it, and whether she it might be what she needed for her ‘Fountain’ piece. Or maybe ‘Fountainpiece’.
…

“Fountainhead”
Score
Published 02-Mar-2019

About the story: Sorrow and Longing for the Score anthology from Metaphorosis.

Beginnings 107 – Minstrel Boy Howling at the Moon

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.
“You’re an honorary red person,” Matt at the Lov’n’Stop had said, sarcastically. “I’m gonna call you Gomda from now on, ‘cause you’re gonna blow out of here like the wind.”
He didn’t though, and he wasn’t. He’d been born in the dust of La Fave, and he’d likely d...

Beginnings 106 – Start Wearing Purple, Ch. 8

It could have been an art installation – a dark sphere atop City Hall, a spray of scarlet thread, five hundred people frozen in place, eyes wide with pain and disbelief. That hadn’t been the start, of course. Only moments earlier, there’d been bustling, cheery chaos – marchers, vendors, dancers, celebrants of all kinds, from babes in papooses to nonagenarians in gaily decorated wheelchairs. And a bright sparkly ball on City Hall’s short spire. He’d noticed it himself, and made his way up the...