So You Want to Start a Zine Pt. 7

The Importance of Having Contracts

First off, we can all agree that you're paying the author? Good. If you're paying the author, then you need a contract. Why? It provides a layer of protection for yourself and the author. With a contract, you can set the terms for publication. For example, whether the author can seek to publish elsewhere before you do and what type of rights you obtain from the author. it also guarantees to the author that you will pay them $X dollars for their story or that you will publish it by such-and-such a date or they can take the story elsewhere.

I use a fairly simple contract that leaves as many of the rights to the author and reverts their rights back to them upon publication of the story. I'm not big enough and I don't pay NEARLY enough money to consider doing anything more. John Scalzi explains why obtaining more rights for the mere pittance that most short markets pay is ludicrous.

Here's a quick look at the first page of my contract (which I base on an example I received from Jeff VanderMeer):

(Click on the image for a full-size view)

This page sets up who the publisher and author are, what is being acquired by the publisher, and for what terms. I do ask for three months of exclusivity on the piece, but the author can use the piece to promote his or herself or the issue that the story is in. Three months is a fairly short period of time for me to hold exclusive First North American Serial Rights. The author could publish the work in England or Australia (or anywhere not in North America) and could also publish in a non-serial venue (e.g., an anthology) without waiting the three months. Also, my contract states the three months without permission of the author. If something hot came up for the author and they asked me about it, I'd likely grant them permission to use the piece elsewhere. It hasn't happened yet, but now that I've posted this, it'll happen with the next issue.

Here's the second page of the contract:

(Click on the image for a full-size view)

There's a statement that I'll do everything I can to promote the issue this story appears in. And I do that. There's a little section for Iowa law (you can see that I didn't update the file from when I moved so that 'state' appeared on the final copy) essentially stating that I am following all of Iowa's laws when it comes to publishing. The next part says that both the author and I will hold each other accountable for the terms agreed upon in the contract. And finally I provide a date by which I'll publish the story. Since I make contracts an issue at a time, this isn't normally a problem, but if something happened and I couldn't get the issue out, the author would be free of our agreement by the time that date came if the story hadn't been published.

I send two signed copies to the author. They sign both and send one back to me. That way we each have a signed copy of the contract. I do not ask for SSN# or tax id since I do not pay anyone more than $600 for a story where I would need to generate a 1099 form for them (unlike the anthology I edited). I suspect if you're reading these posts, you also won't be paying your authors more than $600 a story. Regardless, it will be up to you and your author to report payments and earnings on your taxes as they apply.

That's about it. Now, here's where it gets a little difficult. I have two half-formed zine series posts (one on time management, i.e., when to be editing, when to be laying out, when to go crazy; and another on editing), what should I write about next? What haven't I covered that people want to read about? Is there anything people want more detail about?

Here are links to two different MS Word contract templates; one for zines and one for anthologies:

Zine Contract
Anthology Contract

Sarah Utter, superstar!

Here's two things people could get me if they feel like buying me a gift for the holidays (both designed by Sarah Utter):

Guybrarian shirt
"Reading is Sexy" shirt

In both cases, I am a svelte XXL*. (I know! I don't look a pound over an XL!)

And no, I don't really expect you people to buy me gifts, if you want to spend money, buy Electric Velocipede subscriptions and back issues for friends instead. (issue #6 just went out of print!)

* if you don't like buying clothes, I see that I am missing The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror volumes 17 - 19

The Pushcart Prize

The other day an author of mine asked, "Do you ever submit things to the Pushcart Prize?" My answer--internally, not to the author--was, "Guh?" Of course, I had heard of The Pushcart Prize, but hadn't ever looked into it. To quote from the source:

The Pushcart Prize - Best of the Small Presses series, published every year since 1976, is the most honored literary project in America. Hundreds of presses and thousands of writers of short stories, poetry and essays have been represented in the pages of our annual collections.

Like all of these things, my brain put forth a tiny amount of effort in trying to determine how Pushcart picked its contents. I naively wondered why they hadn't contacted me about things I'd published.

Well duh, for the same reason I don't contact everyone on the planet who might be writing a story to see if they want to send it to me: it's just not feasible, and not their responsibility. It's up to me to nominate work for their Prize. Which I've done this year.

Of course, the deadline (postmark, not arrival) is December 1, which is tomorrow. And the book is set to be published in December, so it's likely that the contents of the book are already set. So, in effect, there's no point in sending in my submissions this late as they have no chance of getting in. Some people have complained about this fact calling the whole process a sham.

However, I know that putting together a 'best of' (which is essentially what the Pushcart is) isn't necessarily the smoothest process in the world. Sometimes it's tough to get reprint permission. In this case, since everything is starting small press, that shouldn't be a problem...but who knows? I feel less worried about the process having chatted with Pushcart editor Bill Henderson yesterday. Maybe he's just really affable, but it felt like anything I sent would actually be considered for inclusion in the anthology.

Regardless, I put my nominations (I can make up to six) in the mail today. A whole day early! We'll see what happens.

