If you're in NYC, you should come to tomorrow night's KGB Fantastic Fiction Reading, featuring Samuel R. Delany, Jack Womack, Cat Rambo, and Kris Dikeman, with guest host Rajan Khanna. This special reading of CW instructors and graduates is to raise awareness (and hopefully donations) for the Clarion West Writers Workshop. For a limited time, Amazon has promised to match every dollar donated to CW, so now is the time to double your contribution to a good cause!

On that note, thank you to everyone who is sponsoring me in this summer's CW Write-a-thon, now that I know who you are! You are all awesome for supporting me and CW. I have been logging my promised seven hours of writing each week (roughly an hour a day), and then some. It's been mostly freelance blogging work lately, to be honest, but I finally started a new short story this morning, and if I can finish that soon I have some story revisions lined up next. It's been a busy summer! I owe donations to a few of my fellow writers in the Write-a-thon as well, which I'll be acting on in the next few days.

I also want to pass on a link to an article that does a really good job of defining what makes a novel suitable for "young adult" (YA) readers versus "middle grade" (MG): http://ididntchoosethis.blogspot.com/2009/07/new-ya.html This distinction plagues many a reader and writer, and I hope this author's insights clear things up. But the best way to discover YA fiction is to read it yourself, which I also highly recommend.

"Hot Toxic Love"

I finally managed to see The Toxic Avenger Musical on the Fourth of July for the bargain promotional price of $17.76 :) I thought it was a lot of fun, whether you've seen the Troma films or not. I think you'll probably like it if you enjoyed The Evil Dead: The Musical. If you're curious about the show, check out my review over at Tor.com.

If you haven't seen this episode, you really should--even if you think you don't like Star Trek. This is one of the best.

"Too bad it only gets the History Channel."

“The City on the Edge of Forever”
Written by Harlan Ellison^TM
Directed by Joseph Pevney

Season 1, Episode 28
Production episode: 1x 28
Original air date: April 6, 1967
Star date: no star date (dun dun dun)

Mission summary
The Enterprise is in shaky orbit around a planet, rocking back and forth like a seafaring vessel as “ripples in time” from the surface wash over the ship. An explosion at the helm knocks Sulu unconscious and McCoy is summoned to the bridge to administer medical assistance. He gives Sulu a small dose of “cordrazine,” a powerful and dangerous stimulant, which revives him in a very good mood. Another time ripple rocks the ship and McCoy accidentally empties the entire hypospray of cordrazine into his stomach. He immediately flips out, ranting “Killers! Assassins!” and fleeing the Bridge. The drug has driven him mad, with the paranoid delusion that people are trying to kill him. He attacks the Transporter Chief and beams down to the planet to escape.

Read the rest of the review and commentary from me and moonlightalice at Tor.com

With today's news that Pandora will start capping their free service at 40 hours a month, you'll probably need some other things to listen to. Fortunately, I have a couple of treats to pass your way:

"The Scent of Their Arrival" by Mercurio D. Rivera
in Transmissions from Beyond #18
A podcast of Rivera's excellent SF vampire story, which originally appeared in Interzone 214, read by the author and Matt Kressel of Sybil's Garage fame.

The return of Adventures in SciFi Publishing: a podcast interview with smart and funny author Greg van Eekhout of Norse Code fame. This is a great discussion about writing short stories, writing novels, and the realities of publishing.

Sorry for the crappy image. I always find these places when I don't have my camera.

The last day of the workshop was lovely. Much of it was spent hanging about, shopping in downtown Flagstaff, and enjoying many "last" moments: last trip to Macy's coffee shop, last drinks at the balcony bar, last dinner with the whole group (sadly, minus one). One of the unexpected high points of the trip was a late night trip to the Lowell Observatory, which almost didn't happen. The big telescope was shuttered because of clouds and rain, but shunn, brad_beaulieu, and I were treated to some sights through a portable reflector telescope, including the crescent moon, the Ring Nebula, the Hercules Cluster, M27 (I think), and the double star Mizar in the Big Dipper. I didn't know that Flagstaff was the first International Dark Sky city, but I fully support the effort. If I ever live in a place with the stars as bright as that, I might just buy a telescope. I think I'd like to find out more about astronomy, in any case.

