Electric Velocipede Blog

Guest Blogger: Jeffrey Ford

2009-07-10T12:00:00.000-05:00

Baby Hand
by Jeffrey Ford

When he was 21, Thomas Burger's right hand began to swell. He couldn't remember having injured it. He didn't know that it was pregnant. Over the course of the next six months, the world looked on in astonishment and Thomas in horror as his cuticles, knuckles and palm gradually grew into a baby. In one of its earliest stages it had gills and a tail. Its eyes were huge and black, and at night Thomas would see them gleaming in the moonlight. It was a nightmarish time for him, and there was great pain involved. Once it became evident to the doctors that the hand was becoming a child, instead of curing it, they threw their efforts into nurturing it. The child that was evolving from his hand became the focus of intense media scrutiny. There were endless photo shoots, and Thomas felt that he had become a useless appendage to the baby; the only thing anyone cared about.

Eventually, the child grew into herself, and Thomas was pressed into learning how to change her and dress her with his left hand. He was clumsy with the bottle, and kept forgetting to hold his arm up, sometimes swinging her around when walking or in conversation, trying to make a point. The doctors told him to name it. He didn't have the courage to tell the world he wanted it cut off. His silence prompted the doctors to tell him he would call it Baby Ingrid. He said nothing and struggled through the mid-night feedings and changings. The qualities of its excrement pointed more toward what he thought than what he'd eaten. At night, as he sat in a wicker rocker in a dark room, singing lullabies, if he happened to catch a glimpse of her face at the very moment she finally fell asleep, he would see a brief smile, sweet but tinged with an undeniable arrogance. The expression always made him laugh. "You're shrewd," he thought, and it delighted him.

Thomas became more deeply devoted to his charge with each passing month. It was right around the time Baby Ingrid said her first word, "Tobo," meaning "Thomas," that he realized people were willing to pay large amounts of money for, as they put it, Baby Hand, to appear in person. So Thomas bought a Studebaker with a big trunk for Ingrid's toys and wardrobe. After a few minor crashes, he learned how to drive left handed, and they went on the road. They performed for sell out crowds across the country. There wasn't much to their show. Basically people wanted to see precisely where Baby Ingrid's back joined Thomas's wrist. He'd call on select members of the audience, who would mount the stage, get a close look at the miraculous appendage, and then testify to its authenticity for the rest of the audience. They loved it. After only a few years, though, due to so much testimony to the fact at their shows, the public came to the conclusion that the phenomenon was, in fact, real and simply accepted it.

As interest began to wane in Baby Hand, Ingrid, not an actual child, though no large than she'd been as a baby, had proven herself to be verbally brilliant. She could converse with the ease and grace of someone four times her age. She and Thomas came up with a comedy act in which she was the smart one and he the fool. They changed the name of their act from Baby Hand to Tobo and Baby Ingrid. Their early work was undistinguished, mostly one liners. For instance, after some foolish harranguing from him, she might say, "Get off my back." It wasn't much of a joke, but the slight humor in conjunction with the always startling sight of a man with a baby right hand made for a lurid joculairty that tickled the spine. They became well known and even appeared on radio.

Thomas had never even considered the possibility, but when Ingrid went from being a child to a young woman, still, mind you, only the size of a baby, the moral outrage concerning the fact that she was attached to a man swelled to proportions nearly beyond the level of wonder her birth had produced. A Federal prosecutor was assigned to build a case for the separation of Baby Ingrid from the invidious Thomas Burger. For him, things unfolded like in a dream that went from ludicrous to insane. He was arrested and put on trial for endangering the life of a minor. By the time his day in court came, he could see the writing on the wall. When questioned, he said nothing. Ingrid spoke up for him, but, as it said in the major newspapers, "Her advocacy lacked vigor, her tribute damned for lack of detail."

When they separated Thomas and Ingrid, a hacksaw blade was used. There could be no anesthetic as it might adversely affect her. Radio commentators were smug when discussing the difference between Burger's courtroom silence and the screams that were reported to have come from him during the removal operation. They took him off as close to her spine as possible, so that all that was left of his wrist was a small bump in the middle of her back. Her skin healed over the incision as did his over the stub on his right arm. She was given a mansion-like doll house and a trust fund. He was fitted for a metal hook. Thomas Burger was not incarcerated after the trial and operation, but he was cast off by society. He eventually committed suicide by sticking the tip of his hook in a wall socket.

Ingrid went off to live on her own, and for a while the papers followed her life. Stories about her diminutive shoes and hats, tours of her miniature mansion, gossip as to the eligible bachelors she was seen with, ran every day for six months in the papers. She was interviewed on the radio quite regularly, prompting many to imitate her small, high voice. Then, she suddenly went missing. Gone seemingly without a trace. Search parties were launched. The police and F.B.I suspected foul play and put some of their most astute investigators on the case. All leads pointed to a certain Carl Obenwat, a local plumber who had been called to the mansion to fix a pipe in the basement. Obenwat was arrested, questioned, and his home was searched more than once but the authorities could never get enough tangible evidence to make a conviction stick. Oberwat was released and threatened to sue both state and federal governments unless high officials publicly exonerated him of any crime. This they did, but the question remained, "What happened to Ingrid?"

Ten years ago, after Carl Oberwat's death, his old house was raised to make way for a new development. Workmen digging up the old concrete basement floor found a grave. In it were the bones of a male right hand the size of a baby.

A change in planned programming.

2009-07-09T14:00:00.001-05:00

(image from Flickr user Houari B.)

Jeffrey Ford pulled an Aladdin lamp-trick. :> Instead of a blog post, he wrote a story. So with the joys of guest bloggery combined with July independence . . . comes this additional gift. :>

Which will be posted tomorrow to get you ready for the weekend.

PROMPT One.

2009-07-06T11:36:00.000-05:00

(image from flickr user moonjazz)

This concept doesn't click for me... Guilty pleasure can apply to food, but not reading. Never reading.

When I was a kid, it took forever for my relatives to really believe that I wanted books. Girls were supposed to want purses and dolls and jewelry 40 years ago.

