DOUGLAS SMITH | Writing the Fantastic

The next post in my series at Amazing Stories on marketing and selling short fiction is now up. This week's entry is the first of a 2-week discussion on why you never "sell" a short story. These two posts contain information on how licensing of fiction rights work, information that is critical for every short story writer to understand. Check out this week's post here.

I blogged recently about the upcoming relaunch of Amazing Stories Magazine. Well, the official opening of the new site to the public was yesterday, January 21. See below for the press release from Steve Davidson, the new publisher for Amazing Stories.

For my part, I'm writing a blog series on the site on how to market and sell your short fiction, entitled "Playing the Short Game." I now have three posts in the series up on the Amazing Stories site:

Part 1: Introduction - Who I am and what this series will cover

Part 2: Why are you writing? - Deciding on the writing career that you want

Part 3: Why short fiction? - The benefits of the short game to a writing career

The series is aimed at the beginning writer. If that's you, I hope you'll drop by each week. I'll be posting weekly, and my posts (I think) will be going up each Monday. If you're an experienced writer, please drop by as well and add your comments based on your own experience and knowledge. 

And while you're there, check out the new site. There are over fifty bloggers that cover not just fiction topics, but all aspects of fandom. Look around and I'll bet that you'll find something that interests you. Hope to see you there! Here's a page that will list all of my posts in the "Playing the Short Game" series on the Amazing Stories site.

OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE

HOLD FOR RELEASE UNTIL MONDAY, JANUARY 21ST

Amazing Stories, the world's first science fiction magazine, is now open to the public.

Social Magazine Website Offers Nearly Sixty Writers and Social Networking For Fans!

On Wednesday, January 2nd, 2013, I will be joined by more than 50 other writers from around the blogosphere to help launch the Beta Test of Phase 1 of the return of Amazing Stories. I'll be writing a blog series, aimed at new or beginning writers, on how to market and sell your short fiction. 

For me, it is especially very cool to be part of the relaunch of Amazing Stories. One of my first professional sales was to AS back in the late 90's ("State of Disorder" in issue #595 -- see the cover at the left) when Kim Mohan was the fiction editor. I still remember the thrill of being in an issue with Jack Williamson and Frederic Pohl. Back then, AS was also one of the few magazines with a circulation large enough to be a "qualifying publication" for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. My sale to AS eventually led to me being one of five finalists on the 2001 Campbell ballot (I lost).

Amazing Stories was the world's first science fiction magazine.  Published by Hugo Gernsback, the Father of Science Fiction, the magazine created the genre's first home and was instrumental in helping to establish science fiction fandom – the fandom from which all other fandoms have evolved.

The magazine itself ceased publication in 2005. In 2008 the new publisher, Steve Davidson, discovered that the trademarks had lapsed and applied for them.  The marks were finally granted in 2011.

Phase 1 introduces the social networking aspects of the site and the Blog Team, more than 50 authors, artists, collectors, editors, pod casters, designers and bloggers who will address 14 different subjects on a regular basis – SF, Fantasy & Horror literature, anime, gaming, film, television, the visual arts, audio works, the pulps, comics, fandom, science and publishing. 

If any of you are interested in participating in the Beta Test of the site, you can request an invitation by emailing the publisher, Steve Davidson.

And here is a link to the official press release from Steve. 

I am very pleased to announce that I have just published a new ebook edition of my collection, Chimerascope, which was a finalist for the juried Sunburst Award, as well as the CBC's Bookies Award and the Aurora Award in 2011. This new edition is available from all the major ebook retailers. A full set of buying links are provided below.

This edition contains all of the same content and the same great cover by Erik Mohr as the original print and the first ebook editions, but it also includes an excerpt from my upcoming novel, The Wolf at the End of the World, as well as excerpts from three novelettes. And it's also a lot cheaper at $6.99, compared to the original $9.99 for the first ebook edition. 

Derek Newman-Stille has just posted a review of Impossibilia, my first collection from 2008, on his excellent Speculating Canada site. An excerpt from the review follows:

"Impossibilia features Douglas Smith’s fascination with moral questions and morally ambiguous spaces where characters are forced to question conflicting values and ideologies. ... There is no certain ground in Smith’s work and readers are compelled to question every element of their identity and explore whether there is anything such as a fixed identity. Everything is changeable and everything is open to questions.

