I’ve been approached by the editors of Podcastle asking if they can feature my story “The Navigator and the Sky”, which came out earlier this month at Giganotosaurus. I think that must be my fastest reprint sale ever. Awesome.
(Podcastle previously podcast my story “Songdogs”, which originally appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies.)
Scott Andrews just emailed to let me know that my story “Red Dirt” will be included in The Best of BCS Year Three anthology, to be published in late 2012. Apparently it was one of Beneath Ceaseless Skies‘ best reviewed stories of the year – it got a “Recommended” from Lois Tilton at Locus, Tangent said “Ian McHugh is… set to spring to some prominence in the field. “Red Dirt” does not disgrace that promise” and SFFportal called the story “a grand unstoppable show of force”.
Well.
It has to be said that Scott’s editorial feedback had a big influence on the final shape of the story, so credit where it’s due. And from my experience, if you’re a fantasy writer looking for markets to submit to where you’ll get insightful feedback on your story – even when it’s being rejected – BCS is a place to look.
BCS will be holding a reader poll from July 19 to decide the final story for the Year Three anthology.
Editor Mike Allen has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund a fourth volume in his Clockwork Phoenix anthology series. Stories from the first three Clockwork Phoenix books were finalists for the Nebula Award, the Shirley Jackson Award and the Aurealis Award, and were reprinted in Year’s Best SF 14, Year’s Best Fantasy 10, Best Horror of the Year 2, The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2010, Nebula Awards Showcase 2011, The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2011 and elsewhere.
My story ‘Angel Dust’ appeared in Clockwork Phoenix 2. As an editor, Mike’s a delight for writers to work with and these anthologies really are something special to be a part of. Since Norilana Books – the original publisher – fell on hard times, Mike has worked to ensure that the books remain available, and has published e-book versions of the first two anthologies (with the third on the way).
If the Kickstarter campaign reaches its goal of $5,000 by Thursday 9 August, the new anthology will open for submissions in September 2012, with a target publication date of June 2013.
Go here to pledge your support.
There’s a wonderful talk on storytelling at TED.com by Pixar screenwriter Andrew Stanton, whose writing credits include Toy Story (and sequels), A Bug’s Life, Monsters Inc, WALL-E and Finding Nemo.
Among the many astute things he has to say about storytelling, is likening storytelling to joke telling. I think it’s a really useful analogy for the particular elements of storytelling that it draws out.
Like a story, a joke has a beginning, middle and ending. In a joke, these serve particular functions that I think are very useful to remember for storytelling. more…
I’ll be teaching an evening course on fiction writing at the Canberra Institute of Technology campus in Woden – 6x Wednesdays from 1 August 2012. See the Workshops page for more details, including links to pricing and booking, and also participant feedback from my first workshop (covering some of the same material) at the ACT Writers Centre.
On Sunday 8 July, I participated in my writers’ group’s entry in the Write-a-Book-in-a-Day Contest, raising funds for Australian children’s hospitals. It’s a fun and quite challenging event. This was the second time I’d entered the contest, and I thoroughly recommend giving it a go.
More on our book in a day experience, about the contest, and our finished story here.
My story “The Navigator and the Sky” is now available for free online at GigaNotoSaurus.
Ian McHugh 