Two Tidbits

Tidbit #1: I have a guest blog post up today on Nicole Cushing's blog about #storyeachnight. Stop over there if you'd like to read about what short fiction means to me and what I feel like I've gotten out of #storyeachnight. There are also posts about #storyeachnight by Victoria Hooper and Nicole herself on the occasion of having completed one year of reading a story each night.

Tidbit #2: It's here!

The page from The Alchemy Press Book of Pulp Heroes
on which my story begins.

Today's mail brought my contributor's copy of The Alchemy Press Book of Pulp Heroes. This is the first honest-to-goodness book that my fiction has ever appeared in. Something to hang on to, indeed!

Sunday Links and the Week in #storyeachnight/#poemeachnight: June 17th, 2012 Edition

And another week has come and gone. Where does the time go?

Here are the stories and (starting on Saturday June 9th) poems from this week. Putting this together, I realize it's gotten to be a fairly large block of text. I'll have to give some consideration to whether I keep creating this summary every Sunday. The most recent week or so of everyone's #storyeachnight and #poemeachnight tweets should usually be available to review on Twitter.

6/10 - Story: "Immersion" by Aliette de Bodard from CLARKESWORLD #69. Intricate story of culture and the lengths some choose to go to so they can feel like they belong. Poem: "I Know A Man" by Robert Creeley from THE VINTAGE BOOK OF CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN POETRY. A very short poem and sort of fascinating. Four terse verses, each of which short enough that they could be a tweet. Also includes word reductions such as "sd" for "said" and "yr" for "you're." This poem is ~ 50 years old, best as I can tell but if you showed it to me and told me someone had just tweeted it, I wouldn't have batted an eye. Utterly fascinating.
6/11 - Story: "Spring-Fingered Jack" by Susan Casper from 100 HAIR-RAISING LITTLE HORROR STORIES. A story of video-game violence which seems as if it must have been ahead of its time (1983), predicting future hyper-violent games. Poem: "Early Elegy: Smallpox" by Claudia Emerson from the June 2012 issue of POETRY MAGAZINE.
6/12 - Story: "Light in the Darkness" by Sir Andrew Caldecott from NOT EXACTLY GHOSTS. A nicely atmospheric tale of skepticism and curses in a foreign land. I'm looking forward to reading more of these stories by Sir Caldecott. Poem: "Onions" by William Matthews from VBOCAP. This is the type of poem that makes me feel like I don't understand poems. Some interesting imagery near the end around how onion smell lingers on the skin but overall I felt like I missed his point.
6/13 - Story: "The Magician of Words" by Ruth Nestvold from DAILY SCIENCE FICTION. Wonderful poetic story with great imagery. Poem: "On the Ice Planet" by Julia Rios from NEW MYTHS Issue #19. Paints its setting & character well.
6/14 - Story: "Her Words Make It Go Away" by Michael Penkas from ONE BUCK HORROR Issue #5. Well written flash horror story. Poem: "The Physics of Age and Baseball" by Greg Beatty from STAR*LINE 34.4. Nicely done with astronomical effects of gravity used as metaphor for the effects of aging on an athlete's body. Plus -- baseball poetry!
6/15 - Story: "Heaven's Touch" by Jason Sanford from the 8/12 ASIMOV'S. A fantastic story, strong narrative voice and characters. A well-crafted and involving plot, too. One of the best stories I've read recently. Poem: "My House of the Future" by G. O. Clark, also from the 8/12 ASIMOV'S. Fun, whimsical verse about just what the title suggests.
6/16 - Story: "Chinvat" by Sunny Moraine from SHIMMER #14. A ruined Golden Gate bridge and the beings who visit it are key. Poem: "The Night Mirror" by John Hollander from VBOCAP. Vivid images in this poem -- glimpses of an unbalanced mind?

And now, the links:

Sunday Links and the Week in #storyeachnight: June 10th, 2012 Edition

Before I get to anything else, here are two short fiction-related links I hope lots of people see.

