The Shared Worlds SF/F teen writing camp 2012 registration and fund drive has begun–and it’s all being driven by the wonderful fiction contributions you can find here from the likes of Neil Gaiman, Lev Grossman, N.K. Jemisin, Scott Westerfeld, Karen Lord, Amal El-Mohtar, Eugie Foster, Michael Moorcock, Kit Reed, Tobias Buckell, Patrick Rothfuss, Gene Wolfe, Lavie Tidhar, and many more. (Including a lively Finnish contingent: Johanna Sinisalo, Viivi Hyvönen, and Leena Litikalo.)

Click on a critter and a read a story. Like what you read? Please donate. Interested in registering for the 2012 Shared Worlds camp? There’s a link for that, too.

The art by Jeremy Zerfoss was also the cover of the Shared Worlds student writing book from 2011, displayed below surrounding my wife Ann. The stories were compiled and edited by Therese Goulding. Greg Bossert created the site. Below the cut you’ll find the official press release. Please spread the Critter link far and wide. Thanks!

TOP AUTHORS CONTRIBUTE TO THE SHARED WORLDS CRITTER MAP

Shared Worlds SF/Fantasy Teen Writing Camp Launches 2012 Registration and Donation Drive

https://www.wofford.edu/sharedworlds/critters/

Neil Gaiman, Lev Grossman, Scott Westerfeld, and thirty-seven more of the most imaginative writers from around the world have contributed to Shared Worlds’ “Critter Map,” a webpage of fantastical beasts. Their whimsical descriptions of imaginary creatures created by pop artist Jeremy Zerfoss are in support of the Shared Worlds registration and fund drive for 2012. Every summer up to 50 teen writers come to Shared Worlds SF/F Teen Writing Camp at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, from as far away Japan to participate in this unique camp. This year, registrants include teens from all parts of the United States as well as Germany and Indonesia. Wofford College provides a structured, supervised environment in which the students can excel and demonstrate their creativity.

At Shared Worlds, the students form teams in classrooms to build entire fantasy or science fictional worlds in the first week and then write stories in those worlds the second week. Top professional writers are on hand to provide feedback and to conduct workshops. The guest writers for the 2012 include New York Times bestsellers Julianna Baggott, Naomi Novik, and Tobias Buckell as well as Prix Award Winner Karin Lowachee and Hugo Award winner Ann VanderMeer. The teens also get to attend author readings, take fieldtrips to bookstores, and create videos about their imaginary worlds. Shared Worlds also publishes an annual book of the students’ writing.

“For many of our students, Shared Worlds is a transformational experience,” said the camp’s assistant director, fantasy writer Jeff VanderMeer. ”They not only learn more about writing, they also get to have fun solving problems in in the world-building groups, and they form what will probably turn out to be life-long friendships with like-minded teens.”

The “Critter Map” is the cornerstone of a donation drive intended to ensure that attending the Shared Worlds Teen Writing Camp can be a possibility for all registered students, no matter what their financial need. Monies will join contributions from donors like Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman and major support from Amazon.com.

The contributors to the “Critter Map” range from such icons as Michael Moorcock and Gene Wolfe to exciting new authors like Viivi Hyvönen and Kirsten Imani Kasai. Filmmaker and writer Gregory Norman Bossert has created the Critter Map website, and Therese Goulding served as editor for the contributions.

Additional Links:

Critter Map stories alphabetically by author: https://www.wofford.edu/sharedworlds/critters/byauthor.html

Shared Worlds Website: http://www.wofford.edu/sharedworlds/%20

Donation Page: http://www.wofford.edu/sharedworlds/donate/

Registration Page: https://www.wofford.edu/sharedworlds/inner-register.aspx

Shared Worlds Critter Map: Unique SF/F Teen Writing Camp Registration and Fund Drive! originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on February 8, 2012.

Madras Press, run by Sumanth Prabhaker, is one of my two favorite new publishers (the second being the Dorothy Project). Madras produces these absolutely perfect little editions of stories in book form. In the case of the one above, a special edition of Kelly Link’s great story “Stone Animals” with illustrations by, among others, Lev Grossman, Daniel Handler, Ursula K. LeGuin, Laura Miller, and Audrey Niffenegger. Wow. It’s a gem.

As with all Madras Press editions, including the three pictured directly below, the proceeds go to charities, a different one for each book. Go check out their website and buy, buy, buy!

