UFO7 Cover and TOC Reveal

July 24, 2018

Unidentified Funny Objects 7 cover by Tomasz Marosnki

 

Unidentified Funny Objects 7 will be published in October/November 2018 time frame and include 20 humorous short stories:

“The Dragon, the Drudge, and the Drone” by Esther Friesner
“Dethroning the Champeen” (a Lucifer Jones tale) by Mike Resnick
“The Vampire’s Apprentice” by Gini Koch
“Falling’s Free, Gravity Costs” by Seanan McGuire
“The Sit Down” by Laura Resnick
“Chad vs. the Rebel Alliance” by Shane Halbach
“Old School: An Oral History of Captain Dick Chase” by Val Nolan
“Quick Cash in the Old Kingdom” by Elin Korund
“The Fermi Loneliness Problem” by Beth Goder
“The Secret Destiny of Heroes” by Matthew Bailey
“Spear Carrier’s Union #109” by Jamie Kress
“The Day After Halloween” by Greg Sisco
“Key Fang and Klaw” by Fred Stesney
“The Assassination of 2063” by David Vaughan
“Bimple Bimple Bop Bop” by Richard Anderson
“The Ebony Egg” by David Vierling
“Take Meme to Your Leader” by Jennifer Lee Rossman
“Mission Log Nuptuals” by Langley Hyde
“Contractual Obligations” by C. Flynt
“Three Ways to Leave Hawaii” by Zach Shephard

It will also include nine original interior illustrations by Barry Munden.

Barry's illustration for Jennifer Lee Rossman's "Take Meme to Your Leader"

Barry’s illustration for Jennifer Lee Rossman’s “Take Meme to Your Leader”

I’ve launched the Kickstarter campaign for this book which will run through August 30. It features a number of unique rewards as well as the chance to order UFO7 and other UFO Publishing books. Although I normally launch the Kickstarter in March followed by the open submission window in April, I was unable to do so this year due to a variety of health-related issues and deadlines for both writing-related projects and my day job. So I’m doing this very late in the game, but hope everyone’s enthusiasm for the project will not have been lessened by this delay!

Click here to view the Kickstarter campaign.

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The Advent of Driverless Cars

July 18, 2018

 

The Analog blog features a brief write-up by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro and me about driverless cars, our story “The People v. Craig Morrison,” and a famous Fred Pohl quote.

I’m also extremely pleased to have had another story accepted by Analog this week. “Repairs at the Beijing West Space Elevator” will appear in the magazine sometime in the not-so-distant future, probably in early 2019.

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My Readercon 2018 Schedule

July 12, 2018

I’ll be attending Readercon for the next three days and participating on their program. Here’s where to find me:

Friday, 6:00 PM - Blue Hills - Scouting Global Speculative Stories - Anatoly Belilovsky, Neil Clarke, Liz Gorinsky, Mimi Mondal, Alex Shvartsman, 
Francesco Verso - Magazine and book editors will discuss how they scout and promote authors from outside the U.S. and U.K., sharing their expertise 
and best practices. How can writers and editors make the best use of resources such as Lavie Tidhar's WorldSF Blog and Rachel Cordasco's SF in Translation 
site? What would make it easier to find, publish, and publicize world speculative fiction? 

Saturday, 3:00 PM - Blue Hills - The Possibilities and Perils of Comedy - Martin Cahill, James Morrow, Eric Schaller, Alex Shvartsman, Chandler Klang Smith, 
Torger Vedeler - Even the saddest and scariest fiction can contain elements of comedy or humor. It must be handled well, no matter the seriousness or 
frivolity of the work, or it can destroy the story. What does humor bring to the reader's experience of a work? How can a dash of humor add to or detract 
from otherwise non-comedic works? Comedy is hard; is it worth the effort? 

Sunday, 1:00 PM - Salon B - Reading
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Story publication: “The People v. Craig Morrison” in Analog

June 27, 2018

A story I co-wrote with Alvaro Zinos-Amaro is live in the July/August 2018 issue of Analog. While self-driving cars are around the corner, in this story we imagine the social and civil dilemmas that will come up when regulators decide it’s time to get the imperfect, error-prone human drivers off the roads.

You can subscribe to Analog here or pick up a single issue. It’s out as of June 14.

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My Balticon 2018 Schedule

May 24, 2018

I’ll be at Balticon as usual this Memorial Day weekend. I will spend much of the time in the dealers room where you can find me under the enormous UFO banner. 🙂 Here is the list of my scheduled events:

Friday, 8pm – Room 9029 – Microfiction and Micropoetry panel
Saturday, 2pm – St. George – Reading (with Cerece Rennie Murphy and John L. French)
Saturday, 3pm – Room 8029 – Kaffeeklatch
Saturday, 6pm – Mount Washington – Religion and Spirituality in SF panel
Sunday, 11am – Guilford – Jews in Space panel
Sunday, 1pm – Club Lounge – The Golem of Deneb Seven and Future SF launch event
Monday, 12pm – Room 7029 – Writing for Themed Anthologies panel

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Kickstarters Galore

May 18, 2018

As you patiently wait for the UFO7 kickstarter campaign (which should be coming next month!) there are several anthology projects I’d like to encourage you to check out. I find myself involved in not one, not two, but three separate anthologies that are seeking funding at the moment, and I hope some of them will strike your fancy.