First, I've got a new gig! I'm one of the associate editors for UFO - Unidentified Funny Objects -- an Anthology of Humorous Science Fiction and Fantasy. Submissions open on July 1st; the guidelines are here. I'm hoping to see a lot of fantastic stories come through for consideration.

Second (and more time critical), there is this Kickstarter for Fireside Magazine. I read the first issue, which had stories by Ken Liu, Tobias Buckell, Chuck Wendig, and Christie Yant. I enjoyed it quite a bit and I'm looking forward to reading the second issue, which is in fact what is being Kickstarted. Fireside is aiming to pay its writers substantially better than the minimum pro rate for short fiction. Conceptually, that should be good for both writers and readers of the magazine since, over time, Fireside should see a very high caliber of stories being submitted if they can pay those rates. I really hope to see this magazine succeed -- again, both as a writer and as a reader.

Along with #storyeachnight, I've started #poemeachnight on Twitter. (This all sprang from Ray Bradbury's advice to writers that they read a story, a poem, and an essay each day. Nicole Cushing got the ball rolling with #storyeachnight and I've added the poems.)

Here are the stories and (starting on Saturday June 9th) poems from this week.  Below the jump will be writing-related links for the week.

6/3 - "The Princess and the Monster" by Ryan Creel from DAILY SCIENCE FICTION (@dailysf). The beginning of the story didn't exactly win me over but the end totally surprised me and brought a grin to my face. Glad I stuck with it.
6/4 - "An Open Letter in Defense of Our Alien Overlords" by Katherine Heath Shaeffer from DAILY SCIENCE FICTION. I had some trouble getting into it, maybe due to not much sense of POV "character." Ending wasn't really satisfying either, to me.
6/5 - "One-Way Ticket" by Nigel Brown from INTERZONE 239. An interesting twist on a familiar trope. Well done.
6/6 - "Kaleidoscope" from THE VINTAGE BRADBURY. Interesting study of characters in a hopeless situation. I was dumbfounded by the similarities to the end of John Carpenter's 1974 movie DARK STAR. (RB's story is from 1951.)
6/7 - "The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse" by Ray Bradbury from THE VINTAGE BRADBURY. This is a seriously weird, tripped-out story. I liked it though it was nothing like I expected.
6/8 - "Grand Tour" by Chris Willrich from the 5-6/12 F&SF. Family dynamics, independence and travel are major themes.
6/9 - Story: "Immersion" by Aliette de Bodard from CLARKESWORLD #69. Intricate story of culture and the lengths some choose to go to so they can feel like they belong. Poem: "Brazil, January 1, 1502" by Elizabeth Bishop from THE VINTAGE BOOK OF CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN POETRY (hereafter, VBOCAP). The title alludes to the Portuguese landing at Rio de Janeiro.

And now, the links:

Reading What You Write

In many of my recent Sunday Links posts I've talked about #storyeverynight, a Twitter hashtag that Nicole Cushing started and I picked up on. The concept is very simple. Read a short story every day/night and tweet about what you read. From talking to Nicole, this was inspired by a statement of Ray Bradbury's that a writer should read a poem, a story, and an essay every day. For now, I'm "just" trying to fit in the story. I could definitely see trying to add the poems at some point. It's been a long time since I read any poems (quite possibly since I was last assigned to do so for a class) and it's a form that I'd like to reacquaint myself with. Maybe I'll find that it resonates with now-Me. Maybe not.

Getting back to the daily story-reading... I'm a firm believer that reading, particularly within the genres you want to write, is an important input into the writing process. This could either be a genre that you already have a reasonable amount of familiarity with or a genre which you want to write in, even though you're not particularly familiar with it. I think there's also benefit to branching out and reading things that are beyond what you're specifically interested in writing. There are slightly different benefits from each of those.