Also in the mail today—it was a truly bountiful day—were lit mags, a novel by a new writer, from Small Beer, a Small Beer collection by Nancy Kress (one of my Clarion instructors), nonfiction by Michael Moorcock, a novel by Matt Bell, and an intriguing-looking novel from Angry Robot, all pictured below the cut.

Book Haul: Squeeing All the Way Home with Kelly Link, Madras Press, Small Beer, PM, and More! originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on February 7, 2012.

The event will be held in the Kelly Kranze Room, 5700 Trinity Prep Lane, Winter Park, Florida. For directions, visit the Trinity prep website. There’s also more information here, at the page for the visit. Books will be available for sale and signing.

The students have been reading “The Situation” in both story and comics form, so it’ll be interesting to get their take on the differences, etc.

Trinity Prep School Event Thursday Night in Orlando originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on February 7, 2012.

Which is another way of saying, the Locus Recommended List and Survey is now up on Locus Online, and if you like any of the books my wife Ann and I were involved in, please do vote for them. The top five in each category will be finalists for the Locus Award. BUT ALSO please remember that no matter how hard any organization tries, it is impossible to list every worthy work. For example, Laird Barron mentions two worthy collections not on the recommended list.

The write-in slots, therefore, are incredibly important. If you loved something not on the recommended list, please please write in the selection.

As for us, here’s where we are eligible, with all but the Steampunk Bible already on the recommended list. We also edited ODD?, but there’s really no chance of it being a finalist, and my nonfiction collection Monstrous Creatures has been overshadowed by the Big Three listed below.

—Best Editor: Ann & Jeff VanderMeer

In addition to Lambshead and The Weird listed below, Ann and I also edited ODD?, Ann edited Weird Tales, and Ann and I edited http://www.weirdfictionreview.com, which was founded November 1 of 2011 and ran 90 pieces of fiction and nonfiction between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31 of last year. We also started Cheeky Frawg books and published several titles through that imprint. (We have come close to finalist lists in the past, but people voting for one of us separately has fractured the vote three ways.)

—Best Anthology:

The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories (edited by me and Ann) – Over 750,000 words of Weird fiction covering a century, with 116 stories, 7 new translations, and several stories that have not been reprinted in over 30 or 40 years. Over 20 nationalities are represented and the writers include Joyce Carol Oates, Kafka, Angela Carter, Michael Chabon, Ray Bradbury, Shirley Jackson, Jamaica Kincaid, and…well, here’s the list of stories/contributors. It’s the largest single-volume collection of weird literature ever published as far as we know, and received great reviews from The Guardian, Times Literary Supplement, and many more.

The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities (edited by me and Ann) – An original antho that functions as a treasury of the best of established and up-and-coming fantasy writers, including Michael Moorcock, Lev Grossman, Alan Moore, Naomi Novik, Charles Yu, China Mieville, and Holly Black. The total number of fiction contributors is more than 80, while there are also over 60 original illustrations, including work Mike Mignola, Greg Broadmore, and Jan Svankmajer. Two stories have already made year’s best anthos and the book is on the preliminary ballot for the Bram Stoker. Several individual stories from the antho are, in our opinion, among the best of the year. Here’s more information and also here.

–Best Art Book:

The Steampunk Bible (with S.J. Chambers) – A sumptuous full-color coffee table book of Steampunk art, fashion, machines, and more. Everyone from Jake von Slatt to…well, you name it. Over 200 images. Chances are you’ve at least flipped through this one. If you liked it, consider it for best art book as a write-in candidate. Here’s more information.

Regardless of what you vote for, vote your passion and help make the finalist list as diverse and interesting as possible. Thanks!

(I should note that Nebula voting ends soon, and Hugo voting ends in five weeks. I am going to do one post about Hugo voting and the case for nominating my wife, Ann, in a week or two.)

Locus Award and Rec List: VanderMeer Eligible Work originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on February 6, 2012.

So, check it out. I hope you find it of use. And if you don’t, I encourage you to make your own list. Cheers.

My List of the Best 2011 SF/Fantasy on Locus Online originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on February 5, 2012.

Plethora of VanderMeer Interviews…About Stuff originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on February 2, 2012.

Steampunk Revolution, edited by Hugo Award winner Ann VanderMeer (co-editor of both Steampunk and Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded) to be published in the Fall 2012 by Tachyon Publications, announces an open reading period.

