Shout Out from Angry Black Woman

I was quick checking some blog stats this morning and thought, "That's a lot of visitors already for this early in the day..." So I checked the referrals and saw the screen above. You should go and read the whole post, but here's the snippet that is sending people to me:

Now there’s another magazine putting out an all-female issue. Except this time I don’t get the feeling it’s being done for cookies. maybe because I know the editor. Or maybe because he’s on these here internets making all kinds of sense.

I'm linked to in the end of that quote, but I didn't think I needed to make a recursive link to myself.

Daniel Abraham's The Cambist

It's now official! The full text of Daniel Abraham's Hugo-nominated story "The Cambist and Lord Iron" is now online. Go forth and read! Hugo voting is live! I voted earlier today, so you should, too. After you read "The Cambist" and make your final decision, of course.

Why All Female Contributors?

Following up on a previous post, I wanted to explain why I decided to make EV #14 all female contributors. I hope this isn't seen as just a marketing trick or ploy.

Going back to the beginning of Electric Velocipede, my contributor list has been predominantly male. I've been gently chided about this in the past by different people. For the most part, I hadn't thought much about male/female ratio in the magazine. I accepted stories and essentially published them in the order I accepted them. Most of my submissions came from men, so I was publishing a lot of male contributors.

I wanted to increase the number of female writers I was getting submissions from, so I started courting them. For a while, I didn't do any more than court here and there and felt that was enough. Then I realized that the issues that had a more 50/50 blend of men/women sold better. I was still creating the table of contents based on a "first accepted, first published" basis. But maybe that wasn't good enough any more.

I was accepting enough subs that I was building a backlog of sorts. I no longer needed to follow "first accepted, first published." I could spend some time with submissions and actively select what went together. I could strive for a more consistently 50/50 blend of men/women contributors.

Just to explain a little more, it's not that I select stories just because they're written by a woman. The stories still have to meet my standards for selection. I also don't actively reject pieces because they're written by men. I still see the majority of my submissions from male writers, but I have certainly seen the percentage of female authors go up.

Even as I was thinking of actively planning to have a 50/50 blend, I still had issues from the old system. I might be thinking along one set of lines, but what was coming out in the issues didn't necessarily reflect that. This really hit home for me last year at Wiscon 31 where I had 12 pieces out of 14 (13 out of 15 if you include the cover) contributed by men. I was very cognizant of the fact that I was at a predominantly female convention that had cut its teeth by tackling women's issue in genre, and my current issue was pushing the old standard of all men all the time.

I wanted to do something about this. I've gotten a lot of support over the years from women, and I always say that I want to publish more women writers, so I figured it was time to put my metaphoric money where my mouth is and publish an issue of all women contributors. As a relatively new and relatively unknown publication, I felt it behooved my needs to not only say that I wanted more female contributors and solicit stories, but to actually make the effort to publish more female contributors. And what better place to bring this issue than to Wiscon?

Some will see it as a publicity stunt*. Some will say "Where's the all-men issue?" (see #5**, #10, and #12**) But I prefer to see it as a celebration of the talent of female writers that I'm seeing. I would be more worried about this if the issue wasn't fantastic.
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* I see every issue as a publicity stunt: choosing which authors to put in it, trying to get more established writers, getting a great cover, running ads, running subscription specials, etc.

** Issues #5 and #12 each had one female contributor. #5 was a double-sized (at the time) issue that had more than 20 contributors.

2008 Locus Awards Finalists

The finalists for this year's Locus award have been announced. Sadly, I am nowhere to be found on the ballot. Nor is anything I edited.

And while I could shout to the heavens that I've been robbed, that would belittle all the deserving people who did make the finalists.