I didn't intend to get any sleep on Friday night, since I had to be on a 4am shuttle ride to Phoenix Sky Harbor airport and I didn't want to risk missing it. After chatting with the guys at our house, I recorded a critique of rajankhanna's short story in Google Voice for broadcast on Hour of the Wolf, which you can listen to here.

My trip home was far less eventful than the one there. Almost every step of the way went flawlessly, and I even made it on an earlier flight from Denver to NYC, which allowed me to stagger to kent_allard's housewarming party in Astoria that evening, since it was on the way home from LaGuardia. Apologies if I was less than social, but I was pretty exhausted from traveling all day. I'm now all rested up and settling back into my regular life. Which unfortunately includes going back to work tomorrow morning!

Here are some photos from my trip:

Starry Heaven 2009

The last few days of the workshop have been terrific. I've learned a lot about writing (there's always more to learn!) and having fun besides. The days of critiquing and nights hanging at the Zane Grey bar are beginning to blur together a bit (though I'll never forget Rob's mini macho nachos!). I have eaten so much food lately (largely thanks to the culinary talents of brad_beaulieu) and drank more beer this week than I usually do in a few months. I'm sure my Wii Fit will have words with me when I get home.

Of course, the highlight for me was the critique of my full novel manuscript on Wednesday morning. I was happy that my two critiquers enjoyed WHO WE USED TO BE and between them they gave me a lot of feedback and suggestions on the world-building, characters, plotting, and themes in the book. I have a pretty good idea on how to make it work; fortunately I don't need to rip it apart too much, but there's still a lot of work ahead of me.

On Wednesday night, most of us relaxed with a screening of Cloverfield. It was actually better than I remembered. I noticed a bunch of details I had missed the first time around, and I was better able to appreciate the humor of the cameraman since I wasn't distracted by the death and destruction. I was surprised to recognize the ill-fated Marlena from True Blood. I had just seen her in an episode the night before, "The Fourth Man in the Fire." I guess she's been on a lot of shows and I had just never placed her.

Last night was our Writers' Q&A at the Wine Loft, which went really well, though a few of us declined to participate in the panel. (feiran, we should remember the Rudolf Muller Riesling, which I enjoyed at the bar.) Many local writers and readers actually showed up, including the new friend I made on Saturday at the airport, and they all had really good questions. We then adjourned to the Beaver Street Brewery for mass quantities of good food.

So today is our last day. After giving my last critique this morning, we took a group photo, had some delicious Thai Food, and wandered around downtown Flagstaff. In a little bit we'll have our last night at the balcony bar at the Zane Grey, have a celebratory farewell barbeque, and start preparing for our journeys back to our normal lives tomorrow. I'm not actually going to get any sleep tonight; I have a cab coming at an insanely early hour to take me to the shuttle that will take me to the airport for an 8am flight. I sure hope things run more smoothly this time around.

I've been trying to keep up with my Clarion West Write-a-thon goals, but things will be a lot easier once I'm home. I have a couple of short stories I need to work on right away, which should give me enough distance on the novel before I start revising.

Sadly, I have neglected to mention that my writing group Altered Fluid will be on Jim Freund's radio show, Hour of the Wolf, on Saturday morning (6/27) from 5am to 7am. We will be critiquing a story by Rajan Khanna live on the air.

You can listen to the show on WBAI 99.5 FM in the NY Metro area, or anywhere in the world at http://stream.wbai.org. You can listen to the archived program for six months at the Facebook Hour of the Wolf group or at hourwolf.com. You can read about our previous on-air hijinks here.

Though I am still in Flagstaff cheating on Altered Fluid with another group of cool writers at Starry Heaven, I shall be participating in the broadcast through the miracle of science. However, logistics demand that my comments be pre-recorded, though I should be (mostly) awake anyway preparing for an early flight back home.

While chilling outside after our critiquing session ended, this butterfly stood still long enough for me to snap a picture:



( Two more beneath the cut )

I'm sitting outside in sunny, warm Flagstaff, Arizona (as opposed to gray, rainy NYC). We've just finished the first half of our day's critiques and I'm digesting a delicious lunch.

I had a rough time getting out here on Saturday. I showed up at LaGuardia airport at 7:30am for a 9am flight to Chicago, only to discover that because of bad weather in the Midwest, my flight had been cancelled. I was rescheduled for a 5pm flight to Denver, which was really not going to work for me. I met a woman who was also trying to get to Flagstaff, and the two of us managed to get standby tickets for a 10:30am flight to Denver. Fortunately that worked out, and we waited to find out if we could get on a connecting flight to Phoenix at 3:20. That flight was delayed to 5:20, but the good news was we there was plenty of room for us. We madly rearranged our travel plans for the shuttle bus from Phoenix to Flagstaff, and eventually we made it to our destination at around 10:30pm. Then I went to sleep.

