Free Story and UFO Launches Kickstarter

August 2, 2012

Kickstarter campaign for Unidentified Funny Objects is now live! You can pre-order the book and support it in various other ways by clicking below. As this is my first Kickstarter, I would also appreciate any feedback on the reward levels, text, video, and anything else.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/776571295/unidentified-funny-objects-anthology-of-humor-sf-a

We worked very hard to put together a great presentation and I would like to especially thank Dennis Miller of the Smoke & Mirrors Podcast who is the announcer voice in the video, and Justin Swapp who put together an awesome video using previous few unique images and art we had to work with. And, of course, Dixon Leavitt for the amazing cover art.

I’m also thrilled to present in its entirely Jake Kerr’s hilarious story “THE ALIEN INVASION AS SEEN IN THE TWITTER STREAM OF @DWEEBLESS”

Click on the link above to read it. Enjoy!

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

Anthology Submissions Update – The Fifth Hundred

July 30, 2012

This week, the Space Chicken is a happy chicken.

It took nearly ten days for us to process 100 more stories. The Space Chicken looked upon the received submissions and saw that they were very good. Well, maybe except for a few.

A whopping thirteen of the stories made it past the first round of reading (as opposed to just nine in the previous round) and two of those thirteen bypassed the third round and sailed on to acceptance. Because they’re awesome.

Of these 100 submissions we sent out 41 form rejections, 57 personal rejections (including round 2 rejections with feedback and comments from multiple readers) and two acceptances.

Of the 517 total submissions received to date, Duotrope is showing 159.

We’ve managed to respond to almost everybody within 24 hours, either with rejection or a round 2 bump. Only a handful of stories took 1-2 days. Maintaining this pace of reading hasn’t been easy, but we’re committed to continue offering fast response times and providing as much personal feedback as possible.

There are now 14 stories accepted into the anthology, totaling a bit under 46,000 words. There are 13 stories in round 3, totaling 24,000 words. So nothing has to be cut. Yet.

 

Rated R

Both of the stories accepted into the book this week are decidedly NOT appropriate for younger readers. They’re awesome, but we wouldn’t recommend that either be read as a bedtime story. There is some cursing (moderate), sex (not graphic) and other things we don’t want to expose children to. I had to think long and hard about these stories but, ultimately, I decided that good comedy often pushes the boundaries, and I’d rather produce a hilarious volume that might put off a few of the more prudish readers than a toothless, mildly amusing book that’s safe for a thirteen-year-old.
Preview Story

I’ll be posting the entire Jake Kerr’s story very soon, probably toward the end of this week. Watch this space!

 

 

 

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

Sneak Preview: Love Thy Neighbors by Ken Liu

July 25, 2012

The next story I’m unveiling for Unidentified Funny Objects is “Love Thy Neighbors” by Ken Liu.

Ken’s fiction has appeared in F&SF, Asimov’s, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, and Clarkesworld, among other places. He has won a Nebula Award  for “The Paper Menagerie” and been nominated for the Hugo and Sturgeon Awards for “The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary,” and several of his stories have been selected for inclusion in various Year’s Best anthologies. He lives near Boston with his family. His website is kenliu.name


I’m a huge fan of Ken’s writing and am very happy to be able to include one of his stories into the book. Here’s a little preview:

 

McComber: But there are some negative consequences to what you’re doing, aren’t there?

Filip: Negative? We’re saving cuddly and cute creatures! Who doesn’t like more pandas? Everyone loves pandas!

McComber: I think many of our callers feel differently. All right, you’re on.

First Caller: Hi, this is Mary from Waterford, Connecticut. I hate your mutant penguins. There’s a colony of them camped right outside my house, and they smell.

I’ve never seen such aggressive birds. My children can’t play in our yard anymore because they get pecked. You people need to be put in prison.

Filip: Mary, I’m sorry you feel that way. Maybe instead of feeling so entitled to your yard, you can try to make friends with the penguins? Try learning their language. I can recommend some good tapes made by the WikiGenes Foundation.

Second Caller: Hi, this is Jordan from Ansel, New Jersey. Let me tell you, watch these giant pandas dig through garbage for a few weeks, and they don’t seem so cute any more. One of them has even started to steal the tomatoes from my wife’s garden. And that constant mating, right in the street!

I can’t wait till the governor declares panda hunting season.

McComber: Mr. Filip, you’re responsible for the terror of our suburbs: the omnivorous, sex-maniac panda.

 

 

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

Anthology Submissions Update – The Fourth Hundred

July 19, 2012

 

It took approximately nine days to review 100 more submissions. The overall volume has come down a little and we’re averaging just over 10 subs per day. Of the 100 stories responded to, 43 were form rejections. All others had at least some additional comments from me or the other readers.

