Hard to
believe September has already arrived. Seems like the summer just started . . .
Nonetheless,
here it is—and as the season changes from summer to fall, I've decided to try
something new: providing regular blog updates on recent and pending
publications, as well as projects I'm currently working on.
I'm embarking on this project, not out of a sense of ego (I hope), but because readers sometimes what to know what writers are up to. Plus, I enjoy the monthly newsletter Louise Penny, one of my favourite authors, puts out each month, because I enjoy her stuff and particularly like hearing about what she's working on, and when her books are going to launch.
It's in the spirit of letting people know what I'm up to, writing-wise, that I'm launching this feature of the site. So let's start
with:
New releases
This
month saw the launch of Chicken Soup for
the Soul: The Power of Yes, which includes a piece I wrote, entitled
"What's the Story". "What's the Story" dates back to my
days at McMaster University in Hamilton, and how I got my start volunteering
with the student newspaper as a sports writer. The great thing about being
published in a Chicken Soup anthology is that you get several free copies of
the book. I'm taking full advantage of that by reading what my fellow writers
had to say about their own outside-the-comfort-zone experiences. I'm about
half-way through the book at this point, and really enjoying it.
August also saw the launch of the Future Days Science Fiction and Fantasy anthology
published by Castrum Press (https://www.castrumpress.com/scifi-fantasy-books/). This anthology includes
my story "The Caller". Future
Days features 17 stories, penned by individuals such as New York Times
Bestseller Christopher G. Nuttall, and Amazon Bestsellers, PP Corcoran and Rick
Partlow.
The September 2018 issue of Nomadic
Delirium's The Fifth Dimension has
just come out, and it includes "The Messenger's Mission", an
alternate-history story based on the Medusa myth. You can find it here: https://nomadicdeliriumpress.com/blog/product/the-fifth-di-september-2018/
Also in August, spurred by a
suggestion one of the anthology publishers made to its authors, I set up an
Amazon Author profile. Though I had my trepidations, the process turned out to
be pretty straightforward.
Coming Soon
I'm looking forward to the launch of Tesseracts' Nevertheless, scheduled for September 2018. This anthology includes a poem I wrote, entitled "With Two Left Feet". Although former teammates may suspect it's about my hockey playing days, the poem is actually a futuristic piece about how we find hope even in dark times.
Also
coming soon (October) is an anthology entitled From A Cat's POV, issued by Post-to-Print Publishers. I have three
contributions in this anthology. The first is a sci-fi short story "The
Open Road", about the adventures of a ship's cat named Quicksilver. There
are also two poems inspired by the antics of my cat Smokey (see photos below) during the too-brief time he lived with us. The poems are titled "Moonlight" and "A Cat's Confession". You can find out more
about the anthology here: https://post-to-print.com/from-a-cats-p-o-v-selected-stories/
What I'm Working On
I'm
currently working at wrapping up some book reviews I've committed to. I'm also
progressing, albeit more slowly than I'd like, on a sci-fi short story that
references the Last Spike, and have some other short stories in process as
well. Main focus for the coming month will be to get some more short stories in
the submission queue.
I also
signed up for a contest called "WYRM's Gauntlet", which involves
completing a number of challenges. The first is reading and reviewing a
specific story (one I'd never encountered before) by Harlan Ellison. Only eight
competitors get chosen to advance to the next round, so here's hoping . . .
