DOUGLAS SMITH | Writing the Fantastic

I just resold "Spirit Dance," the first story I ever wrote and first I ever sold, to the upcoming anthology, The Beast Within #2.

This is the 30th sale for this tale of shape-shifters, love, shadowy government agencies, and the environment. "Spirit Dance" is included in my collection, Impossibilia. You can read an excerpt here and reviews here.

Here's the cover from its original appearance in the Canadian anthology series, Tesseracts. This story started my fiction career, and it's great to know that the tale still has legs (especially since my first novel, "Spirit Dreams," is based on the characters from "Spirit Dance.")

Wow! I just learned that my collection, Chimerascope, had made the final ballot for the CBC "Bookies."

The Bookies are the brand new CBC Book Club awards, voted on by readers and (from the CBC site) "celebrating the best in literature in 2010, as chosen by you!" The Canadian entertainment site, Cadence Canada, has a good overview of the Bookies here.

It's great to see two other fellow ChiZine Publications authors on the list too: Gemma Files and Gord Zajak. Not bad for a small Toronto-based press only in its third year! And it is just so very cool to be on a ballot with William Gibson, Stieg Larsson, and Suzanne Collins.

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know that I resell a lot of my short fiction as translated reprints to non-English markets. One of my favourite foreign markets has always been the long-running Czech mag, Ikarie. These are two sample covers from issues where I've had stories appear.

Sadly, Ikarie has folded after 20 years and 247 issues. Its last issue was published in November 2010. I had one more story published in Ikarie before it passed away ("Doorways" in their July 2010 issue. I'll post the cover when I get my contributor copy).

But the good news is that Ikarie's editors are starting a new magazine, XB-1. And from my selfish perspective, the even better news is that they will be publishing one of my stories, "State of Disorder," that had been planned for Ikarie before its demise in their inaugural issue. See the cover to the right.

Best of luck to the editors on the new mag!

Writer Krista Ball, in addition to her regular blog, runs a separate review site dedicated to small presses. As she puts it, "small presses are often where new authors get started, and I think it's important that we give those houses a little extra exposure. ... I read a lot of small press works and decided to start a review site for them."

And on that review site, Krista recently took a look at ChiZine Publications and specifically, my collection Chimerascope from CZP. Here's an excerpt:

"This collection was impossible to put down. This contains one of the best collections of speculative fiction I have ever read. There is a reason that the majority of these stories have won awards and nominations. Smith is absolutely brilliant as he proves SF is every bit as intelligent and thought-provoking as any literary work out there. ... After reading the collection, I immediately knew Chimerascope would be on my Aurora Award nomination list this year."

You can read Krista's full review here. Thanks, Krista!

Locus is one of the major news sources for SF and fantasy, and if you're a Locus subscriber then voting is free, so give it a look. Vote for what you enjoyed and spread the word!

Locus Poll

And if I could suggest, here are the 2010 titles from ChiZine Publications, the most excellent publisher of my recent collection:

• Chimerascope by Douglas Smith (collection)
• Chasing the Dragon by Nicholas Kaufman (novella)
• Thief of Broken Toys by Tim Lebbon (novella)
• A Book of Tongues by Gemma Files (fantasy/first novel)
• Katya from the Punk Band by Simon Logan (thriller/SF? novel)
• Cities of Night by Phil Nutman (collection)
• Nexus: Ascension by Bob Boyczuk (SF novel)
• Sarah Court by Craig Davidson (SF novel/collection?)
• In the Mean Time by Paul Tremblay (collection)
• Major Karnage by Gord Zajac (SF/First novel)
• Hair Wreath by Halli Villegas (collection)
• People Live Still in Cashtown Corners (novella) ...
• and of course, ChiZine Publications for best Book Publisher. Well, duh...

It just doesn't get old. Here's another great review for Chimerascope, this time from Innsmouth Free Press. Here are the highlights:

"[T]here is not only something here for everyone, but something good for everyone, as Smith consistently displays his comfort and competence, working within multiple genres. ... Smith’s characters tend towards regular men and women caught in desperate situations, often fallible, sometimes likable, but always portrayed with, if not sympathy, then enough clarity that the reader may understand why the characters behave as they do. ... Ultimately, genre fans eager to read work by a talented author, who consistently writes top-notch prose, will be well-pleased to see the strange beasts lurking within Douglas Smith’s Chimerascope."

Read the whole review here, and if you're interested, check out the buying links for Chimerascope here, including both print and ebook editions.

Cory Redekop, who earlier this year gave my collection a starred review in Quill & Quire, has picked Chimerascope for Best Short Story Collection in his personal "Best of 2010" list. Here's what he has to say:

"A sterling set of tales spanning the triple genres of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror. Echoes of Stephen King, Richard Matheson, and Clive Barker haunt the halls of Smith's work, but the end result is completely original, and always enthralling."

Thanks, Cory! He also includes works by several other ChiZine Publications authors, including:

Before I Wake, by Robert J. Wiersema The World More Full of Weeping, by Robert J. Wiersema The Thief of Broken Toys, by Tim Lebbon

Check out Cory's full "best of" list here.

NerdRemix.com has posted its Best Indie Movies of 2010, and the movie adaptation of "By Her Hand, She Draws You Down" swept their short film categories:

Best Short Film “By Her Hand She Draws You Down” Probably the best short I’ve ever seen.Best Actress-Short Film Zoe Daelman Chlanda-“By Her Hand She Draws You Down” Absolutely stunning, ‘nuff said!Best Actor-Short Film Jerry Murdock-“By Her Hand She Draws You Down” Fantastic! Just an awesome, emotional performance.

Best Director-Short Film Anthony G. Sumner-“By Her Hand She Draws You Down” Moody, grim, emotional—this is how it’s done.

Congratulations yet again to Anthony, Zoe, and Jerry, and to producer Alan Rowe Kelly!

There's a great review of Anthony Sumner's film adaptation of my short horror story "By Her Hand, She Draws You Down" at the, uh, The Zombie Rights Campaign site.

Now BHH contains no zombies, so I am touched that ZRC would include a review of the movie on their site dedicated to the rights of the living-challenged. Some extracts from the review:

"A couple of things really stand out about this film. One is how close to a two-man (person? actor?) play it feels; the story here isn’t about visceral scares or some abstract concept of monstrous-ness, but rather is about the death of trust and intimacy between two people who have been growing apart for a long time, even as they are bound together by tragedy and secrets.

The other thing that stuck with me is that the film avoids shallow moralizing ... By Her Hand doesn’t give the audience a chance to summarily reject Cath and Joe in favor of the Normal people. This is their story, and good or bad, they’re recognized as human beings, individuals with thoughts and feelings, who are struggling through a very tough time. ...

By Her Hand is reminiscent of the some of the best in independent horror film to explore this territory; if I had to explain it in the old ‘If you liked X, see Y’, standard, X would probably be Let the Right One In, which should tell you how much I liked By Her Hand."

You can read the entire review here.

Hi! On June 11-12, 2011, I'll be participating in a 2-day major cycling event called The Enbridge Ride to Conquer Cancer benefiting The Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto, one of the top 5 cancer research hospitals in the world.