WHAT IF THE VOICES WERE REAL? By Ken Scholes

__________

Edmund asked me to write a little something about this story and how it came about. For me, stories come from a wacky and powerful collision of thought, emotion, experience and curiosity. And nearly always, they end up meaning something to me, revealing something about whatever I was processing at the time, and expressing that outward. There's an uncomfortable vulnerability in it that I liken to running around with my underwear on my head for all to see.

I wrote "The God-Voices of Settler's Rest" in January of 2007. It was the first short story I'd written after completing my first novel. In some ways, there was trepidation after so many words spent in the long-form. In other ways, it was like sliding into a comfortable pair of shoes.

Only something had changed. Maybe it was me. But the story unfolded differently, flowing out of the character of Mother Abigail Holton in scenes from both the beginning and end of a life spent in service in the Firsthome Temple. This one just felt different. So different that I didn't quite love it as one of my paper children right away. But now that I've spent some time with it, it's grown on me.

Because I understand voices.

While I was writing LAMENTATION, that first novel of mine, I had invented a new name for those internal voices that chew at us. I called them the Chattering Head Monkeys, or the CHM for short. Which of course, were differentiated from the so-called voice of my muse, Leroy. Of course, these voices are just me. I know that. No need for alarm. But it got me to thinking about the other voices we hear and listen for.

And then I wondered: What if the voices were real?

I saw a world -- a colony world in some far off future -- where somehow the ghost voices of a long vanished civilization called out to the settlers, initially with promises of home and love but later, through no fault of the hapless colonists, turned angry and raging. And what if only the women could hear these voices? And what if those voices -- like telepathic recordings that played in cycles over long stretches of time -- revealed lost secrets of that previous civilization to the eager Settler's Daughters, bent on learning about humanity's new home. Only the voices were so powerful that they felt divine in nature.

Wait a minute. That sounds familiar.

Rummaging around, I find an uncomfortable dose of memory from those long-ago days when I first experienced what I felt was a divine call to service as a minister and everything that it entailed. I flinch now when I remember burning my Dungeons and Dragons materials in the yard, selling off my science fiction and fantasy collection and tossing my love of writing aside at the age of seventeen based on the power of that perceived sense of calling.

I think these memories help keep me humble.

All told, I spent at least a decade pursuing those god-voices of my own and this story is really just a part of processing what that ten year island meant in the broader context of my life. A decade of voices. And then there's that question again, in the back of my mind, bending memory towards Story: What if those voices were real?

Because really, they were real at least to me, though like Mother Holton's voices, they were easily misunderstood and were not necessarily what they claimed to be on the surface.

One more ingredient for Story Soup.

And last, what about those other voices we're listening for with our radio telescopes? The ones from elsewhere in this great big universe we spin through?

Sometimes I think we're just sitting by the phone, waiting and hoping for it to ring. And not especially caring whose voice is on the other end of that line, be it divine or extraterrestrial, as long as someone, anyone, calls.

Why do we want it so bad? Are we curious or are we lonely...or both? Or neither? Maybe, like Mother Holton says, it's because we cannot bear to be alone in the universe. And maybe the answer is the same one she found at the end of her days, when she looked back over her life and what she'd learned along the way from how she'd lived it.

We're never alone if we have one another.

And when we learn that answer for ourselves, we'll treat each other better, I suspect.

But I digress. We're really talking about where stories come from. Particularly where this story came from.

Bring yourself unto your keyboard or your pen. Take all of these thoughts and blend them together. Shake them well. Stir them up. Sprinkle in lies enough to masquerade the truth and truth enough to make the lies seem honest. Pour through the fingers and let Story emerge.

And that's how "The God-Voices of Settler's Rest" was written.

I hope my underwear wasn't too frightening.

_______

"The God-Voices of Settler's rest" by Ken Scholes is now available in issue 9 of IGMS.

Countdown to Dreaming Creek

___
On the one hand I'm excited that the publication date of my novel is drawing near. On the other hand, I'm a bit sad to report that that the official release date has been moved back, from Sept. 28 to Oct. 28. On the other other hand (for those of you with three), I'm thrilled that it's going to be Oct. 28th instead of Dec. 28th, which is the date the publisher was talking about for a while. THAT would have sucked.

So the thing I'm waiting for at this point is the editor-in-chief's line edits and general notes so that I can see what she has to say and what work she still thinks the book needs. She said she would get that to me by the end of the coming weekend, so I'm checking my email every half hour in case it comes in any sooner. I'm sure by time Sunday arrives I'll be checking it every five minutes.

That's about all for now. More as further progress warrants.

"Red Road" by David Barr Kirtley

As we were departing Lunacon, my friend John Joseph Adams recommended a book to me, but cautioned me that the book contained talking animals, as if that might put me off. I replied automatically, “No, that’s cool. I like talking animals.” Later I thought back on that and realized that, hey, yeah, I /do/ like talking animals, and yet I’d never published a story that contained any talking animals. I started thinking it might be fun to write a story about some talking animals, but only if I could come up with some new angle — something sufficiently skewed and offbeat.

A few days later I remembered a conversation I’d had years ago with some of the other students at James Gunn’s writing workshop at the University of Kansas. In that conversation I’d made a joke along the lines of, “Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if someone wrote an animal quest fantasy in
which … ?” Remembering that, I suddenly thought, “Hey, that’s not bad.” I had just come off a white-hot streak of writing successes, and I was in the mood for a challenge, such as taking a joke situation and trying to develop it into a narrative that contained as much emotional depth
and thematic significance as I could manage.

One other inspirational moment I remember: I had read a news article about a left-wing intellectual type who had recently been knighted in the UK. All this guy’s left-wing intellectual friends had chided him for accepting the honor and had pointed out that monarchy and titles and all that were basically against everything that this guy stood for, and the guy was kind of like, “Yeah, I know, I know. But come on, I’m a /knight/ now. How cool is that? How could I say no?” I kept thinking about that, and kept wondering what I might do in that situation, since I could easily sympathize with both sides.

I had a blast writing this story. It was enormous fun to be able to go back and write my own old-school fantasy complete with heroes and monsters and talking animals and a quest, just like the kind I read so many of when I was a kid, and I felt inspired to sneak in an unusually
high number of sly allusions and little in-jokes. My interest in politics and culture tends to show through no matter what I write, so I think the story also contains a lot of hidden depth. I also think I managed to bump my sentence-level writing up a notch with this piece.