Sunday Links & the Week in #storyeachnight: May 20th, 2012 Edition

May is absolutely flying by. I've been incredibly busy with any number of things this month. Our oldest is graduating high school in a couple of weeks but between now and then is the classic film convention which my father has been a major force behind for 43 years now. It's called Cinevent and every year well over 600 people come to watch movies, talk about movies, buy and sell movie memorabilia and so on. It's older than I am and I literally grew up with it.

This year the preparations for the convention have been extra "interesting" for me since my father was injured in late February and while he was convalescing I was tasked with doing a lot of the communications work which he would normally have been doing for the show. It's been a learning experience, that's for sure. I'm glad that I've done it to help him, the rest of the convention committee, and the attendees. It's also reminded me why I have little interest in being a convention organizer on a regular basis! And, for those of us who attend conventions -- science fiction, film, comics, what-have-you, it's been a reminder that the staff put in a heck of a lot of time and effort and voluntarily deal with no small amount of frustration to help put together a great experience for their attendees. (And, yes, sometimes a "great" experience isn't what ends up happening. But most cons I've been to in the past have been good or better.)

Speaking of conventions, I'm still trying to decide which one I'm going to make it to as part of my goals for the year. I'll be at Pulpfest almost for certain, but I barely count that since it's something I've been going to for years anyway. Context and Bouchercon both have a certain appeal to me, but I'll have to see as things get closer to the date for both of those.

A quick programming note: There won't be a Dissecting the Short Story post for May. Since I said I'd give the new format with reader votes, etc. at least two goes, I'll do one again soon, most likely in June.

Now with all that out of the way, on to first my weekly #storyeachnight rundown and the list of links I've found interesting for the week:

Sunday Links and the Week in #storyeachnight: May 13, 2012 Edition

Has it really been a week since last Sunday? I guess it has. Things are hectic as ever around here, but I've been able to keep moving forward on various writing projects, so I'm feeling good about things.

A quick note: I've lagged behind on getting organized around doing a Dissecting the Short Story post for May. If I get a list of choices together in the next couple of days, then I'll still do one this month. Otherwise, I'll defer it to June.

In addition to my writing, I've been reading at least one story each day recently and tweeting about them under the hashtag #storyeachnight. I've noticed that several more people have joined into the #storyeachnight tweeting recently, which is cool to see. Here are this week's entries from my reading:

5/6 - "Out of the Storm" by William Hope Hodgson from 100 HAIR-RAISING LITTLE HORROR STORIES. Atmospheric story, told via telegraph, of nightmares out at sea.
5/7 - "Notes From The Apocalypse" by Stephen Graham Jones from WEIRD TALES 359. I don't say this often, but that was an interesting zombie story.
5/8 - "City League" from the 5/6-12 F&SF. Starts out a bit slow but it builds to a horrifying scenario. I'm glad that I kept with it. All sorts of themes of baseball, fathers and sons, memory & reality. The stuff that pushes my buttons. (* Despite the slow start, this was my favorite of the week.)
5/9 - "We Make Tea" by Meryl Ferguson from SHIMMER 14. A tea plantation's robots carry on in a post-apocalyptic world.
5/10 - "Liberty's Daughter" by Naomi Kritzer from the 5/6-12 F&SF. Engaging MC and interesting world-building. I had a bit of trouble buying the MC's job & her dad's role was a bit too mysterious for me but neither was a deal breaker. (As a fellow writer noted to me on Twitter, it felt somewhat like the first chapter/portion of a novel rather than a self-contained story. I would mostly agree with that. Still, we both enjoyed it.)
5/11 - "Asylum" by Albert E. Cowdrey from the 5-6/12 F&SF. A New Orleans ghost story, I basically enjoyed this. Two secondary characters were one of my favorite parts, though I wonder if they overshadowed the main character a bit at time.

5/12 - "Wrong World" by Steve J Myers from DAILY SCIENCE FICTION.

Now, on to this week's writing-related links:

Sunday Links & the Week in #storyeachnight: May 6th, 2012 Edition

What an exciting writing week it's been! I've blogged about all this already (and the links are below) but I've got to say that it's a really good week when it includes a publication of a very well-received story, two short story sales, my first time trading guest posts with another writer, and my first-ever review.