Only nine stories out of 100 advanced past the first round (this made the Space Chicken very cranky indeed!) Of those nine stories, I bought one and advanced one more into the third round. The other seven have been rejected by the “death panel.” I also received back a requested rewrite and bought that story, too.

As it stands right now, there are twelve stories accepted into the anthology, totaling approximately 38,000 words. There are 13 stories in round 3, totaling just over 24,000 words.  So there’s still plenty of space, but there’s also around 40 days remaining and I predict a Darwinian struggle among the round 3 stories for a few remaining spots in September.

Duotrope is showing 122 out of the 407 submissions we received to date.

We’re seeing too many:

* Zombie stories, Vampire stories, Demon/Hell stories, Alien Gray stories.

Not that there’s anything wrong with those, but your Zombie story submission will have to be better than all the OTHER zombie story submissions we’re seeing, because we don’t plan to dedicate the book to any one trope. If you have several stories in your inventory, the metagame choice would be to send one that revolves around a less-tired concept.

* Stories that are longer/shorter than what the guidelines ask for.

I don’t mind reading a 4200 word story very much. But when a writer sends it in without asking, that means they either didn’t bother to read the guidelines, or didn’t care. In either case, I’m already predisposed against their story before I begin to read it. Unless its downright brilliant, it will end up in a form rejection pile.
We’re not seeing enough of:

* Flash fiction

Only two of the stories I bought so far are 1000 words or less in length. Only two more flash stories are in round 3 at the moment.  I’d like to see more quality flash, but remember that a flash story should optimally still have a good plot arc.

* Humor

You would think that submitting humor to a humor anthology is a no-brainer. You would be wrong. A great many submissions we get are either mildly humorous or merely upbeat. I want stories that stand a chance of making the reader laugh out loud. Not every story in the anthology is going to be laugh-out-loud funny, but you will have a *far* easier time advancing past the ‘slush’ stage  if yours manages this feat.
Please keep submitting. It will keep the Space Chicken happy, accelerate the next Anthology Submission Update blog post, which you’ve now grown to love and crave, and might possibly net you a rejection like this one.

 

 

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

Anthology Submissions Update – The Third Hundred

July 11, 2012

 

We breezed through another 100 stories and Space Chicken (above) says this was a bit of a rough batch. Only 7% advanced to the second round, of which I bought one (and will likely be buying another one, pending a rewrite). Yet a third story (which was also a requested rewrite) advanced to round 3, where we now have a total of 11 tales.

I didn’t get a chance to write this post right away, so we’re at 325 submissions total right now. Duotrope is showing 98 of them. So my fourth post will likely be in just a few days.

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

Two Books, Two Sales

July 10, 2012

It’s been a busy week for me, to be sure. In addition to all the anthology work, I managed to sell two stories and also had two anthologies (available in real, physical dead-tree format!) come out that include my stories.

 

 

First up is In Situ, a collection of short stories featuring alien archaeology.  My humor story “The Field Trip” closes out the book. Here’s a little preview:

The planet in question had been populated by tool using bipedal mammals who learned to split the atom a little too soon for their own good and went boom. The scenario was so common in this part of the galaxy that there are entire digital storage units full of examples, and they are all filed under “Boring.”

You can read more about this story in my interview on Dagan Books web site over here.

To purchase the book click here.

The second anthology out this week is The Memory Eater. All stories collected in this book are inspired by the technology that allows its user to selectively erase memories. The first story I wrote for this book titled “The Take” didn’t make the cut there, but was published at Daily Science Fiction. My second story was “Seven Conversations in Locked Rooms” and I’m rather pleased with it. Click here to buy a copy.

 

 

I should add that both of these fine books were published by small businesses and every dollar really counts. So if you like my stories, and those of the other contributors, and can afford it, consider supporting them by purchasing these books.

On to new business:

My humor flash story “Those Who Can’t Do” was accepted at Every Day Fiction. This will be my fourth appearance at EDF, the first magazine to ever publish one of my stories. “Those Who Can’t Do”  should be released sometime in August or September.

And yet another humor flash story, “How To Locate and Capture Time Travelers: a Memo” was picked up by Third Flatiron publishing and will be released on December 1 in their “Origins” themed issue.

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

Sneak Preview: The Alien Invasion As Seen In The Twitter Stream of @dweebless by Jake Kerr

July 10, 2012

Jake Kerr claimed that he isn’t funny.

I kept prodding him to write and submit a story to UFO on Twitter and he said that he wasn’t funny. Others chimed in. Ken Liu said: “How can that be? Your Tweets are funny!”

And that’s when the inspiration struck him.

I woke up to find a story he wrote the night before in my inbox. The entire story was told through Tweets. And it was hilarious. I showed it to the Associate Editors, but I pretty much knew I would be buying it. So when the time came to inform Jake of the good news, I sent him the acceptance message via Twitter. It seemed only fair.

