September Recap

October 5, 2012

I keep telling myself (and all of you) about how I will be updating this blog more regularly. So far it has been a big fat lie. But then, what do you expect from someone who writes down lies for fun?
Seriously, it has been a crazy couple of months. Putting together an anthology is an infinite amount of work. It cut deep into my writing time, let alone blog time, reading time, and any other -time that doesn’t involve work or family. So here’s a brief recap of what’s been going on in my writerly life in September and early October:
* I’m pleased to announce that Unidentified Funny Objects has been copy-edited and is off to the interior designer. We should have galleys within a few days and an ARC to send out to authors and reviewers in a week or so.

* Monthly humor stories on ufopub.com have been  launched. First up was “The Ogre King and the Piemaker” by Tarl Kudrick. Do yourself a favor and check it out, it’s as funny as anything in the book!

* My flash fiction story “Manna From Heaven” opens the October issue of Bards and Sages Quarterly.  “Manna from Heaven” opens the issue, which is very neat.  You can pick up a copy on Amazon.

 

 

* I sold “The Miracle on Tau Prime” to Daily Science Fiction. It’s a story of the Vatican miracle investigators… in space! There’s no publication date, but I would expect it to appear either really late in 2012 or in early 2013.

* The FISH anthology from Dagan Books which includes my story “Life on the Lake’s Shore” among work from many other fine authors will be coming out this month.

* My story “The Tell-Tale Ear” will be coming out in the October 18 issue of Nature and will be available to read for free online.

* I’ve been invited to submit a story to the “Beyond the Sun” anthology. If accepted, it’d share the table of contents with such juggernauts as Silverberg, Resnick and Kress! Of course, this project needs to be funded first, and it could use all the help it can get. They’re currently on Kickstarter, so do me (and yourself) a favor and pre-order a copy over here.

* I will be attending PhilCon as a guest this year, participating on panels and possibly doing a reading. This convention will take place in Cherry Hill, NJ (15 minute drive from downtown Philadelphia) on the weekend of November 9 through 11. There will be lots of awesome people I know there, and I encourage anyone who can make the trip to attend.

 

 

* Saving the best for last: Tomorrow I’m heading to Viable Paradise. This highly prestigious writing workshop takes place annually on Martha’s Vineyard. It is now in its 16th year. 24 newer writers like myself will learn from instructors Elizabeth Bear, Debra Doyle, Steven Gould, James D. Macdonald, Patrick and Theresa Nielsen-Hayden, Steven Brust and Sherwood Smith. I’m super excited about this workshop and hope it will help me take my writing to the next level (preferably bypassing the tough boss monster at the end of the current level).

I apologize to my non-video game playing readers for that reference. (OK, I’m not really sorry. Deal with it.)

And when I get back, I will be updating the blog more regularly. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.

 

 

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

I’m Still a Writer

August 10, 2012

 

It has been a busy couple of months. In addition to my already hectic schedule balancing work and family obligations I foolishly decided to go and create an anthology. If you read my blog, you’ll notice that that all the recent posts have been about that. Which is no surprise because I spend, on average, 6 hours a day working on UFO.

However,  I’m still a writer first and an editor/publisher second (even if it doesn’t feel that way right now.) I’ve been producing some new stories — not nearly as many as I would have with more free time, but my output hadn’t dropped off completely. I’ve also been making sales. Sales that, in the past, I would have rushed to breathlessly announce on the blog. But lately I’ve been so slammed that I couldn’t even take the time out for a proper victory lap. So let me catch up by turning this post into a marathon of braggage.

The following stories have been accepted for publication in the last month:
The Tell-Tale Ear – Nature Magazine’s Futures Feature

This is a humorous take on Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous tale, adjusted for the twenty first century. The story is told entirely through e-mails. It will be my second story to appear on the pages of Nature this year.

Spidersong – The Drabblecast

This story originally appeared in Daily Science Fiction and can be read here. The Drabblecast will produce a podcast of it.

Hell is Other People – Fantastic Frontiers, issue 2

This is a tongue-in-cheek story about “Mood Ring” houses that shapeshift according to the inhabitants’ mood. Nothing could possibly go wrong, eh?

The Last Incantation – Kazka Press

This story features a really cool system of magic which, more than one beta reader suggested, should probably be used in a longer story or even a novel at some point. But this story works really well for me at flash length, and you’ll be able to decide for yourself as it will be published on September 1, as part of Kazka’s “The Last Hurrah” prompt.