I've been reading at least one story each day recently and tweeting about them under the hashtag #storyeachnight. Here are this week's entries:

4/29 - "Possible Monsters" by Will McIntosh from the 6/12 ASIMOV'S. A didn't-quite-make-it ball player gets a jolt when he comes back home & finds out an alien had taken up residence. Maybe a bit long on prelims but very good. Great ending.
4/30 - "Bad Moon Risen" by Eric Del Carlo from SHIMMER #14. A well-done werewolf short story with a small town under siege.
5/1 - "Through Bleached Bone" from by Cate Gardner from GOLDFISH GRIMM'S SPICY FICTION SUSHI Issue 3.
5/2 - "Duck Hunt" by Joe R. Lansdale from 100 HAIR-RAISING LITTLE HORROR STORIES. Didn't go where I was expecting, though I can't say that where it did go left me that impressed. I really enjoyed the imagery of her story, especially the Ghost Beast and the cityscape setting.
5/3 - "Repairmen" by Tim Sullivan from the 3/4-12 F&SF. Didn't really do a lot for me but I could imagine it making a decent one-act play or short film. Almost all dialogue in one room.
5/4 - "The Shadowcrafter" by Ken Liu from NINE Issue #1. I enjoyed this historical fantasy.

5/5 - "Tomorrow's Dictator" by Rahul Kanakia from the 5/12 APEX. Life in a world with personality adjustment.

Now, on to this week's writing-related links:

Sunday Links & the Week in #storyeachnight : April 29, 2012 Edition

It's been a strangely low-key weekend here so far, despite the fact that I spent hours yesterday writing. I know it's most likely the calm before a storm, but it's still been nice to feel even vaguely relaxed the last 36 or so hours.

I've continued to keep up with #storyeachnight. Here are this week's entries:

4/22 - "Scout" by Bud Sparhawk from the 6/12 ASIMOV'S. A fallen soldier re-enters the fight in a different role.
4/23 - "Crooks" by Paul Carlson from the 6/12 ANALOG.
4/24 - "You've Ruined This For Me" by Ewan C. Forbes from DAILY SCIENCE FICTION.
4/25 - "Dolly at the End of the World" by Amanda C. Davis from DAILY SCIENCE FICTION. Great voice & characters.
4/26 - "Moving Night" by Nancy Holder from 100 HAIR-RAISING LITTLE HORROR STORIES. A young boy's night terrors & more
4/27 - "The Other Graces" by Alice Sola Kim from THE YEAR'S BEST SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY 2011. Great voice and interesting character-building. I loved the story up until near the end when it started to lose me.

4/28 - "The Old Genius" by Nikolai Leskov from THE ENCHANTED WANDERER AND OTHER STORIES. A short crime story about how a wealthy man who refused to pay his debts was forced to recompense a trusting old woman.

Now, here are this week's writing-related links:

Sunday Links & The Week in #storyeachnight: April 15, 2012 Edition

The first link I want to draw everyone's attention to is Ken Liu's short story "Memories of My Mother." This will be the subject of April's Dissecting the Short Story post, which will appear on 4/26 or 4/30. So, if you want to be able to join in the discussion around this story, you could go ahead and read it now to be ready for that.

I've finally gotten back into the groove of regularly doing #storyeachnight. Here are this week's entries:

4/8 - "Amor Vincit Omnia" by K. J. Parker from THE YEAR'S BEST SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY, 2011 EDITION. Some rather fascinating worldbuilding in Parker's story, though not sure how I feel about the overall story arc.
4/9 -  "Older, Wiser, Time Traveler" by M. Bennardo from DAILY SCIENCE FICTION. I liked this story. Good voice and sense of where the story was going which, in a time travel story, can always be a bit tricky.
4/10 - "Final Exam" by Megan Arkenberg from the 6/12 ASIMOV'S. An interesting, very non-linear structure though I think I would have enjoyed it more if it had been a good bit shorter.
4/11 - "Waiting at the Altar" by Jack McDevitt from the 6/12 ASIMOV'S. Decent space exploration story though I enjoyed his recent "Maiden Voyage" (which featured the same characters) more. ("Maiden Voyage" was the subject of my January 6th "Dissecting the Short Story" entry.)
4/12 -  "Lethal Injection" by Kevin Levites from NOIR NATION #1. Seems like a lot of snake research went into this one. It had a very authentic feel.
4/13 - "The Green Book" by Amal El-Mohtar from THE YEAR'S BEST SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY 2011. A great, rather short, story about an enchanted book and people who have interacted with it.