 

 

Jake Kerr began writing short fiction in 2010, after fifteen years as a music industry columnist and journalist. In 2011, Lightspeed published his debut story, The Old Equations, in its July issue. The story went on to be finalist for best novelette at the Nebula Awards and shortlisted for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. In 2012, Kerr returned to Lightspeed with a new story and was also published in Fireside Magazine. A graduate of Kenyon College with degrees in English and Psychology, Kerr studied under writer-in-residence Ursula K. Le Guin and Peruvian playwright Alonso Alegria. He is currently working on his first novel. Kerr lives in Dallas, Texas.

This is where I’d normally preview a snippet of Jake’s story. But he and I had a better idea. We will post the entire story — for free — as a preview of the kind of stuff you can expect in UFO, sometime in the next month or so (once the official UFO web site goes live). Watch this space for updates, you don’t want to miss this story!

 

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

Anthology Submissions Update – The Second Hundred

July 3, 2012

We have now read over 200 submissions, so I’d like to provide another look at our statistics and process.

I bought three stories from the second 100 subs, now totaling 7. 16% advanced to the second round (as compared to 25% from the first batch).

Three stories from the 2nd 100 advanced to the third round. There are now 10 stories in round 3.

One story each from first and second hundred received a rewrite request and I’m waiting for the authors to decide if they want to make the changes.

There are presently exactly 214 stories either on submission or already responded to at UFO. 71 of them have been recorded on Duotrope.

I’m a huge fan of reading these sort of statistics at other markets, so I hope others will find these updates of interest, as well.

 

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

Guest Post: Leaving It All On The Page by Michael Haynes

July 3, 2012

Michael Haynes has recently released a non-fiction eBook “Write Every Day: Hints & Tips Towards a Daily Writing Routine.” He blogs regularly about writing-related topics at michaelhaynes.info and writeeveryday.info

To “leave it all on the field” in sports means to have not held anything back, to have given your all. I thought of this concept last night watching — of all things — Saturday Night Live audition videos. Here I saw Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, John Belushi… All of them leaving it all on their chosen field. The camera was on just them but you could occasionally hear commentary (and very occasionally, laughter) from those who were watching the auditions. All of these people were skilled performers to have reached that point, but you could see on their faces just how important this moment was to them. It was absolutely fascinating.

From there, my mind jumped to my own closest experience to these auditions: in-person tryouts for the televised quiz program Jeopardy. Twice I’ve made it past the online test and been invited to travel to near(ish) cities for those in-person events. Several dozen other qualifiers were there each time and we all went through written tests, mock games, and mock interviews. You go through all this and then you’re thanked for your time and told that you might (or might not) get the call to fly out to Los Angeles to (maybe) be on the show sometime in the next eighteen months.

My first time I sort of winged it and suspect I did so-so, but not well enough to make it on. I didn’t make it to the program with my second try, either, but when I left the room from that tryout I felt on top of the world. Why? Because I knew I’d left it all on the field. I’d read up more on the tryout process before my second experience and had learned that you’re being judged every second that you’re in the room, even if it’s not obvious. So I made a point to be “on” at all times, even when the people evaluating us were supposedly away from the room looking at our paper tests. I’m not a naturally outgoing person and would normally just sit quietly unless someone engaged me, but I made a point to chat up other contenders throughout that period. Even now, though my eighteen months are over, I feel happy with how I performed that day.

When writing for publication, if you want to reach the top levels, you’re unlikely to meet with success doing things halfway. You have to leave it all on the field or, in our case, the page.

But what does that mean? To me, it means that when I go to send a story out for the first time, that I want to feel like the story is as good as I, right now, can make it.

To me, it doesn’t mean going through endless revisions, but it does mean taking a critical look at your own story and not just saying “Eh, it’s good enough.” Professional-level editors are rarely going to buy “good enough.” Readers of these publications aren’t likely to rush out to read your other works because they thought that one was “good enough.”

No one is going to have every story they write be brilliant. And as we grow as writers, stories that once represented our best effort no longer will. But when we’re writing something new, we should always be looking to leave it all on the page.

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

The Meta Rejection

July 2, 2012

 

Public submissions for UFO opened 48 hours ago and they’re pouring in. I’ve read and responded to nearly 200 submissions so far (which means another statistics post is just around the corner). I’ve been keeping (marginally) sane by talking about the slush process on Twitter.

Many of my fellow writers hang out there, and one of my Twitter buddies is L. Lambert Lawson of Kazka Press. He does this thing where he posts the rejections on his blog. So when he sent me a story which I had to reject, I knew the rejection letter was going to find its way onto the greater Internet, fast. And since I knew this in advance, I had to make it the most epic rejection letter to ever grace his blog.

Did I succeed? You decide. Read a rejection letter in three codas and a poem. The poem is courtesy of Anatoly Belilovsky. It appeared previously on my blog.

 

 

 

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

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