 

I should also mention that three of these four tales were originally written for the Shock Totem flash fiction bi-monthly contest. I love participating in this contest alongside the likes of Ken Liu, Damien Grintalis and many other excellent writers.  I never do particularly well in the contest (they like horror over there, and I don’t tend to write dark) but I don’t care — I’m happy to let the contest help me come up with many of my better flash stories.

So there. Victory lap accomplished. And now back to working on the anthology.

 

 

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

The Take read on the radio live and podcast

June 23, 2012

 

My flash story “The Take,” originally published at Daily Science Fiction in March 2012, is going to be read on the radio at 4pm today as part of Paul Cole’s “Beam Me Up” program. You can listen to the live stream at wrfr.com and it will be available as a podcast later on at beammeuppodcast.com

 

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“Seven Conversations in Locked Rooms” accepted at The Memory Eater anthology

April 10, 2012

 

Yay for second chances!

Last year I wrote and submitted a story called “The Take” to The Memory Eater anthology. The concept of anthology revolves around the device known as the Memory Eater. This technology is capable of deleting specific memories from one’s brain. Who would use such a device and for what purpose? There are many different stories that can be told based on this prompt.

“The Take” made it all the way into the final round of consideration but was ultimately rejected (although the editor told me it was a close call). I edited out the Memory Eater references and sent it to Daily Science Fiction, where it was accepted and published recently.

At some point in the editorial process, C.P. discovered that he had room for one more tale. So he reached out to me, asking if I would like to take another stab at the prompt. The catch? Whatever story I wrote had to match up with an illustration he had already acquired for use in the anthology. I was up to the challenge, and a few weeks later “Seven Conversations in Locked Rooms” was born. It’s a 1600-word SF story of a man willing to pay a tremendous price in order *not* to have his memories removed via the Memory Eater.

Want to know more? Pick up a copy of this anthology next month. Better yet, you can support their Kickstarter campaign, which is going on right now.

 

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

RealFeel Technology Implications

March 13, 2012

Warning: The following post contains spoilers about “The Take.” If you haven’t read it yet, you may want to avoid reading further until you do. 

Since “The Take” was e-mailed out by DSF yesterday, I received a lot of wonderful feedback. Some people loved the story, some hated it (as is always the fact with such things), some enjoyed it overall but had issues with certain aspects of it. 

Several readers took issue with the main character claiming that no one would want to watch movies or plays once RealFeel recordings became available. Dani Atkinson sent me a wonderful e-mail which, while critical of this aspect of the story, was an amazing examination of possible uses for RealFeel as it pertains to the arts. With Dani’s permission, I’m quoting it in full:

 Just received and read The Take. It fascinated me, but kinda frustrated me too. See, the story has the line “Who would bother to watch another movie or play, after that?” Which would make sense on the face of it, except…

Why would anyone read a book, when they could see it acted out in a play?

Why would anyone watch a play, now that there are movies?

Why would anyone watch a movie, now that there are video games?

But people DO. See, old art forms NEVER GO AWAY. They offer different experiences, that people seek out at different times and for different reasons.

And all I could think of while reading this story of this failed actor was how this technology would have REVOLUTIONIZED acting, instead of killing it.

Have you ever acted? In say, community theatre? It’s an incredible high. The adrenaline rush is every bit as intense as climbing a mountain. How many people dream of being actors? Who WOULDN’T pay top dollar for the chance to feel what it’s like to be a Broadway legend or a star of the silver screen?

And the really hardcore method actors, the ones who make a point of forcing themselves to really feel what the character feels, living the role from the inside out… I could see those guys as both the RealFeel’s biggest customers AND some of the biggest content generators.

This could bring live theatre from the audience perspective to dizzying new heights as well. For decades it’s been lamented that recordings can never truly capture the experience of live theatre. What if they could? I would have sold ORGANS for the chance to be in the audience at Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan’s “Waiting for Godot.” I would happily shell out cash for a RealFeel recording from somebody who was.

And as for movies… my god. Just… My god…

Can you fathom… can you IMAGINE… if every single time you watched Star Wars… was your VERY FIRST TIME?

I could see parents sitting their kids down to watch timeless classics, and strapping those things to their heads so they would always be able to recapture that glorious first experience. Until the copyright lawyers finally caught up and banned the practice.

Hell, I could see filmmakers deliberately selecting an audience of people that they knew were exactly the sort to be thrilled to pieces by whatever film they’re peddling in order to make and sell their OWN RealFeel recordings.