4/14 - "A Brief Respite From Eternity" by Alex Shvartsman from STUPEFYING STORIES 1.5. A nice flash fiction which worked for me even though it deals with a particular subject area I'm getting a bit weary of.

Now, here are this week's writing-related links:

Sunday Links & The Week in #storyeachnight: April 1, 2012 Edition

No fooling here, we're all business!

The two links I'm most personally excited about today are the ones to my two short stories on the Kazka Press site: "Vacant Thrones" and "What You Can Change."

In other personal writing news, I received word of a sale to a prestigious semi-pro market earlier this weekend. The contract isn't signed yet but I'll be sure to let everyone know once I can make it public.

My #storyeachnight reading has continued to be sporadic, though I am now explicitly focusing on trying to read stories for my revival of the "Dissecting the Short Story" series.

3/25 - None
3/26 - "In the Unlikely Event" by Ferrett Steinmetz from DAILY SCIENCE FICTION. A fun flash fiction.
3/27 - None
3/28 - "Offering Solace" by Jamie Lackey from DAILY SCIENCE FICTION. I liked the feel of much of it, but I wasn't crazy about the ending. The author notes, indicating the story's origin were interesting to me.
3/29 - "The Day They Came" by Kali Wallace from LIGHTSPEED. Interesting voice. It felt like maybe it went on a bit long, though I can't say I really got bored either.
3/30 - None
3/31 - "Nightfall in the Scent Garden" by Claire Humphrey from STRANGE HORIZONS. Wow! Lyrical and evocative. Childhood, myth, names, love... Easily one of my favorites of stories I've read recently. (* Obviously my favorite for the week.)

And now, here are this week's links:

Sunday Links & The Week in #storyeachnight: March 25, 2012 Edition

The last two days saw (among quite a few rejection emails) a pair of very exciting emails. The first, on Friday, was one from Nature indicating that they were interested in buying one of my stories for their "Futures" feature. This was exciting for any number of reasons, three of the chief ones being that this will easily be the largest readership any of my writing has ever been exposed to, it will be my first print publication in my return to writing, and it will be my first sale to a Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) qualifying market, making me eligible to join as an Associate member. Needless to say, I'm happy.

Saturday, I received an email from a semi-pro market indicating that they were interested in buying one of my stories as well. I've been asked to make some minor revisions, which I have agreed in principal to do and will be working on later today. This one is exciting to me because it's my first non-flash sale in my return to writing and it represents the sale of a story which I am particularly fond of -- it's easily my favorite of the stories I wrote towards the tail end of last summer. I'm not naming the market yet since the revisions still need to be made and accepted. I've no reason to expect this will pose difficulty, but since it would be awkward for both parties if it did pose difficulty, I'll wait to share any more details on this until the revisions are accepted and the contract signed.

It's certainly nice to have some good news to share here!