As far as birthdays go, I've had better. But, you know, it could have been worse:



And it wasn't all bad. My travel companion was really fun and interesting, and she treated me to birthday beer. If not for her, I would have been hard pressed to maintain my sanity, and it's great to make new friends in unexpected places.

The next morning was Day One of the Starry Heaven workshop, which shunn has faithfully recounted here. Basically, for the first few days, we're critting the first 50 pages of our novels. Mine was up on the first day, and everyone loved it--except for those who didn't. I got some great feedback and suggestions for fixing what's wrong, which is a big part of why I'm here. So far, the workshop is even better than I hoped it would be. I'm both looking forward to and dreading the critique of my full manuscript on Thursday...

Internet access is spotty for me (we only have access from one house, and maybe a local coffee shop), and there are lots of cool people to hang out with here, so I'm keeping a fairly low profile online. That's a nice break, too.

I have a few projects to work on in my downtime here. I should probably get on those, huh?

No, I'm not going back to Clarion West, but I am once again participating in this year's Write-a-thon! I had serious doubts about joining in, having just finished a novel and all. I've been a little burned out lately and looking forward to some downtime, but I've committed to write for at least an hour a day for the next six weeks, in solidarity with the class of 2009--not a difficult proposition with all my blogging and reviewing of late. I will be applying this enforced writing time to a new short story of some sort, revising a couple of old ones, and diving into revisions on WHO WE USED TO BE later in the summer.

If you are so inclined, I would be thrilled if you could support me and the workshop with a donation, no matter how small. CW has a fantastic challenge grant from Amazon if we can raise $25,000 by October 31, 2009. The Write-a-thon donations could help guarantee Amazon doubling that amount with a matching donation! About this time four years ago I was on my way to the workshop, and my life and writing career has never been the same since. If I didn't believe in what CW can do for new writers and the SF community, I wouldn't participate so actively in the workshop and solicit support from my friends and family.

So please check out my donor page and contribute what you can. I'll be writing either way, because that's what writers do, but it will make it easier if I know someone is benefiting from those thousands of words. There are many other writers participating as well, if you want to spread your donations around a little.

But wait, there's more! If you're in NYC next month, there will be a special Clarion West KGB Fantastic Fiction reading on July 15th, with Samuel R. Delany, Jack Womack, Cat Rambo, Kris Dikeman and guest-hosted by Rajan Khanna.

And speaking of workshops, I'm heading to one in Flagstaff early Saturday morning, so I should probably get to bed right about now. I'm not as young as I once was.

My friend and writing buddy Mercurio D. Rivera's amazing story "The Fifth Zhi" is now up on Escape Pod, where you can enjoy it without the nuisance of reading. Listen to the podcast here:

http://escapepod.org/2009/06/18/ep-204-the-fifth-zhi/

I kept thinking about this story while watching the film Moon, so if you liked the movie you may appreciate this piece as well. "The Fifth Zhi" originally appeared in issue #219 of Interzone in December 2008. I think it's one of my favorites of the many fantastic stories he has written.

I'm not crossposting every one of these reviews over here, even if it seems that way, but this episode is special since it planted the seeds (ha ha) for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan!

"Of course it's real."

“Space Seed”
Written by Gene L. Coon and Carey Wilber
Story by Carey Wilber
Directed by Marc Daniels

Season 1, Episode 22
Production episode: 1x24
Original air date: February 16, 1967
Star date: 3141.9

Mission summary
The Enterprise stumbles across an unknown vessel, as it often does, but this one is transmitting a repeating signal in Morse Code: CQ. Kirk doesn’t even need Uhura to translate this old message, “calling any station,” leaving her with nothing to do. When they get in visual range, Spock identifies it as a DY-100, an Earth ship built in the 1990s. It has no business being out there, and they determine it must be a derelict or is being used by aliens. McCoy’s bioscanners do pick up faint non-human heartbeats, averaging “only four beats per minute,” and sensors detect functioning equipment on the other ship, though there’s no other activity.

