We performed our super-secret giveaway ceremony. I can’t tell you too much, but it involves both names and hats. And we can now declare a winner!
Congratulations, Cat Barth! Your autographed copy of Shadows of the Emerald City will be in the mail as soon as humanly possible.
Diabolical Plots is giving away one free copy of Shadows of the Emerald City. Do you want to enter? It’s very simple. All you have to do is reply to this topic and name your character from any Oz-related media. (That’s the land of Oz, not the Oz TV show that takes place in a prison). We’ll pick a winner at random from those who respond.
You have until Monday 10/26/2009 at midnight CST to enter. If you’ve already paid for the special discount offer, then you can still enter–we’ll just refund your money if you win.
I have a special offer in the works for discounted copies of Shadows of the Emerald City. The awesomeness of the discount depends somewhat on how many are interested. If you think you might potentially be interested, drop me a line at:
Upcoming Interview: John Joseph Adams, editor of numerous anthologies, currently the assistant editor of F&SF, and soon-to-be fiction editor of new magazine Lightspeed. Have any questions for him? Drop me a line and we’ll try to work them in.
David here. My first published work, “The Utility of Love” is now available to the public in the Shadows of the Emerald City anthology, edited by JW Schnarr, published by Northern Frights Publishing. The story is a retelling of the Wizard of Oz, but the Tin Man is two stories tall and does not hesitate to kill if it can benefit him.
There are 19 stories in total in this anthology, appealing to a wide variety of tastes. It’s supposed to be available on Amazon in the very near future, but in the meantime you can order it directly from the publisher. If you do pick up a copy, stop by here after you’ve read it and drop us a line. We’d love to know what you think!
If you’d like to see reviews, here’s a list:
Apex–5 stars!
http://www.apexbookcompany.com/blog/2009/10/review-shadows-of-the-emerald-city/
Wanderings–mentions my story as must-read:
http://www.wanderingsmag.com/rvw_ShadowEmerald.html
Senses Five–mentions my story before any other as a standout:
http://www.sensesfive.com/2009/10/15/shadows-of-the-emerald-city-review-by-greer-woodward/
Innsmouth Free Press
http://www.innsmouthfreepress.com/?p=2440
Strange, Weird, and Wonderful (it’s a ways down in the PDF):
http://strangeweirdandwonderful.bravehost.com/3Site/Fall09.pdf
Upcoming interview: writer Jeremy C. Shipp, who has been published in Pseudopod, Apex, Chizine, and Cemetery Dance, to name a few. If anybody has any questions for him, drop us a line and we’ll try to work them in. His website: http://www.jeremycshipp.com/index.html
I’m now officially a slush reader for Flash Fiction Online. I’ll be part of a team that collectively helps the editor judge the stories that come in. For anyone who hasn’t heard of them, they are an online monthly magazine which publishes several flash stories per issue. Flash stories are 1000 words or less, and let me tell you, it is not easy to get a full story into just 1k! Many of the staff has a preference for speculative fiction, but they accept submissions of any story under 1k, so literary, mainstream, romance, mystery, anything is fair game.
I think it’ll be a fun opportunity to sample the editorial side of submissions. The duties shouldn’t be too onerous. I’m at the 2nd level of the slush reading, so the worst stuff will be filtered out before it gets to me. And each submission is 1100 words or less, so even if I don’t like the story, it doesn’t take very long to determine. I’ve been through my first round of judging, and was pretty pleased with the experience. I’ve said for a long time that one of the keys to becoming a better writer is to read and critique other people’s work, so this will be a good way for me to do that. When I feel I have feedback that could be useful for the writer, I’ll try to send some back their way–personal feedback is so rare it’s so nice to receive when you get it.
And, for those of you aren’t familiar with FFO’s slush reading procedures, the stories are anonymous, with no author name attached to them. If I see a story come through and I already know the author, I must choose not to rate it, so you may want to think twice before telling me that.
-David
The first review of Shadows of the Emerald City has been posted on Wanderings Magazine.ÂÂ Even better, my story, “The Utility of Love” is one of only four mentioned by name (in a good way).
–David 🙂
Fantasy Magazine is looking for slush readers. The job is unpaid, but would definitely carry some benefits. The main drawback is that Fantasy would be unable to publish your fiction if you ended up with the job. That’s a deal-breaker for me, because breaking a story into Fantasy Magazine is one of my major goals, but if you don’t write fiction or you are okay with cutting one magazine off your submissions list, you might want to give it a try!
Congratulations to Keira Kroft of the great city of Chicago, Illinois is the winner of our Grand Opening contest. Keira, your free copy of Writers of the Future XXV will be in the mail soon!
For the rest of you, we’re already thinking about our next contest. And in the very near future, expect the interview with Jordan Lapp, winner of Writers of the Future–his story is included in WotF XXV.
