20th Century Ghosts

Have you read this yet? 20th Century Ghosts, by Joe Hill - through all of 2007, it seems, everyone was saying how terrific this collection is. I'm just getting around to reading it now, and it's knocking me on my ass. It's so much better than you've heard.

The best of the lot is "Pop Art," I think. In the introduction, Christopher Golden says "'Pop Art' is transcendent. The single best short story I have read in years, it brings all of Joe Hill's abilities to bear in a few short pages--the weirdness, the tenderness, the complicity." And that's exactly right.

It's the tenderness that gets me, and that makes these stories so remarkable.

Stop whatever you're doing and go read this book already.

Proofreading the Art Issue

Here at the Shimmer factory, we're busy proofreading the Art issue. It'll go to the printers early next week, and be in our hands a few weeks after that.

It's been months since I read any of these stories--long enough that I've forgotten a lot about each one. So it's a real treat to get to read these again, with almost fresh eyes. They are delightful, and varied, and I am falling in love with each of them all over again.

So excited to see this issue finally approach release!

Tales from the Slush Mines

Today I read a submission which said that, if the author didn't get a reply by a certain date, he'd assume the story had been rejected and would start sending it to other markets. It's my understanding that some agents work on a "no reply unless we're interested" basis, but I'm not aware of any spec fic short story markets that do (please enlighten me in comments if you do!).

And I think it's a really bad idea to put a statement like that in your cover letter. Even aside from any nuances of tone, the bottom line practical reason is that e-mail goes astray all the time. I get several queries a week, and yeah, 90% of the time, it's a rejection letter that never reached the author -- but the other 10% of the time is what makes it worth querying. If the e-mail never reached us, we haven't even had a chance to read it.

Two incidents: I found one author's story in the spam folder when she queried. I read it, adored it, and you'll be reading it in our Summer 2008 issue. And another author wasn't receiving my acceptance letters -- I had to use one of my personal e-mail addresses to get in touch with him once it became clear that something wasn't working.

I'm very glad that both these authors didn't just give up and move on when they didn't hear anything.

So don't assume you've been rejected -- query. You might get good news.

Last Day of the Shimmer Sub Drive

Today's the last day of Shimmer's subscription drive. Head on over now and grab a subscription - and get a signed chapbook of "What Child Is This I Ask The Midnight Clear," by Ken Scholes as a special bonus. Last chance to subscribe at the current rates!

Darling Little Folded Books

Lately, I've been getting interested in making my own books.

We started with simple folded books. They're very easy to do. You can read some directions here. I'd try to explain but it's way easier to just point you at someone else. Fold, fold, fold, cut, fold, book!

Here's one folded and cut:

And here it is folded into a book:

This one got a purple cover, and gold foil endpapers and decoration.

A collection of several books:

Betcha didn't know I was so crafty, did you? Either did I - but I've had my eye on making books for a long time. One obstacle is that I can't cut straight: so I finally got a decent paper cutter, as well as an Exacto knife and a cutting matt. I still tend to be a little crooked, but at least now, the stuff doesn't look like it was cut by a drunk monkey.

The next step was to figure out how to print text onto a page that would fold into one of these books - that was harder. Maybe if I knew my way around desktop publishing software it would have been easier, but I triumphed using columns in MS Word and running stuff through the printer twice. Of course you can't fit many words in a wee book like this, but that was just fine for my purposes.

The little books are fast and easy, and fun to decorate. Give it a try sometime.

Not so much.

Remember what I said earlier about feeling better? Scratch that.

Ugh.

Slowly recovering

It's been a really gross weekend, but we're both on the mend. I suspect we'll both be back at work and school tomorrow, though we'll be moving at a much slower pace than usual. Ugh, glad this weekend is over!

We did laundry today and it took all of our energy. It always amazes me how things we take for granted normally seem like huge undertakings when we're sick. And it makes me glad that we've done a pretty good job of keeping the house tidy most of the time - so taking a few days off to be sick doesn't mean the whole place is in irreparable chaos.

One of my goals for the new year was to develop the habit of writing. So I'm trying to do 100 words a day. It's hardly any words, I know - but the point is not to lay down a big word count, but to develop the habit. Most days I've gone on to do more than my 100 words, and I'm planning on upping that count once the habit gets entrenched. So far, 5/6 days, and plodding ahead.

Poor us!

We're sick.

Sean came down with it yesterday; today it started for me. I woke up with a horrible headache and body aches, the beginnings of a cough and sore throat. It was about all I could do to get up long enough to call in sick at work - then it was back to bed for the rest of the day. Sean's in a little better shape. But we're both pretty pathetic.

Gonna head off and watch Stardust in a few minutes, and then I will probably go to bed early.

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!