In elementary school, I don't remember anyone bothered by my reading -- except a librarian who didn't believe I read so fast. That was fourth grade, and I was systematically going through every Nancy Drew book they had. I brought back one book that morning, got another at library hour, brought THAT back, and wanted a new one. I'd already read all the Sherlock Holmes I could find.

No one ever made me feel guilty about reading anything. In most cases, they just couldn't grasp why I wanted to read so much. That was the problem.

Rather peculiar, because my parents are readers. Mom's Andre Norton and Heinlein books are still in a hall bookcase now. I got her anthologies like _Amazons!_, _Arabesques_, _Faery_, etc.

I briefly avoided romances simply because I'd read hundred-plus Harlequins -- when I was ten, I wanted to see if they were all the same. [They were.] After that, I was reading sf/f exclusively for a year or two. But I never felt guilty about reading romances, or any other genre. It took me a while to figure out what sort of horror I liked, because authors like Tanith Lee tend to mix genres, and I was used to that blurring.

So... guilt, no.

Guest Blogger: Chris Roberson

2009-07-03T12:00:00.000-05:00

(Chris in Calgary)

What book/author is a guilty pleasure for you?

I don’t really feel guilty about any of my pleasures these days. When I was younger, particularly in college, I used to be self-conscious about reading things that I assumed my classmates and professors would judge to be “trash”--pulp novels, superhero comics, franchise tie-ins--and squirreled them away, only reading them in private. Better to be seen in public with a John Barth novel or a collection of Jorge Luis Borges stories than a Peter David Star Trek novel or the latest issue of Legion of Super-Heroes, I thought. But as I got older, I began to care less and less what other people thought about my reading choices. I finally reached a point probably best encapsulated by a line of dialogue spoken by Jean-Luc Picard in the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, “Encounter at Farpoint”--“If we are to be damned, let’s be damned for what we truly are.”

What book would people be surprised to learn that you enjoyed?

The book that’s farthest outside my wheelhouse that I really enjoyed was probably Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary. Or possibly Frederick Kohner’s Gidget, for many of the same reasons. I read a great deal of “chick lit” in the run-up to writing the first version of the time-travel novel eventually published as Here, There & Everywhere, trying to capture what seemed to me an authentic female voice for the main character, Roxanne Bonaventure. Of all the stuff that I read, Fielding’s and Kohner’s books were the two I enjoyed the most, to the extent that I would have read them happily even if it hadn’t been for “research.”

Chris Roberson writes novels, stories, and comics, but his real ambition is to become a superhero. He has successfully devised the perfect secret identity—no one will expect a thing—but the superpowers have, so far, proven more difficult to arrange.

My Declaration

2009-07-01T12:00:00.000-05:00

(how I plan to spend July)

A few weeks ago I thought it might be nice for my family to declare July 4th weekend free from computers/internet/whatever. Then I thought, the original Declaration of Independence was a real sacrifice for everyone involved. Giving up a weekend was not a sacrifice; it happens from time to time when I'm busy doing house stuff.

So I decided to make a declaration for the entire month of July. But what to declare myself independent of?

Going without a computer/internet for a month was impracticable if not impossible. Even if I gave myself clearance to use a computer at work, there are still things I'd need to be doing at home (freelance work with deadlines, communication to family, etc.) that require a computer.

No, that was too broad sweeping.

However, there are a lot of things that I do on the computer that consume a lot of my time that I could give up for a month, have it be some sort of sacrifice (nowhere NEAR the level of the drafters and signers of the Declaration of Independence), and continue to do the things I needed to do.

I am declaring myself independent from social software for the month of July. This post should be the last post I write in July. However, I didn't want the blog to go stagnant for a month, so I'll be having a series of guest bloggers throughout the month. You'll see some posts from my assistant editor Anne followed by our first guest, Chris Roberson.

Here are the things I will not be doing during the month of July:

I will not post on this blog
I will not Tweet
I will not update/reply/accept/ignore/like/etc. anything on Facebook
I will not read any feeds in Google Reader
I will not have any instant message client open
I will not post any photos to Flickr
I will not check my web stats
I will not get lost in Wikipedia reading article after article
I will not read any sports web pages, even to check scores
I will not update my fantasy sports teams
I will not go to imdb unless I need to do so to answer a reference question

Here are things I will be doing:

Posts to this blog automatically update Twitter feed and people will just have to deal with that
Reading and responding to e-mail
Editing Electric Velocipede issues #19 and #20
Doing layout work for PS Publishing
Relaxing and getting ready to re-open to submissions come August 1

Things I'm not sure about:

Posting on Tor.com. I get paid to post there, and while it's not much (and even less than not much when you average two posts a month like I am right now) it is a source of income and cutting off income is silly. That said, I don't know how I feel. I think I should stop for the month, but we'll see.
Commenting on posts. Anne thinks I should post comments. I don't. I think she's probably right. Again, we'll see.

I'm curious what this will do to my productivity. Have a fun July! See you in August!

PROMPT: What book would people be surprised to know you enjoyed reading?

2009-06-30T12:00:00.002-05:00

Bridget Jones Diary. Yep. I thought it was great, and I think a lot of people would be surprised to know that I even read this book, much less enjoyed it. I found all the play off Pride and Prejudice quite funny (as I enjoyed P&P a lot; I know! another surprise!) and I liked Bridget quite a bit (unlike Carrie from "Sex and the City") and found myself pulling for her to get her guy in the end.

I don't have a lot more to say about this book, other than I thought casting Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy for the movie version was brilliant, considering that Mr. Firth gave us a perfect Mr. Darcy in the BBC's version of Pride & Prejudice. If you don't know the book, Bridget is in love with Colin Firth, particularly because of the BBC performance. I also liked Hugh Grant playing quite the cad after a dearth of films where he played the banal patsy.

But all that has nothing to do with the book. I like Jane Austen quite a bit, which may surprise people. Even though I know where her books are going, I have fun getting there all the same. I also like the Restoration Period dramas (such as The Beaux' Strategem, The Country Wife, The Way of the World, or Marriage à la Mode), which is where we get the modern-day sitcom.

So, were you surprised?

PROMPT: Ever buy a book for its design?

2009-06-29T12:00:00.002-05:00

(image from McSweeney's . . . I love them!)