So congrats to everyone, and I'm especially excited to see the following make the list:

SF NOVEL
Brasyl, Ian McDonald (Pyr)

FANTASY NOVEL
Endless Things, John Crowley (Small Beer Press; Overlook)

YOUNG ADULT BOOK
Extras, Scott Westerfeld (Simon Pulse; Simon & Schuster UK)
Magic's Child, Justine Larbalestier (Razorbill)
Un Lun Dun, China Miéville (Ballantine Del Rey; Macmillan UK)

FIRST NOVEL
Flora Segunda, Ysabeau S. Wilce (Harcourt)
Heart-Shaped Box, Joe Hill (Morrow; Gollancz)
One for Sorrow, Christopher Barzak (Bantam Spectra)

COLLECTION
Things Will Never Be the Same, Howard Waldrop (Old Earth)

ANTHOLOGY
The Best of Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant, eds. (Ballantine Del Rey)

MAGAZINE
Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet
Subterranean

PUBLISHER
Bantam Spectra
Night Shade Books
Subterranean Press

ARTIST
Stephan Martiniere
John Picacio

I think the whole ballot (linked to above) is very strong. I've tried to highlight some people I know personally. For example, I thought ONE FOR SORROW was one of the best books I read last year. Just phenomenal. I also well pleased to see Night Shade Books on the list for Best Publisher. Wow. I've always thought they did great stuff, but so do a lot of people who don't know them personally.

Great stuff, and congratulations again. I'd love to be on the ballot, but maybe next year, eh?

International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day 2008

Remember last year? Well, for this year I'm re-posting something from the Electric Velocipede Facebook group:

For those of you in this group that haven't had a chance to read a copy of the magazine, here are some links to free fiction online:

"A Keeper" by Alan DeNiro

"Morris, His Self" by Michael Simanoff

"The Chiaroscurist" by Hal Duncan

"Another Day" by Mark Rich

"Hard Time" by Mark W. Tiedemann

"A Taste for Flowers" by Jay Caselberg

"Braids of Glass" by Jonathan Laden

"Strange Incidents in Foreign Parts" by Anna Tambour

"The Euonmyist" by Neil Williamson

"Solipsister" by Jason Erik Lundberg

"The Way He Does It" by Jeffrey Ford

Enjoy! The Jeffrey Ford story was nominated for a World Fantasy Award, so that's a good place to start. :)

Sneak Preview

So what do you think of that? Cover from the phenomenal Lisa Snellings-Clark. Debuts at Wiscon 32, May 22 - 26, 2008. You can pre-order it here.

Still a Long Shot, But if You Never Ask...

As I queried a few months ago, I'm curious if anyone who had planned on going to Wiscon this year and had a room in the Governor's Club was in the unfortunate situation of not being able to go. If so, I am interested in your room.

I don't mean to sound all cold and mercenary about it--sorry about your loss, GIVE ME YOUR ROOM!--it's just that the thought of getting a room in the Governor's Club makes me vibrate.

John Klima Interviewed by Charles Tan

A few weeks ago, the inestimable Charles Tan interviewed me for his site Bibliophile Stalker. For fun, I'll only quote myself a little:

"You can’t be content to start something one way and never change it.

"

We're Moving on Up!

I've decided to host/post this blog over on my domain: www.electricvelocipede.com rather than hosting it on blogger. The current blogger address evzine.blogspot.com will redirect people to blog.electricvelocipede.com, so if you have links to the blogspot URL, there's no need to update them unless you want to.

I'm actually in the midst of a site redesign, so I'll be changing over the template of the blog to match the rest of the site. Let me know if things aren't working for you:

editor[at]electricvelocipede[dot]com

Advertising in Electric Velocipede

UPDATED: The half page ad is gone, only a full page ad remains.

This is a quick note to say that I still have one full page ad and one half page ad available in issue #14. Full page ads are $50 each with a buy three issues and get a fourth free offer (so $150 gets four issues of ads); half page ads are $25 each with the same buy three get one free offer.

Please contact me at editor@electricvelocipede.com if you are interested. I need final art by 4/25, which is not far from now.

What's Happening April 2008

It may be a surprise that I don't edit/publish Electric Velocipede full time. It's true! I have a full-time job outside of publishing. To that end, it will be fairly quiet here the rest of the month. I wanted to post this so that the two of you who read the blog didn't fear that I had come to some untimely demise when there was no posting/updating for a few weeks.