The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Vol 2

This book, edited by Jonathan Strahan and published by Night Shade Books, contains two stories from Logorrhea. Here's the full table of contents (Logorrhea stories in bold):

1. "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" by Ted Chiang
2. "The Last and Only" by or Mr. Moskowitz
3. "Becomes French" by Peter S. Beagle
4. "Trunk and Disorderly" by Charles Stross
5. "Glory" by Greg Egan
6. "Dead Horse Point" by Daryl Gregory
7. "The Dreaming Wind" by Jeffrey Ford
8. "The Coat of Stars" by Holly Black
9. "The Prophet of Flores" by Ted Kosmatka
10. "Wizard's Six" by Alex Irvine
11. "The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairy Tale of Economics" by Daniel Abraham
12. "By Fools Like Me" by Nancy Kress
13. "Kiosk" by Bruce Sterling
14. "Singing of Mount Abora" by Theodora Goss
15. "The Witch's Headstone" by Neil Gaiman
16. "Last Contact" by Stephen Baxter
17. "Jesus Christ, Reanimator" by Ken Macleod
18. "Sorrel's Heart" by Susan Palwick
19. "Urdumheim" by Michael Swanwick
20. "Holiday" by M. Rickert
21. "The Valley of the Gardens" by Tony Daniel
22. "Winter's Wife" by Elizabeth Hand
23. "The Sky is Large and the Earth is Small" by Chris Roberson
24. "Orm the Beautiful" by Elizabeth Bear
25. "The Constable of Abal" by Kelly Link

How cool is that? I know there are some other places looking to reprint stories from this book, but I don't have anything set in stone yet (I don't think, e-mail or post in the comments if I'm wrong).

Post-Thanksgiving Thoughts

We had (including us) 8 adults and 5 children (ages 18 months to 11 years old) at our house for Thanksgiving. If you've been to the Klima household for an event, you know that we know how to throw a party. You also know, you'll never want for anything. I've been told my hospitality is smothering. (I think that was meant as a compliment) So, in light of that, some thoughts.

When contemplating whether the 22# turkey is big enough for 13 people, just know that it is. We wanted to be sure we would have leftovers, and decided that even if this turkey did not yield leftovers to us, we would have enough for the big day. Result: we ate about a third of the turkey.

When trying to decide if one or two bags of cranberry are the right amount for a group of people, make one. While they were/are absolutely delicious (this year, cooked with orange juice, cinnamon, and an anise pod), they are not everyone's favorite and you will be left with more than one bag's worth of leftovers.

Don't underestimate the popularity of your new Brussels sprout recipe. Of course, you can't help but underestimate it since you've never made it until that day, but wow. We had just a few servings leftover of the Brussels sprout hash. Almost everyone asked for the recipe. You can find the recipe here. I used the shredder in my food processor to cut up the sprouts. I think I would crumble of few slices of bacon into this in the future, but it's really good as it is.

Three desserts may be too many. Note, I said may be.

The parsnip and carrot dish is delicious on its own, but even better in gravy. I think added some pancetta to the recipe as noted online would give this some needed richness.

Fifteen potatoes were too many. Even with my mother eating at least four or five potato's worth of mashed potatoes. However, crumbling some bleu cheese over the leftovers before you reheat them makes a delicious alternative to mashed potatoes and gravy.

We actually had more than half the food left after the main meal. No one took any leftovers, so we had TONS of food left. We froze most of the leftovers for another day: potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, turkey... We'll be able to recreate a giant Thanksgiving next Spring if we want.

There was so much stuff we never got to (mostly appetizers): we had plans for a whole cheese and sausage platter that never got put together (I suppose we'll have to eat it ourselves...rats!), fried halloumi w/hot holland peppers, sweet and spicy nuts, chips and salsa, about seven bottles of wine that never even got looked at, and so much more. We had even planned for a tomato, shrimp, and feta cheese dish that we haven't made yet.

What a Wuss

So, you go to bed and have a night's sleep (is four hours a night's sleep?) and you wake up, not as mad as yesterday and decide to be nice on the phone. You see, I really didn't want to cancel my subscription to Realms of Fantasy. I think it's a totally under-appreciated magazine in the field. Content-wise, design-wise, for my money, it's the most interesting thing we've got. And as I thought about it, I wondered if I had checked to have the thing auto-renew so I wouldn't have to worry about it.

I did. And now I've got it transferred to the credit card I'm going to be keeping, so I can keep receiving Realms of Fantasy. And the woman I spoke to today was very helpful in refunding the one charge and getting things moved over to the new card.

And Capital One was also very nice. The people I talk to are always extremely helpful and nice. The e-mails, letters, etc. I get from Capital One, not so much. The word choice in the Capital One correspondence always felt very accusatory. I always felt, at best that I was stupid, and at worst that I was a criminal when I got stuff from them. And it's too bad I've had such a sour experience; I love their commercials. Their commercials are what prompted me to apply for one of their cards to begin with. But it didn't work out.

