Tag Archives: Amazing Stories

Lost and Found

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Fantastic StoriesContinuing with the purge and pack up, and in the process of cleaning out the closet in the library, I came across an unmarked box. Inside were several things I thought I’d thought gone forever, namely my accumulation (I wouldn’t dignify it as a collection) of digest magazines from the late 1970’s. It was originally much larger, but I’d reluctantly purged it during one lack of space or other. In my faulty memory I thought I’d purged them all. There are several AMAZING STORIES from the period, and even a COVEN 13, but I was especially glad to see the FANTASTIC STORIES from Ted White’s editorship. FANTASTIC was the first fantasy magazine I ever discovered. More to the point, I soon realized that there were such things as writers who sent them stories. I soon became one of them. I never did sell to Ted White, and by the time I sold one to his successor, Elinor Mavor, FANTASTIC had been folded into its sister magazine, AMAZING. Yes, I know. Just a second tier digest back in the days of ANALOG/ASTOUNDING and GALAXY, but there was something about the stories there that appealed to me more.  I still regret that I wasn’t good enough soon enough for FANTASTIC, but I remember what I was shooting for.

No sooner had I turned in the final manuscript of THE WAR GOD’S SON to Paula at Prime than I got an email from Audible.com telling me that the audiobook version is already going into production. I don’t know yet who’s doing the narration, but it should be out at the same time the print and ebook versions are available, still officially set for October. Which should happen on time, since the book is being typeset even as I write this.  Not much longer now, people. If/when there’s a link for pre-orders, I’ll post it here.

Talking to Myself and Feeling Old

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Sometime back in the mid-nineties, just a year or two after I’d started publishing regularly, I was asked to write a profile. I don’t remember by whom. I don’t even remember what for. But I stumbled upon it a while back. Most of it is out of date, other parts are simply overblown and embarrassing, and show just how full of myself I was at the time(Which makes me wonder how much has really changed). But as a document of where I was and what was passing for reflection in my feeble excuse for a brain at the time, I found it interesting. I can’t see how anyone else would but, hey, tough noogies. This is my blog and I feel like sharing. Or in the words of past philosophers– “I’ve suffered for my art. Now it’s your turn.” Continue reading →

Losing My Religion

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I’m going to get a little autobiographical here. Consider yourself warned.

I used to haunt the Post Office nearly every day. That is to say, I would check the PO box dedicated to writing correspondence, submissions, etc., every single day, save only holidays. By any reasonable standard, it was obsessive and overkill.  Considering the usual number of stories I had in circulation and the number of available markets, two, three times a week at most would have been plenty. Of course in my head I knew that at the time, but it didn’t stop me. Obsession and I were old friends. I’d often said that, if I didn’t have obsession, I wouldn’t have any discipline at all. It got the words out, the stories written. Now I actually do check the PO box once or twice a week, but of course these days I’ve switched my obsessive focus to email because that’s where the action is. Most submissions and acceptances and rejections, even contracts are arriving by email, and the Post Office lost its…well, I won’t say “luster.” It was the Post Office. It never had luster. Say rather its focus and attraction for me. Gone now. I do not really miss those daily trips to the Post Office.

Book stores, on the other hand…well, here’s where I start to worry a bit. Continue reading →