Free! PDF version of Sybil's Garage No. 4

Matt Kressel has just announced that Sybil's Garage No. 4 is now available as a free PDF download. This is the first of two issues of Sybil's Garage that I've had the pleasure to have work published in. Issue No. 4 has fiction by Ekaterina Sedia, Leah Bobet, Rowena Southard, Livia Llewellyn, John Bowker, Cat Rambo, Richard Bowes, Rasnic Tem (and myself, of course), a lot of good poetry, and interviews with Stephen H. Segal and Jeffrey Ford.

I highly recommend it (if I do say so myself) -- download it and read it on your iPad, or mobile phone, or whatever it is you read from... 

Senses Five Press » Free Download of Sybil’s Garage No. 4

Hanging out with Sybil's Garage on Hour of the Wolf

Got up at 3 a.m. this morning to be part of Jim's Hour of the Wolf radio show on WBAI 99.5 FM. The show was focused on Sybil's Garage, a wonderful small press literary specfic publication that I've been lucky enough to have sold two stories to. 

There was quite a crowd: Matt Kressel (the journal's editor), Mercurio Rivera, Eugene Myers and Paul Berger (who, as members with Matt of the writers group Altered Fluid, also help go through the submissions pile), and Kate Baker, who has a story in the latest issue. She, Eugene (who writes as EC Myers) and I all read from stories that have appeared in Sybil's Garage, and Matt & the others talked about how the magazine came about, how they selected stories, how things were going, and so on.

As usual with Jim's show, the two hours went by smoothly and quickly, and for us guests, it was like hanging out with friends and shooting the breeze. 

If you want to hear what we sounded like, you can catch the stream on WBAI's Web site for the next two weeks.

Want to see what we all looked like? Some photos that Paul and l took are up on Jim's Picasa site. 

Radio Days: Sybil's Garage on Hour of the Wolf

Back in 2007 (has it been three years already?), I had two stories published in a snazzy small-press magazine called Sybil's Garage, in issues #4 ("Means of Communication") and #5 ("All His Worldly Goods"). This Saturday, some of the editors and authors of Sybil’s Garage -- including yours truly -- will be on Jim's Hour of the Wolf radio show. 

Other guests include editors Matthew Kressel (whose blog entry much of this info was cribbed from), Paul Berger, Devin Poore and Mercurio D. Rivera, and authors Kathryn E. Baker and E.C. Myers. 

The show will air in the New York region from 5 – 7 a.m., Saturday, August 28th. You can listen to it on the radio at WBAI 99.5 FM, or streamed on the Internet at http://stream.wbai.org. Don't want to get up that early? The show can be streamed on demand for two weeks after the broadcast at http://archive.wbai.org/show1.php?showid=hotwolf. 

Now, all I have to do is manage not to make a fool of myself...

Norman Spinrad calls for a boycott of Dr. Pepper, Snapple & Mott

A pause for a moment of labor radicalism, if you don't mind.

SF writer Norman Spinrad (if you haven't read any of his works, you definitely should), in a recent blog post, has called attention to a strike being conducted by the workers at the Mott's plant in upstate New York. Mott, which is owned by the Dr Pepper Snapple Group conglomerate, is, according to a New York Times article, demanding "a $1.50-an-hour wage cut, a pension freeze and other concessions to bring the plant’s costs in line with 'local and industry standards.' " The other concessions include "end pensions for new hires, reduce the company’s 401(k) retirement contributions and increase employees’ costs for health care benefits."

Not because the company is in financial crisis -- it's actually doing very well. But because other companies in the area, most of which aren't doing as well, have cut their workers' wages, and so Mott wants to do the same -- simply because they can.

I've listed several links below for those who are interested. They include Norman's blog, the New York Times article, and the union's list of Mott's products, in case you'd like to join Norman's call to join the boycott. I plan to. There is also a page that helps to write a letter to the company (a boycott is a lot more effective if you tell the company what you're doing).

Norman Spinrad At Large: BOYCOTT DR. PEPPER, SNAPPLE, & MOTT

NY Times: In Mott’s Strike, More Than Pay at Stake

Dr Pepper Snapple Group products to Boycott

Write to Motts

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blogging.

Tales for teens

Okay, I've got a bit of a dilemma here. (Yes, "dilemma" -- hey, I
don't just blog about that word, I use it as well.)