I wrote the story during a summer in which I was living in a small apartment in South Central L.A. It was too hot for me to go out much during the day and too dangerous for me to venture out much at night, so I spent day after day alone in that apartment and got completely absorbed (probably too much so) in the fictional reality of the story. The moment at which I became really excited about the piece and knew for sure that I was going to go ahead and write it all down was when I dreamt up the sequence in which Francis battles the owl. But when it came time to write that scene, I just didn’t know how Francis could possibly stand a chance. I paced around and around, swinging an imaginary sword. In the corner of the room, looming over me, I pictured
a gigantic and sinister owl (the sweltering heat probably contributed to the near-hallucinatory intensity of this vision), and I would stare up at that monstrous owl and think, “Crap, how the hell am I going to kill this bleeping thing?”

I was really happy with how that part turned out. In fact, after I wrote that scene I couldn’t restrain myself from sending out a bulletin to all my Facebook friends announcing, “I just wrote the best sword-wielding mouse versus owl fight scene you’ll read all year!” Writing isn’t all
fun and games though, of course. For whatever reason I had a hell of a time describing the throne room. I worked for an entire day — eight hours or so — on that one stupid little paragraph, though that time included many hours spent online perusing photos of various real-world
throne rooms. I also found it challenging to work out exactly how the climactic scene was going to go down (even though that scene was something I’d planned from the beginning and was in fact the genesis of the whole piece). I spent several days wrestling with the logistics of
the thing until I finally hit upon the image of a spooky, mist-shrouded landscape, which instantly felt right and which immediately solved a lot of my problems.

I had a great deal of fun writing this story, and I really felt as though I were living through the events as I was writing them. I hope that some of that same experience comes through for people when they read it.

--

Read "Red Road" in issue 9 of Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show, available now

To learn more about Dave, visit his website at:
www.davidbarrkirtley.com

"No Viviremos Como Presos" by Brad Beaulieu

While I was attending Viable Paradise, a one-week writing workshop held on Martha's Vineyard, Patrick Nielsen Hayden had the students write a scene in which we argued a position we would normally argue against. I had a particularly tough time with this, and it became clear why after Patrick said something that was rather obvious once he'd said it: that you're on to something if you find the writing of a particular position difficult. I don't even recall the exact nature of the scene (something to do with corporate greed, as I recall, though I was arguing for the greedy corporation) but the exercise has always stuck with me, because the point of it was to show you that you can really make an argument exciting if both sides have compelling arguments. And it's not just arguments; this goes to the heart of conflict. It's easy (not to mention uninteresting) to set up a conflict where one side is clearly in the right. Its much more gripping if the author can set up the conflicts so that there are no easy answers. To make the antagonist sympathetic in his own right can turn him from a cardboard cutout of evil into a complex character that the reader actually sympathizes with while they do dastardly things.

When I started writing "No Viviremos Como Presos," I had a clear position in mind: that a border wall was a Bad Thing, and from this position Sandro's character began to form. But, bearing the previous exercise in mind, I certainly didn't want it to become didactic. In the words of Tim Powers: I didn't want to "say" anything. I just wanted it to be, for it to exist, and for the reader to take away what they would. This is the place from which Miguel's character sprang. I note now, though it was not conscious at the time, that there is no antagonist in the conventional sense. Clearly the U.S. Government is the bad guy, but it acts the landscape of this painting, not the subject. Miguel turned into a lens, so to speak, something through which the reader could view these things with a fairly unbiased viewpoint. That is his job, after all, to take pictures and to present them and allow the viewer to make up their minds about them. Sure, he can flavor them if he chooses to, but his professional integrity steers him away from such urges.

It was interesting, then, to see what happened to Miguel as he stood by and documented this tragedy. He never did take as much of a stand as Sandro wanted him to, and perhaps in the end Miguel regrets that. By the end of the story he certainly feels punished by the paths that fate led him down, though whether that changes him in the end, I don't know. I'll leave that up to you to decide...

"Blood and Water" by Alethea Kontis

Vampire Mermaid

*

"You're a writer? Okay, tell me a story."

Yeah -- my eyes just rolled too. I've gotten this my whole life. I've heard it from friends and teachers. I got it from relatives who expected me to entertain their bored children. I even got it once from a computer tech support guy when I was waiting for the server at my Waldenbooks to reboot.

What the heck? Come on. I've never said, "You're an accountant? Okay, do my taxes" or "You're a dancer? Go on, let's see a jig."

Eventually, I learned to keep some pat stories on hand, shoved in a special mental folder I saved for just those occasions. There's a love story about my Thea Maritza who ran from the Turks as they ethnically cleansed Smyrna…or the one about how my grandfather turned pirate during the Nazi occupation of Greece. Quality stuff at the drop of a hat.

'Cause it's just not that easy for me.

I was born a genius and an actress. I grew up on stage. I've done my share of improv (and your share, and his share, and a bit of that lady's over there). I was surrounded by seriously hyperintelligent geeks in all my classes and was expected to hold my own with a biting wit and a wealth of trivial knowledge. You want a perfect comeback, a great conversationalist, or a frustrating debate partner? I'm your girl.

But I just can't tell stories at the drop of a hat. I can tell you about my sister's latest catastrophe or the funny thing that happened to me on the way to work…but if it's fiction you want I need something. I need a seed from which to grow the flax -- otherwise it's like trying to weave a tapestry out of dandelion fluff on a windy day.

It doesn't have to be big, either. Heck, sometimes it only takes two words.

"Blood and Water" started from such a seed: I was in Charleston one Memorial Day weekend, staying at my friend Brandi's house. I had brought in the little chunky notebook I keep in my car for when inspiration strikes and I don't have a junkmail envelope or Starbucks receipt or roofing flyer handy.

Brandi was flipping through it when she suddenly got a strange look on her face.
What's a 'vampire mermaid'?" she asked.

I took the book from her curiously. Sure enough there they were, just two words, two random thoughts at two completely different times that I just happened to scribble on the same page in close proximity. But it was a good question. What was a vampire mermaid? How would that work?

This is where "what you know" comes in. As writers, once inspired, we proceed to ask ourselves this barrage of myriad questions. We then answer those questions based on what we know. If you happen to know a lot of trivial junk, you can come up with some pretty interesting scenarios.

My brain clicked into overdrive, following the logic. A mermaid lives in the ocean: check. Vampires need blood: check. Why would a mermaid need blood? What's under the ocean that needs blood? I mentally went back to college, my short-lived days of being a marine chemist with dreams of open waters and deep-sea submersibles.

I had been obsessed with the hydrothermal vents, in the deepest ocean where the tectonic plates meet and form fissures. Nobody ever thought there would be anything living that far down…and oh, how wrong they were. In 1979 the infamous ALVIN scoped it out and discovered entire colonies of organisms living off the toxic chemicals spewing out from the vents. There were snails, shrimp, crabs, octopuses…even giant oysters and seven-foot-tall red-plumed white tube worms with complete vascular systems.

Oh, yes…these folks don't need sunlight, but they do need blood.

Check.

