The Slushmaster Speaketh
Douglas E. Cohen, assistant editor of Realms of Fantasy, just started a LiveJournal. Go say hello!
Troopers Back In Comics
SCI FI Wire just published a piece I wrote about Markosia Comics’ Starship Troopers: Blaze of Glory, a new series based upon Robert A. Heinlein’s classic.
Mar. 2006 Acquisitions
New in March: a lady luck tale from Tananarive Due, a futuristic tall tale by David Levine, the story of one man’s quest for immortality from Robert Reed, a tale of parents dealing with the results of genetic engineering by Amy Sterling Casil, and a creepy Halloween tale by Frederic S. Durbin. In addition to all this wonderful fiction, we also acquired a new non-fiction epistolary feature: selected correspondence between James Tiptree, Jr. and Ursula K. Le Guin edited and compiled by Julie Phillips.
F&SF to Sponsor New Award
This bit of news ran today in the New York Times. I’m mentioned in the article, but not quoted, alas. But hooray for free publicity!
April 1, 2006 -Spilogale, Inc. (publisher of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction) announced today that it would sponsor a new juried award designed to recognize “excellence” in unpublishable manuscripts.
The Slushy P. Slusherton Memorial Award, or “Slushy,” is named in honor of an anonymous, struggling writer who, in the ’40s and ’50s, used the pen name “Slushy P. Slusherton” and did not include his real name or contact info, in order to preserve his anonymity. “If you wrote as badly as he did, you’d keep your name off your manuscripts too,” award administrator Gordon Van Gelder said. “This guy’s stories made ‘The Eye of Argon’ look like Shakespeare.”
Van Gelder said that the award was created to help inspire “a healthy dose of fear” in authors, who up until now have been submitting stories with impunity, no matter how wretchedly awful they were. “I’ve been severely traumatized by slush pile stories–so severely that I had to hire an assistant just to triage it for me. I’ve read some slush that, years later, still causes me to wake up screaming,” Van Gelder said, then added: “Maybe this award can help change that, can keep the next generation of editors from suffering what I’ve had to endure, and maybe, just maybe, that can somehow lead to a better tomorrow.”
The jury will be comprised of a rotating panel of experts, which will consist mainly of assistant editors and interns. This year’s panel will include slush readers John Joseph Adams (F&SF), Douglas E. Cohen (Realms of Fantasy), and Brian Bieniowski (Asimov’s).
“You’d think the award would be a deterrent,” Cohen said, “but it won’t be. It’s only a matter of time before some knucklehead will mention in his cover letter that in addition to being nominated for a Pushcart Prize, he’s also a Slushy Award-winner.”
Editors of magazines and anthologies may nominate works for through Slushy P. Slusherton Society website — www.slushylives.org — or by bringing the manuscripts to Spilogale, Inc.’s office and throwing them over the transom.
Eligible works must have been submitted between Jan. 1 – Dec. 31, 2005
. Works must be written in English (or in a reasonable facsimile thereof). The awards will be presented to at Slushycon 1, held July 26-29, 2006 at the Queen Maud Convention Center in Antarctica.
For general information about the Slushy P. Slusherton Society, visit their website at www.slushylives.org.
Horton Hears Best SF&F
SCI FI Wire just published a piece I wrote about the two new “year’s best” volumes Rich Horton will be editing for Prime Books.
Balticon
Is race important?
For those who only read the posts and not the comments, I thought I’d point out that there’s some interesting discussion going on in the comments to my “Books Not Authored by White Men” post.
Old Wedding Photo
I was just scanning this image for some family members, so I thought I’d share. It’s my grandparents’ wedding photo.
It’s not a great scan, because the photo is in a frame, and I couldn’t see any way to remove it without messing it up, so I scanned it through the glass.
Also, the colors of the photo itself look a bit strange to me (though that’s not an artifact of the scan; the physical copy looks that way too)–would the photo have been developed in black and white, then colorized or something? My grandparents were married for around sixty years, so they would have been married some time in the forties. A quick google reveals that color photography did seem to be around back then.
Adventures in the New Office
The big move happened this weekend–the movers transported all the big stuff over to the new office. Which is, by the way, still in total disarray. However, after a few minor delays, I actually did get to read slush today, so I might not get that far behind schedule after all.
When Gordon was buying the house, he mentioned that the seller was the sort to cut a lot of corners. Well, there’s plenty of evidence of that everywhere you look. Most of it’s just stupid–like, why bother to repaint if you’re going to do it half-assed? But one of the things that’s perplexing is that the painters just like painted over everything. The hinges of the doors, electrical outlets. Instead of, you know, painting *around* them.
The door to the office apparently fell off after the movers were done delivering stuff, so Gordon had it propped open. I didn’t realize this, and accidentally screwed it up some more. The hinges *cracked,* so not exactly high quality. And so when we tried to remove the hinge since it has to be replaced, we were all but stymied by the gobs of paint that have buried the screws in the wood.
Got hopelessly, hopelessly lost on the way in this morning. Had Google Maps directions, but they LIED to me. I printed out a zoomed in view of the in-city portion of my journey, but only had the larger overview of the highway stuff–this was my downfall. There’s a place where it tells me to turn right, and bear right onto a certain road, but when I looked at the map again when I got home, it’s very clearly bearing LEFT. But at least now I know which way to go next time. My trip home tonight was without incident, and it was pretty quick, so I’m happy about that. It’s funny–the new office is less than two miles away from the old one, but I think the commute is going to be much easier. We’re now very close to the highway entrance, so there’s very little city driving required, and I’m far enough away from the tunnels that I won’t have to fight through all that traffic.
Haven’t done much exploring of the new area yet, though I had lunch at a nearby Chinese restaurant. Quite good, actually–they make a mean Schezuan chicken (though there’s a definite language barrier problem, so good luck with any special orders). Also, they stock Sprite Zero, which is nice, since it’s hard to find a restaurant that has a sugar-free/caffeine-free soda available.
When I got home, however, I poked around on Google Maps, searching for things in the area. Turns out there’s a post office about three blocks away, and a branch of our bank two blocks away from the post office. There’s a Rite Aid around the corner from the bank. All good things. So maybe we’ll be switching our submissions address after all. No word on that yet–have to talk to the boss. He was saying that it took us five years to train the monkeys at our current post office, so it might be better to just stick with them. But I don’t know–despite our best efforts, there’s really only two people there who know what the hell they’re doing, and one of them moves about as quickly as continental drift.
Also discovered that the Journal Square PATH Train station has parking available, so I can just drive right there with no walking. Hopefully it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. But it also looks to be much more convenient for me as a commuter, since JSQ is right near Rt. 1-9, which I use to get home.
Knight Mixes SF And Romance
On Friday, SCI FI Wire published a piece I wrote about literary agent Deidre Knight’s second career as a novelist.