What happened was that I had the -0.55 balance at Capital One, and credit takes 90 days to amortize. Of course, as things work for me, I was almost done with the 90 days (and the card getting officially closed) when the charge from Realms of Fantasy came through.

Now, I should have called when I first saw the -0.55 balance, and the Capital One people would have explained to me what was happening. They could have either written the amount off or issued a refund check. But, I decided to do nothing. I figured their system would catch up with the balance at some point. And I also assumed I had moved all my automated billing off the card. I hadn't. And that's no one's fault but mine. I tend to not do automated billing for this exact reason.

Nonetheless, things are being taken care of. And I got to start the day being nice. Yes, I wussed out. But it was better to be able to laugh with the customer service people, rather than yell at them about something they didn't do. I got what I wanted, and I didn't have to be a jerk and raise my blood pressure and make someone else upset and make an ass of myself in my office where everyone can hear me.

I must be getting old.

Rich Horton's Summary

Once again, Rich Horton gives us a summary of Electric Velocipede from this year. Rich finds more time for reading than I could ever hope to, but I'm glad for it.

Rich started officially blogging not too long ago (he used to post mostly on sff.net which not everyone could get to) and has posted his annual summaries of short fiction magazines there. Rich says:

"[Electric Velocipede] remains one of the stronger small press 'zines."

I'd quote more, but these summaries are typically quite short, and I don't want to just take the whole thing and reproduce here when people can quickly go to the link I posted above and see the entire write up.

I do want to make one small point of clarification on the numbers/percentages that Rich puts at the end of his summary. Rich does not look at poetry, which makes my male-to-female ratio skew unfavorably. For the purposes of my numbers, if someone has more than one piece in the issue, I'm counting it as one.

• Issue #12: 11 contributors, 10 male, 1 female, 9% female
• Issue #13: 12 contributors, 7 male, 5 female, 41% female
• All of 2007: 23 contributors, 17 male, 6 female, 26% female

So, only slightly higher than the 17% that he reports, but I think it's an important distinction. Considering that each issue had five poems (I had multiple poems from single authors: 3 contributors for issue #12, and 4 contributors for issue #13), there's a decent amount of work that's missed. Of course, if you don't write poetry, that doesn't help you much. It was a predominantly male writer year at Electric Velocipede. And as Rich points out:

"[N]ext year the proportion should be higher still, as #14 will be an all-women issue."

A quick preview of next year:

• Issue #14: 15 contributors, 15 female, 100% female
• Issue #15: 15 contributors, 9 female, 60% female
• Issue #16: 14 contributors, 7 female, 50% female
• All of 2008: 44 contributors, 31 female, 70% female

Of course, the one issue skews that wildly in favor of female authors so next year won't necessarily be representative of a typical year. And yes, I do hope to publish three issues next year.

Rant

I don't know if I can describe how angry I am right now. I think I need to talk about this without mentioning names so that I don't offend anyone.

There's a credit card that I've been trying to cancel since this summer. Essentially I've been unhappy with the card since I got it, and I finally got fed up enough to cancel it. Or so I thought.

Essentially I've been sitting with a -0.55 balance on the card since August. I should have contacted them to clear that up, but, I'd still be in the pickle I'm in even if I had gotten them to write off the balance due to me.

You see, a magazine I won't mention has charged money against this card recently. From what the customer service people at this card tell me, I cannot close the card to transactions. The card needs to stay open for two months with no balance and no transactions before they can close it.

Since I can't close the card to transactions, someone can charge against it. It's great when a charge you didn't authorize or ask for shows up on the card. I don't know what this charge is from this magazine. It's a magazine I like a lot, but I'm dropping my subscription. Whatever this charge is, it's not something I've authorized since it's against a card I have not had in my possession since August.

I suppose there is the off chance that somewhere in the past I set up some sort of charge to go against my card. That doesn't sound like me. Plus, the price is the cost of one year's subscription. I never subscribe for one year when I have the option for more.

I need to talk to customer service tomorrow. Something I am loathe to do. I am not a nice person for customer service to deal with. I will preface my phone call with (after I interrupt them before I give out too much of my own information and I get the name of the person I'm with which I'm speaking):

I apologize in advance for being rude to you. I know that you are not personally responsible for why I am calling. Nothing I say is a personal attack on you, even though it may sound that way. I suggest you get a manager ready, because I will have to talk to them at some point. I will most likely be the worst call you have today.

I'm mad enough that I want to get in my car and drive to the offices of the magazine and then the credit card company to take care of this in person. When I tried to close my Bank of America account, it took driving to a branch (the closest is more than two hours away) and sitting down with a manager, looking him in the eye, and saying "I don't care what it takes, I want my account closed today."

The magazine will be simple. I may even decide to keep my subscription and get things moved to the proper credit card. The charge as it stands needs to be reversed. And I don't care who I need to talk to in order to get that done.

The credit card. That will be more difficult. I am not getting off the phone with them until my card I am confident that my card will be canceled. I want them to close the card to future transactions. I don't give a fuck who I need to talk to so that gets done. I understand I will have for the magazine charge to be removed from my account.