Read the rest of the review and commentary from me and moonlightalice at Tor.com

penmage has reminded me that it is Captain Picard Day! Hurray!

http://penmage.livejournal.com/746682.html

On the writing front:
I received a certificate from Writers of the Future this weekend--another Honorable Mention for a short story. Am having trouble motivating myself to resubmit short stories to markets, and it seems we're running out of markets to submit to as well. This is possibly linked to my lack of motivation to write new short stories and revise the ones already in progress. My head is very much in novels these days. I have an itch to start working on my fourth book, but I need to let the ideas simmer a little bit. Also, I don't have time right now.

One of my favorite bookstores, Books of Wonder, is up for a Parents' Picks Best of New York City Award. Apparently it's neck-and-neck with the Scholastic Store, which only sells Scholastic books and has all of its employees voting for it every day. I encourage everyone to vote for Books of Wonder, once a day, until July 15th! They are not only good to children's and YA books, but they frequently have science fiction and fantasy readings and signings. Also, they sell delicious cupcakes.

The first installment of Cat Valente's YA/MG novel, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, *gasp, breathe* is now online. If you like it, consider donating to keep it (and Cat) going, won't you?

More updates and links are forthcoming. Carry on.

I really enjoyed writing this one! One of the stronger episodes from the first season.

No, no. This is a Star Trek convention. Anime Expo is down the hall.

“Court Martial”
Written by Don M.Mankiewicz and Steven W. Carabatsos (story by Don M. Mankiewicz)
Directed by Marc Daniels

Season 1, Episode 20
Production episode: 1x14
Original air date: February 2, 1967
Star date: 2947.3

Mission summary
After the Enterprise encounters another dangerous ion storm, it puts in at Starbase 11 for repairs. Unfortunately, the damage to the ship is the least of their problems; the records officer, Lieutenant Commander Benjamin Finney, was killed when Captain Kirk was forced to jettison an ion pod with him still inside. You wouldn’t believe the amount of paperwork this creates! Kirk even has to wear a fancy shirt to deliver his sworn deposition to the grim-faced Commodore Stone, who is probably the longest-surviving red shirt in Starfleet. Spock beams down with an extract from the ship’s computer logs to supplement Kirk’s report, and a moment later a girl cosplaying as Sailor Mercury bursts into the room. This is Jame (pronounced “Jamie”) Finney, and she accuses Kirk of murdering her dad. After Spock escorts the sobbing girl out of the office, Commodore Stone accuses Kirk of perjury, since the computer records indicate that the captain jettisoned the pod before calling for a Red Alert. He’s confined to the starbase while they decide whether he’ll face court martial.

Read the rest of the review and commentary from me and moonlightalice at Tor.com

Oddly enough, this one is also related to Superman... My essay, "Dear Superman", is now up at Fantasy Magazine, where you can read it for free. It originally appeared in Talking Back: Epistolary Fantasies, edited by L. Timmel DuChamp (Aqueduct Press, 2006) and I am delighted to be able to share it with a wider audience, especially in such a terrific venue.

Don't worry, I only have one other Superman short story, which remains unpublished so you likely won't see it for a while, if ever.

I have some short fiction for you today. Some very short fiction! A Thousand Faces, the quarterly journal of superhuman fiction, has reprinted "Homecoming" in their new spring issue, #8. This story originally appeared in Fictitious Force #3, but now you can read it online for free. If you really like it and the other excellent pieces in this issue, you can purchase a print copy for $10 at Lulu or get a digital version for $3.99.

Please read! It's one of my favorites of the flash stories I've written and I hope you like it.

I think I've Tweeted about this, but haven't mentioned it here. 28-year-old Nick Glasgow was just diagnosed with leukemia and has only weeks-to-months to live. He desperately needs a bone marrow donor but he's a quarter-Japanese, which is a difficult racial mix for finding matching donors. I know several people with interesting mixed-Asian heritage and I hope one of us might be able to help--if not Nick then someone else. You can read about Nick's situation and the difficulty involved with finding donors of mixed ethnicities, then if you can help I hope you will request a testing kit from the Asian American Donor Program. Kits are free for Asian-Americans and easy to use. Time is of the essence!

Ah! ABC is finally going to air the last episodes of Pushing Daisies beginning on Saturday, May 30 at 10pm. Must set DVR. I missed the online screenings and haven't bothered to download it or anything since I'm so far behind on a ton of other shows. I'm looking forward to these, though!