If I was smart (or organized), I would have set up a guest blogger(s) to post something while I was away. But I didn't.

Reprints We Got Yer Reprints Here!

Here are a few bits of news that I forgot to post about. First, Tim Pratt notes that his story from Logorrhea "From Around Here" will be reprinted in the next year's volume of THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF BEST NEW HORROR. This is very cool. Tim's been reading the series "for half my life" so I'm sure he's excited as well.

Also, the final table of contents for the next edition of THE YEAR'S BEST FANTASY AND HORROR have been announced, and Daniel Abraham's story from Logorrhea "The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairy Tale of Economics" will appear in it. Very cool! That brings the year's best appearances for stories from the anthology to:

Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume 2
edited by Jonathan Strahan
"The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairy Tale of Economics" by Daniel Abraham
"Singing of Mount Abora" by Theodora Goss

Fantasy: The Best of the Year 2008
edited by Rich Horton
"The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairy Tale of Economics" by Daniel Abraham
"Singing of Mount Abora" by Theodora Goss

The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, 18th Edition
edited by Stephen Jones
"From Around Here" by Tim Pratt

The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror, 21st Annual Edition
edited by Ellen Datlow, Gavin Grant, and Kelly Link
"The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairy Tale of Economics" by Daniel Abraham

Year's Best Fantasy 8
edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer
"A Portrait in Ivory" by Michael Moorcock

And I think that's it for now. Not a bad mix if I do say so myself. Nice representation from among the contributors and a nice mix of genres picking stories. The Abraham obviously being a favorite for people. Which is why it's on this year's Hugo ballot.

I don't expect to have anything in either Hartwell's Year's Best SF or Dozois' Year's Best Science Fiction since the stories in the anthology trended towards fantasy and speculative fiction rather than science fiction. I know there won't be anything in the Hartwell anthology since the ToC is set and nothing was selected from Logorrhea.

ACQUIRING: March 2008

So here's a few things I picked up last month:

Gentleman Junkie by Harlan Ellison, Poison Sleep by T. A. Pratt, Blue War by Jeffrey Thomas, The Magician and the Fool by Barth Anderson, Sybil's Garage #5, Apex Digest 12, and Unwelcome Bodies by Jennifer Pelland.

Some very good stuff in here. I'm going to start the Pratt series soon; I keep hearing good things about it. And I'm always excited to see new fiction from Barth Anderson.

I had gone into the store looking for Jeffrey Thomas' Deadstock, and then realized that was the previous book and Blue War was the only thing on the shelf. I'll have to order a copy.

I was going to get the Ellison from the library, but was having trouble finding a place that had it. Rather than go through OCLC on interlibrary loan, I picked up an inexpensive copy via ABE Books.

The Pelland book ha a reprint of her story from EV #11 "The Last Bus." I've enjoyed her short fiction--"Sashenka Redux" is appearing in EV #14--and I'm intrigued to read her collection.

It's always a good day when you get a little Sybil, and I get a huge shout out from Mr. Kressel in it (plus an ad!).

And finally, I decided to see what Apex Digest is all about. I haven't read anything yet, but it looks good. Certainly some very good names in it.

Whisky How I Missed Ya

I had a chance to go to the Malt Advocate's Whisky Fest in Chicago this upcoming Friday. Free ticket. I just had to get to Chicago. And I could, but not early enough to warrant going. Ten years ago, I would have gone regardless, but having passed another birthday recently, I'm more than aware of my age. Just to rub the salt in, this is what I'm missing out on:

"America's Largest Whisky Celebration featuring more than 200 of the world's finest, rarest, and most expensive, single malt and blended Scotch, Irish, bourbon, Tennessee, Japanese, Welsh, Canadian and other whiskies from around the world to sample in one Grand Ballroom. Attendees will also enjoy an expansive gourmet buffet all evening and will receive a commemorative Glencairn whisky glass. "

Wow. All I can say is that I need to plan better for next year.