I know this post doesn't sound very angry. Trust me, you don't want to be my customer service person. I've made people cry in the past.

More Random Postery

As I try to prepare for my family descending like a swarm of locusts (but nice locusts, who you'd like to have a drink with), here's a few random items for you to ponder.

Some Lush news. First, my mother reports that Lush is no longer coming soon to Mayfair Mall, it has arrived. It's in the Macy's. I can't wait for the end of the year when we go visit my parents. We're totally going to Mayfair so I can dance through the Lush products.

Second, there is a Lush in Calgary. That means I'm totally doing something Lush-related at next year's World Fantasy Convention. Maybe a field trip, maybe some sort of party. Who knows? I'll keep you posted.

I wish I had a photo (I will have one soon) but I've loaded up my shelves with books. They're not in any order, and a part of me is tempted to leave them that way. The rest of me wants to squash that little part of me like a bug and get the damn things organized already.

Listening to Peeping Tom this morning. A couple thing strike me: Mike Patton is perhaps my favorite performing artist; this is the most accessible album he's has made since The Real Thing (Faith no More's breakout album with "Epic" on it); I kind of dig the lyrics "I know that assholes grow on trees but I'm here to trim the leaves"; I also dig the fact that you get to hear Norah Jones sing the word "motherfucker"; for an album that features Norah Jones, Massive Attack, Kool Keith, and Kid Koala (among others) it certainly appeared (in 2006) with little to no fanfare; the album (yeah, I'm old, get over it) has the COOLEST PACKAGING EVAR.

Indirectly due to my editor, I've become a huge fan of Questionable Content. Of course, I'll only 1100 comics behind to start with, but it's the day before a holiday, right?

OK, I Never Do This

Maybe because it's late. Maybe because I just finishing baking a cake (that's an old picture, but it's the same type of cake: red velvet). Maybe because Mark Teppo and I have moved from a serious IM discussion to utter tripe, but this made me laugh long and hard:

Image copyright Randall Munroe

Magazine Readership

I've ignored saying anything so far about the many posts on declining magazine readership, particularly in the case of the big three digests. The reason for this is that I'm not truly concerned with what other people are doing.

That's bit disingenuous, as noted with this post it's clear that I support short fiction and its publishers, and I try to read as much short fiction as I can, whether it's published in a magazine, an anthology, or online. A lot of that is to familiarize myself with authors. In some cases (say Realms of Fantasy) I also read them to get design ideas (which I obviously don't use since my interior design hasn't changed in six years...). And in some cases I subscribe to support friends and acquaintances.

But I'm not concerned with what they're doing. I want to spend my time figuring out what they're not doing. I don't see the magazines, any of them--big, small, indifferent--going into the social software world. For my dayjob, social software is a BIG THING. Libraries are just about foundering themselves on the idea of bringing social software into the library. So, to learn more about it, I use the zine as a reason to use social software like:

MySpace
Facebook
Facebook Groups
Twitter
Ning
PBWiki
Blogger
Squidoo

That's why this post from Erin Hoffman (who has a poem in an upcoming issue of Electric Velocipede) really resonated with me when I read it. In particular this section:

Modern smaller magazines today are not focusing enough on this community growth. They aren't growing their online forums, they aren't giving their subscribers the opportunity to express themselves and connect with each other, they aren't holding location-based annual events specifically designed to get subscribers connecting and generating their own communities. They aren't providing social tools or branching into the explosively growing social networking movement. They aren't organizing their subscribers in online communities to raise money for themed charities. They aren't running enough contests.

These are all things I want to do, but this thing is run by just me. I've added four slush readers, and I think my turnaround time for reading submissions has gotten better. And is getting better. There's more I'd like to do. I'd like to spend more time on my Facebook group, on the Ning network, creating a MySpace group, etc. I'd like to have an actual online community that is something additional to the content of the zine. I'd love to do an online fiction writing contest.

But it's just me. I work full-time as a librarian. I also work part-time as a reference librarian at my local public library. I do some freelance editorial/layout work. I have a family that likes to spend time with me. I select, edit, layout, proofread, publish the zine and corresponding chapbooks. I edited a book this year and I'd like to do more. I write for three different blogs. I'm working on library-oriented publications so I can further the career that pays the bills.

Where do I have time for this social software stuff? The honest answer is that I don't. I think I've done an admirable job keeping things going as well as I have considering all that I am doing. But there needs to be more.

I'd like some help maintaining and growing my online community. I'd like a small group of people who can dedicated to this task. I don't know exactly what this will entail. It will most likely be centered around a Google/Yahoo group to brainstorm ideas, and then people will go off and run their tasks. I'd like for the Facebook Electric Velocipede Group to have something posted to it every day if possible. I'd like to have a MySpace Group that did the same thing. I'd love to have a dedicated discussion board (or perhaps someone to keep the Night Shade board going with more regularity).