Here are the stories I read for #storyeachnight this week; I did get a nice string of four nights in a row, though it's been far from "each" night recently:

3/18 - None
3/19 - "Ride-Along" by Brendan Dubois from THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES 2011. I was a bit underwhelmed by this one. Lots of it felt too heavily telegraphed. Writing was good enough that it was still decent but I wasn't wowed.
3/20 - "Memories of My Mother" by Ken Liu from DAILY SCIENCE FICTION. Well-told story of relativistic travel and one family. That said, I've read several relativistic travel stories recently & am not in a rush to read another. No fault of the author. (* My favorite of the week.)
3/21 - "I Am Nano" by Sean Monaghan from ASIM #52. A story of nanobots gaining sentience.
3/22 - "Who Killed Skippy?" by Paul D Brazill from NOIR NATION #1. Entertaining story about a family business & a dead kangaroo.
3/23 - None
3/24 - None

And now, here are this week's links:

Sunday Links & The Week in #storyeachnight: March 18, 2012 Edition

I'm still intending to get back to Dissecting the Short Story, though with the continued health issues in both my and my wife's family, I'm not going to rush to meet the original timelines from my recent post about the future of the feature). I'll still follow the approach I outlined, but I'll post new dates once I'm more ready.

The most interesting writing news for me this week was getting a letter from Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine indicating that my submission for one of their monthly "Mysterious Photograph" contests was an Honorable Mention. This makes me 3-for-3 on Honorable Mentions, which is neat. I'm hoping that I break through with a winning story sometime soon. I feel rather good about the story I wrote for this month's contest.

This week, with my wife out of town all week, even nightly story reading for #storyeachnight was hit-and-miss, though I did manage to meet my daily obligation to myself around my writing. I was especially pleased to finish the first draft of a longer short story last night. (This is the one I'd mentioned in each of my last two weekly roundups. The first draft is done. Yay!)

Here are the stories I read for #storyeachnight this week:

3/11 - None
3/12 - "The Take" by Alex Shvartsman from DAILY SCIENCE FICTION. An interesting story about memory recording tech and the impact it had on one person's life.
3/13 - None
3/14 - None
3/15 -Ed McBain's "Downpour" from LEARNING TO KILL. An okay crime story but a bit long for what it was. On the whole, these early McBain stories have been decent but nothing outstanding.
3/16 - None
3/17 - The title story from W. P. Kinsella's collection BORN INDIAN. Kinsella's an old favorite of mine. This particular story has an interesting character dynamic but the dialect style of the writing felt a bit cumbersome.

And now, here are this week's links:

Sunday Links & The Week in #storyeachnight: March 11, 2012 Edition

First off, a quick update relating to Dissecting the Short Story. As some of you may know from comments I've made on Twitter or other places, things have been incredibly crazy in my life recently. In the span of two weeks my father was injured in an accident which has drastically (and, thankfully, presumably temporarily) restricted his ability to get around and my mother-in-law had a stroke. Between taking on extra tasks to help family members and a lot of driving (750 miles in one 36 hour period) I've been both short on time and energy to do anything writing related. My writing time has been spent almost totally on things that either have a deadline or where I have time-based commitments (such as my Seinfeld/Daily Writing Chain and blog schedule).

How this relates to Dissecting the Short Story is that some of the benchmarks in my original timeline (as discussed in Monday's post about the future of the feature) are likely to slip a bit, though hopefully not by too awfully much.

So, with that out of the way, let's move on to the usual Sunday business of my #storyeachnight recap for the week and links to blog posts, etc. which I read in the last week and found worth sharing. First, the week's nightly short stories:

3/4 - "The Stars Are Falling" by Joe Lansdale from THE YEAR'S BEST DARK FANTASY AND HORROR 2011. A man returns to his wife, son, & East Texas home after experiencing the horrors of World War I but everything is different.
3/5 - "Accident Report" by Ed McBain from LEARNING TO KILL. Seemed very much a predecessor to the 87th Precinct stories
3/6 - "Something Real" by Rick Wilber from the 4-5/12 ASIMOV'S. A story of alternate timelines, WWII and Moe Berg.
3/7 - "Hurt Me" by M.L.N. Hanover from YEAR'S BEST DARK FANTASY & HORROR 2011. An interesting ghost story, nicely atmospheric, with a resolution I didn't expect.
3/8 - "Chinese Puzzle" by Ed McBain from LEARNING TO KILL. Another pre-87th Precinct procedural, this one 1st person.
3/9 - Ironically when I couldn't sleep I read "Insomnia" by A. G. Carpenter from DAILY SCIENCE FICTION. I mostly liked "Insomnia" (the story) though the ending left me a bit underwhelmed. Good voice & main character.
3/10 - "Electrica" by Sean McMullen in the Mar/Apr 2012 F&SF. Wow! If you have this mag, make time to read it! "Electrica" had some steampunk elements & setting (though not tone) put me in mind of the Flashman novels. I thoroughly enjoyed "Electrica." Didn't want to put it down. McMullen apparently is working on a novel in this universe. (* My favorite this week, though many weeks "The Stars Are Falling" or "Hurt Me" could have been my favorite. An especially good batch of stories this week.)

