It's up!

Already!
Check it out: http://www.flashfictiononline.com/

Happy New Year, y'all.

Sale to Flash Fiction Online

I've gotten word that my story "The Human Clockwork" will appear in the January Flash Fiction Online, a new pro-paying flash market. I'm really fond of this story, but it's been tricky to place it; I'm thrilled to have it go to a good home.

Slowly easing myself back into being productive after the holidays. Last night we thoroughly cleaned the office, which was dusty and full of crap; today we tackled the rest of the house. It's been a few weeks since we cleaned, and while it was a lot of work today, it is lovely to have the house back in shape, and makes me feel much more willing to take on the rest of my life!

Sean made salt bagels this morning. They were really good, and I think we have a lot more homemade bagels looming in our future.

The Holiday Report

We had a lovely lazy weekend, and it's been really hard for me to get back into being productive; I just want to laze around for a few more days.

The best present: Sean convinced some of my favorite writer friends to write short stories about birds. Then, he had his second grade class draw a bunch of bird pictures to illustrate the stories - and put it all together into a charming little book. The authors, so you can be totally jealous: Amal El-Mohtar, Ken Scholes, Joy Marchand, Sean Markey, Sara Genge, Ken Rand, Christie Skipper Ritchotte, and Michael Livingston. Thanks to everyone who contributed!

High tea at the Beehive Tea Room, many inches of snow on Christmas Eve, a gorgeous quillwork cardinal from my parents, and lots and lots of time just napping.

How were your holidays?

Happy Holidays from Shimmer!

Stop by the Shimmer site and read our free holiday story: What Child is This I Asked the Midnight Clear, by Ken Scholes.

I hope everyone's having a delightful holiday season!

Recent Acquisitions

Had a busy day of accepting the other day!

In 2008, look for new fiction by:

Becca De La Rosa: Becca's had stories in Strange Horizons, LCRW, Ideomancer, and other fabulous places.

Jessica Wick - Jess is an editor at Goblin Fruit; this is her first appearance with us.

And welcome back to two authors who appeared in our Autumn 2006 issue:

Nir Yaniv - his first story with us, A Wizard On the Road, got an honorable mention in the Datlow/Link Year's Best!

Silvia Moreno-Garcia - Her first story with us was King of Sand and Stormy Seas. Look for her other stories in Fantasy, Reflection's Edge, and upcoming in Coyote Wild.

Shimmer Subscription Drive

And now it's Shimmer's turn to have a subscription drive.

From now until January 10, anyone who subscribes (or renews!) will get a special limited-edition chapbook of "What Child Is This I Ask The Midnight Clear," by Ken Scholes. We're raising our prices in January, so this is your last chance to subscribe at the current rate.

Won't you consider subscribing today?

The Clockwork Jungle Book

Shimmer is pleased to announce the Clockwork Jungle Book: a special double-length issue of steampunk animal parables, guest-edited by George Mann of Solaris Books. It's scheduled for release in Autumn 2008 - and we're now open for submissions. (And yes, we'll continue reading stories for our regular issues.) Check out the guidelines, and then send us your most fantastic steampunk animal tales.

Fingers crossed for a terrific evil robot monkey story! I can't wait to start reading the submissions.

John Joseph Adams did such a great job with guest-editing the Pirate issue (thanks, John!); we were really interested in exploring another guest edited issue. I learned so much by turning over the reins to Cap'n Adams. Really looking forward to the opportunities this project will present!

Ahoy! Another Pirate Review

Grasping for the Wind has a detailed review of the Pirate issue.

These ten stories and 1 interview are well written, and were good choices
for a speculative fiction magazine’s issue on pirates. The fantasy, horror
and/or sci-fi elements were neatly incorporated into the pirate stories.

Read the whole thing for details.

An Aurealis Finalist!

Angela Slatter's "The Angel Wood," published in Shimmer's Autumn 2006 issue, has made the short list for the Aurealis Award! The winner will be announced January 26, 2008; fingers crossed!

Congrats, Angela!

Two Acquisitions

Over the weekend, we purchased two stories:

"What to Do with the Dead," by Claude Lalumière
"One for Sorrow," by Shweta Narayan

I'm so pleased.

In other news, the second printing of Shimmer's pirate issue has arrived, and copies will go out in the next day or two. Some people have been very patient . . . but your wait is nearly over.

The Finish Line!

Yesterday, I woke up with a cold and took the day off from work. I sneezed and coughed my way to 50,000 words for nano (finishing with half an hour to spare!) and got a bunch of Shimmer work done, as well.

Today was going to be a relaxing day off - I had nothing more planned than a nap. But I've found myself doing dozens of tiny domestic and administrative tasks - none very important, but getting a big stack of them done is satisfying, and clears the decks for getting down to more important work in the next day or so.

I still have another 50,000 words or so to do on the novel. My plan is to work in 20-minute sprints - they were very effective during Nano, and I see no reason to change now. So every day (except Saturdays) I'll do one sprint with Skipper and/or Sean. And I suspect there will be plenty of days when I'll just keep rolling - but my target is to do some writing just about every day.

New way to procrastinate: I'm volunteering at Distributed Proofreaders - which proofs scanned text for Project Gutenberg. They have a wide variety of texts to proof - right now I'm poking at a book called "Christian Phrenology," which is pretty fascinating.

And if you would like to see lots of pictures of our snowy world, check out Sean's blog.

Ahoy! Pirate Reviews!

Check out what Sam Tomino of SF Review has to say about the Pirate Issue.

I'm sick of pirates. I was never a big fan of them and this wave of pirate stuff in pop culture has not endeared them to me. When I saw that the Shimmer Vol. 2, Issue 3 was "The Pirate Issue", I groaned. What would I encounter here? I needn't have worried. I enjoyed all the stories.

The MSS Shimmer: Converting the pirate-haters, one reader at a time! Thanks, Sam!

And Cap'n Adams has a swell reader review on his blog:

Finished reading the issue […] this weekend…really enjoyed it! Overall, the presentation was excellent, and your brief intro set the tone perfectly. I liked how there was a wide range of stories, touching on different aspects of the appeal of the pirate and the various forms of piracy.

I think it’s a great idea for a little magazine to do a special issue like this. I would like to see more small press magazines doing it. The focus on one theme/topic seems much more interesting than a magazine of general spec fic stories. It felt more like an anthology, but at an affordable price.

She goes on to offer capsule reviews of each story.

Looking forward to hearing what more of our readers think. Speak up!