I'm still hashing out the details in my head what this would entail. I don't know if this is something that one person can do, or if I need several people. There are other tasks relating to the zine that I'd love to have someone else keep track of, and if this effort works in building an audience for the zine, there may be the chance of this becoming something more serious. I'll be upfront, I don't make any money on the zine. In fact, I'm not even breaking even although I'm close. There isn't a lot of money, if any, to put towards this effort.

If you think all this sounds like an opportunity, and not just a lot of busywork, please contact me at editor [at] electricvelocipede [dot] com.

Johncon Photos

If you have photos of a Johncon (any of them), can you please either send them to me or point me to where you have them online? Many of you have Flickr accounts and I've seen them there.

I'm thinking of making a photo/video montage to play at future Johncons. Something with music and cheesy transition effects or something. Who knows. This is probably more work and effort than I need to put into this.

Like Juliet says, I always find a way to make things more complicated than they need to be.

Grrrr

So it looks like the rest of issue #13 would be ready from the printer until next week. You know, during Thanksgiving week. You know, that week? Yeah, the one when family is descending upon to feed on a giant bird and all the fixin's? Yeah, that week! The one where I won't have time to put together issues to mail, and I don't think I should strong arm my family into helping me stuff envelopes (although it is tempting). You know, the week when everything goes nutso with people buying holiday gifts and long lines at the post office? That sounds like a fun way to spend the Saturday after Thanksgiving, standing in line with hundreds of things to mail out....

So what does that mean to you? If you're a contributor, your copies are going out. If you bought a patronage, your copies will go out (as well as anything else I promised to send you). Everyone else? It'll be another week. I apologize for this. I can only be so mad, since I never gave them a deadline post WFC when I would need them.

If they didn't do such a great job and go beyond the call of duty to work with me, I'd be more frustrated.

Because Everyone Else...bah bah bah

From everyone:

So proud.

The Fix Reviews Electric Velocipede

The Fix, an excellent review magazine from the UK, has gone online. They've recently reviewed the past two issues of Electric Velocipede. From the review of issue #12:

Electric Velocipede (No. 12, Spring 2007) is a very well put together little magazine. It is straightforwardly but comfortably designed, there’s nothing in the way of internal art, but the presentation and sensible typography mean that the plain pages of text are easily navigated and contribute to a pleasurable physical experience. The quality of the writing helps, too. There’s a scattering of names that will be familiar to those who read short fiction magazines, like Boston, Caselberg, and Tidhar, and as that list suggests, Electric Velocipede tends towards the softer edges of sf, the slipstreamish, and the literary. There are sfnal and fantasy tropes used here, but there’s the confidence to twist them and test them to their breaking point and beyond.

And from the review of issue #13:

Electric Velocipede is an eccentric zine edited by John Klima with work ranging from literary fantasy to slipstream science fiction to the quirky and comical. A host of mostly unknown authors find a home in its pages in issue #13, but several pieces of fiction read as if crafted by pros thirty years past their prime. That’s a good thing.

Nice to see a review of the new issue so quickly. I haven't even gotten subscriber copies in the mail yet! (this weekend!)

Follow-Up to Fellow Editors

As everyone suspected, the author was more than happy to discuss changes. Reflecting back on the piece, I think it needs structural change over trimming. The story is told chronologically right now, and I think we need to create a conceit that will move the reader back and forth in time in the story. This will help build tension and keep the reader moving through the story towards the big payoff at the end.

Thanks for all your comments.

Fellow Editors....

So, let's say you have a story that's, well, WOW! But it's too long. Not too long in "my submission guidelines state only stories of XXXX length," but too long in a "this story has taken too long to tell its tale" sense. Let's say, also, that you've passed the story onto some of your readers who all feel the same. Sort of 'WOW. Great story. Amazing voice. Too long.'

What do you do?

1. Do you accept it anyway and work with the author to whittle it down?
2. Do you tell the author your concerns and judge their reaction?
3. Reject it because you're too damn busy to work with stories individually?

I've opted for #2. I don't want to accept this piece and find out the author doesn't want to change anything. It needs work, but damn, it's WOW.

It's the same way I felt when I read a submission from Hal Duncan before he was HAL DUNCAN. (hey Hal! wot's up?) That one was long, too.

ACQUIRING: World Fantasy Books

So here are the books that I either acquired at World Fantasy, or had waiting for me at the PO Box when I got home (the Newman book).

They are, left to right, top to bottom:

Speculative Japan (brought to me from Japan by John Picacio)
Missing by Sarah Langan (the only book from my freebie bag that I kept)
But Enough About Me by Jancee Dunn (just an amazing book; bought at Border's while at convention)
The Secret History of Moscow by Ekaterina Sedia (been looking forward to this for a while)
The Traitor by Michael Cisco (great book...no, strike that, GREAT book)
Pretty Little Things to Fill Up the Void by Simon Logan (great design, didn't know this existed, but happy to find it)
Realms anthology (a collection of the first year of Clarkesworld Magazine online)
Secret Files of the Diogenes Club by Kim Newman (this looks like a lot of fun)
Map of Dreams by M. Rickert (haven't ever read M. Rickert, and I think I've been missing out)
Set the Seas on Fire by Chris Roberson (always happy to see/get another book from Chris)
End of the World Blues by Jon Courtney Grimwood (great writer, another book I didn't know was coming out)
In the Cities of Coin and Spice by Catherynne M. Valente (follow up to In the Night Garden from my fellow World Fantasy award nominee; this was one of three books I knew I was buying at the convention [the other two being the Sedia and Cisco books])

And yes, those are yet-to-be-filled bookshelves in my basement. I need to get that done before family arrives for Thanksgiving next week.