This is a tough question to answer. Not because I have to work to think about one example, it's that I have to narrow down a huge list to just one example. I could list House of Leaves or The Town that Forgot How to Breathe (the trade paperback, not the hardcover) or City of Saints and Madmen or more and more and more.

But I think this is where I take the chance to talk about McSweeney's, whose design is consistently mind-blowing and envelope pushing. I can't sum it up any better than they do:

McSweeney's Quarterly Concern publishes on a roughly quarterly schedule, and we try to make each issue very different from the last. One issue came in a box, one was Icelandic, and one looks like a pile of mail. In all, we give you groundbreaking fiction and much more.

And it wouldn't work if it was just the design. Oh, the design is certainly what interested in the publication. And when there was a $5 for every back issue sale at the end of Summer last year, I jumped at the chance to pick up a bunch of copies. The first one I pulled out of the box was issue #24 (picture above) which is a tri-fold, hardcover magazine.

I know! It doesn't make any sense! Other issues have been packaged to look like a pile of mail, others included a comb, one had a story written on a series of playing cards that you could shuffle and re-tell the story, and yet another was eight small hardcover books that formed a larger cover when arranged correctly. The design is stunning.

Thankfully, the fiction inside is engaging and well done. They've even published their share of genre people (or people with a connection to genre) like Neil Gaiman, Kelly Link, Stephen King, Benjamin Rosenbaum, Brendan Connell, and Shelley Jackson among others. I look forward to new issues as much for the fiction as I do for the design.

Part of what makes McSweeney's (both the magazine and the press of the same name) work is that it was founded by Dave Eggers. Yes, pulitzer-prize-winning Dave Eggers. He might not be your cup of tea, but I think Eggers is brilliant. And his writing success has given him freedom to do all sorts of interesting editorial things like founding nonprofit writing workshops called 826 Valencia around the country.

I would be kidding myself if I didn't admit I was jealous of Mr. Eggers. But hey, I think he's doing what he does through a combination of talent and hard work. Still, if he wanted to open an 826 workshop in Madison, I know someone who would be thrilled to run it.

Also, the website has been updated to indicate issue 17/18 as the current issue. There are links to my Twitter feed and Facebook account. There are also a few new pages like 'art' and 'awards.'

PROMPT: What Book/Author is Your Reading Guilty Pleasure?

2009-06-28T16:52:00.000-05:00

I enjoy reading fashion and lifestyle blogs. And yes, most of the ones I read are written for a primarily female audience. Not the typical sort of thing for such a short fiction geek as myself, but man, I just can't help myself.

I love reading snipy fashion blogs. My favorite is Go Fug Yourself (shown above). You ever see a celebrity at an event and think "What were they thinking?" when you see what they're wearing? So did Heather and Jessica. But they started asking that question online. With an accompanying photo. And they weren't nice about it. (if you don't know what fugly means . . . google it, somewhere safe) They make me laugh every day, and that's not easy. They even do a March Madness event now of bad fashion. It's awesome! As they said in their first post: "In honor of the fact that, these days, fugly seems to be the new pretty, we've created a blog to honor all the visual atrocities of the world."

If you live in NY, you're probably sick of Julia Allison, but I can't get enough of her. And now that she's gone red-head, wow (even if she can't wear pink any more). You can read about her here, but essentially she provides dating advice in the big city. The blog is very personal, almost minutial in detail about her life. It wouldn't be tough to get overwhelmed or bored with it. But I like reading it. I think there's as much enjoyment of her writing style as my nostalgia for New York. She's also one of the hosts of TMI Weekly, where she and two friends talk about dating, fashion, tech, and anything that comes to mind (i.e., too much information, get it?).

Which brings me to Tasty Blog Snack/iJustine, the hottest iphone fan out there. But, fan isn't the right word. She is obsessed with the iphone. And it's not just because she's cute/pretty/hot/gorgeous. She is funny and engaging, and smart about what she talks about, which tends to be the iphone and related tech. Not being an iphone person, a lot of her videocasts have limited appeal to me. But, they're interesting enough to keep me watching.

Recently, I've started reading . . . love Maegan. Maegan works in an art gallery in Los Angeles. She does posts fairly often about DIY fashion (which is how I found the blog, if I have to admit it). But the most interesting, in my opinion, thing she does is her completely gratuitous outfit posts, where she photographs herself and talks about what she's wearing and why. I think it's very important for a person to know her to dress themselves. Too many people wear clothes that are wrong for them, and in L.A., that's truer than lots of other places. It's very cool that a pretty woman can talk about how she picks what she wears, and discuss how she can't just wear anything because not everything looks good on her.

From . . . love Maegan I found her co-worker Drollgirl. Less fashion-oriented than some, she posts a fair amount about art and artists, but also often does series of photographs that she'll find on Google using the same search term. A small word of warning, she also posts borderline SFW photos of men, so be careful.

The thing that all of these blogs have in commin is that they are put together by someone who has a lot of dedication and drive to constantly post and to post continually consistent material. Most blogs would benefit from putting more effort into updating more frequently, but making sure those updates have a consistent style and quality. There's no question that each of these blogs has their own voice. It's what makes them engaging to read.

Here's a few more I've been following for a little while, and I'm still learning about them to see whether I want to make them permanent entries into my feed reader:

Shop Diary
Karla's Closet
Jezebel
Natasha's Soirèe

And that's a fair sampling, I think. At least for a guy who edits science fiction.

Guest Blogging for Independence

2009-06-27T22:28:00.003-05:00

(image from Flickr user A Million to One)

Recently, I posted about how I'm going to take a break from online software etc. for the month of July. I've got a great selection of guest bloggers lined up to take you through the month. We're going to be answering some prompts about books and reading; mine will go online shortly (before the end of month!). Anne's going to be writing some, too.

In case you're curious, here are the prompts:

What book/author is a guilty pleasure for you?
Was there ever a book that you bought merely for its design?
What book would people be surprised to learn that you enjoyed?

So what about you guys? What are your answers to these questions?

Seeking slush readers.

2009-06-23T14:02:00.000-05:00

EV is re-opening to submissions on 1-August... after going through the backlog and filling up issues for over a year. :D

Right now John would like another two readers. That way no one is overburdened.(*)

All submissions will be electronic; EV no longer accepts paper submissions.

