Author Archives: ogresan

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About ogresan

Richard Parks' stories have have appeared in Asimov's SF, Realms of Fantasy, Fantasy Magazine, Weird Tales, and numerous anthologies, including several Year's Bests. His first story collection, THE OGRE'S WIFE, was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award. He is the author of the Yamada Monogatari series from Prime Books.

Yuletide Souls Fest of Vicksburg

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In one of my rare personal appearances (I’m not reclusive. Just scarce) I’ll be at the Vicksburg, MS, Library this Saturday, December 3rd, as part of the Yuletide Souls Fest of Vicksburg. There will be artists, mystics, and other authors, of course. This is Mississippi. You can’t kick a can without hitting a writer. Just for the record, I blame Bill Faulkner and Miz Eudora equally for that.
If you’re in the area, stop by. There will be books, entertainment, and a raffle to benefit the local chapter of CAP (Child Abuse Prevention).  Last time there were even cookies. No promises, though.

Here’s a link to the Facebook Event Page. If you’re in the area, stop by and say hi.

Muse and Writer Dialogues #3

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FADE IN

A room that passes for an office. There are bookshelves on one wall, a motley assortment of carvings, signed storyboards, and framed magazine covers on the free wall space. On the far wall is a medieval-style heraldic display of a cockatrice with a motto in bad Latin that reads “Pullus non Est.” Horizontal files sit beneath the window , and on top of those a free-standing rack holds three Japanese swords. The computer desk is on the wall nearest the door, facing away from the window. Beside that is a printer on a stand. In the base of that is a PS3 and an Xbox on a lower shelf. Neither is in use.

Enter the WRITER, who finds the MUSE sitting in a rocking chair staring at what looks like a smartphone. He’s a slob. She looks like a statuesque Greek goddess most of the time, but her appearance keeps changing.

WRITER: What are you doing?
MUSE: What does it look like? I’m playing “Angry Birds.” Not that you care. What do you want?
WRITER: You have to ask, after that stunt you pulled?

Continue reading →

Beach Bum and the Drowned Girl

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This was a little quick. I got the notion yesterday, wrote the first half. Finished the second half today, since it was only about 1100 words in rough. Now I have to rewrite it so that what’s on the page has a passing relation to the vision in my fevered brain. You know, the usual.

I hear there are writers who get it right the first time. Like other things I’ve heard of, such as a black hole, or extra-solar planet. I’m sure they exist, but I’ve never met one.

Review — The Fantasy Writer’s Assistant by Jeffrey Ford

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The Fantasy Writer’s Assistant and Other Stories by Jeffrey Ford.  Golden Gryphon Press, 2002

“Creation” is about what it says it’s about: A young boy undergoing religious training gives in to an impulse to create as God did, and succeeds…after a fashion. The rest of the story concerns the aftermath and the young boy coming to terms with the implications and responsibilities of his action. It’s one of Ford’s better known stories, and I’ve even heard claims that it “transcends genre fantasy.”  Sorry, no. This is what fantasy does. It’s the fun-house mirror that we hold up so we can see ourselves more clearly, and “Creation” does it very well. As for the “genre” part, well, genre is a marketing category, and to say something “transcends” a marketing category is pretty much a meaningless phrase. “Creation” is a damn fine fantasy story, and that’s more than enough. Continue reading →

Ringing the Changes

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I was checking some articles on my old web site and was struck by how, well, for want of a better word, useless some older posts on the business of writing were. I mean, take the one on manuscript preparation, for example. Perfectly good advice…for 1997. Back when most venues were still paper-only and email was only good for querying, and not always then. Now it’s email attachments or online submission forms in all cases except a handful, though when I first started submitting the publishers were fighting those kind of changes tooth and nail and more teeth. That was then, and not everyone could wrap their heads around the notion that the way it was didn’t necessarily reflect the way it would be. Continue reading →