DOUGLAS SMITH | Writing the Fantastic

Writer friend and editor, Mark Leslie, recently informed all of the contributors to his 2009 horror anthology, Campus Chills, that the book is currently required reading for the third year English 333 course "Horror in Literature" at Hilbert College in New York state, along with Dracula, Frankenstein, and the works of Poe. Pretty cool company!

The course, "The Literature of Horror," is taught by Herb Kauderer and "will explore the themes of horror and the grotesque inherent in the horror genre by examining some of the seminal texts of horror fiction... The course will trace the ways in which symbolic and thematic elements have been reinscribed in later works of fiction and film. The course will explore the manner in which these texts reveal cultural themes, values and ideologies."

My story, "Radio Nowhere," appeared in Campus Chills, and was a finalist for the Aurora Award in 2010. If you're interested, you can pick up an ebook copy of the story at any of the major ebook retailers.

My award-winning novelette, "Scream Angel," will appear in the reprint anthology, Circus: Fantasy Under the Big Top, which will feature the best circus-themed stories that editor Ekatarina Sedia could find. Check out the draft cover to the left and the table of contents below. I'm thrilled to see my little tale in the company of stories by such a fine list of authors.

• “Something About a Death, Something About a Fire” Peter Straub
• “Smoke & Mirrors” Amanda Downum
• “Calliope: A Steam Romance” Andrew J McKiernan
• “Welcome to the Greatest Show in the Universe” Deborah Walker
• “Vanishing Act” E. Catherine Tobler
• “Quin’s Shanghai Circus” Jeff VanderMeer
• “Scream Angel” Douglas Smith
• “The Vostrasovitch Clockwork Animal and Traveling Forest Show at the End of the World” Jessica Reisman
• “Study, for Solo Piano” Genevieve Valentine
• “Making My Entrance Again with My Usual Flair” Ken Scholes
• “The Quest” Barry B. Longyear
• “26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss” Kij Johnson
• “Courting the Queen of Sheba” Amanda C. Davis
• “Circus Circus” Eric Witchey
• “Phantasy Moste Grotesk” Felicity Dowker
• “Learning to Leave” Christopher Barzak
• “Ginny Sweethips’ Flying Circus” Neal Barrett Jr
• “The Aarne-Thompson Classification Revue” Holly Black
• “Manipulating Paper Birds” Cate Gardner
• “Winter Quarters” Howard Waldrop

"Scream Angel" first appeared in the anthology Low Port, edited by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller (Meisha Merlin, 2003) and won the Aurora Award for best short fiction in 2004. It's included in my collection, Chimerascope. Check out its full publication history and reviews, or buy an ebook copy of the story.

My urban fantasy story, "Out of the Light," appears in Volume 1 of a new anthology series, Best New Werewolf Tales (publisher: Books of the Dead; editor: Carolina Smart). "Out of the Light" first appeared in Dark Wisdom Magazine in 2007 and is included in my collection Chimerascope. The story was actually selected as an Aurora Award finalist in 2008, but I elected to drop it from the ballot so it wouldn't compete with another of my stories, "Dancer at the Red Door." Didn't work. Still lost. Here's the teaser from the ebook version of this story:

Jan Mirocek used to be a hunter. A very special hunter. Once, he had hunted the things that haunt the forests of the night in every culture of the world. The kallikantzari of Greece. The loup-garou of France. The kitsune of Japan. Were-beasts. Shape-shifters.

Until one night, Jan made a mistake, and the woman he loved died. Now he shuns the dark and his own past, hiding in a big city. For the were-beasts never come here.

Or do they? People are dying in Toronto, and all signs point to a shifter. But can Jan conquer his own fears to track down the killer? And what kind of shape shifter would be at home in a modern city?

Best of luck to Books of the Dead on the series and fingers crossed for Volume Two, since I've had a story selected for that one, too [grin].

My story "Nothing" has been reprinted yet again, this time in an anthology of flash fiction entitled, er, Flush Fiction, from the nice and talented people who publish Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.

The antho is subtitled "88 Short-Short Stories You Can Read in a Single Sitting." Not sure why 88, unless perhaps Uncle John keeps a piano in his bathroom.

Anyway, you can check it out here on Amazon. Go on—buy a copy and keep it in your bathroom. Even if you don't like the stories, you never know when some extra paper will come in handy (just don't use pages 156-159, please).