Please mention "slush reader" in the subject line. The email links at the top of the blog go straight to John. :>

To carbon me please use anne -at- electricvelocipede -dot- com.

Many thanks. My thanks also to those folks who do me the great kindness to spread this news far and wide.

Anne*---
Assistant editor

(*) I suddenly have images of the STACKS of slush Tor gets... the image is from Slushkiller, and John says that used to be his office at Tor.

Anne on vacation

2009-06-23T11:58:00.000-05:00

This was not deliberately planned this way, really. It just happened to be a peculiar overlap. I'll be gone for the last week of July, while John is offline... then I'll return over a week after EV submissions re-open.

This summer I'll be working at the Pennsic Independent [and my cat will never forgive me]. Pennsic War runs 24-July through 9-August.

Perhaps John may get some sleep over that time. ;d

So I'll read my email up to 23-July. Try not to gamble away your inheritances in my absence.

I'll be back home and in email sometime by Monday 10-August. Right after Worldcon. Yes, please consider that a nudge to vote for the Hugos if you haven't. :>

Online voting closes 3-July.

Postscript: If someone else can pre-empt the Midwestern thunderstorms, we'd all be eternally grateful. Not for all sixteen days, but several would be a great boon... Thanks!

Libraries: Reader's Advisories

2009-06-22T00:08:00.000-05:00

(photo of bound journals at Palmer College where I work)

There are many things that librarians do. One of the more basic things is to create reader's advisories. These can be formal documents that are handed to a patron, or left in a place for a patron to pick up and peruse. They can also be very informal and done off the top of your head verbally. However, I think I should back up and explain exactly what a reader's advisory is.

Essentially, it is the answer to the question: "I like X author/genre/type of book, who else should I read that is like that author?"

Now, I suspect many of the readers of this blog do this sort of thing all the time. It is essentially recommending books to people. However, I also suspect you do it in a very narrow spectrum, say, science fiction and fantasy. When you work the reference desk, you will get questions about authors/genres/types of books you've never read.

You are still expected to answer these questions.

This is the part of my job that terrifies me.

I am no good at recommending books to people.

And I'm sad to say, I am almost worse at it when it comes to science fiction/fantasy books. I feel both over- and under-informed in the area. There are some aspects that I know so much about it that I have trouble narrowing it down to one thing. Or, the person reads an author I don't know much about, and can only make guesses as to recommendations.

For the most part, I feel unqualified (and yet, my degree uniquely qualifies me for this) to make book recommendations. I feel that I should an author/genre/type of book in and out from top to bottom before I should hazard a guess at what a fan of X would like.

This is plain silly. No person who has made the effort to come into the library is in such a hurry that they can't wait for you to do a little research or some thinking about it. They'd rather you give them a good recommendation than a quick recommendation.

Nevertheless, I still got a chill down my spine when someone says, "I've read every book by Michael Connelly, who else you got who's like that?" Occasionally you get lucky, like the guy who wanted biographical music books, but things that focused on a scene rather than a specific band so I could recommend Make the Music Go Bang! and Our Band Could be Your Life (both of which worked only because he said he was a fan of punk music).

Most libraries have access to a resource like NoveList which will answer the question: "If you like Robert Ludlum, you should read . . ." Even better is something like LibraryThing which also does book recommendations (and is free, whereas NoveList is a subscription product).

If you're absolutely hard up, you can try Amazon for the "people who bought this book also bought . . ." which says nothing about whether they read either book and also says nothing about whether they liked either book . . .

Now, I'm talking about when I have someone on the phone or standing in front of me. For me, the more formal form is easier to do. Many librarians hate making physical reader's advisories (and some like it too much). It's the same process, but you have all the time you want to make the perfect recommendations.

The only additional thing I'll say about formal reader's advisories is that if you're going to take the time to make them, please annotate them. That is, don't just make a list of books, explain why they're in your list. That will help your patron more than you know.

Submissions

2009-06-17T09:09:00.004-05:00

Since there seems to be some confusion about the magazine's status:

Electric Velocipede will be opening to submissions on August 1, 2009. I am working on an electronic submissions system with Neil Clarke and Grant Stone. We will announce how the process works on this blog come August 1 when we re-open to submissions.

I am no longer accepting paper submissions.

The magazine itself has never closed. We closed to submissions while working through our backlog, but we have continued to put out issues during that time. To quote myself from back in 2008:

I'm upping my production model to work through [the backlog] in a timely fashion. I'm publishing three issues this year (14, 15, and 16) and four next year (17, 18, 19, and 20), for a total of seven issues by the end of next year!

And that's what we've done. 2008 saw the publication of issue 14, and a double issue 15/16; 2009 will see 17/18 (at the printer), and single issues 19 and 20 (being edited as we speak).

And then, I have nothing on backlog. So I need to re-open to submissions.

On August 1, 2009.

A Little Independence

2009-06-12T15:16:00.005-05:00

(photo from Flickr user ginnerobot)

Something I've been thinking about doing is making a personal declaration of independence. You see, I'm preparing to re-open to submission on August 1, and I'd like to get some stuff cleared off my plate by then.

So I'm thinking of declaring an independence from social media/software/Web 2.0 for the month of July. I was going to do so for the U.S. holiday weekend, but then I thought I would try to do the whole month.

I'm setting up a few guest bloggers to keep this site from going stagnant. I will also be accessible via e-mail; I'm not going to stop working, I'm just going to forego a few things for a month. That does mean, no twitter (although this blog is automatically connected to twitter, so my twitter feed will update that way, but no manual twitter updates via me), no facebook, no flickr, no blogging, etc.

In some ways I'm not giving up a large number of things, but those things do take up a large amount of my time. I want to be completley caught before I bury myself in slush.

This is just a little pre-emptive warning to the couple people who read this blog so that there's as little surprise as possible when I'm not posting updates.