It could be a whole new format. The RealFeel edition. “Star Wars IV: A New Hope, As Watched By an Enthralled Ten Year Old Child.” “Artsy Classic That You Always Felt Guilty For Not Enjoying As Much As You Thought You Should, As Enjoyed By An Intellectual Film Historian And Critic Who Is Totally Geeking Out”

I could see some filmmakers refusing to release movies in anything BUT RealFeel, once they had a taste of that level of control over an audience’s responses and experiences. That could get creepy pretty fast. And conversely you’d get the rebel filmmakers who are all retro and refuse to have anything to do with RealFeel and it’d be like the current 3D or not 3D debates except more so.

Heh. So, the story fascinated me enough that I tracked your blog down so I could argue at you, but it felt like a bit of a missed opportunity. In my personal canon, I’m pretty much deciding that the protagonist in The Take is using Charlie Tan as a convenient excuse for why his career never took off, and willfully ignoring the actors who are doing just fine in a post RealFeel age. 😛

Dani’s assumption is pretty spot on. When writing this story I imagined the main character as a bit of a failure–he didn’t succeed in his career as an actor, and is also very low on the totem pole as RealFeel recording artist–which is why he’s involved in the third-rate production described.

The main character blames others for his problems, but this is him speaking and not the author. I don’t think future entertainment technologies (RealFeel? Holodeck?) will eliminate the need for books, plays and other pre-existing art forms for much the same reasons quoted above.

Also, it sounds like there will be a podcast version of “The Take” in a few months. I won’t go into details until this is finalized, but I’m thrilled that there are folks out there who liked the story well enough to want to produce it.

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

Publication: “The Take” in Daily Science Fiction

March 11, 2012

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Those of you who subscribe to e-mails from Daily Science Fiction will receive my flash SF story “The Take” late tonight. Subscription is free, so you should sign up! And if you’re one of those holdouts who don’t like receiving free, awesome stories via e-mail, you’ll be able to read this story on DailyScienceFiction.com in one week.

“The Take” was inspired by the “Memory Eater” anthology. Although the story made it to the final round of consideration there, they ultimately passed on it. I made minor changes to remove references to the Memory Eater technology and sent the updated version of the story to Daily Science Fiction. I love DSF to death and they are almost always the first to see my stories, so I was thrilled to have “The Take” accepted there.

But wait, there’s more.

There’s a supporting character in the story named Charlie Tan. It wasn’t until after the story was accepted at DSF that I realized that my character shares a name with a well-known SF blogger Charles A. Tan. The editors at DSF realized this too, and wanted to know whether the reference was intentional.

My first instinct was to change the character’s name. But the more I thought about it, the more amused I became by the coincidence. So instead of changing the name, I reached out to Mr. Tan and asked his permission to leave it in. He was amenable to the idea and has officially become the first person to be tuckerized in one of my stories.

So read “The Take” and, if you enjoyed it, be sure to stop by the DSF Facebook page and leave a comment. Because I almost always have another submission in their slush pile, and a well-received story can’t possibly hurt 🙂

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

My 2011 Nebula Awards Nominations

February 15, 2012

One of the cool things about joining SFWA is that I get to nominate my favorite fiction for the coveted Nebula Awards. Nebulas are voted on by the active SFWA members and are awarded in several different categories. I am not well-read enough to nominate longer fiction this year but made certain

There are tons of great stories published every year. I’m sure I haven’t read even 1% of works published in 2011 that are good enough to be considered for an award. So instead, I cheated. Other SFWA members are able to recommend their favorites on a private forum. Over the last week, I read as many of the stories recommended by at least three different people as I could access (some of them weren’t available online) and selected mostly among those. Of course, I also considered the stories that I read and enjoyed over the course of the year. My nominations were as follows:

The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu (Fantasy & Science Fiction, 3 / 2011)

The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees by E. Lily Yu (Clarkesworld, 4 / 2011)

Staying Behind by Ken Liu (Clarkesworld, 10 / 2011)

Like Origami in Water by Damien Walters Grintalis (Daily Science Fiction, 10 / 2011)

I Kill Monsters by Nathaniel Lee (Daily Science Fiction, 10 / 2011)

My overall best short story of 2011 pick Is “The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu. It’s beautifully written and emotionally powerful. Ken has had an amazing year and there are easily half a dozen stories of his that were strong contenders for my top 5 list, but I thought it only fair to leave a little room for other authors.

Daily Science Fiction has been providing my SF/F short story fix all year long, and I love a lot of the stuff they publish. I selected my favorites among both flash length stories (Like Origami in Water) and longer fare (I Kill Monsters) that they published in 2011. DSF is getting a cold shoulder from some reviewers due to the sheer volume of material they publish, but I’m confident we’ll be seeing more and more of their stories receive award nods.

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

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