A Muse, an Alien, and a Gangster Walk Into a Bar...

December 5

All right, what's the haps... About a three-week rejection from Ellen at Sci Fiction. First time I got something from her other than a basic form; the letter read in part "It's clever and nicely written but I'm afraid I don't love it enough to buy. Why don't you try it on Shawna McCarthy for Realms of Fantasy? I very much look forward to your next story."

It's no acceptance, but it's an acknowledgement that my work is professional-level, and this from an editor I respect very much. And who knows? Maybe I'll get her with my next one, hmm? Or the one after that, or the tenth one after that... I'll be in the game for a while, after all, barring the unforeseen.

Also a rejection from Ideomancer on a short horror piece; she liked the beginning, but not the resolution so much. Ah, well. I'll send another one there, too-- they publish good work, and their site is lovely.

Toby's had a good couple of days, with sales to Analog and to an upcoming pro antho. Rah, rah! My fair Clarion 99ers are having a nice run of late... It seems Jenn Reese and I are going to be TOC mates in the upcoming ish of Elysian Fiction, too!

Ah, and this just in my inbox-- a poetry sale to Strange Horizons. My poem "Muse Trap" will appear sometime early next year. "Muse Trap" is one of my earlier works, but there's a lot of music and fun in the piece; I'm quite fond of it.

Okay, let me do a big SH spiel. In Strange Horizons this week, there's an interview with Jim Morrow. I love Jim's work, and he was one of the real high points of my Clarion experience-- funny, smart, perceptive, and a hell of a nice guy, with good taste in old movies.

Go fill out the SH reader survey, since it appears to still be up and running. Are you not a SH reader? Why not become one? They've accepted more of my work than any other publication-- so do it for me, if nothing else.

And if you like SH, consider giving them a donation. Help them out (so they can maybe raise their pay rates for poetry, hmm?).

You probably know this already, but in case you don't: Morphism has moved. The journal's new home is http://www.marissalingen.com/morphism.html.Furthermore, the guidelines for the antho she's editing (Why I Hate Aliens) are online here. It'll appear as an e-book from Bay Laurel EBooks, the new imprint from the fine people who bring you Speculon (well, okay-- I help bring you a bit of Speculon, and I'm not doing anything to bring you Bay Laurel, but otherwise). Go forth and submit.

Other stuff... as you've probably heard, Warner iPublish is dead-- the one big publisher funding e-books is out of the biz. They had a deeply evil contract, and I can't say I'm sorry to see them go, but I feel bad for the writers, who are now in a sort of limbo (some of the books may appear as mass market paperbacks, or may still be around in electronic or POD formats, but I've heard conflicting stuff about that)... I also feel bad for the 29 people who got fired, yo. Right before Xmas. That sucks.

iPublish went kaboom the morning after I finished reading d.g.k. goldberg's fine novel Skating on the Edge, which I'd planned to review for the magazine. I'm not sure if my boss will let me review it, now-- he wants to see what the final disposition of these iPublish books is before he gives them space. If I can't write the review for the magazine, I'll give some more detailed responses here... but basically, it's a hell of a fun book, from a fine North Carolina writer.

Scott Nicholson's novel The Red Church has a cover, now-- see it here. It's pretty cool.

Hmm. Nothing much else going on. Heather and I skipped working out tonight, since we're going to do so on Friday. We spent the evening being self-indulgent-- we had dinner at Tropix, and watched some of the second season of The Sopranos (so good), and otherwise being decadent. Mmm.

And now I'm here, sorta catching up.

And now I'm gone.

Tim Pratt
P.O. Box 13222
Berkeley, CA 94712-4222