With that problem solved, I went back to the mermaid part. Now, I'm not claiming to be the Fairy Tale Queen of the Universe, but I know my way around a bit of Grimm and Andersen (and Zipes and Bettelheim). When I was ten, my grandmother gifted me with a humongous volume of unexpurgated fairy tales -- thank goodness my mother never got her hands on it. Sleeping Beauty's name was "Briar Rose," Rapunzel got knocked up, and Cinderella's sisters cut off pieces of their feet to squeeze into that glass slipper. I read "The Little Match Girl" and "The Little Mermaid" and cried like my heart was breaking.

And then I'd read them again.

If the only version of "The Little Mermaid" you know is Disney, then you are seriously missing out. It's a beautiful tale. But I'll warn you right now: the sea witch cuts out the mermaid's tongue. The prince marries the wrong woman. The mermaid eventually drowns herself in her desolation, becoming foam on the waves. And every girl remembers how excruciatingly painful the mermaid's transformation, so darkly was it painted.

Pain, darkness, love story: check.

The rest of the questions were just details. How does a being who has lived beneath the waves her whole life describe a candle when she has never seen fire? What does splitting her tail feel like if she's never been cut by a knife? What is walking to a woman who has never experience land? How would she be able to spot a predator? How would she learn all these things…quickly?

And -- most importantly -- who would rescue her from the middle of nowhere post-transformation?

Well, that part was easy. Write what I know.

Pirates: check.

"Blood and Water" is now available in issue 9 of IGMS.

Franken-Facts by Matt Rotundo

Readers of this blog have already seen my "story behind the story" essay about "The Frankenstein Diaries." Edmund told me that since part two is coming out in issue nine of IGMS, I could blather on a bit longer, if I wanted.

I'm a writer, folks. I'm not one to turn down an opportunity to blather. So without further ado, allow me to present a few tidbits--some amusing, some interesting--that I like to call Fun "Frankenstein" Facts.

(Warning: Some spoilers follow.)

• "The Frankenstein Diaries" marks my third qualifying sale for SFWA, and is also the story that would have officially disqualified me from the Writers of the Future contest. At Dragon*Con last year, Edmund told me that he delights in ruining people's WotF eligibility. Unfortunately for him, I became a WotF winner in March of this year, right before the story was published. Got it in just under the wire. (And I'm thrilled about the WotF win, by the way.)

• "Frankenstein" is the second story of mine with a connection to Orson Scott Card. The first was "Hitting the Skids in Pixeltown," which won a Phobos Award in 2002. Scott was one of the judges in that contest, and one of the editors of the subsequent anthology in which the story appeared, also called Hitting the Skids in Pixeltown. If you see Scott, please tell him I said thanks, and I'm not stalking him. Honest.

• Paul Griffin's birthday in the story is the same as mine--June 2nd.

• Paul is the name of my oldest nephew. He does not have snake tattoo on his face.

• Although I was of course familiar with the novel Frankenstein, I hadn't read it until I got into the research phase of this story. A friend gave me an annotated version of the book as a Christmas present, which I found quite fascinating. Did you know the novel was originally published anonymously? Some of the early reviews were quite amusing, speculating about what kind of disturbed mind could come up with such a concept. I suppose some people still wonder that today.

• Digital picture frames--which we see in the scene where Paul rips the portrait of Steven off the wall--were not on the market, so far as I know, when I wrote "The Frankenstein Diaries." I just made them up as a bit of futuristic tech. By the time the story came out, they were no longer futuristic; they already existed. Nonetheless, I think somebody owes me a royalty.

• For the scene in which Marie tells John she wants a divorce, I visualized my own kitchen as the setting.

• My research into dyslexia almost derailed the story. I had it in the back of my mind that the disorder was genetic. But my research told me otherwise, that although dyslexia tends to run in families, there is no proof yet of a genetic component. On the other hand, a genetic component hasn't been ruled out yet, either--so I went ahead with it. Science may one day close that loophole, at which point, "The Frankenstein Diaries" will become hopelessly dated. Such is the nature of science fiction.

• Incidentally, everything Dr. Aiken says about the ability of children to hide the symptoms of dyslexia came from my research.

• IGMS has a "PG-13" editorial policy. I knew this when I submitted "Frankenstein." The original draft contained some rough language that I suspected wouldn't meet the PG-13 standard, and I was right. I was asked to make a few changes. Most of them were easy, but one proved troublesome. It occurred during Paul's final confrontation with John. In the scene as originally written, an angry Paul deliberately provokes his father with what I figured was a pretty typical teenage ploy--dropping the f-bomb. I needed to change it, but I had a hard time figuring out what else he could say that would push John over the edge. Finally, I hit upon it: Paul says of his dead brother, "He was stupid. He deserved to die." It occurred to me that this was an order of magnitude more awful, more unforgiveable, than the vilest profanity he could have uttered. There's a writing lesson in that, somewhere.

• My wife didn't care for an earlier draft of this story. She found the character of John Griffin unlikeable. She was right, of course. I worked on that in the rewrite--which was difficult, because John is profoundly messed up, even if he doesn't realize it. I confess that I wonder what readers will think of him in this version. I'll be at the Omaha Science Fiction and Fantasy Festival, July 11-13th, and at WorldCon in Denver, August 6th-10th. If you find yourself at either event, maybe you could look me up and let me know your opinion. And if you absolutely loved the story, make sure you say it loudly enough for my wife to hear.

With that, I think I've blathered long enough. Hope you enjoyed these Fun "Frankenstein" Facts. Feel free to use them to impress your friends at parties.

"Cassie's Story" by David B. Coe

Different authors tend to write to different lengths. Some specialize in short fiction; others feel more comfortable writing novels. Throughout my career, I've fallen into that latter category. At the same time, I’ve always admired -- even envied -- those writers who could create a seamless and complete narrative in the span of 8,000 words rather than 80,000 words.

Back in October, while in upstate New York for World Fantasy Convention, I met with my editor at Tor Books, who encouraged me to write more short fiction. He thought it would help me further hone my craft, and he believed that publishing more short stories would help me reach a broader audience. I appreciated the advice, but I wasn’t at all certain that I could simply will myself to start finding short story ideas. After all, I was a novelist -- that was my preferred length of work.

I had driven up to New York from my home in Tennessee and so, of course, I needed to drive back home. And during the first part of that drive, right there on the New York State Thruway, I suddenly found myself writing “Cassie’s Story” in my head.

The character of Cassie came to me first. And actually my first image of her was as a prisoner in jail garb, sitting in an interrogation room smoking a cigarette. I knew that at one point she had it all: brains, looks, a great career, a husband she loved. I knew as well that she had lost everything, and that she had been driven to this state by a power she possessed but couldn’t control. (You'll have to read the story if you want to know more.)

