Tracking 2011

Several people have been asking if I’d offer an online workshop and I’ve been thinking about how best to do that. So here goes. Please spread the word of this however you can. If I don’t get at least 3 students for a workshop, I’ll cancel it.

Dates:
Workshop 1 — Wednesday evenings, 8 pm-10 pm PST, December 14, 2011-January 18, 2012
Workshop 2 — Saturday mornings 9:30 AM-11:30 AM PST, December 17-January 28, 2012 (I have to miss the 21st due to a convention).

Format: I’m going to offer two sessions, one on a weekday evening and the other on Saturday mornings, because I know schedules vary. The class will run six weeks, with a two hour session each time. I would like to schedule workshop time into that, where you’ll get a chance to read and critique each other’s stories, as well as a chance to hear me critique them, so starting with the second session, part of the class will be devoted to that (no more than 50%, tops). I’ll be doing the class as a Google Hangout, so we’ll all be chatting face to face, which means there is a limit of 9 students per class. There will be an optional make-up session for both workshops for people who had to miss a class or two along the line the week after the class ends.

Focus: The focus is the short story – how to come up with an idea, how to write it, how to revise, and how to submit it. There will be weekly writing exercises and optional reading. The final class will include career stuff, market advice, and a few funny anecdotes.

Why take a class with me? As both a writer and editor, I bring a focus that lets me advise you from both sides of the desk. My experience as the fiction editor of award-winning Fantasy Magazine as well as short story collections and anthologies combined with the fact that I’m a working, selling writer helps me provide you with solid, up-to-date market advice for both online and print publishing. My teaching experience includes the Johns Hopkins University, Towson State University, and Bellevue College and I’ve studied with John Barth, Stephen Dixon, Octavia Butler, and Connie Willis, to name just a couple of people I’ve had the pleasure of learning from. Former students can testify that I’m an active, engaged, and entertaining instructor who gives careful and considered feedback on their work.

Value adds: As part of the class, I will be happy to critique an extra story (up to 10k words) afterwards and offer market advice. The offer expires after a year.

Cost: Well, it’s an experiment, so I’m basing this off comparable workshops I teach. I am charging $199 per person, but will make it $149 if you sign up before midnight PST November 30. I do take Paypal; contact me at spezzatura AT gmail.com and we can work out details. If you can’t afford it and have some interesting barter to propose, let me know at the same address.

What if those times don’t work for you? Drop me a line. We can try to work something out.

Other questions? Drop me a line in the comments.

I recently posted in a Reddit thread about superhero novels and thought that the list I put together there might form an interesting blog post.

Superhero novels are near and dear to my heart for several reasons.

• One, I grew up reading comic books and loved some of them dearly. The only fanfic I have ever written involved the uncanny X-Men and the super villain Arcade, along with a thinly veiled version of myself. It has, luckily, been lost and not recorded for posterity.
• Two, I loved playing superhero RPG’s like Villains and Vigilantes and Champions. Superhero 2044 came out around the same time, but it wasn’t as interesting to my gaming group, which tended to stick with Champions.
• This led in fact to three, which is that I once wrote a novel involving superheroes. I wrote it while in the Masters program in writing at Johns Hopkins. At the time, watchmen had just come out, and the possibilities of superhero literature had not, perhaps we shall say, been realized as effectively as it is today. In fact, I took the book to Tom Disch, who was teaching in the office next to me, and who read a chapter, fixed me with a gimlet eye, and asked, “but why bother?” Several publishing houses looked at the novel and felt it was well written but not commercial. Some time later, tragically, the manuscript was lost in the course of moves. Its heroes can be found in a short story which appeared in Strange Horizons, Ms. Liberty Gets a Haircut, which can also be found in story collection Near + Far. Other superhero stories by me appear in Corrupts Absolutely and Eyes Like Sky and Coal and Moonlight

So here’s some of my favorites:

From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain by Minister Faust is awesome superhero fiction. It’s told by the therapist of a superhero team that closely resembles the Avengers. Faust also has The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad.

Count Geiger’s Blues by Michael Bishop is amazing. Along the same lines is Bishop’s Brittle Innings, the story of a baseball playing monster.

The Wild Cards series edited by George R.R. Martin (of GoT fame) is tons and tons of fun and there are a LOT of them for those of us who like to read at a fast and furious clip.

In Hero Years I’m Dead by Michael Stackpole is terrific along with Once a Hero. I wish Stackpole would write more in this world.

Carrie Vaughn After the Golden Age is told from the point of view of the unpowered daughter of a pair of superheroes, Captain Olympus and Spark.

Playing for Keeps by Mur Lafferty.

Austin Grossman’s Soon I Will Be Invincible is told from alternating experienced villain and novice hero viewpoints.

Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is a classic.

The Sugar Frosted Nutsack by Mark Leyner is, like all of Leyner’s books, hysterical, but this time with superheroes.

Those Who Walk in Darkness by John Ridley is the beginning of a series that I found reminiscent of joint online project Shadow Unit, created by Elizabeth Bear, Holly Black, Leah Bobet, Emma Bull, Sarah Monette, and Will Shetterly.

Nobody Gets the Girl by James Maxey. Series.

Evil Genius by Catherine Jinks is YA superhero fantasy.

Karma Girl by Jennifer Estep is frothy and funny and sweeps you along in a nicely satisfying story. First of a series.

Along the same lines is Black and White, the story of a superhero and a supervillain friendship by Jackie Kessler and Caitlin Kittredge. First in a series.

Santa Olivia by Jacqueline Carey (also known for her Kushiel adult epic fantasy series) is the story of a group genetically engineered for superpowers. First of a series.

If you want something that goes back to some of F&SF’s roots, try Doc Savage or A Feast Unknown by Philip Jose Farmer.