Vorbildliche Redakteurin, Juliet Ulman, Paper Tyger

2009-06-11T09:56:00.007-05:00

(Juliet Ulman with Scott Westerfeld who admonishes us all to "Be More Awesome")

Jeff VanderMeer published two pieces today about editor Juliet Ulman. Like many publishing people, Juliet found herself without a job at the end of 2008. After 11 years at Bantam Spectra (now Ballantine Spectra), Juliet was let go. She edited writers like Jeff VanderMeer, M. John Harrison, Barth Anderson, Christopher Barzak, Tim Pratt, and Greg van Eekhout. She now runs an editorial consulting company, Paper Tyger.

I had the good fortune of working with Juliet Ulman as the editor of my anthology Logorrhea. I think the anthology was an unusual experience for her in that unlike all the other books she acquired, there was not much in the way of editing to do. You see, I handled the brunt of the editorial work and Juliet did all the publishing things for it (getting the manuscript to production, approving cover art, writing copy, etc.).

That's not to say that Juliet didn't read the manuscript and treat it differently from any other book she'd acquired. Juliet provided comments on all the stories, and really helped shaped the Alan DeNiro story into its final form.

It was very rewarding to work with an editor who understood what I was trying to do with the book. The book didn't sell as well as we hoped, but it was nominated for a number of awards (including publishing Theodora Goss' World Fantasy Award winning story "The Singing of Mount Abora"), and many of the stories were reprinted in year's best anthologies, so we were doing something right.

The thing to remember about Juliet is that she is passionate about books. It shows in her dedication to her authors through the publishing process. But she's also not afraid to kick ass when asses need kicking. If I ever win the lottery, Juliet will be the first editor I hire for my publishing empire.

Belatedly Wiscon, Now with Extra Lightbreaker!

2009-06-09T00:47:00.004-05:00

I was at Wiscon two weeks ago for about four hours. I drove up quickly to drop off some advance copies of Electric Velocipede. I debated having the copies sent directly to the hotel, but I decided in the end that it was better being there for a few hours than not at all.

Of course, it was far too short, and as I think back on it, it may have been better to have not gone.

Regardless, I was there, briefly, and this is what I saw and did.

Most importantly, I was able to get my hands on a copy of Mark Teppo's excellent debut novel Lightbreaker (seen on the left). If you like thought-provoking, action-oriented, modern fantasy, you should check it out. Pick it up from the publisher, Night Shade Books; they're having a 50% off sale right now!

Mark was very happy to be showing off copies at the convention, although he did show some restraint in not letting me walk in front of him on the streets of Madison holding his book aloft.

I saw too few people for too short a time. Here you can see the inestimable William Shunn in the foreground and Mark Teppo bathed in sunlight.

This photo is from Mark and Barth Anderson's room at the convention. We had just returned from lunch at the Come Back Inn. We had intended to eat at the Essenhaus, but that's only open for dinner.

We went into the Essenhaus (the four of us and Rajan Khanna) to discover it was empty except for prep people. This was the fourth or fifth door we tried in our attempt to enter the building (and this was after a circuitous route to the restaurant as we avoided the Farmer's Market crowds near the hotel).

The entranceway was so dark that when I went to leave the restaurant, expecting to be blinded by the light of the outside world, was instead confronted with perhaps the darkest space I had ever walked into in my entire life.

I had a moment of irrational fear where I thought I was on the edge of a deep pit but I forced my feet forward to the outer door and the blinding sun.

In the photo here you can see Barth with his full head of hair. This is only worth mentioning as Barth has had a wonderful shaved head for many years now and I know the hair was startling to many people (it looks good, people, it was not startling in a "Hey, that looks like shit" way, but more "Wow man! You have hair!") He was trying to prepare for a panel and the rest of us were not helping.

You see, since this was a convention, I had to partake at least a little in some drinking. The reason I was in Mark and Barth's room instead of in the dealer's room or the lobby of the hotel chatting with people was this:

OK, it wasn't just drinking. Hitting a convention at mid-day and hoping to see people is not the best of timing. Most people were in panels, or out to lunch, or just wandering around town.

I knew I wasn't going to see many people and the few I saw I would not see long enough. (and there were far too many seeing people literally only in passing) Man, this is long enough for being at the convention for only four hours, imagine if I had been there for the whole weekend?!

I will be at Wiscon next year, I promise. There were too many people I missed to make such a short trip again. Still, I was glad to get some copies of the new issue out for people to see. The remaining copies should be printed soon and then out in the mail to contributors and subscribers. I'll update here as I know more!

IN BOX: Making chapbooks

2009-06-09T00:18:00.000-05:00

(what's included in the Best Fanzine Chapbook Special)

Last week Wednesday I finally completed packing up and mailing out all the Best Fanzine Specials that had been purchased to this point. There are still more available. The photo above shows what you get in the special. You'll get a copy of a recent issue (that's issue 15/16 in the photo), the Ezra Pines/Mark Rich chapbook, the William Shunn chapbook, the Robert Freeman Wexler chapbook, and a chapbook of my writing which is only available through this special.

Some of you might be wondering, what are those circles on the Klima chapbook?

(making covers, you can see the coffee cup I used to make the rings in the upper left)

As you can see, I spent an afternoon leaving coffee rings on the chapbooks to make each unique. The story is set in a cafe, so I wanted to tie the design of the chapbook into the setting for the story. Each one also includes a tip-in 'menu' of today's specials and a packet of sweet 'n' low.

(lots of covers drying; my family had to give up eating at the dinner table for this chapbook)

I like doing stuff like this, and actually wish there was a feasible way to continue to make small chapbooks like this presenting new writers to the field. I like them as promotional giveaways, or inexpensive publications that serve the purpose of a promotional item.

Anyone willing to provide $500 a year to make one of these each quarter?

Semiprozine Thoughts

2009-06-04T14:47:00.004-05:00

(don't forget to visit the site)

I have a post up on the Save the Semiprozine website. The site is there to help educate people about the Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine, which is currently up for elimination from the Hugo ballot. Neil Clarke, editor of Clarkesworld Magazine and nominee in the Best Semiprozine category this year, asked me to write something months ago and I finally got around to it.

Fellow Best Fanzine nominee Mike Glyer over at File 770 commented on my post recently. He takes my final sentence to task, trying to suss out what I meant by it. Actually, why I phrased the closing in such a way. To quote myself, "Shame on you for wanting to take that from them."