Next week?!?!?!11?! I better get cracking!

Not Really a Meme....

But since both Justine and Jay posted photos of their work spaces, I thought I'd join in the fun. Plus, since I think my new office is pretty sweet, I'd post a bunch of photos of it. Well, at least a link to my Flickr set.

Some New Web Content

There are a few new things I posted tonight on the main website. First, is the complete text of the nonfiction column that debuted in the current issue: Sampling the Aspic. Additionally, I asked a bunch of foodie questions of the contributors, and here are their answers.

I'm trying to tie in my love of food/cooking to my love of speculative fiction. Each issue will have a new Sampling the Aspic column, as well as a feature called Blindfold Taste Test where a better-known author, editor, agent, etc. answers my food questions. In this current issue, the lovely Kage Baker gave me her answers. I only had room for some of the answers she gave me; I'll be posting the complete set online.

If you want to receive a set of questions (and you're someone my readers and potential readers will know) drop a line editor [at] electrcivelocipede [dot] com

Me Too! Me Too!

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite Klima.

Which work of Shakespeare was the original quote from?

Get your own quotes:

Rock On

From Tim Pratt:

River Alexander Pratt Shaw was born at 11:50 a.m. today, November 8, 2007. He has the preferred number of toes and fingers, and no unnecessary extras (tail, bat wings, etc.). He also has a perfect little nose and a dimple! (Along with other facial charactertistics.) He weighs in at 7 lbs 15 oz and is 21.5 inches long. He's beauty personified. All the cliches are true. It's love, y'all.

Congrats! You guys will make great parents. And while I know that people who are closer to you will also offer to help, don't be shy and call with questions.

World Fantasy 2007 Official Con Report

In which I am quite frank about my feelings on the convention and on being nominated for an award (apologies for the length).

I'll steal Chris Roberson's line here and also say that World Fantasy "is the hub around which my year turns." As far as my genre world experience goes, this is certainly true.

Typically I leave WFC on a huge down. I know that after days of being immersed among awesome friends and great conversations I head back into my normal, non-genre life. I know that after a WFC weekend, it can be months before I interact with these people again. To go from such a high to such nothing is difficult at best, soul stifling at worst. The past two years I left WFC extremely depressed. Last year I felt so down I even considered closing the zine to avoid feeling that way again.

"Poppycock!" some people would say. "I roll my eyes so far back in my head at your foolishness that I can see the people behind me!"

And they would be right. (she always is; and so is this one, who would also mock my down feelings; not to mention these two who always make me smile no matter how I really feel) It's absolute rubbish to take such a good thing like WFC and ruin it by moping about for weeks afterward. As it was, I didn't allow myself to enjoy being nominated. I went into Sunday evening looking to be depressed. Thankfully there were still good folks around who I could enjoy Sunday evening with and head into Monday feeling all fuzzy and loved.

OK. Enough feelings crap. Here's the report. I'm going to avoid name dropping except where it's necessary for the story. Pretty much I'll mention who I ate with.

THURSDAY
Up until 1AM making postcards for the Robert Wexler chapbook. Because I have nothing better to do. I start the weekend claiming I was up late finishing up some things. By the end, I can admit that I was working on yet another thing I thought I needed to do.

Up at 4AM and out to the airport for my 6AM flight. Everything goes well. All my flights are on time. However, my ride from Albany to Saratoga is running late. I run into the inestimable Patrick O'Leary near baggage claim and ask him what he's doing. My thought was to take him to lunch. He looks at me and says, "I'm just going to pick up my rental car. Do you need a ride?"

Why yes. Yes I do.

Patrick and I drive to Saratoga Springs, grab some lunch, and then head into the convention proper by 1PM. I have too much stuff with me and I go register for the convention before I get into my room. This gives me even more stuff to lug around. However, soon I am free of all my stuff and can begin to network. One of the first people I get some time to talk to is my editor, who I seemed to be constantly sneaking up behind all weekend long. (What was that about?) Anyway, she states to me that she does not want to stay up until sunrise every night like the last two conventions we were at so that she's a zombie at her noon meetings. I agree to help her (since Jeremy Lassen appeared to agree to help, but really had evil intentions to keep Juliet up late) in her quest for rest.

Not surprisingly, I spend some time in the bar. Eventually I head out to eat with Chris Roberson, Allison Baker, and John Picacio. We have a great dinner in which Allison does her best to dissuade me of the idea of publishing books. She's very persuasive, but I think I still think I want to publish books.