And now, here are this week's links:

Sunday Links & The Week in #storyeachnight: March 4, 2012 Edition

It's Sunday again! Time for me to go back and look over the short stories I read as part of my #storyeachnight reading and also highlight some writing-related links that I found particularly useful from this past week. First, here are this week's stories along with my comments on them from my #storyeachnight tweets.

2/26 - "Last Cottage" by Christopher Merkner from BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES 2011. An interesting first person plural story of greed in a small town. (* My favorite of the week.)
2/27 - "Bus Ride to Mars" by Cat Rambo from DAILY SCIENCE FICTION. I enjoyed reading it, lots of great details. If there was much plot, I missed it. That said, it's a credit to the story that I was unsure of the "point" and still liked the story.
2/28 - "The Procedure" by L. E. Elder from DAILY SCIENCE FICTION. A singularity-ish story with one of last non-AllTechs facing her future. Maybe I've just read too many similar stories, but that one really didn't grab me.
2/29 - "Frumpy Little Beat Girl" by Peter Atkins from YEAR'S BEST DARK FANTASY AND HORROR 2011. A Robert Rankin/Douglas Adams-esque fantasy about a used bookseller co-opted into trying to save the world. Fun. I've really enjoyed this anthology, almost every story I've read from it so far has been excellent.
3/1 - "Top of the World" by Bill Crider from FAVORITE KILLS.
3/2 -  "Jack Webb's Star" by Lee Goldberg from FAVORITE KILLS. From a traffic ticket to theft and murder...
3/3 - "More Than a Scam" by Dave Zeltserman from 21 TALES. Most everyone gets more than they bargained for in it.

And now, here are this week's writing-related links that I found interesting and worth sharing...

Sunday Links & The Week in #storyeachnight: February 26, 2012 Edition

I've got some good news to announce. This week, on March 1st, I'll have a story published by Kazka Press as part of their monthly flash fiction contest. "A Minor God of Mischief" got submitted with literally just hours to spare before the deadline and I was thrilled to see that they liked it. I hope that you all enjoy it as well.

Recently I've been reading a short story (most) every day/night and tweeting about it under the #storyeachnight hashtag. Here are this week's stories along with my thoughts on them:

2/19 - "When Day is Dun" by Richard Matheson from THE SHORES OF SPACE. A poet seeks the proper epitaph for humanity.
2/20 - "Lobstersaurus" by Eric James Stone from the 5/12 Analog. Touching story of a girl & her giant alien pet.
2/21 - "The Prisoners" by D. K. Latta from Daily Science Fiction. Had an interesting, but maybe a bit unrealistic, scenario.
2/22 - "A Matter of Principal" by Max Allan Collins in FAVORITE KILLS. A retired hitman stumbles across a crime in progress.
2/23 - Accidentally Skipped
2/24 - "A Thousand Flowers" by Margo Lanagan from THE YEAR'S BEST DARK FANTASY AND HORROR: 2011. An interesting fantasy with some beautiful writing. Also, an interesting POV structure with three different first person chunks. (The formatting in my phone's Kindle reader app made the first POV jump a bit confusing to pick up on, but that's not a fault of the story.)
2/25 - "Clean Slate" by Lawrence Block from THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES 2011. I didn't realize it until I got partway into the story, but this is the short story where Block first wrote about the main character from his novel Getting Off (which I still haven't gotten around to reading). Block is one of my favorite authors and this story was no disappointment. I'm sure the rest of the collection won't be, either. It was a treat getting this one for $1.99 from an Amazon Gold Box deal... (* My favorite for this week.)