Glyer writes:

“Shame on you” for what? Where is the shame in advocating the elimination of a Hugo category? Of all the unorthodox ideas science fiction fans entertain themselves with, we have to draw a line before we reach that one?

And he's right. What is the shame in it? They've followed all the proper channels, and done everything correctly. In some ways, it's nice to see science fiction fans get organized and work to make change. If the appropriate thing to do is to eliminate the category, then let's do it.

However, I'm not so sure that's the appropriate thing to do. What bothers me about this movement to get rid of the Semiprozine category is overriding mindset that it's being done to punish LOCUS for winning so many times.* Unfortunately, you're also punishing anyone else who might get nominated in this category. And I don't think that's fair.**

Rather than advocate getting rid of the award, why not advocate nominating and voting? Why not try to make the category something that the Hugo voters know more about?

To me, the purpose of the Best Semiprozine category, like all awards categories, is to recognize people doing exceptional work in that area. If the award goes away, then so does that feeling of accomplishment for the people who were formerly being recognized. Yes, the editors can get nominated for Best Editor Short Form . . . IF they are a fiction publication.

So the question I need to answer for myself, should everything be eligible for a Hugo award?*** Obviously, Gordon van Gelder can win Best Editor, Short Form; but John Joseph Adams (his assistant editor) is left out in the cold concerning his work for the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, as F&SF itself is not eligible for a Hugo.

I don't know all the background, so perhaps my reading of this as a punishment for LOCUS winning so many awards is off base. But, if that is the case, I think there are more productive ways to go about combatting that problem over eliminating the award altogether.
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* Since the inception of the Semiprozine category in 1984, four different publications have won the award. LOCUS has won every year except: 1993 Science Fiction Chronicle, 1994 Science Fiction Chronicle, 1995 Interzone, and 2005 Ansible. Both the 1995 and 2005 Worldcons were in Glasgow with a very likely large non-American voting base.

By contrast, since 1984, there have been nine different publications to win the Best Fanzine award. File 770 and Mimosa have won six times each, Ansible five times, Plotka and Lan's Lantern have each won twice, and Emerald City, Science-Fiction Five-Yearly, Texas SF Inquirer, and The Mad 3 Party have each won once.

What's my point? It's not like Best Fanzine has some record of handing out the award to a wide variety of publications, either. I realize that the Best Fanzine numbers pale in comparison to the 21 Hugos that LOCUS has won. That's almost four TIMES as many as the closest Fanzine winner.

From 1992 - 1999 when Mimosa won Best Fanzine five times out of eight and Ansible won the other three, I don't remember there being an outcry to get rid of the Best Fanzine category because there was no variety in the winners.

But maybe this is just comparing apples to oranges and I should be quiest down here at the bottom of the post.

** as a father, I constantly point out to my kids that life isn't fair. This is an instance where perhaps I need to listen to myself.

*** I'm pretty sure the answer is no.

2009 Hugo Ceremony

2009-05-31T01:05:00.003-05:00

(as you can see, I will be busy working on my family's acrobatic act)

I need someone going to Worldcon who can read an acceptance speech should I win a Hugo . . . any takers?

I suspect you will sit in the audience and watch someone else win, but what if?

2009 World Fantasy Awards Nominations

2009-05-30T10:11:00.005-05:00

(sorry for the blurriness, it was taken with my old phone)

OK, since you've all been waiting with bated breath, and I'm a lot later than normal on this, here is my nomination ballot for the World Fantasy Awards (you are eligible to nominate if you attended the Saratoga Springs or Calgary World Fantasy conventions, or you are registered for the current one).

The reason for nominating is simple: the top two vote getters automatically appear on the final ballot. Whether this holds any sway over the judges is debatable (since the judges get to place three items on the ballot, they may have their winner picked before the see what the masses decide to put on the ballot). Nonetheless, I can say with great certainty that getting nominated is an incredible honor.

A quick caveat: I nominate only from the things I read, and remember this is for things published in 2008. Without any further ado, here is what I nominated this year and a little talking as to my reasons:

LIFE ACHIEVEMENT
Terry Pratchett
David G. Hartwell
Howard Waldrop
Anne McCaffery
Michael Whelan

I say this every year, but this one I have trouble with. A lot of the people I think should win the award have unfortunately passed away and are not eligible. Nonetheless, I think I've picked a nice line-up of people who have either had long careers, been influential in their field, or both.
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NOVEL
PANDEMONIUM by Daryl Gregory
AN AUTUMN WAR by Daniel Abraham
THE ALCHEMY OF STONE by Ekaterina Sedia
THE LOVE WE SHARE WITHOUT KNOWING by Christopher Barzak
THE SHADOW YEAR by Jeffrey Ford

I will re-iterate that I nominate only from among the things I've read. You might see this list and think: how did he miss X? Well, likely I didn't read X. Or, just as likely, I didn't like X as much as you did. Gregory's book was one of my favorites last year. It won the Crawford Award. Abraham's Long Price Quartet keeps getting better with each book. I don't know if being a part of a series/quartet will hurt or help its chances. Sedia writes like nobody else, and this book was fantastic. The Barzak book might not be genre enough . . . but then again, Murakami won the World Fantasy Award so . . . . And, I think Jeffery Ford is awesome.
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NOVELLA
"Sidewalk Factory: A Municipal Romance" by Robert Freeman Wexler (from PSYCHOLOGICAL METHODS TO SELL MUST BE DESTROYED: STORIES published by Spilt Milk Press)
"Overkill" by Elizabeth Bear from the Shadow Unit website
"Mystery Hill" by Alex Irvine published in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 01/08
"Pretty Monsters" by Kelly Link published in PRETTY MONSTERS (Viking)
THE WORD OF GOD by Thomas M. Disch published by Tachyon Publications