A collection of short stories, Impossibilia represents an exploration of the ways that the past continues to haunt us. ... Present and past intersect in Impossibilia, and memory is something inescapable. Smith does not focus his stories on the development of new loves (that’s too easy), but rather the fall-outs of love, the casualties of love and the repercussions."

You can read more about Impossibilia here. It was an Aurora Award finalist in 2009 and is now available as an ebook in either Kindle or epub (most ereaders) formats. Click here for buying links for all formats.

So here is my very late and abbreviated report from attending World Fantasy Convention in Markham (yes, Markham, not Toronto) two weekends ago. First, I had much fun and spent the entire weekend catching up with old friends, making new ones, and talking business. 

What? That picture at the right? Ah, well, that is the already famous "A tub full of authors" from the epic (EPIC!) ChiZine Publications party on Saturday night. But then, all CZP parties are epic. EPIC! From left to right, the peeps in the pic are: Brent Hayward, David Nickle, Rio Youers, Halli Villegas, Susie Moloney, Derryl Murphy, Gemma Files, Marcy Italiano, me and Tone Milazzo. (Tone, seeing that all of him that got into the pic was his head, commented: "Apparently I got naked for nothing.") And yes, this is how CZP stores their authors when they're not using them.

At the left is a pic of me with friend, fellow writer, and CZP website ninja, Barry King, at the World Fantasy Awards banquet on Sunday. We sat at one of four CZP tables. CZP was nominated, but sadly did not win.

I decided not to do panels this time and instead just enjoy the con. I did one reading (and thanks to all those who showed up at 10am on Sunday after the big party night to hear me read. Much appreciated!). I read from my latest story, "The Walker of the Shifting Borderland" from the fall issue of On Spec that was released at the con. I didn't even get to any panels. Every time I started to walk somewhere, I'd run into someone and end up talking for half an hour. Which was great! Best kind of con, imo.

I did get to hear Charles de Lint do a reading, and finally had the opportunity to meet him face to face after that and chat for a while. Major fan boy moment for me, and he's just as nice as all his characters would lead you to believe, by the way.

And one last pic, on the left, of me and friend, fellow writer, and editor, Hayden Trenholm, at the mass signing on Saturday. It was a fun weekend and a very well run con, and all involved seemed to have a great time.

On his "Speculating Canada" site, Derek Newman-Stille finished off his Halloween-themed  "Werewolf Wednesdays" review series in October with a thoughtful review of "Spirit Dance," one of my Heroka stories. You can read Derek's review here. Some selected excerpts follow:

"Spirit Dance represents a blending of mythologies, combining European myths of the werewolf with myths from Canada’s indigenous peoples. When a non-indigenous person uses aboriginal myths, there is always a danger of misuse or cultural appropriation, and although Douglas Smith refers to elements of indigenous culture, he does this in a respectful way. ... His work shows a respect for Canada’s First Peoples as formative for the Canadian experience. ...  Unlike many authors, Smith does not put aboriginal people in the position of the cultural Other, nor does he try to put aboriginal people into the position of the “noble savage” archetype, trying to make them the holders of ancient wisdom. ...

 

Smith, as many writers are beginning to do, wields the werewolf as a symbol for ecological issues, representing the fusion of the natural and the human in one form and representing an animal that is traditionally stigmatised as dangerous while also representing the deep woods and the image of untouched nature.

 

Smith presents a strong ecological mystery story ... where characters are forced into a space of moral question where values conflict with one another."

"Spirit Dance" was my first story, both written and sold, and was first published in Tesseracts6 (edited by Robert J. Sawyer and Carolyn Clink, 1997). A translation won the Aurora Award in 2001. The story is also the basis for my upcoming novel, The Wolf at the End of the World, due out in 2013 and which takes place five years after this story. If you want to read "Spirit Dance," you can find it in my collection Impossibilia or as a stand-alone ebook.

I'd blogged earlier about selling a new short story entitled "Fiddleheads" to the upcoming anthology Chilling Tales 2. I can now share with you the final cover for the antho, shown here, and also the amazing list of authors alongside whom I will have the honour to appear. 