But the more the story developed in my head, the more I came to realize that while Cassie was the focus of the narrative, this was Eric’s story. He was the one who had to grapple with implications of what she had done and in doing so he also had to acknowledge his own indirect complicity in her crimes. His emotional process in the story parallels that of the reader, and in many ways, he’s the more dynamic character.

By the time I pulled into my driveway in Tennessee, the story was basically complete. I just had to transpose it from my head to the computer screen. Or so I thought.

The editorial process on “Cassie’s Story” was more involved than I had anticipated, perhaps in part because I had written so much of it in my head. There were elements of the story that needed to be moved forward in the narrative, others that needed to be tightened, and still others that needed further explanation. Fortunately, I was able to draw upon the wisdom and insight of Edmund as I reworked the story. With Ed’s help I was able to realize the full potential of that idea I first encountered on the thruway. I hope you enjoy the final product.

Exhausted But Elated

I've been writing my butt off for the last five days straight and now I'm finally done.

You see, June 30th (tonight) was my deadline for completing my final draft of Dreaming Creek. I won't bore you with the innumerable trials and tribulations, but it's done. I'm exhausted but elated. What was an 81,700 word draft two weeks ago had (best guess) about 1000 extraneous words cut, yet the final draft that I'll turn in to my editor is approx. 88,500 words long. So I've written nearly 8,000 new words, mostly since last Thursday.

I finished final edits/rewrites on Part Five today (all 160 pages of it), although like Part Four, it wasn't as onerous as some of the earlier parts. I think this is partly because I had done some work on them previously (when I should have been working on Parts 1 - 3 but couldn't bring myself to look at them because they were such a mess), and partly because by time I had gotten to the end (when I was doing my first draft) I was simply a better writer with a better handle on the novel form. (I started out writing short stories. You should have seen my very first draft; the early parts read like so many short stories strung together. And my handling of POV was atrocious. I got my first serious lesson on POV from OSC's Boot Camp and had a lot more work to do to fix the POV problems in the early parts.)

The story's plot is the same as what I started with, but I think the storytelling is much better. I have learned so much in the past few years, and with all the work I do as an editor these days, it was a pleasure to finally apply it to my own work.

Anyway, that's about all for now. Frankly, it's all I have the energy for. But I had to share. I'm done, I'm thrilled, I'm turning it in tonight.

Did I mention that I'm exhausted but elated?

BTW, before I go, I have to give a huge shout-out of thanks to Gray Rinehart, a friend and assistant editor over at Baen Books. Although Dreaming Creek is not a Baen kind of book at all, he has taken his free time to help me proof the MS. He caught more typos that I thought could possibly exist in a single manuscript and made some suggestions that really added to the overall story. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Expectations

Keeping it in perspective - that's what kids are good for.

I got my advance review copy (ARC) of the IGMS anthology the other day and I'm showing it off to my family when my oldest daughter (she's 12 going on 29) says to me, "When is your book coming out?"

I hold up the ARC and said, "This one? It comes out on August 5th."

"No," she says. "YOUR novel. I've told my friends at school about it and there are people with expectations." She says 'expectations' like they are on her, and no one else in the world could possibly understand the implications of such a thing.

I reply, "My novel won't come out for about three more months, late September." Then I hold up the ARC again and say, "But this one will be out in about a month."

Her reply?

"Sorry, dad. That one doesn't count. You didn't write that one."

That one doesn't count.

That's what she tells me.

Keepin' it real in the Schubert house...

Mama’s Boy

A little plug for a friend of mine to celebrate the recent release of her collection:

A Mother’s Love can be Devastating

Mama’s Boy and Other Dark Tales by Fran Friel!

Nothing good comes of the closest ties in Mama’s Boy and Other Dark Tales, the new collection from Fran Friel and Apex Publications. Things can go especially awry when the tie in question is the one binding mother and son.

The Bram Stoker Award-nominated novella “Mama’s Boy” is the cornerstone of this 14-story collection from author Fran Friel and Apex Publications. A man whose mother’s demented love for him has turned him from an innocent boy to a serial killer to a near-comatose mental patient opens his world to a psychologist determined to reach him as a way of dealing with her own mother’s battle with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. But is she helping, or is there more damage to be done?

In “Mashed,” a son’s simple request for potatoes with his birthday dinner opens up a world of past fears and childhood torments for his mother, while the flash fiction story “Close Shave” presents a horrifically funny solution to an everyday women’s issue.

From mother and son to broader family ties, Friel explores the bonds of human connection into every dark turn. The humorous yet wickedly creepy “Under the Dryer” begins as a tale told by the family dog and ends in a bloodbath; “Special Prayers,” perhaps the most disturbing offering in the collection, exposes a family secret of abuse and power; and the tragically soft and beautiful “Orange and Golden” explores the purest form of the human-animal bond as the sun sets on a natural disaster.

Mama’s Boy and Other Dark Tales is now available. Released on June 14, 2008.

FRAN FRIEL is a Bram Stoker-nominated author residing in rural New England with her husband and their band of animal masters. She writes weekly columns for “The Horror Library Blog-O-Rama” and “Yada, Too,” and she is a fiction editor for Dark Recesses Press. As a full member of The Horror Library, her short fiction appears regularly in the Fresh Meat department.

Friel’s work has been featured in the 2006 anthology release Horror Library, Volume 1, as well as publications online and in print at The Horror Library, Insidious Reflections, Wicked Karnival, The Lightning Journal, Lamoille Lamentations, The Eldritch Gazette, and Dark Recesses Press.

APEX PUBLICATIONS is a small press dedicated to publishing exemplary works of dark science fiction and horror. Owned and operated by Jason B. Sizemore, Apex publishes the critically acclaimed Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest. In 2006, Apex Publishing branched into producing novellas, collections, and anthologies, earning a Bram Stoker Award nomination for the Aegri Somnia anthology in 2007.

###

Apex is only doing 100 copies of the hardcover. All copies will be signed by Fran Friel and Billy Tackett (cover and interior artist).

A standard trade paperback will also be available.

Ender In Flight - new Orson Scott Card story on IGMS

The Ender's Game story for issue eight of IGMS has been posted today. Titled "Ender's Flight," it is available to anyone who purchases or has already purchased issue 8. It begins thus:

To: qmorgan%rearadmiral@ifcom.gov/fleetcom
From: chamrajnagar%polemarch@ifcom.gov/centcom
{self-shred protocol}
Re: In or out?

My dear Quince, I'm quite aware of the difference between combat command and flying a colony ship for a few dozen lightyears. If you feel your usefulness in space is over, then by all means, retire with full benefits. But if you stay in, and remain in near space, I can't promise you promotion within the I.F.

We suddenly find ourselves afflicted with peace, you see. Always a disaster for those whose careers have not reached their natural apex.