When I get to shorter fiction, I tend to nominate from among the things I've published first, then onto the things I've read that other people published. The Wexler piece was just fantastic. It was an exceptional end piece to a nice collection of stories. I'm finding that I haven't read enough Elizabeth Bear. Every time I read something from her, I think, "Holy crap, that was awesome." And there's so much more that I haven't read, yet. The Irvine piece was a lot of fun. The Link story was . . . typical fantastic Link. And the Disch . . . well. If you haven't read it, you should. It seems too long for me to be a novella, but I'm assured that it is.
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SHORT FICTION
"Recipe for Survival" by Sandra MacDonald from ELECTRIC VELOCIPEDE 14
"Trades" by Olvia V. Ambrogio from ELECTRIC VELOCIPEDE 15/16
"Season of the Long Now" by Robert J. Howe from ELECTRIC VELOCIPEDE 15/16
"The Oldest Man on Earth" by Patrick O'Leary from ELECTRIC VELOCIPEDE 15/16
"Sitting 'Round the Stewpot" by Patricia Russo from ELECTRIC VELOCIPEDE 15/16

I think you see what I'm doing here. The only thing I'll say is that I get five slots and I have five TOUGH decisions to make as to who I put on the list.
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ANTHOLOGY
EXTRAORDINARY ENGINES edited by Nick Gevers (Solaris)
THE NEW WEIRD edited by Jeff and Ann VanderMeer (Tachyon)
STEAMPUNK edited by Jeff and Ann VanderMeer (Tachyon)
WASTELANDS edited by John Joseph Adams (Night Shade Books)
THE YEAR'S BEST FANTASY & HORROR 2008 edited by Ellen Datlow, Gavin Grant, and Kelly Link (St. Martin's Press)

In some ways, I think the FANTASY & HORROR has an unfair advantage since it's the last volume of a long-running series. Still, it shows the typically great work the editors did in putting the volume together year after year. I thought WASTELANDS had a phenomenal line-up. The two VanderMeer anthologies were great, too. Heck, this was a year where there were so many great choices, I wish I had another slot or two for nominating.
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COLLECTION
PUMP SIX AND OTHER STORIES by Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade Books)
THE DROWNED LIFE by Jeffrey Ford (Harper Perennial)
THE ANT KING AND OTHER STORIES by Benjamin Rosenbaum (Small Beer Press)
PRETTY MONSTERS by Kelly Link (Viking)
THE BEST OF LUCIUS SHEPARD by Lucius Shephard (Subterranean Press)

Like the Anthologies category, this category had a lot of great choices. Too many choices. I feel confident that the final ballot for this category will be filled with books you want on your shelf.
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ARTIST
Daniel dos Santos
John Picacio
Stephen Youll
Stephan Martiniere
Donata Giancola

Of the artists here, I think Martiniere's work from last year stands out for me. However, a lot of it was science fiction in orientation, so that might work against him. Picacio's piece for the Jeffrey Ford Well-Built City trilogy is the best single art piece from last year in my opinion. Here's a link to a nice image from Picacio's site.
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SPECIAL AWARD-PROFESSIONAL
Alan Beatts & Jude Feldman for Borderlands Bookstores
Ann VanderMeer for editing Weird Tales
Jennifer Brehl for editing at HarperCollins/William Morrow
Deanna Hoak for copyediting
Irene Gallo for art direction Tor Books

I put Alan and Jude on my list again. Bookstores are a vital piece to this whole business, and a thriving independent store is worth nominating. I think VanderMeer's been doing some great stuff with Weird Tales. Jennifer Brehl is often over-looked when it comes to editorial matters, and I think that needs to change. Deanna Hoak and copyediting in general is part of the publishing process that the public may not know about, but the process cannot exist without it. Similarly, cover art is very important and Irene Gallo does a great job of getting fantastic covers on Tor Books. I know that Irene has won art awards for art direction, but I think she needs some recognition from outside that arena as well.
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SPECIAL AWARD-Non-PROFESSIONAL
John Klima for Electric Velocipede
Darin Bradley for Farrago's Wainscott
Matthew Kressel for Sybil's Garage
Neil Clarke, Nick Mamatas, and Sean Wallace for Clarkesworld Magazine
Mark Kelly for the LOCUS website

Well, you know. Some people won't nominate themselves. I obviously have no problem with that. And I clearly think that my friends/competitors also should be on the ballot. This category covers a wide gamut of "stuff" that it can be hard to narrow down whom to nominate. So aside from other short fiction publications, I think that Mark Kelly does a TON of work on the LOCUS website and does not receive enough appreciation for it. Remember people, it's not his main job and it's produced independently from the magazine; he does other stuff for a living and updates the site on his own time. Remember that the next time you're on the LOCUS website. I go to the website almost every day, and I certainly appreciate all the work Mark puts into it.

Whew! That's it for me.

IN BOX: update...what day is it? what time is it?

2009-05-29T01:07:00.005-05:00

(best fanzine specials awaiting John Klima chapbook)

All I know is that it's late. What is that misc. grouping of boxes, you might ask? Remember this picture:

(Best Fanzine Specials that need to be packed and shipped)

Well, they're all packed up now except for these:

(John Klima chapbooks that are almost done)

They need to be signed, have the guts put inside the covers, get stapled, and then 'decorated' before they are completely done. Regardless, they will be done by the end of this month. And they will all be unique.

I did some other things tonight (like finishing Genesis by Bernard Beckett, watching Cleveland beat Orlando), but this is what I've been working on past midnight. Well, except for folding the guts of the chapbook, I did that while watching television.

The Best Fanzine Special will be shipped next week, so people should start seeing them soon.

IN BOX: Update May 27 at 4:00p

2009-05-27T16:05:00.005-05:00

(photo to come)

UPDATED to be more interesting.

2:40 - 2:50 took library books upstairs to the Library Book Holding Spot; added ARCs to the ARC shelf in the office closet; placed VanderMeer books on shelf so I can photograph them later
2:50 - 3:10 scanned new books into LibraryThing; shelved books *
3:10 - 3:30 discovered it was not the EV 17/18 contracts folder, but the page proof folder** which had some contracts stuffed in it; moved contracts to contract folder; moved all EV 17/18 folders out of the office (i.e., the 'stuff I'm working on' folders) to the larger filing cabinets in the unfinished part of the basement;
3:30 - 3:50 went through receipts and bank statements for 2008 and 2009 *** and entered in recent receipts from this year
3:50 - 4:00 organized correspondence so that I know what to reply to later today/tomorrow (there are contracts to be mailed back and a few other things)

So, that was my almost hour-and-a-half. Then I went upstairs to eat something before my shift at the public library and I stepped on a shard of glass. Thankfully, my wife saved me.
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* which always takes longer than I anticipate since I have only five physical shelving units and I need to decide what's coming off the shelf to make room for new stuff. It means that what's on my shelf is slowly becoming ONLY stuff I haven't read.

