It’s been so long since I’ve updated this space — I return to dust, debris and desolation. Posts are scarce.…
Over the past two months, I had several great opportunities to talk about writing on other people’s platforms and launch a column at the same time. These pieces have been out there for some time (no novelty value here), but it’s only now I had the time to sit down and collect them in a post as a reminder. Read More A Gathering of Links
It’s funny how life works, because I spoke a week ago about my year of no sales and how you can never predict your career’s trajectory. Yesterday, I received a short story acceptance and now that the contract has been signed, scanned and sent, I can announce it.
Drum roll, please… Read More New Sale: The Drowning Line finds a home
“The name is the thing, and the true name is the true thing. To speak the name is to control the thing.” — Ursula K. Le Guin, The Rule of Names
To knowing someone’s true name is to have power over them. It’s an old concept that most link to Le Guin’s writing and the world she created for the Earthsea books, but it’s far older than that. In Bulgaria, as in most Eastern Orthodox countries, names are celebrated for their power over their holder. Name Days are common enough and heavily populate the Bulgarian calendar to celebrate bearers named after saints, flowers, trees and virtues.
In an attempt to archive what I’ve been reading and hopefully promote my reading choices to more people, I’m switching from annual account to monthly accounts of my reading. Coupled with the notes I take during each reading session, I hope to become more aware of my choices in selection as well as hope to retain more details and textures from each work without novels and shorts alike blur into indistinct emotion of having read and having enjoyed.
Right now I stand at three books – a collection and two novels, one written as a memoir and the other as a mosaic novel.
On this day, a year ago TOR.com published my short story “The Language of Knives” and as I look back at the odd year I had, I’d like to touch upon perspective and how strangely writing careers progress. I don’t normally think about my anniversaries since short stories don’t create the same ripples novels do and their shelf life is considerably brief. (Oh, you poor, ephemeral creatures!)
I think it was over a year ago I was solicited by Jaym Gates to write a short story set in the world of Exalted 3 for their Kickstarter anthology, which served as a perk for backers who funded the game. In my short career, this was the first time anyone has requested my work prior to submission and as it so happens, Exalted: Tales From the Age of Sorrows has now been released for purchase outside the Kickstarter campaign. You can buy a copy through the DriveThru Fiction website.
Read More Exalted: Tales From the Age of Sorrows Is Available to Purchase
I might have mentioned on Facebook back in early December that I’ve signed a contract and now that the paperwork is done and approved, I can yap all I want about it!
As the title says it, you’re looking at the newest reviewer for TOR.com. So what will I do at this dream place? I’ll focus on short fiction. Apart from reviews of anthologies and collections (and maybe magazines), I’ll also head a monthly column where I present short fiction writers publishing right now.
Read More Announcement: Reviewer Position at TOR.com Acquired
Another year, another post about my year in reading. Rather than create a singular reading list, I’ve opted to break down my reading into three quarters and present my thoughts in short. I hope to change my habits where reading is considered for 2016 in order to reflect my needs as a reader to cope with my poor memory for plot and character names and those as a writer to better understand what in particular about a certain book works or not.
Until then, behold my master reading list. Read More 2015: A Year in Reading [January-April]
Hot off the announcement I’ve sold “The Language of Knives” in Italian, I’m happy to announce that Cristina Jurado has purchased my story for the Spanish Magazine SuperSonic. Marian Womack of The Best of Spanish Steampunk fame will act as translator, which makes me all the more excited.
SuperSonic is a SFF magazine, which publishes both in Spanish and in English – a fascinating combination and below you can find a Table of Contents for the current issue (in Spanish). Read More Reprint Alert: THE LANGUAGE OF KNIVES Will Be Published in Spanish!