All Sorts of Pub News

I’ve been neglecting the blog lately. (Curse you Facebook!) I have lots to report. A new short story is on Tor.com, “Adult Children of Alien Beings.” A sequel, “Orphan Pirates of the Spanish Main,” will appear next summer.  The fantastic artwork for ACAB is pitch perfect.

Even more exciting is the publication of my eighth novel, Bad Angels in October.  It’s available for preorder on Amazon.  I’m giddy about it frankly.  It’s a love letter to Richmond and a whole lot of fun.  You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll fly!

Much has happened since last I blogged…

full_allthesnakehandlers

Isn’t this Scott Bakal image incredible?  My good fortune is that it accompanies my story, “All The Snake Handlers I Know Are Dead” at Tor.com.  It appeared on July 31st, but I was deep in the throes of a computer crash and a glacially slow Carbonite restore that’s had me on a forced vacation since returning from Maine.  Better late than never.  I recently visited the home that inspired this story and had a wonderful time in spite of continual driving rain.

My experience as a resident at Norton Island exceeded my wildest expectations.  What a wonderful place, what wonderful people.  I finished a story and completed a draft of another while there.  I almost lost it all in the computer crash, but fortunately I’d saved that work on a thumb drive as I was leaving the island.  My computer was completely dead when I woke it from sleep the day after I returned.  A humbling experience.

I start teaching on Thursday, an Advanced Fiction Writing class at VCU, and I’m looking forward to it.  Meanwhile I’m trying to reconnect to the e-world and sort out what I’ve lost.  If I’ve neglected anyone out there, it’s only because I lost my laptop, and I was adrift without my virtual life.  Somebody should write a novel about this.

 

Readercon

I will be at Readercon, one of my favorite conventions, starting this Thursday. I’m looking forward to seeing old friends and discovering new writers. I read Thursday evening at nine from a forthcoming (July 31st) short story on tor.com, “All the Snake Handlers I Know Are Dead.” I’m also on a couple of panels, one about the wonderful fiction of Maureen McHugh, who is also the guest of honor; and another about the reexamination of the Civil War mythos, largely in the clutches of the Lost Cause folks since the war, in fantastic literature. I’ve done a bit of that. Most recently in “Christmas in Hollywood Cemetery” in the anthology Remapping Richmond’s Hallowed Ground. After Readercon I’m off to Norton Island off the coast of Maine for a couple of weeks of intensive writing. I have more publication news I can’t reveal yet.  Life is very good indeed.

Richmond Noir Returns

Just in time for Christmas. Join me and Richmond Noir editors Andrew Blossom, Brian Castleberry, and Tom De Haven at Barnes & Noble Libbie Place this Saturday 1-3 pm. We’re celebrating going into a second printing. Each story in the collection is a noir piece by a local writer set in a Richmond neighborhood. What better way to get to know our beloved city? There’s a handy map of corpses in the front. There must be someone a bit noir on your list? It makes the ideal solstice gift. What’s darker than the shortest day of the year?

Electric Velocipede revised schedule

Have you read “The Art Disease” yet?  You never know when it might strike someone you love.  Several other victims are publishing their fine work in EV.  Stay tuned:

Electric Velocipede Issue #23
Table of Contents & Publication Dates

October 31 “The Art Disease” by Dennis Danvers
November 7 “Dancing in the Winter Rooms” by David Tallerman
November 14 “Fastening” by Patricia Russo
“The Last Patrol” by Tara Barnett (poem)

November 21 “Fish Out of Water” by Deborah Fitchett
Blindfold Taste Test with Alex Irvine
November 28 Nonfiction: Spec Fic Poetry by John Ottinger
December 5 “A Reason to Fear Life, a Reason to Crave Death” by Andrew Kaye
“Her Mother’s Bees”
“The Girl and Her Cloud” by Alexandra Seidel (poems)
December 12 “The Empire Never Ended” by Brian Trent
December 19 “Through the Uprights” by Richard Butner