Steampunk Revolution features a renegade collective of writers and artists—including steampunk legends as well as hot, new talents—who are rebooting the steam-driven past and powering it into the future with originality, wit, and adventure. Going far beyond corsets and goggles, Steampunk Revolution is not just a ride in your great-great granddad’s zeppelin—now it’s a much wilder ride.

Looking for reprints only (standard reprint rates apply). Willing to look at all kinds of Steampunk fiction, but mainly interested in work that pushes the boundaries, that truly is a revolution to the genre. Prefer works under 10,000 words.

Submissions accepted between February 1, 2012, and March 1, 2012. Any English-language story previously published in the past decade on a website or print publication is eligible for consideration. Willing to look at all kinds of Steampunk fiction, but mainly interested in work that pushes the boundaries, that is truly a revolution to the genre.

Submissions up to 10,000 words should be sent in a Word or RTF document to steampunkrevolution at hotmail.com. Please cut-and-paste the first three paragraphs into the body of your email and include prior publication information, but no need to include any biographical information about yourself. If you prefer, use snail mail by sending your work to POB 38190, Tallahassee, FL 32315. Snail mail submissions should be marked on the outside of the envelope as for Steampunk Revolution consideration. No SASE is required if you prefer email response. All Submissions will be responded to no later than March 31; please do not query about a submission prior to that date.

Payment will be on publication, at standard reprint rates of one to two cents per word, against a share of any royalties from the North American and any foreign editions, as well as one contributor copy.

Ann VanderMeer: Call for Submissions, Steampunk Revolution Antho originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on February 1, 2012.

Excerpt:

“I should like to say a few words anent one or two point which P. Schuyler Miller raises in his interesting letter in the June Wonder Stories…Personally, I cannot see that science fiction is, as he puts it, ‘unfortunately limited’ in its range of expression. At least, I do not think that a type of literature so avowedly imaginative would benefit materially by invading, as so much modern fiction has done, the field of clinical analysis and sex-physiology. That sort of thing has been done ad infinitum and ad nauseum by non-imaginative writers, such as are favored by the professional ‘intelligentsia’ of our sex-demented republic; and one of the most refreshing things about science fiction, and fantastic fiction in general, is the avoidance of such triteness.”

–Discovered in “On Garbage-Mongering,” from Planets and Dimensions: Collected Essays of Clark Ashton Smith (edited by Charles K. Wolfe), reprinted therein from WONDER STORIES, “The Reader Speaks” column, August 1932, p. 281.

Discovered: Clark Ashton Smith and Our Sex-Demented Republic originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on February 1, 2012.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia and her co-editor Orrin Grey are still reading for their Fungi anthology, details here. As she noted in a post recently, they’d like to see more settings outside of the U.S. and more submissions from women and international writers. So get those stories in! (Looks like reprints are welcome from the guidelines, in addition to originals.)

I’m planning on doing my best to get a mushroom story in, possibly even an Ambergris story.

Fungi Anthology–Still Reading for Two Weeks originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on January 31, 2012.

Thanks to Whitney Matheson at Pop Candy and Brad Moon at GeekDad/Wired for giving The Situation web comic some love.

The entire 63 pages are now up at Tor.com (the link now starts you at part 3), and I’m kinda thrilled about it. A lot of hard work on the part of the artist and the editor (Liz Gorinsky). I just love all of the images of Mord. It’s also kind of cool that the posting of the web comic coincides with Trinity Prep School students reading the short story it’s based on before our visit there in February—they get to see the comics version, too.

If Mord seems familiar from more than just “The Situation”, it’s because he also appears in much altered form in “The Third Bear,” which is reprinted along with “The Situation” story in my collection The Third Bearfrom Tachyon. Consider picking it up, as it’s earned out its advance and is still selling steadily and providing me with a little extra money, which always helps our less commercial projects.

I should note that Mord makes an appearance, along with Wick, in the novel I’m working on entitled “Borne”–same milieu as “The Situation”–and also many doppelganger appearances in “The Journals of Doctor Mormeck,” which I serialized part of right here at Ecstatic Days.

On Monday, I’ll post excerpts of “The Situation” side-by-side with part of the comics script and the relevant parts of the comic itself, to show the transformation.

The Situation Web Comic: Covered by GeekDad and Pop Candy originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on January 27, 2012.