Clarion West Write-a-thon Progress: How Deep Is Red

One of the things I’ve decided to do over the next six months is release a number of my stories in small mini-collections in electronic form. Each of these will consist of 2-3 already published stories, with 1-2 ones original to the collection. The first is Halloween Quartet, which contains “Whose Face This Is I Do Not Know” (appeared originally in Clarkesworld), “Niobe in the Rain” (appeared originally in Serpentarius), “So Glad We Had This Time Together” (appeared originally in Apex Digest), and “Pumpkin Knight,” which is original to the collection.

The next one will be Desert Quartet, which will contain “Aquila’s Ring,” (originally appeared in Light and Shadow II), “Karaluvian Fale” (appeared originally in Giganotasaurus), “Her Eyes Like Sky and Coal and Moonlight” (the title story from my second collection), and “Mirabai the Twice-Lived,” which is original to that collection. It’ll also contain an essay about the world in which all of those stories are set, that of Armageddon MUD, and my experience working with it.

Other e-projects in the works: a mini-collection of flash, a mini-collection of superhero stories, and something collecting blog musings about fiction.

Why do this? Because I do think electronic publishing is clearly the way the industry is going. I’m curious about the power to sell one’s work that it promises the author and I’d like to get in on what seems to be at least the first or second, if not ground, floor of the movement.

I’m lucky in that I have a little bit of a name, acquired through publishing short stories. I don’t know that this would work for someone with no already established platform. And I don’t expect to make a vast sum of money from them. But I do expect there to be a slow trickle. At least – that’s my hope.

How will I spread the word of them? I’ve learned a little from publicizing Near + Far, but I’m not sure how relentless I want to be about pushing these. I’ll certainly talk about the experience of putting them together on here, and will be mentioning them on social networks as well as on my mailing list. Suggestions are welcome, as always 😉

If you want to sign up for that mailing list, by the way, which will come no more than once a month and mention new publications and classes, fill it out here:

#mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; }
/* Add your own MailChimp form style overrides in your site stylesheet or in this style block.
We recommend moving this block and the preceding CSS link to the HEAD of your HTML file. */

Here’s some pieces that I’ve particularly enjoyed over the last week, as well as pointers to some recent publications of my own.

Print:

• Apex Magazine had some terrific pieces in its March 2013 issue. My favorites are Mermaid’s Hook by Liz Argall and If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love by Rachel Swirsky. I will confess that I’m particularly fond of the latter because Rachel wrote it during a group flash writing session I was part of.
• Grá Linnaea has kicked off a serial fiction effort that’s a lot of fun. Check out The Curious Investigations of Miranda McGee on his website.
• I love pieces of fiction masquerading as something else. It’s such a fabulous device when used well. Jake Kerr’s produced a great story doing exactly that in Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince for Lightspeed Magazine. (Question: is there no audio version? The “Listen” link doesn’t work for me.)
• A lovely, resonant piece about grief from E. Lily Yu is up at Eclipse Online.
• The Nymph of Limantour by J.J. Roth, up at Every Day Fiction, is a marine love story — or is it?
• My collaboration with Ben Burgis, Logic and Magic in the Time of the Boat Lift appeared in Giganotasaurus. It’s a story of a motorcycle mechanic with a graduate degree in paraconsistent logic and a summons from the Powers that Be investigating a mystery involving were-gators, demons, and dreams of Che Guevera, all set in 1980s Miami and Cuba.

Audio:

• Part of the Broad Universe Rapid Fire Reading at Arisia, featuring Roxanne Bland, Kimberly Long-Ewing, and Gail Z. Martin. Broad Universe is a good organization for writers and well worth checking out if you don’t already know about it.
• This piece on YA fiction podcast Cast of Wonders has a simple, almost pastoral world with a sinister overlay: magic that demands the sacrifice of young women and strict societal sexual roles. An almost inevitably tragic love story between Charlotte and Lily plays out against it. Eliza Hirsch, A Song for the Season, read by Kate Baker.
• Sandra M. Odell writes wrenchingly and wonderfully. Check out David Milner Is… narrated by Joe Sammarco for Tales to Terrify.
• The Drabblecast kicked off its Women and Aliens Month with Amid the Words of War, which originally appeared in Lightspeed Magazine and was reprinted in Near+Far. Eric Marsh does a super job with it.
• Podcastle has the audio version of Logic and Magic in the Time of the Boat Lift, read adeptly and wonderfully as always by M.K. Hobson. I always smile when I hear her distinctive voice.

P.S. If you’re in the Seattle area, Deb Taber is reading tonight at the University Bookstore and should be well worth attending.