The colony ship I have offered you is not, contrary to your too-often-stated opinion (try discretion now and then, Quince, and see if it might not work better), a way to send you to oblivion. Retirement is oblivion, my friend. A forty- or fifty-year voyage means that you will outlive all of us who remain behind. All your friends will be dead. But you'll be alive to make new friends. And you'll be in command of a ship. A nice, big, fast one.

This is what the whole fleet faces. We have heroes out there who fought this war that The Boy is credited with winning. Have we forgotten them? ALL our most significant missions will involve decades of flight. Yet we must send our best officers to command them. So at any given moment, most of our best officers will be strangers to everyone at CentCom because they've been in flight for half a lifetime.

Eventually, ALL the central staff will be star voyagers. They will look down their noses at anyone who has NOT taken decades-long flights between stars. They will have cut themselves loose from Earth's timeline. They will know each other by their logs, transmitted by ansible.

What I'm offering you is the only possible source of career-making voyages: Colony ships.

And not only "a" colony ship, but one whose governor is a thirteen-year-old boy. Are you seriously going to tell me that you don't understand that you are not his "nanny," you are being entrusted with the highly responsible position of making sure that The Boy stays as far from Earth as possible, while also making sure that he is a complete success in his new assignment so that later generations cannot judge that he was not treated well?

Naturally, I did not send you this letter, and you did not read it. Nothing in this is to be construed as a secret order. It is merely my personal observation about the opportunity that you have been offered by a polemarch who believes in your potential to be one of the great admirals of the I.F.

Are you in? Or out? I need to draw up the papers one way or the other within the week.

Your friend, Cham

Peter Beagle's IGMS Story In Top 10 for 2007

Just a quick tidbit: Peter Beagle's story, "We Never Talk About My Brother," from issue 5 has been named one of the Top 10 stories of 2007 on storySouth's Million Writer's Award. As of tomorrow "We Never Talk About My Brother" will be available for free on the IGMS website for the duration of the voting, so that people can read it and decide if they want to vote for it as the top story of the year. This same story is also up for a Locus Award for Best Novelette of 2007, and it makes the second straight year an IGMS story has landed on storySouth's Top 10 list. I'm really pleased for both Peter Beagle, who's a great guy who's written an exceptional story (the day Scott Card read it his first comment was that the story ought to win some awards and it looks like a lot of folks agree with him on that), and for IGMS, which is slowly but surely catching on and getting noticed within the SF community as well as outside of it.

In a happy coincidence, the upcoming issue of IGMS (issue 9, due out at the end of the month) will feature another new Peter Beagle story, a Japanese fable titled, "The Tale of Junko and Sayuri."

Publisher's Weekly reviews IGMS antho

I should be writing a review of ConCarolinas, which I attended last weekend and thoroughly enjoyed - and hopefully I will do so sooner rather than later - but in the mean time here's the review from Publisher's Weekly about the forthcoming IGMS antho.

Yeah, I'm grinnin'.

Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show
Edited by Edmund R. Schubert and Orson Scott Card. Tor, $15.95 paper (416p) ISBN 978-0-7653-2000-1

The first collection of short stories from online magazine Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show (www.oscims.com), launched in 2005, features noteworthy SF and fantasy stories from a bumper crop of talented new authors. Four new Enderverse stories from Card will initially draw genre fans, but the stories from lesser-known writers are the compilation's real driving force. James Maxey's provocative “To Know All Things That Are in the Earth” takes a decidedly skeptical look at the Rapture; David Farland's “The Mooncalfe” puts an interesting—and unique—spin on oft-trod Arthurian legend; and Tom Barlow's brilliantly sardonic “Call Me Mr. Positive” explores isolation on a deep space mission gone tragically awry. If the quality of these stories is any indication, IGMS has as much promise as the newcomers it showcases. (Aug.)

ConCarolinas May 30 - June 1, 2008

Hi Edmund, Carol, our Programming Director, should be emailing out individual schedules this week, I think. Until then, I have a preliminary schedule and will be happy to tell you what you are scheduled for on there. Just know that there could be a few minor changes in that schedule. Here’s what I see you listed for so far… Friday, 7:00pm – A Rose by Any Other Name - The importance of naming your characters, worlds and books. Saturday, 10:00am – Not This $#!* Again! – Overused plot devices and how to avoid them (or if you should). (MODERATOR) Saturday, 12:00pm – You Had Me At Hello – How to hook your readers with your opening chapter. (MODERATOR) Saturday, 2:00pm – Putting Words to Paper (or Computer Screen) – How to increase your writing productivity and power through writer’s block. (MODERATOR) Saturday, 3:00pm – Effective Tools for that First Sale – Steps to take to make that first writing sale. Saturday, 5:00pm – Putting the Science in your Science Fiction – Do you need to be a scientist to write good sci-fi? Saturday, 9:00pm – We Welcome our Evil Overlords – The best villains, the worst and the ones we secretly root for. Sunday, 9:00am – Writer’s Workshop – Join our authors as they guide your through the process of creating genre fiction. Bring paper, pencil and your imagination! (2 hours) (MODERATOR) Sunday, 11:00am – Books for Brunch – What are you reading, what do you want to read and what books do you find yourself re-reading over and over? (MODERATOR) Sunday 1:00pm – Finding an Agent – Dogwood (MODERATOR) Sunday, 3:00pm – Cover Letters – How to get an editor’s attention before they even read your work. (MODERATOR) Sincerely, Stephanie McClung Asst. Guest Services Director ConCarolinas 2008 www.concarolinas.org

"End Time" by Scott Emerson Bull

As with most of my stories, there was no great dramatic event or lightbulb moment that triggered the idea for "End Time." It was simply the urgent need to fill the maddening blank page with words and sentences. The only inspiration was perhaps the heat. I was on vacation in Orlando with my family, and I had been making a habit of waking up before everyone else so I could steal a bit of writing time down by the pool. Even though it was March, it was hot as blazes. As I began to click-clack away on my laptop, I realized I was sitting in a natural setting for a story. Throw in some thoughts from an article I'd read about global warming, the spectre of 9/11 (it was 2002 and I was still looking up whenever I heard the scream of a jetliner), and that old staple "good vs. evil," and I soon had a story, although it was almost a year before the original draft was finished.

I sent it out with high hopes, and after some early encouragement (a personal rejection from Gardner Dozois, who was at that time editor for Asimov's, and some kind words from Ellen Datlow) the story went nowhere.

Fast-forward to August 2005 and Hurricane Katrina. I was preparing to submit again after another rejection when I realized that my story had now been eclipsed by current events. In the original draft, New Orleans was only just being threatened by the rising ocean levels brought on by global warming. It had never actually found itself under water. Katrina changed all that. Now a serious calamity had hit the city, one that every potential reader of the story would know everything about and wonder why I was so clueless. Dreading a rewrite, I tossed the story into the metaphorical drawer and instead wrote a check to Clinton and Bush's relief fund.