Table of Contents:

• In Libitina’s House by Camille Alexa
• Gingerbread People by Colleen Anderson
• Meteor Lake by Kevin Cockle
• Homebody by Gemma Files
• Snowglobes by Lisa L Hannett
• The Dog’s Paw by Derek Künsken
• The Flowers of Katrina by Claude Lalumière
• Goldmine by Daniel LeMoal
• The Salamander’s Waltz by Catherine MacLeod
• Weary, Bone Deep by Michael Matheson
• The Windemere by Susie Moloney
• Black Hen A La Ford by David Nickle
• Day Pass by Ian Rogers
• Fiddleheads by Douglas Smith
• Dwelling on the Past by Simon Strantzas
• Heart of Darkness by Edo van Belkom
• Fishfly Season by Halli Villegas
• Road Rage by Bev Vincent
• Crossroads Blues by Robert J. Wiersema
• Honesty by Rio Youers

As with Chilling Tales 1, the anthology was edited by Michael Kelly and is being published by Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy in Edmonton. More information on the anthology and the contributors is availabe at the Edge website.

I'd blogged earlier about how the very cool site Kindlegraph let you request autographs, complete with personal messages, for your Kindle ebooks from your favourite authors. Well, the site has now been expanded to include all ebooks, not just on the Kindle. In keeping with that change, the site is now called Authorgraph (which I think is a great name for this service).

I've registered all of my ebooks with Authorgraph site and have my own page, where you can request a personalized autograph for any of my ebooks that you might have in your collection. Simply go to my Authorgraph page, click on the "Request authorgraph" button below the book that you want autographed, and follow the instructions. Another change: you now no longer require a Twitter account to request an autograph -- just an email address.

You'll receive a separate ebook file, which will contain just the cover of the ebook, under which will appear a personalized message from me to you, and the author's electronic signature. It would be ideal to have it inserted into the original ebook, but this is still a very neat, simple, and free little service. I hope that you'll try it out, for my ebooks or any ebook from your favourite authors.

I'll be an author guest at SFContario 3 this coming weekend, Nov 9-11, in downtown Toronto. This is a fairly new convention, now in its third year. If you're in the area or are already going, here is my schedule of panels, readings, and activities for the convention:

Saturday, Nov 10:

• 11am - noon: Panel - But I don't know any vampires (Ballroom A)
• 1:00 - 2:00pm: Reading (Gardenview Room)
• 3:00 - 4:00pm: Signing (Ballroom hallway)
• 5:00 - 6:00pm: Panel - SFContario Idol (Courtyard)
• 6:00 - 7:00pm: Panel - What happened to our utopias? (Courtyard)

Sunday, Nov 11:

• Noon - 1pm: Kaffeeklatsch (Room 207)

Here's some more detail on the above panels:

But I don't know any vampires: Our English teachers taught us to "write what you know" But very few of us have been on a long space journey, met a vampire detective, or fought a fire-breathing dragon. Our panelists discuss how a little research and common sense can give you just enough background to really write about what you don't know. (Helen Marshall, Michael McPherson, David Nickle, Douglas Smith (Moderator), Caitlin Sweet)

SFContario Idol: Attendees bring in the first page of their manuscript. A presenter from SFContario will read out the manuscript (anonymously) until a majority of our panel of judges ‘buzz’ the story to a stop. Discussion ensues on why they stopped it, what didn’t work and what did work. A great exercise in story openings that will provide immediate valuable feedback to the writers. (Suzanne Church, Sandra Kasturi, Duff McCourt, Brett Savory, Douglas Smith)

What happened to our Utopias? Finding examples of current SF dystopias is easy. But where are all of the utopias in our SF imagination? It seems that since the 1970s, it is more and more difficult for audiences to find examples of the perfect, harmonized future. Is anybody writing about utopia anymore? Does the lack of utopian fiction and film mean that we, as a society, have lost hope? (Chandler Davis, Violette Malan, James Nicoll, Douglas Smith)

Reading: I'll be reading from my new story, "The Walker of the Shifting Borderland," which is out now in the new issue of On Spec.

Kaffeeklatsch: Drop by and have a chat with me in a small group about my writing, writing in general, Buffy, movies, or whatever.

Hope to see you there!