Back to the hotel and straight into the bar. Or was it up to the Aussie party? There was a lot of drinking that I did. Enough drinking that, at 3:40 in the morning, we (Jeremy Lassen, William Shunn, and Liz Gorinsky who would not let me take her photo) thought it was a good idea to walk up the street to Compton's for 4AM breakfast. This is one of those silly fun moments that you have when drinking. We had a blast standing outside the diner in the cold waiting for the lights to come on so that we could have breakfast. I got a bacon-and-cheese omlette with a side of bacon. By the end of the weekend, the people of Compton's truly hate us. I got back to the room, still tipsy, at 5AM, which officially makes it...

FRIDAY
I sleep until almost 10AM. Now you and I both know that 5AM - 10AM is five hours, but that also five hours of drunken sleeping is like two hours of real sleeping. So far for the convention, I've gotten three hours, and then two hours of sleep.

Looking good! By the time Sunday rolls around, I won't need any sleep.

Friday is not looking up to be a good day. I feel awful. I had been up until 2 or 3 in the morning most of October getting all the crap done that I felt had to get done in preparation for WFC. I was already strung out. Add on top of that, traveling, drinking, and even less sleep. It was shaping up for disaster.

I had lunch planned at noon with the lovely lovely Tempest Bradford. I had made shirts for her. They say "tempest says read electric velocipede or she will come to your house and smack you around." People liked them.

At this point, I do not feel nauseous nor do I have head pains, but I definitely think I am suffering some sort of hangover. Certainly sleep deprivation.

Nonetheless, Tempest and I head out for lunch at a Thai Sushi place. I was not sure that Thai Sushi was going to be right for me. I do not feel...correct. It's like there is something wrong with my body, but I can't pinpoint it. We're in the restaurant for about five minutes when I decide I'm getting a bento box and that's that.

It was delicious.

Back to the hotel and time to prepare for my 4PM High Tea. As noted elsewhere, John Joseph Adams played erstwhile emcee to my High Tea. In the notes I had written up for this event back in June, I had said that this would be a great place/time to talk about the history of the zine and give some reason why people were there. Good thing John read my notes, too I guess.

After tea, it was dinner with James Frenkel, David B. Coe, and J. V. Jones. Dinner was absolutely lovely. But when I got back...there was no fun to be found. There was a big sucking void where fun had been all day. The bar wasn't fun. The few parties just didn't cut it for me (which was too bad because Shimmer Magazine and Senses Five Press were both throwing parties, and I've had fun at their parties before).

The night was beginning to look like this. And shit, even though that's a photo of me...does that look like fun? No. Not at all. I was just getting more surly as the night wore on, and it was early.

So I went to bed. At 10:30. Unheard of! I guess Jeremy went to bed early that night, too, and people kept asking after us. Before I laid down to sleep, I set an alarm to call Juliet and make sure she got to bed early.

She had asked me to help her out. I take responsibility seriously. If she wanted to get to bed at decent times (for a convention) and was leaning on me to help her, then I have to help. In college, we had a list of guys the girls could call if they needed a walk home. I was one of those guys.

So I make my call and get back to sleep. It's now...

SATURDAY
I wake up with Minz's incredibly loud wake-up call at 9AM. I feel much better. I slept (with one small interruption) from 10:30PM to 9AM. I don't sleep that long, ever. Minz takes me and Duane Wilkins out to breakfast.

Tonight is Johncon. The best night of the con. The night I've been waiting for since Wiscon. But hell, there's almost twelve hours to prepare.

Juliet Ulman takes me out to lunch. We have big, juicy, messy burgers. You can't eat those with just anyone.

When I get back, Bill Shunn, Mark Teppo, and I head out to buy liquor for Johncon. Here is our conversation for the next hour: we need X. should we get the biggest bottle of X they have? yes. did you know they made a bottle this big? no.

And so on.

Our theme is 'Drink the Rainbow.' We're going to make seven drinks and challenge Johncon party people to drink them all. Our secret weapon is Bill Shunn's Jack Rose, which we rename Infrared, which you have to drink after you finish the rainbow. We test-drive two of the colors and the Infrared. I am flying after three drinks.

People are going to get wrecked.

We slip down to the lobby, feeling impervious, and seek out trouble. We decide we need food. Thankfully Jetse de Vries is there to save us. He wants something fast and greasy. We hit a pizza place up the street. It's fast and greasy. But good.

Then it's time to prepare in earnest. Mark does most of the work. He mixes up the drinks, letting Bill and I do the maths for proportions. I devise a plan to head up the hall and steal beer from Tor. We make it the price for entrance to Johncon.

I won't try to describe Johncon. I was cheered, twice, and--I'll say it--it felt damn good to have a room of people cheering for you. It was good times. The photo at the top of the post is from Johncon. From what I hear, it was considered the party of the weekend. It had flaws. Most notably, we WAY overbought on booze. But we can fix that for next time.

Johncon ended the first time when we all headed out to Compton's for breakfast (they open at 3AM on the weekend), but it started up again shortly thereafter when Minz came back to the room at 4AM with a dozen people in tow. I went to the lobby so I didn't yell at people and make them feel bad.