But like most restless children, it refused to be ignored. Eventually I opened the drawer and saw that the story needed more than just a Katrina inspired rewrite. The result now appears in IGMS (after a suggested tweak by Mr. Schubert - thank you very much), thankfully before any more natural catastrophes render it obsolete....

(artwork for this story (in the current issue of IGMS) by Dean Spencer: http://deanportfolio.50webs.com.) (Scott's website: www.scottemersonbull.com.)

Beware of Angry Fred

One of my best friends in the world, Alethea Kontis (see her "Day In The Life of an Ingram Buyer" guest blog from earlier this month), introduced me to Fred Grimm at a party at ChattaCon last year. Fred was in Chattanooga TN doing a little partying and a little leg work for Hypericon, which he runs in Nashville every summer (June 27 - 29 in 2008 -- this year's Guest of Honor is Joe Lansdale (whose stories I'm a huge fan of)).

Fred was kind enough to invite me to also be a guest at Hypericon last year, which I happily agreed to do. Unfortunately, for a variety if reasons, I had to cancel that trip. And this year the baby sitting arrangements for my kids fell through, my publisher moved my date for turning in my novel, Dreaming Creek, from the end of July to the end of June (which is actually good news -- more on that in a future blog entry), and with the price of gas going through the roof and Nashville being an 8+ hour drive, I had to say 'no' to the trip. Again.

Now, understand, Fred is a big man, a man of Santa Claus-like proportions. But when I got the following email, I was afraid. This was no jolly, no happy, no jovial Santa Claus-type fellow. He was angry Fred. Below, with his permission, is that email he sent (I would never do anything, ever, without his permission. I like angry Fred; he's scary):

Edmund,

I told Alethea to tell you there was no hard feelings

about your canceling last year, and to come back this

year. 

I lied. 

Not about the coming back part. About the angry part. 

We're all very angry. And hurt. Hurt and angry. And

disappointed. Disappointed, hurt and angry. Mostly

angry. Hurt would probably be a distant second. Ohhh,

we're still so very angry. And mad. Angry and mad. And

disappointed, but that's way back in last place, so

overshadowed by Angry that it's hardly worth

mentioning. 

In fact, I cannot fully describe the level of seething

anger we at Hypericon are feeling. It needs to be done

in person. So, when you arrive June 27 (or Thursday

the 26th if you'd like), pick up your badge then come

see me so I can scream at you. 

Also, security will be watching you, so watch your

step. 

Angrily, 

Fred

www.hypericon.info



So if you're in Nashville in late June this year, 
I would recommend dropping by Hypericon. What I
wouldn't recommend, however, is telling Fred that I
sent you. Might be hazardous to your health.

The View From (Under) the Baen Slush Pile

My good friend and former Boot Camp Mate, Gray Rinehart, is also an assistant editor for Baen books. He and I were recently discussing some numbers, so I asked him to write something up that I could share with the rest of the world. Here's what he had to say:


Some of my writing friends asked me about what I look for when I read slush for Baen Books; especially, what makes a book a good potential fit for the Baen line.

Before I answer, let me point out that if a manuscript is at all close to being publishable, I pass it to the publisher, Toni Weisskopf, and let her make the call. She instructed me early on that she only expected me to send her the top 1% of submissions, but I've actually sent her more than that. Some I've only marginally recommended, if I thought they were good books but might not be quite right for Baen.

That being said, I don't know if this characterizes any kind of Baen "profile," but I look for:

1. Stories that are adventurous and fun at their core. Think "golden age of SF."

2. Stories that are exciting, if not actually action-packed. (Lots of people believe a Baen book must have a battle, brawl, barfight, gunfight, knifefight, or fistfight on every other page. That's not entirely true, but it's not entirely false either. Baen fans appreciate action; and what's more, they know well what makes for realistic action and are ruthless about inconsistencies.)

3. Stories that make sense -- e.g., with science, economics, etc., that ring true -- and are internally consistent. (This requirement is quite clear in the Baen guidelines.)

4. Stories in which characters' actions and the consequences of those actions make sense and seem plausible.

5. Stories that, under all the events and characterization, are essentially hopeful. Basically, in a Baen book you should know pretty well who the good guys and bad guys are, and the good guys need to win. Dark and difficult things may happen in a Baen book, but the whole story can't be dismal.

Note that manuscript mechanics -- spelling, grammar, and punctuation -- aren't on the list. That's because, as Toni puts it, "Story trumps all." So a good story (i.e., a good SF or F story) has a chance even if the manuscript isn't pristine. But you still need to proofread well and correct all the typos you can, because you don't want us to get distracted from the story you're trying to tell.

When I ran this list by Toni, she wrote,

Quote:

You can also add that I want to be charmed by the author. Slush is like a blind date -- heck, it's like speed dating -- first impressions count. And there won't be a second date if we don't see something that could sustain a longer relationship.

Respectfully submitted,
the GrayMan

visit Gray's blog at: http://www.graymanwrites.com/forums/blog.php?b=70

New Orson Scott Card Ender's Game Story Up

The Ender's Game story for issue seven of IGMS has been posted today. Titled "Ender's Homecoming," it is available to anyone who purchases or has already purchased issue seven. It begins thus:

To: jpwiggin@gso.nc.pub, twiggin@uncg.edu
From: hgraff%educadmin@ifcom.gov
Re: When Andrew Returns Home

Dear John Paul and Theresa Wiggin,

You understand that during the recent attempt by the Warsaw Pact to take over the International Fleet, our sole concern at EducAdmin was the safety of the children. Now we are finally able to begin working out the logistics of sending the children home.

We assure you that Andrew will be provided with continuous surveillance and an active bodyguard throughout his transfer from the IF to American government control. We are still negotiating the degree to which the IF will continue to provide protection after the transfer.

Every effort is being made by EducAdmin to assure that Andrew will be able to return to the most normal childhood possible. However, I wish your advice about whether he should be retained here in isolation until the conclusion of the inquiries into EducAdmin actions during the late campaign. It is quite likely that testimony will be offered that depicts Andrew and his actions in damaging ways, in order to attack EducAdmin through him (and the other children). Here at IFCOM we can keep him from hearing the worst of it; on Earth, no such protection will be possible and it is likelier that he will be called to "testify."

Hyrum Graff

Guest Blog - Alethea Kontis of Ingram Books

This was originally posted on an excellent blog called Magical Words (http://magicalwords.net/), run by a group of writers that includes friends of mine, David Coe and Catie Murphy. In fact, in the intro below, Catie mentions people throwing themselves through hedges at her. She’s been telling that story for over two years now, and I want to set the record straight that it was not a hedge; it was a dense row of potted ficus trees in a hotel lobby and I didn’t throw myself anywhere, I just poked my head through and startled her a little. I mean, really, there’s a big difference, people.