I've just finished a story in which the main character is based on a
friend of mine -- a 14-year-old friend, actually. But although I think
she'd be pleased to be the original of one of my protagonists, I don't
know that she'll be pleased at the fact that her doppleganger ages
considerably during the course of the story. I think most teenagers
are rather grossed out by the idea that they may someday grow -- gasp!
-- old.

So: Should I tell her? Or wait until she gets to the more mature age
of, say, 18?

(I will also add that there's a 50/50 chance that she will actually
read this blog entry. In that case -- well, then she gets to
decide...)

A linguistic dilemma. Uh, I mean dilemna. Uh...

Jim came running up to my office today while I was trying to figure out how many Xeon chips it takes change a lightbulb. (Answer: None, because you couldn't afford it.) "How do you spell dilemma?" he asked.

Okay. "Dilem...uh..ma. I think. Or is it ..na?"

It turned out that Jim had also thought that "dilemma" was spelled "dilemna," but had found that his spelling checker and several online dictionaries disagreed with him. However, there were several bloggers and other sources online who explained that there was a bit of a controversy over which way it was spelled, because a lot of people grew up being told that "dilemna" was the correct spelling, even though the "n" was silent.

So if the "two-m solution" is now the correct one, was the "mn" solution ever correct, and if it was, when did that change? Interestingly, both Jim and I both remember distinctly being told that "dilemna" was spelled with an "m" and an "n" but neither of us had spelled it that way for a while.

I haven't gone very far in actually investigating this weird little linguistic mystery, so it could be that the answer is sitting in some useful Web site somewhere. But Jim did a bit of surfing, and came up with an interesting discussion on the topic on a blog that is usually about running a hospital -- but is, in this case, more about how to spell.


Julia's Readercon Panel Notes on "I Weaving You My Story, Oui? Writing Realistic Speech"

Thanks to Julia Rios for her really great summary of the Readercon panel on Writing Realistic Speech that I was lucky enough to moderate. I agree -- it was a fine kick-off for the con, and I was delighted with how well it went, how fascinating the panelists were and how responsive and, well, big the audience was. 

An additional plus: I had been racking my brain to try to remember the joke that Anil Menon made at the end of the panel that broke us all up -- and now that Julia reminded me, it broke me up again... Oh, and she says nice things about me. Which is... well, nice.

Anyway, I appreciate it.

Reading short stories: BURNING BRIGHT by Jennifer Hykes

The truly desperate housewife who loses her identity in her marriage is a theme that, as I recall (and I'm willing to be corrected on this) became popular in the early 1960s, when a generation of middle-class women who had married out of college, worked for a year or two until their husbands were on their feet and the babies started coming, began looking around and wondering who they had become. It's interesting to me that it's still a theme that's dealt with today, specifically in Jennifer Hykes' story "Burning Bright" in Issue 34 of Abyss and Apex.

The story concerns Lori, a wife, mother and office worker, who one day notices a dragon in her garden which announces that, once it's large enough, it will eat her. Lori, an extremely passive individual, is motivated by her impending digestive end to make changes in her life.

For a first sale, this is a great story. I actually didn't foresee the ending, which may either speak to the skill of the writer or simply to my mental laziness on a Sunday morning, but I prefer to attribute it to the former. I liked the progression of the story, and liked the portrayal of the dragon.

There are a few things here that I felt could have been somewhat improved. For example, husband Paul is pretty much a two-dimensional cipher -- there must have been some reason she married him -- and I'm not sure why Lori deserves to see the dragon and he doesn't. 

But I applaud the portrayal of the main character and especially the idea that her personal dreams, while they may sound mundane to others, might mean enough to her to be transforming. That (and the dragon) was definitely worth writing about.

 

Tagged review

I guess I must be at least a little honorable

Mike Allen emailed to let us know that a bunch of the contributors from Clockwork Phoenix 2 (ten of us, I believe) made the Honorable Mention list in Gardner Dozois'  The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Seventh Annual Collection. Among the stories cited was my short piece "Rosemary, That's For Remembrance."

Which made me feel a little better about my latest pile of rejection slips. <g>
Tagged stories

The Wrath of Khan... remembered.

via amazon.com

Okay, so I was wandering around Amazon, and found, among the used books for sale, this promotional magazine that I did for Starlog Press way back when: the Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan Official Movie Magazine. With my name as editor. Published when the movie was just coming out.... Okay, it was a bit tacky, but I gotta admit, it was fun.

Tagged SF