And now, here are this week's writing-related links that I found interesting and worth sharing...

Sunday Links & The Week in #storyeachnight: February 19, 2012 Edition

As I mentioned last week, one routine I've picked up recently is reading a short story every day/night and tweeting about it under the #storyeachnight hashtag. I'm going to list the stories along with whatever comments I made about them on Twitter and any other thoughts that come to mind here in my weekly link roundpost post. Below are this week's stories:

2/12 - "Love Story" by Eric Frank Russell from MICROCOSMIC TALES. A general laments the impact of relationships on interstellar troop movements.
2/13 - "The Cat From Hell" by Stephen King from JUST AFTER SUNSET. A corker of a horror story about a dying man, a hitman & the titular cat. (* My favorite of the week.)
2/14 - "Angie" by Ed Gorman from FAVORITE KILLS. Crime story with an "Oh, gosh, please don't go there." climax.
2/15 - "Who Dealt?" from THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF RING LARDNER. Interesting monologue piece with an apparently clueless main character.
2/16 - "Sales Pitch" by Philip K. Dick from THE GOLDEN MAN. A satire of advertising and home conveniences gone mad.
2/17 - "This House Was Never a Castle" by Aaron Polson from issue 14 of Shimmer. A setting-drenched piece with children trying to make their way through a dangerous world.
2/18 - "The Dingus" by Gregory Frost from SUPERNATURAL NOIR. A good horror/mystery story about an ex-trainer trying to determine how a boxer he had once trained ended up dead. I'm really psyched about this Ellen Datlow-edited collection; very glad that my wife picked it up for me for my birthday!

And now, here are this week's writing-related links that I found interesting and worth sharing...

Sunday Links & The Week in #storyeachnight: February 12, 2012 Edition

I'm still working on adjusting to my new blogging schedule of Monday, Thursday, Sunday after having done Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday for several months. It sort of feels weird only writing up one mid-week blog post. I'm going to give it a while, though, and see how I feel about it after a couple of months.

One routine I've picked up recently is reading a short story every day/night and tweeting about it. Nicole Cushing has been doing this on the #storyeachnight hashtag for quite a few months. Here are the stories I read this week along with the comments I made on them.


2/5 - "Exit Interview" by Lynne Heitman from BOSTON NOIR: Office/gender politics & a hostage situation.
2/6 - "Cellmate" by Theodore Sturgeon from an old paperback of E PLURIBUS UNICORN
2/7 - "Fever Dream" from THE VINTAGE BRADBURY: Child realizes a danger no one else sees. Some chilling aspects. But it also felt a bit dated and not just because it had a doctor making house calls. "Fever Dream" & last night's "Cellmate" were both late-40s Weird Tales stories. I felt that Sturgeon's held up better.
2/8 - "Night Nurse" by Harry Shannon from FAVORITE KILLS: A nightmarish trip to a hospital for the MC in this story.
2/9 - "Mrs. Hatcher's Evaluation" by James Van Pelt from 3/12 Asimov's. Fun story,very critical of modern education theory
2/10 - "The Secret of the City of Gold" by Ron Goulart from the 1-2/12 issue of F&SF. It featured series character Harry Challenge, seems to have been intended to evoke the feel of old (old) school pulp fiction. I think I tend to be more forgiving of originals than pastiches & this didn't strike me as a terribly amusing pastiche.
2/11 - "Scrap Dragon" by Naomi Kritzer from the 1-2/12 F&SF. A fairy tale or bedtime story with LOTS of..."editorial" suggestions by the "listener." Quite enjoyable; it put a smile on my face.

As I do every Sunday, I've gathered together links I've liked/gotten something out of from things I've read this week. Here are this week's links...