Guest Blog: Alethea Kontis

Originally posted on April 25th, 2008 by cemurphy (Catie)

Catie's note: I met Alethea a couple of years ago at World Fantasy Con in Austin when we were both on a shuttlebus together, and she and her friends very kindly enveloped me into their group and invited me to lunch. We (all) hit it off splendidly, embarking on a weekend that involved people throwing themselves through hedges to greet one another and other such silliness, and it is my utter delight to have invited her to post about a day in the life of an Ingram Buyer.

Ingram Books, for the uninitiated, is the world’s largest wholesale distributor of books. As such, it is very, very important, and not a little mysterious, to those of us who write, and so we thought a back-door look at what the people who help bring our books from publisher to bookshelf actually do day-in and day-out might be interesting…and it is.

-Catie

–

A day in the life of Alethea Kontis, Incredible Whirlwind of Beauty and Dynamite — Ingram Buyer by day, New York Times best-selling author by night.

April 14, 2008

3-something a.m. — The rumble of thunder wakes me up. I stumble out of the bedroom in the dark, unplug the laptop, shut down the desktop, and stumble back to bed.

6:15 a.m. — Wake up before the alarm goes off. Check my email. Solaris got my copyedits yesterday, but they can’t open the attachments. Can I please resave them as .rtf and send them again? Sure. Walk down to the office to power the desktop back up.

6:22 a.m. — Walk back through the kitchen. Put bread in the toaster. Look out the window. Laugh hysterically. What woke me up at 3 a.m. wasn’t thunder.

6:25 a.m. — Grab my digital camera and walk barefoot through the cold grass (there’s a freeze warning tonight) to take pictures of the dead tree that has fallen from my next-door neighbor’s yard onto my back fence. I know to take pictures of the evidence before anyone has a chance to tamper with it. I watch CSI.

7:23 a.m. — Arrive at work. Turn on computer and multicoloured rope lights. Stop by International Department for chai tea. Stop by fellow buyer’s office and check out the thumb she broke while swordfighting. Assemble audio bestseller report for NY Times. Review orders that have come up for release. Check out what my weekly returns cycle looks like. Not too bad.

7:45 a.m. — Send an email to my supervisor reminding her that I’ll be working lunches and staying late this week, because I’m leaving work early Friday to catch the plane to NY Comic Con. I still have no idea what to pack.

(Poster’s note: All this before 8am. I don’t think I do that much in a *day*. And yet there’s more!)

8:03 a.m. — Receive an email from facility services that they will be shutting off the water from 3:30 p.m. until 4:00 p.m. for maintenance. Make a mental note to drink less water today.

8:55 a.m. — Receive call from Publisher A. Apparently, the street date for an important title is not showing up on iPage. Immediately start the emergency email-tree and proceed to remedy the situation and notify all parties involved.

9:02 a.m. — Place call to insurance company. They recommend a local fence company and suggest I call them for a request. The number they give me turns out to be a fax number. After some Googling and trial and error, I finally speak to someone who promises me an estimate this week.

9:45 a.m. — Finish daily orders and start work on returns.

9:58 a.m. — Receive .pdf from Accounts Payable of a check from Publisher B, with no description attached. Three people instantly need to know what this is for. I email our rep for the publisher. She is at Sales Conference this week.

10:16 a.m. — Receive email from Distributor C about a title from a publisher they recently acquired that has been postponed so many times our purchase orders don’t match up any more. Send a file to the rep so he can manually make their systems match ours. Still working on returns.

10:30 a.m. — Receive a quick call from St. Martin’s Press — they would like me to add a column of info to the Dark-Hunter trivia questions I’m doing to promote the Sherrilyn Kenyon series. There’s a chance it could be a Facebook application. How cool is that?!?

10:53 a.m. — Receive a list of active publishers from Distributor C, for use in reconciling our systems. Forward that list to the three departments who will need it.

10:55 a.m. — Receive email from branch of the emergency email-tree requesting clarification on street date issue. Still more returns.

11:09 a.m. — PW Daily arrives. A quick skim reveals that the London Book Fair is really expensive, and it’s the 50th anniversary of the Crayola 64-pack. Shoot…THAT should have been my angle for the storytime books intro I recorded last week for the Ingram Podcast.

11:31 a.m. — Receive an email from C.E. Murphy asking me to guest blog “A Day in the Life of Me.” I laugh and tell her that today would make a very good example. I start taking notes.

11:59 a.m. — Lunchtime already? Put lunch in microwave and pop in an audiobook to listen to while I work on even more returns — Cecelia Ahern’s If You Could See Me Now. It’s pretty fabulous, and very well-performed. A busy woman loves her audiobooks.

12:02 a.m. — Rep from Publisher B sends details for that no-longer-mysterious check. Microwave beeps.

12:06 p.m. — Customer Service gets in touch to verify street date title.

12:23 p.m. — Publisher C sends an email to say that they discovered one of the titles they sent is defective. They are sending replacements, but they are not interested in getting the defective stock back — we should just throw it away. Makes sense, but I still have to check with several people, because the system doesn’t have a “throw it away” key. (Probably a good thing.)

12:40 p.m. — “…the tone of his voice was like a favorite song she wanted to blare and put on repeat.” Brilliant, Cecelia. Her heroine sleeps about as much as I do, and I’m suddenly craving coffee.

1:01 p.m. — Finish the week’s returns. Start reviewing monthly title forecast exceptions.

1:30 p.m. — Weekly Staff Meeting. We decide it should be spelled “e-books.”

2:04 p.m. — Come back from staff meeting to an email from Publisher D regarding a new title buy that got skipped. After ten minutes of searching through sell sheets, I determine that Vol. 1 was bought, but Vol 2 was never presented. I place a buy for Vol. 2.

2:30 p.m. — Ask my supervisor who would need to okay my “Day in the Life” blog for public consumption. Realize I am having the famed “case of the Mondays.”

2:45 p.m. — Break down and make a quick trip to Starbucks, since caffeine and whipped cream are the key to happiness. Drive slowly due to abundance of trucks and ticket-happy cops in the industrial park. I smile at a baby in red socks and listen to Chris Martin from Coldplay tell me how beautiful I am. I know he doesn’t mean it, but it’s still nice to hear.

3:00 p.m. — Enter August new title buys for Publisher C.

3:37 p.m. — Set up new drop-in titles (titles outside a catalog) so I can place those buys tomorrow.

3:45 p.m. — Check set up of Fall titles for Distributor E while chatting on the phone to Dan Gamber from Meadowhawk Press. He requests a blurb and convention advice, among other pleasantries. It’s all about multitasking.

