Writing advice and commentary from the editors at Essential Edits / SFeditor.ca
I was honoured to be one of two keynote speakers at the 2024 WordBridge Writers Conferencce in Lethbridge Alberta. I was asked to speak to the theme "Home/Writing From the Heart" so talked about building a writing community in Lethbridge, the advantage of choosing a smaller Canadian regional publisher over going for the Big 5, and writing authentically.
Fairfield ScribesMicro #26 includes my micro fiction (drabble) SF piece, "Speed Dating".
My short story, "Crossing Avenue" has been reprinted in Polar Borealis #23, available free to download at https://polarborealis.ca/?smd_process_download=1&download_id=954 (The story originally appeared in the print-only literary journal, Meat for Tea: The Valley Review Vol. 14 #1, 2020.)
My speculative flash fiction, "Day Three", has been selected for inclusion in The Best of Metastellar Year 1, released today (July 29, 2022). The story originally appeared in Pulp Fiction #21, 2019, and was reprinted online Sept 3, 2021 by Metastellar. A bit of a departure from my normal style, very pleased by the validation of it's being reprinted and anthologized.
My essay, "Leslie Gadallah and Canadian Space Opera" has been reprinted on the Shadowpaw Press website to correspond with the re-release of Gadallah's The Legend of Sara.
I am incredibly happy to see the Legend of Sara back in print for the third time (after Five Rivers closed shop) as it is one of my all-time favourite Canadian SF novels. My essay was originally the Afterword in the Five Rivers edition, so contains spoilers--no reading it before the book! If you haven't read the book yet, go buy it! You won't be disappointed.
My short story "Grandfather's Birthday Barbeque" has been published in Siren's Call #58 Summer 2022.
The story is based on a real incident in my life, though of course taken one step further into horror. I think it came out okay... Siren's Call is available for free download.
The story previously appeared in Potatoe Soup Journal and The Best of Potato Soup Journal 2020.
My short story, "Split Decision" is included in Dustin Bilyk's Summer of Sci-Fi and Fantasy collection, released June 1, 2022. This is still one of my favorite stories, published originally in Tesseracts #15: A Case of Quite Curious Tales. Pretty happy to see "Split Decision reach a new audience.
As an editor, I often encourage writers to eye an eye out for reprint opportunities. If one's novel with a small press goes out of print because the press has closed take the minimum effort to self-publish it yourself. If a publisher has allowed your novel to go out of print, self-publish it yourself. If a story is in one issue of a print magazine, see if it can get into (1) the year's best anthology for the year it came out (2) another journal with no overlap with the first--such as going from a University-sponsored literary magazine to a genre market, or vice versa. Many magazines do not take reprints, but others do. Worth checking their guidelines to fiind out. And of course, --you need to make sure the rights have expired and reverted from the first publication before sending it out again. After one has exhausted the print markets, maybe look for an online or audio venue, again assuming previous magazine rights have reverted to you. Online publication is usually a one time situation, because Google can't catalog the same story twice, so the other online venue gets no indexing, which is probably a deal breaker. Online reprints usually don't pay, but I like having a list of stories people can read by clicking on the list. The other option is to collect a bunch out your stories as an ebook/POD and reprint them that way. "Split Decision" isn't on line anywhere yet because it keeps getting picked up by a new collection as the rights revert.
My short story, "Deep Dive" was released in audio today on the Bandit Fiction Podcast episode #10, read by Tony Reading. It starts at 21.12 into the podcast.
I am also the featured author interview on this episode; the interview starts at 33:42. The Interview is with host Daniel Hubbard.
"Deep Dive" was originally published by Ariel Chart July 9, 2020 and reprinted by Bandit Fiction, Dec 13, 2021 and now podcast March 29, 2022.
"Fami's Watch", A Fami and Watch story, was published in Polar Borealis #20 (Dec 2021) 12-14 today.
You can download a copy of issue #20 here.
My story, "Time in the Garden" was published in Lamp Lit Underground Vol 6, pp. 8-12.
The story is semi-autobiographical, but told from my Mom's point of view (or, at least, how I imagined it must have felt like for her).
Many writers make the mistake of thinking that once they've placed a story, it's done. But there are many publications that take reprints (unless your story is freely available online--but even then, some audio markets might be interested) because their audiences seldom overlap. Putting some time into marketing your already published stories to reprint markets makes sense in terms of both potentially increasing readership and in gathering validation for your eventual collection of short stories. If I pick up a collection in a bookstore and see that all the stories were previously published, that increases my assurance that least one editor liked each story, even if the collection is now self-published...if there are reprints in "best of" collections or other journals, that's again as good as a testimonial... I still might not buy the collection if I don't know the publications or they don't seem to be my genre, or whatever, but at least I know it's not first draft vanity self-publishing.
My short story, "The Prince and Pauper of Bay Street" has been published in the Collection, THE FICTION JUNKIE Vol 2 (2021) edited by Daniel Hodgson.
(This particular story is mainstream, not SF.)
Was super excited when I got my copy of the Scottish SF&F magazine, Shoreline of Infinity_#21, in which my story "Al/ice" appears, to realize I got my own interior Andrew Owens illustration! It's totally great! (I think the last time I rated custom interior illustrations was 1989 in the first issue of _On Spec_ Magazine.)
The story features Fami and his friends, previously seen in "Fami's Dissertation Defense" published _Ripples in Space_ (Spring, 2020) and in and "Detour on the 8-Fold Path" published in _Neo-Opsis Magazine_ #31 (Nov, 2020). "Al/ice" is the origin story for Fami meeting Julia. There's one more Fami and the Watch story looking for a home, and two more that still need to be written, and then I can put out a reprint collection of stories about Fami and crew...
You can get a copy of issue #21 (or other Shoreline of Infinity issues/books) at https://www.shorelineofinfinity.com/
Received my copy of the newly released _The Chorochronos Archives_, edited by Jessica Augustsson, with my story "Sermon on the Mount" [which originally appeared in On Spec Magazine, #106, Vl 28 (3) (January 2018).] Very pleased with the cover and with everyone at JayHenge. I will definitely submit stories to them again. A class operation... recommended.
The story is free to read at https://online.fliphtml5.com/dnitz/jtai/#p=12
My Christmas story, "Ransom and the Christmas Tree" is up and available free to read at Abyss and Apex magazine:
https://www.abyssapexzine.com/2020/12/ransom-and-the-christmas-tree/
Pleased to have any connection to Abyss and Apex. Great to deal with.
It's been a good month!
Very pleased that my short story, "Hacker Chess," has been released by Centropic Oracle Nov 20, 2020 as an audio production read by Larissa Thompson. Listen here:
http://centropicoracle.com/library/S0027_HackerChess.php
Thanks to Charly Thompson for choosing it! Thanks to Larissa Thompson for her nuanced reading!
The story originally appeared in the anthology The Playground of Lost Toys, edited by Ursula Pflug and Colleen Anderson in 2015 and was previously reprinted in Exile Literary Quarterly 39(3) 2016.
Pleased that my drabble (which is a story exactly 100-words long) "Perfect Storm" was published today by Fatal Flaw magazine in their special "unreliable narrator" issue. It's available to read free here:
My story, "Detour on the Eightfold Path" appears in Issue 31 of Neo-Opsis magazine, released today. It's my first story in Neo-Opsis, though I've had reviews and commentary in the magazine over the years.
The story is one of four (so far) featuring Fami and his friends. "Al/ice" is forthcoming in Shores of Infinity and "Fami's Dissertation Defense" has already appeared in Ripples in Space (