My urban fantasy (well, okay, it's more of a wilderness fantasy) "Spirit Dance" will be reprinted in the upcoming anthology Blood and Water from Bundoran Press, edited by Hayden Trenholm. "Spirit Dance" was my first published story and was a finalist for the Aurora Award in 1998. A French translation of the story won the Aurora in 2001. It was included in my 2008 collection, Impossibilia. Check out the draft cover for Blood and Water to the right. Here's a description of the anthology from Bundoran:

"Conflicts over oil and diamonds marked the latter half of the twentieth century but the fights of the next century will be more visceral. You can live without oil or diamonds but try surviving without more basic things: fresh water, safe food or clean air. Try surviving while deserts form in Africa and the heartland of America; while oceans claim back coastal cities and Pacific islands. Blood and Water will gather the stories of the new resource wars that will mark the next fifty years – stories of conflict and cooperation, of hope and despair – all told from a uniquely Canadian perspective."

Judging from the authors listed in the table of contents, this is going to be a great anthology:

• Drowntown by Camille Alexa
• Bubbles and Boxes by Julie Czerneda
• Phoebastria by Jennifer Rahn
• Hard Water by Christine Cornell
• Rabbit Season by Fiona Moore
• Not a Drop to Drink by Stephanie Bedwell-Grime
• Scrabbling By Isabella Hodson
• Bad Blood by Agnes Cadieux
• We Take Care of Our Own by Kate Heartfield
• The Parable of the Clown by Derek Künsken
• Blue Train by Derryl Murphy
• The Cow’s in the Meadow, the Blood’s in the Corn by Margaret Curelas
• Rash of Flowers by Ryan McFadden
• This is the Ice Age by Claude Lalumière
• Storm by Gerald Brandt
• Little Canada by Kevin Cockle
• Spirit Dance by Douglas Smith
• The Great Divide by Brent Nichols
• Digging Deeper by Susan Forest
• Watching the Human Garden by Jean-Louis Trudel

I'll post again when the anthology is published and available for purchase.

My story "Nothing" has been reprinted again, this time in the charity flash fiction horror anthology, Slices of Flesh, edited by Stan Swanson. I was very happy to have a story of mine selected and to be able to contribute to a good cause. However, when I got my contributor's copy and saw the cover, I was even more thrilled. Check it out at the left.

Recognize that style? Familiar, yes? That's because the cover artist was none other than Mike Mignola of Hellboy comics fame. A very cool surprise bonus to having a story picked.

Net proceeds from the Slices of Flesh anthology go to a variety of charities chosen by the publisher, Dark Moon Books, including various reading and literacy programs, the Horror Writers Association Hardship Fund, and the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation. The anthology is available for purchase at Amazon.

My translated collection, La Danse des Esprits (Dreampress, France, 2010), which earlier was a finalist (yeah, past tense – I lost) for France's juried Prix Masterton, was also a finalist (yeah, past tense again – I lost this one too) for another French juried award, the Prix Bob Morane.

The Prix Bob Morane Award was established in 1999 by well-known French editor Marc Bailly to pay tribute to one of the most well known French fictional characters. Created in 1953 by Henri Vernes, Bob Morane first appeared in books, but then spread to comic books, television series, cartoons, and even video games. His adventures spanned multiple genres, including science fiction, fantasy, fantasy, and espionage thrillers.

Although I ended up not winning either, it really was an unexpected thrill for me, an English writer, to have my collected stories nominated for two awards in the same year in another language and another country.

Whoa, I'm way behind in posting updates and news here, so I'll be trying to catch you up on some recent sales and publications over the next week or so.

To clarify the title line above, actually quite a bit is published in White Cat Magazine, an excellent online fiction magazine that "is all about encouraging writers to keep writing, readers to keep reading and to inspire a sense of elegant possibilities in the creative community."

White Cat published my short-short story, "Nothing," in their January issue, and you can still read it in their archive for a while or get your own copy here.

This story first appeared in my collection Chimerascope in 2010. It's the shortest piece I've ever written at about 1,000 words, and as you'll see from some future posts, it's currently rather popular.

On June 9-10, 2012, I'll once again be participating in the Enbridge "Ride to Conquer Cancer", a 2-day major cycling event that raises money for The Princess Margaret Hospital, one of the top 5 cancer research hospitals in the world. If you're interested, you can see some pictures and read my story from last year's ride on my personal RTCC page here.

I'll be cycling over 200 km that weekend, with thousands of other riders. This time, I'm reversing last year's route, starting in Niagara Falls on the Saturday and finishing up at the CNE grounds in Toronto on Sunday.

I just posted some additional updates to my Foreign Market List.