4:15 p.m. — Send around an email asking for help on a project I’ve been asked to do for Children’s Book Week in May.

4:19 p.m. — Clean up and add a quick intro to my Sarah Addison Allen “Genre Chicks” interview for the May Library Services e-newsletter. Her new book The Sugar Queen is one of my absolute favorite books this year.

4:50 p.m. — Pack up to leave and…and don’t use the restroom. The water is apparently still not back on. Good time to be getting gone.

5:20 p.m. — While driving home, realize 1.) it is already starting to rain and 2.) I forgot to thaw the chicken this morning. Arrive home / cover flowers in the back yard with sheets / use facilities / thaw chicken / check email. In that order. Check in with my writers group. Set my Facebook pet dragon to attack “Doombringer.”

5:38 p.m. — Indulge in a walk on the treadmill and an episode of CSI:NY. The writers on this show are the best of all three CSI incarnations, and the cast has great chemistry. This time, the killer was the publisher. Figures. Have some dinner.

6:43 p.m. — Clean up Jay Lake Q&A for Subterranean Press Online. The hard part will be coming up with an intro worthy of someone like Jay.

7:00 p.m. — Continue work on Dark-Hunter trivia questions. (Facebook, here I come!)

8:30 p.m. — Receive a call from my friend Priscilla in NY. Talk while typing. It’s all about multitasking.

9:05 p.m. — Receive short story email rejection from Clarkesworld Magazine. I have to wait seven days before submitting again. I know which story to pick next; I’ll mark my calendar.

9:10 p.m. — Start typing up this blog from notes on several scattered scraps of paper I’m sure I’ll lose.

10:08 p.m. — It’s ten o’clock already?!? I have GOT to jump in the shower and get to bed. After all, tomorrow is another day, and I want to squeeze in a few more chapters of Ken Scholes’s Lamentation manuscript — my favorite book of next year…so far. Nighty-night!

"Limbo" by Stephanie Dray

My dead great grandmother talks to me.

She was an immigrant to this country and she feels perfectly entitled to lurk in the back of my mind demanding that I make an accounting for my life, since I have opportunities she only dreamed of. This constant nagging, this sense of inter-generational obligation, has always informed both my politics and my writing.

Of course, my great grandmother was illiterate and probably considered writing to be my most useless skill. But I still think she’d have been tickled to find out that she’d inspired a story like “Limbo”--a quirky tale about a young Italian-American woman whose dead grandmother possesses her body and meddles in her romances. At its core, though, “Limbo” is about the inherited baggage we carry through life. And I consider this story my own little tribute to the colorful women of my family, whose flaws and virtues I really could not exaggerate with my prose if I tried.

But “Limbo” was also inspired by some of the other great ladies I've learned from, including my three female instructors at Clarion East. Nalo Hopkinson encouraged me to enrich my own writing with the details of my cultural heritage. Maureen McHugh challenged me to test out different authorial voices and to give myself permission to engage in wacky thought experiments. And Kelly Link prodded me to break with convention and try my hand at something just a little bit weird. (I like to think that Kelly will appreciate that I finally found a way to work a metaphorically disembodied head into my writing.)

The night before I wrote “Limbo,” I was at a writer’s convention and someone dared me to emulate the voice of a writer I admired. I have problems resisting dares, and at the time, I was immersed in Maureen McHugh's "Mothers and Other Monsters.” I’d never written anything in the present tense before and I wasn’t sure I could do it. On the long car ride home from the convention, I felt overwhelmed by the challenge and filled with self-doubt about my chosen career path. Right on cue, great grandma started yammering about how I really ought to learn some marketable skills like goat-herding. (To be fair, she doesn’t just nag me when I’m feeling insecure. She also has an opinion on my home décor, since a lot of the furniture in my house once belonged to her.)

Anyway, the point is that great grandma’s yammering, a writer’s conference, and the collective influence of some of my favorite female writers converged on one long car ride, and “Limbo” was born.

I knew the story was a success when my writing group asked me for the recipe for pasta fagioli and started sharing tales of their own zany relatives. In those stories, more narratives about how we’re shaped by the influence of people long departed began to emerge.

You see, deep down, I think everybody’s dead relatives talk to them. I just hope that “Limbo” will help people listen to what their ancestors really have to say.

(artwork for this story (in the current issue of IGMS) by Anselmo Alliegro) (Stephanie's website: http://www.stephaniedray.com)

"Accounting For Dragons" by Eric James Stone

In the summer of 2007, I attended the six-week-long Odyssey
Writing Workshop.  One of the events of the workshop was
the "Odyssey Slam" at the Barnes & Noble in Nashua, New
Hampshire.  Each workshop participant had to read a flash fiction piece in
five minutes or less.

My original plan was to read a revised version
of the 1000-word story I had written earlier in
the workshop,but in the last few days before the
Slam I started leaning against that. The night
before the Slam I began working on a more
humorous piece, as I've noticed that humor tends
to go over very well at readings.

In the morning I got up and decided that piece
wouldn't work, because it was too cliched.
It was a punchline-type story, and I Googled the
punchline and saw a couple of similar stories.)  
Also, the story itself would be too serious
before the punchline.

So I looked at revising some of my unpublished
flash pieces, and none of them appealed to me.
Then I looked at the possibility of chopping down
my humorous fairy tale "Bird-Dropping and Sunday,"
which always gets a great reception at readings
even though editors keep deciding it's not quite
right for their magazines, but decided there was
no way I could cut half the story.

Finally, before deciding to just go with the
original plan, I went over my lists of titles and
story seeds, and came across "dragon accountant,"
which was a seed I had jotted down sometime in the
previous couple of weeks, based on a comment by
someone (I think it was a guest lecturer, author
Michael Arnzen) about dragon accountants.

It occurred to me that dragons might need some
basic information about accounting, sort of an
Accounting for Dummies--except for dragons, not
dummies.  That gave me my title and basic premise.

Not until I had written over half the story did I
realize there was an actual character reading the
information aloud to a dragon.

"Accounting for Dragons" is the first story I wrote
almost entirely using voice dictation software.  
By sheer coincidence, the name of the software
is Dragon Naturally Speaking.

Anyway, I finished the story in a couple of hours
and read it at the Slam.  It went over pretty well,
with people laughing in the right places, which is
always a plus.

After the Odyssey workshop was over, I revised the
story with some help from my brother Michael, an
actual accountant who works for something far scarier
than a dragon: the Internal Revenue Service.  My
writing groups were also helpful in bringing the
story up to snuff, particularly by letting me know
what to cut out because it wasn't working.

(artwork for this story (in the current issue of IGMS) by Nick Greenwood: http://www.nick-greenwood.com) (Eric's website: www.ericjamesstone.com)