I crawled back upstairs at 5AM, and by that time, it's already...

SUNDAY
I can't sleep. I can't stop thinking about the award. I'll admit here: I really want to win it. REALLY. WANT. TO. WIN. IT. And I'm terrified of either outcome. I devise a speech about passion that I'll deliver if I win. Then I start to get sick to my stomach thinking about it.

I get up and head out. I need something to do. Too bad it's Sunday, and there's nothing going on.

I eat breakfast alone. From the con suite.

I walk around outside for a few hours.

Nothing helps. I can't stop thinking about the award.

I don't want to win it any more.

I need something to do.

I. WANT. TO. WIN.

Obviously, I'm not helping myself. Every time I come near the con, people want to talk about the award.

I don't want to talk about it.

I want to walk out the door and not come back.

(scroll back up and read the line about rolling eyes...it applies here, too)

I try to stay away from people, but they keep finding me.

I don't enjoy the banquet. I'm not sure what sort of company I am for everyone at the table.

Thankfully, my award is first.

I don't win.

I could get up and leave at this point. I just don't care about any of the other awards. Is that bad?

After the ceremony, I mope around a little. I just want to go. I miss my family. I'm tired of being here. I don't want to watch people celebrating. I'm basically a sore loser.

Then dinner.

The food was great, but it was too long (almost three hours) and I did not enjoy myself. When I got back to the hotel, I couldn't wait for it to be the next day so I could get the hell away.

Then a curious thing happened. I dragged some folks up to my room. We still had a lot of liquor left. We had some drinks, and started up some conversations. We acted like houligans. It was fun. I was reminded of why I come to this convention. What I like about it. And I was determined to take that away with me this year.

I've been pretty energized about stuff since I got back. I wish I could see people next weekend, but that's ok.

I'll be in NY in January, and I'll see some of you then. I'll see more of you in May for Wiscon.

And I'll see all of you in Calgary a year from now.

Con Report Coming Next, For Real

As I sit here in Pittsburgh at a library conference, and spend a half hour wandering the city streets looking for an open store (everything closes at 8pm), I have more than enough time to reflect about this past weekend. This won't be a con write up, but just a quick post to note that I did not win the World Fantasy award. However, I did learn something cool.

For those who don't know, members of the previous year's and the current year's World Fantasy receive a nomination ballot. The top two vote getters automatically are placed on the ballot, with the judges picking the remaining three to make five nominees for each category.

Electric Velocipede made the popular vote, which is totally awesome! It's particularly important to note this when two of the judges this year were good friends of mine (Jeremy Lassen and Gavin Grant). So it's clear that I didn't make the ballot through the machinations of my two friends, but through my own merit.

Thanks guys! Maybe next year?

Not a Report Yet, But Links to Photos

So, here's a link to just my photos from World Fantasy 2007, and here's a link to a Flickr Group I made for World Fantasy 2007 where you can see other people's pictures, too.

Enjoy!

World Fantasy in Brief

So, I'm in Pittsburgh. I'm here for a library conference. I pretended to be home for a day, and then got up too early and flew away from my family again. I'll be honest; it's not fun. The conference actually starts tomorrow, so today I'm trying to get my WFC photos up (on the REALLY slow free wifi, so Flickr keeps timing out). I'll do a more formal World Fantasy report with photos when I can. I've also gotten my unread messages in my feed reader down to about 150 from the 1600+ I started the day with. Good times. Good times.

World Fantasy was, as always, the best convention of the year. I will never miss one again. I have some truly wonderful friends. I'm not entirely sure what I've done to deserve such good fortune, but I will not turn it away.

It's so strange to think that Austin was merely a year ago. So much has happened in the meantime: I've moved from NJ to IA, started a new job, had a book come out, bought a house, been nominated for a World Fantasy Award, lost a World Fantasy Award...and there's still two months to go. I wonder what might happen between now and next year in Calgary? I will now attempt to provide one highlight from each day in this (getting longer) brief report.

THURSDAY
I'd love to say the highlight was the rushy wave of tinglyness you get when you see friends that you haven't seen in a long while, but I think the highlight of the day was wandering off at what was truthfully Friday morning to breakfast with Liz Gorinsky, Jeremy Lassen, and William Shunn to the first of many meals at Compton's.

FRIDAY
Definitely the highlight was throwing High Tea. Thanks to John Joseph Adams for providing the needed questions about EV and its past to actually give the event some relevance.

SATURDAY
Johncon III. Without. A. Doubt.

SUNDAY
Always a bad day for me at WFC. It's the day I realize that I am heading back to my other life, the one that takes up my work week, and that it will be months, and perhaps years, before I see these lovely people again. Top it off with the awards banquet. I couldn't get myself to relax and enjoy being nominated. I just wanted to walk out the door and keep going. Thankfully the day ended with Johncon 3.2. I left WFC feeling energized for once.

Photos coming soon! And more details! (but not like last year)