Received today, my contrib. copies of the March/April 2014 issue of Cicada with my short story “Beautiful Winter” in it with beautiful illustrations by Forest Strawn-Wing.
I’m thrilled to be appearing once again in Cicada, as this magazine holds a special place in my heart–being my very first fiction sale and publication with “The Adventures of Manny the Mailmobile” in their Jan/Feb. 2002 issue.
In non-“C”-word news, I just sold a reprint of “Beautiful Winter” to the YA magazine Cicada (of the Cricket Magazine Group stable of publications), slated for publication in their April/May 2014 issue. My very first fiction sale was to Cicada, and this magazine holds a very special place in my heart. I’m delighted to be appearing in it again.
And I saw that the cover and Table of Contents of The Book of Apex: Volume 4 of Apex Magazine, edited by Lynne M. Thomas, has been revealed:
Cover art by Julie Dillon and jacket design by Justin Steward
Contents:
Due out later this month.
This week’s new ebook is “Beautiful Winter.” Originally published in Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show, #13, July 2009, and reprinted in the first annual InterGalactic Awards Anthology, Spotlight Publishing, 2012.
When her widowed mother remarried, Prascovia wanted to hate her stepsister. But even though her mother despises sweet, beautiful Marfa, Prascovia found herself adoring her new sister instead. Their mother’s spite drives Marfa one winter’s night into the bitter cold, but astonishing them all, Marfa returns with violets, strawberries, and the favor of Lord Frost. However, having Father Winter as an admirer has its own perils, and Prascovia vows to save her beloved sister from Winter’s attentions.
A lush re-imagining of the Russian “Jack Frost” fairy tale.
#SFWApro
Continue reading
This is normally when I look back over the previous year and make some resolutions for the new one, but I’m sort of off resolutions. It’s not that I don’t have any goals or good intentions to enumerate. To the contrary, I have many items I’d like to accomplish, improvements I’d like to make, tasks I want to complete. But coming off of 2012, I find I made all my deadlines and am caught up on my urgently outstanding to-do items. Aside from feeling like I should beware the impending Apocalypse, it makes me realize that I haven’t found resolutions all that helpful. When a deadline pops up, I’ll work my ass off to meet it because that’s what I do with deadlines. When a project lands on my plate, ditto ass ditto off ditto just ‘cuz. And I’m fully aware of personal items I’d like to address with an eye towards improvement as they’re largely the same ones dogging me most if not all my life. Me making a list isn’t going to up my motivation or change my work habits, or at least it certainly hasn’t up to this point.
So I’m going to skip the resolution list-making. Instead, I’ll just resolve to do my best, and if/when my best doesn’t pan out the way I’d like, I resolve not to let it get to me.
In lieu of a list of resolutions, herein a rundown of my work published in 2012:
__
*reprint
†free fiction
This weekend (March 24-26), the Kindle version of the InterGalactic Awards Anthology: Volume 1 will be free at Amazon.com. In addition to my story, “Beautiful Winter,” it includes work by such luminaries as Peter S. Beagle, Aliette deBodard, Marie Brennan, Alethea Kontis, James Maxey, Jason Sanford, and Eric James Stone. Don’t miss out on getting it for free! Continue reading
Met up with Chesya Burke and J.M. McDermott yesterday afternoon to record a show for WREK radio’s Sci Fi Lab featuring local SF writers, hosted by Travis Gasque. Seems like we managed to touch upon nearly everything: books and fellow writers we admire, the writing industry, publishing trends and directions, writing habits and advice, SF movies, the wibbliness of genre definitions, the ethical issues of cloning and space colonization, writing multicultural fiction, and a slew of other topics.
It was the first time doing radio for all of us (Travis, obviously, excepted) and there was much gladness at the round-robin interview format. After having a data failure moment, as I usually do, on the “what’s your favorite book/author? aka what great book have you read recently?” question—there’s just so many that my brain crashes—I had a great time. Also helped the stress factor that it wasn’t live, with Travis assuring us that he’d edit out any weird pauses or overly rambling diatribes before the show airs, probably in late October or early November. (Stay tuned for details.) Continue reading
Just heard from the managing editor of Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show that while “Beautiful Winter” (originally published in issue #13) did not win this year’s InterGalactic Award*, they would like to reprint it in their InterGalactic Awards Anthology. Sweet!
The anthology is slated for publication later this year. Looks like I’ll be sharing a table of contents with Peter S. Beagle! Looking forward to seeing the complete contents listing.
Edit: And the table of contents has been announced!
———————
(* I didn’t even realize it was up for award consideration since it was published in July of 2009.)