First up is the anthology edited by Mike Ventrella and published by Fantastic Books where Mike has asked a group of funny and imaginative authors to come up with a story which has the line “Release the Virgins!” in it at some point. Some of the authors involved include David Gerrold, Allen Steele, Jody Lynn Nye, Sharon Lee & Steve Miller, and Keith R. A. DeCandido among others. If this project funds I will contribute a funny original story from the Coffee Corps universe!

Release the Virgins on Kickstarter

Another project that also launched tonight is Timeshift: Tales of Time, edited by Eric S. Fomley. This is an anthology of flash fiction stories about time travel, time dilation, and other time-related weirdness. You’ll get stories by Bob Silverberg, Cat Rambo, Ken Liu, Mike Resnick, Kevin J. Anderson and two of my own tales (two assuming the project reaches a very achievable milestone of 25 backers)

Timeshift on Kickstarter

Finally, there’s another anthology of even tinier stories, also edited by Eric Fomley. Drabbledark is a collection of drabbles — stories that are exactly 100 words long. I posted about this one a couple of weeks ago and am happy to report it has reached its initial funding goal. It’s now in stretch goals and has 11 days left to pick up some more steam.

Drabbledark on Kickstarter

In addition to all the crowdfunding news, I also learned today that my story “Ambassador to the Meek” (originally published in The Sum of Us anthology edited by Susan Forest and Lucas K. Law) has been selected to appear in Best Indie Speculative Fiction, volume 1, forthcoming in November 2018.

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Future SF #0 is live today

May 15, 2018

The inaugural issue of Future is now live and free to read on the web. Or pick up a copy for your e-reader for only $0.99.

Issue 0

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Announcing Future Science Fiction Digest

May 12, 2018

This bit of news has been six months in the making, but I can finally announce that I will be editing a science fiction magazine, to be published in collaboration by UFO Publishing and the Future Affairs Administration. The magazine will focus on various science fiction sub-genres (hard SF, space opera, cli-fi) but will not include fantasy or horror. There will be a strong focus on international fiction. I’ll be looking to fill about half of each issue with translations and stories written by authors from non-anglophone countries.

Although the magazine will feature original (to anglophone readers, anyway) fiction, I’ve put together a sample “issue zero,” to be released in time for the Nebulas and the Asia Pacific SF Con organized by the FAA. This issue features all-reprint stories with different takes/visions of the future, which also happen to be representative of the sort of material I hope to acquire and publish in the future.

The magazine will be free to read online, or you can buy electronic and print issues (similar to how Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, BCS, and other great ‘zines operate.)

We’ll open our digital doors this Tuesday, May 15th. Visit us at www.future-sf.com.

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New publication: Diamonds in the Rough in Galaxy’s Edge

May 2, 2018

My latest short story is out in the current issue of Galaxy’s Edge magazine, which means it will remain free to read online for the next two months. After that you will need to purchase an issue in order to access the story.

“Diamonds in the Rough” is the tale of alien contact set in the chaotic days of post-Soviet Union Russia circa early 1990s.

In other news, submissions are now closed for UFO7. We received 790 stories and are reading through the last of them over the next couple of days. After that I’ll be re-reading the second look pile and making final decisions. As is the case each year, there’s already more good material than we can use, so it’ll be a matter of balancing the TOC. I’ll post updates on Twitter so those still in convention know the status of the subs.

Also, I recently sold a pair of reprints to new anthologist Eric Fomley, who’s seeking to promote flash- and micro-fiction (goals I find to be quite worthy!) Timeshift will be an anthology of time-travel and time-dilation flash fiction forthcoming later this year (and featuring some excellent writers that I’m aware of!) but first up is Drabbledark: an anthology of dark drabbles. A drabble is a story that’s exactly 100 words. This project is currently on Kickstarter and has a modest funding goal, so take a look at it here. That’s a whole lot of tiny stories for only three bucks.

 

ETA: Oh hey, this totally snuck up on me, but the new issue of Intergalactic Medicine Show is also out! It includes my humorous flash tale, “Customer Service Support Ticket at All-American Wizardry Supply and Custom Floor Mat Emporium” in print and audio, however you have be a subscriber to access it currently.

 

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UFO7 Submissions Update – 3 days to go!

April 27, 2018

* We have received approximately 600 submissions this month.

* The first 20 stories currently in the queue are being held for further consideration. There are 38 stories total in the queue at the moment.

* If your story is in that first 20, you likely won’t hear from us until sometime in May, depending on how quickly we conquer the slush pile after submissions close.

* Submissions will close late night on April 30 (no earlier than midnight PST and probably on early morning May 1.) Late subs will not be considered after that.

* We’ve responded to most submissions in under 48 hours, and many under 24. Send more stories!

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