** what, you don't keep your stuff organized in labeled folders? every issue gets at least three folders: contracts, temporary production, and page proofs. The temp prod holds information about what I'm planning on putting in the issue, layout pages, a rough print out of the issue for editing, correspondence, etc. the other two should be self-explanatory.

*** of course, after I made the old envelope '2008' and started a new envelope for '2009' I found my existing '2009' folder and had to combine those two together.

IN BOX: Look Away Merlin Mann, Look Away!

2009-05-26T00:08:00.010-05:00

(what happened to my in box?! wasn't anyone paying attention??)

My inbox has gotten out of hand. If I had a full eight-hour day, I could wipe it out. But, since I only have time in a couple hour chunks each day, it'll take a little longer. Nonetheless, I thought I would track my progress for you. I thought people might want to see what I'm facing while trying to decide if I have time to work on a project, write an article, a review, etc.

This is what happens when you let things just build up. Some of the material in here can be put somewhere else quickly, other things just need to be put away. More than three quarters the volume of the in box will take less than a half-hour to take care of. It's that final quarter that's the real pain.

The contents of my in box are:

On my laptop:

receipts and bank statements for 2008 and 2009 (somehow I didn't separate them and now I need to go through them)

The taller stack of books in my in-box

ARCS that I need to read (The City & The City, Pain Killers, Four Freedoms, Bad Things, Baum Plan for Financial Independence, Downtown Owl, and Sharp Teeth)
Jeff VanderMeer books (City of Saints and Madman: Bantam tpb, Tor UK mm, Tor UK tpb, Prime hc, Cosmos tpb; Shriek: limited ARC, Tor hc, and Wyrm hc) *
Robert Borski's Solar Labyrinth (nonf about Gene Wolfe's Solar Cycle)
Uncovered (photographs by Thomas Allen)
Broken Bulbs by Eddie Wright
Around a Dark Corner by Jeani Rector**

The shorter stack is:

a handmade journal/memo book from Shimmer
Lightbreaker by Mark Teppo
Norse Code by Greg van Eekhout
Twilght Watch and Day Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko
The Magic Thief: Lost by Sarah Prineas
Electric Velocipede 17/18
Tides from the New Worlds by Tobias Buckell
The Imago Sequence by Laird Barron ***
Hayakawa #6 (a Japanese magazine which features an interview with me)

Underneath all that is:

the contracts folder for Electric Velocipdede 17/18
a LOCUS magazine
receipts to be entered
Tor/Forge catalog
printout of a Gene Wolfe interview
various correspondence to be filed
a printout of a nonf article about Gene Wolfe
notes for an article I wanted to write
a paperweight (yes, UNDERNEATH stuff)
pens
post-its
ephemera

The short stack of library books:

The Accord by Keith Brooke
Small Gods by Terry Pratchett
I Was Dora Suarez and How the Dead Live by Derek Raymond
Genesis by Bernard Beckett
The Tin Drum by Günter Grass ****

The photo above is my worst-case scenario. That has all sorts of stuff in it that are quick to dismiss. It also doesn't help that my in box has expanded to the closet in my office:

(Best Fanzine Specials that need to be packed and shipped*****)

Considering that a sizeable chunk of my in box is made up of books to be shelved (well, entered into LibraryThing, then shelved, and actually since I use a CueCat scanner, this is a very simple process) it looks a lot worse than it is. The ARCs will just get filed in my closet, and the library books will go back to the official library book holding spot (that way I can find them when they're due), so those items will disappear from the inbox shortly after hitting "publish post."

It's 2:40p CST when I'm writing this. I'll give you updates on what I get done over the next few days while I take care of this mess.
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* I've been trying to figure out what to do with these last two books for a few months; the Rector book is so sloppily put together, that I want to write a post about the dangers of self-publishing/vanity publishing; the Wright book is well put together, but no less self-published

** I need to photograph the VanderMeer books so I can finish a post I'm writing for Tor.com

*** Also going to write a review/post for Tor.com about these books

**** Yeah, I know. We'll see. I doubt that I'll get it finished, but . . . we'll see.

***** I'm waiting to finish up a John Klima chapbook that's going with these; I should have those chapbooks done this week

Hugo Awards 2009

2009-05-23T00:03:00.004-05:00

I just voted for the Hugo Awards, have you voted yet? Are you a member? Did you get the Huge Hugo Voter Packet? Did you vote Electric Velocipede for Best Fanzine*? Do you still have to do all these things and you're reading this instead?**

Go! Go! I'll be here when you come back!
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* Of course, only vote for Electric Velocipede if you truly believe it is worthy of your vote.***

** Mail-in ballots must be postmarked by June 27 and online ballots must be completed before midnight EST July 3!

*** I found it worthy of my vote . . . but you should expect that.

Wiscon 33

2009-05-22T08:13:00.005-05:00

(happy happy advance copies of Electric Velocipede 17/18)

So, it looks like I will make a brief* appearance at Wiscon this year. I got an advanced box of the new issue, and I'll be running up on Saturday to drop it off in the dealer's room. Deb Layne has promised me some table space if I can get there.

In some respects, I'd rather stay home than make the trip for such a short visit, but here's a few things I think:

I think it's important for the issue to be there
I think it's important for me to be there with the issue, even briefly
I like to make Tempest happy (see photo below)
There's a lot of people there I haven't seen in quite some time that I want to see
I'll miss my family
Bath time with a 3 yr old and a 2 month old is better with help
Phrased differently, my wife will kill me if I'm not home to help put kids to bed

(tempest says read electric velocipede or she will come to your house and smack you around)

For those who have wanted a copy of the shirt Tempest is wearing, you can order them at Zazzle. This is the link for white text (for those who want a cool black shirt) and here for black text (for those who who like white shirts).
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* I will spend more time in the car than I will spend at the convention.