People Saying Stuff About My Fiction

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been made aware of several people saying things about my stories but haven’t had the time to mention it here due to some other stuff taking up my time. Heh. Anyway, here it all is in simple list form.

  • SFScope’s Mark L. Blackman attended the NYRSF Federations reading on July 7th and gave his impressions of the stories and the readers. I have to say, he picked what has to be the worst picture of me, ever! I look like I just discovered a bug in my copy of the antho. :)
    • After a break, next up was K. Tempest Bradford, whose breezily snarky offering, “Different Day”, was a reaction to the common premises that alien worlds have one culture/one global government and that, invariably, they “come to America first.” She cleverly posits rival alien tribes, just as mutually hostile as our contemporary nations, visiting and negotiating with other parts of the world (like Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama), though her present-day biases and digs limit the story’s shelf-life.
  • Tom Crosshill reviewed Sybil’s Garage No. 6.
    • “Elan Vital” by K. Tempest Bradford. A story of dealing with loss, of holding on, and of letting go. The execution is superb, even if the premise feels somewhat familiar (I won’t reveal it here, except to say that this story too is about the undead, although to call it a zombie story would hardly be accurate.) At its core is a parent-child relationship, which as you will see becomes a recurring theme in this issue.
  • Sam Tomaino at SFRevu made me go “squee!”
    • K. Tempest Bradford gives us what, I think, is the best story in the issue with “Elan Vital”. … This is one you won’t forget soon.

There’s more to that last review but it’s a bit spoilery. Obviously you should read the story right now so you can then read the whole review ;)

New Reviews of Sybil’s Garage 6

New Reviews of Sybil's Garage 6

Charles Tan has a short review of SG6 wherein he mentions my story as one of his favorites:

“Elan Vital” by K. Tempest Bradford manages to cram a lot in this relatively short piece. While the science fiction aspects and ramifications might appeal to genre readers, what drew me to this story is how Bradford attaches a human component to the narrative and everything else grows out of that. Her protagonist is not only sympathetic but her unique situation could only have been pulled off in the medium of prose. For example, if this were a comic or a TV episode, part of the tension would have been tipped off too early, and a pivotal scene would have lost much of its momentum. But as it is, the chronology is just right, and Bradford crafts a story with emotional resonance.

Fantasy Magazine also gave us an awesome review!

My Shelf

I have a shelf on one of my bookcases where I put books and magazines my stories or non-fiction pieces appear. Recently this shelf grew a bit with the addition of stuff that debuted at WisCon. Though my shelf isn’t vast, I am prodigiously proud of it. Here’s a pic:

The Me Shelf

You can’t tell from the spines, but somewhere in there are copies of Farthing 2 and 3, a Cafe Irreal sampler with my story Elf Aware in it, and I think I cut off the rightmost book which was a showcase of award-winning writing from my high-school district. I has stuff from that far back, yes.

Those of you who actually come over to the site will note that on the left sidebar I put the covers of all the things I’m currently in because, OMG, look at all the beautiful covers. I can’t decide if EV or SG6 is my favorite zine cover and Federations is definitely my favorite anthology cover (but Interfictions remains awesome). I have lucked out quite a bit in the cover department.

Merry Month of May

At WisCon I was able to quietly sneak away with a copy of the latest Electric Velocipede (issue 17/18!). I was super excited to see it because my story Enmity is contained within. There are also stories by many friends of mine, including two other Altered Fluidians: Mercurio D. Rivera and Matthew Kressel.

I saw John Klima during his brief appearance and got to hug him a lot. Then on Sunday I wore The Shirt. You know, this shirt:

I have it on good authority that The Shirt moved many copies of the zine. (Also, if you are a fan of EV or of shirts or of me, you can get The Shirt on Zazzle and support the zine in the process.)

This May has been especially awesome for me because I had stories in a book and two zines come out this month. Federations, Sybil’s Garage 6, and Electric Velocipede 17/18 — and all of them were available in the dealer’s room. There were also many copies of the Interfictions anthology and all three WisCon Chronicles! I’m in each, and the newest one is especially spiffy with a fantastic cover. Liz Herny is a goddess.

I was feeling very fancy having so many things in the room with my stories and essays in, so I took pictures:

WisCon 33 Dealer's Room of Me - Federations WisCon 33 Dealer's Room of Me - Sybil's Garage

WisCon 33 Dealer's Room of Me - Electric Velocipede

WisCon 33 Dealer's Room of Me - The WisCon Chronicles WisCon 33 Dealer's Room of Me - Interfictions

So I encourage you to order your copy of Sybil’s Garage if I didn’t force it ony ou at WisCon, to buy Federations and WisCon Chronicles vol. 3, to check the Electric Velocipede blog to see when the latest issue will be available for ordering (the copies at WisCon were special advance ones — contributors and subscribers should get theirs soon), and to read, read, read, not just my stories, but all the fabulous stuff in these offerings. May 2009 is a month of awesomeness.

All My Mothers

Last year on Mother’s Day I posted about how all of my mothers are now gone. My own mother, Marjorie T. Bradford, passed away ten years ago (it doesn’t feel that long ago), my maternal grandmother, Anna Ree Tidmore, passed away just before my birthday last year, my fraternal grandmother, Genevieve Bell, passed away when I was a little kid, and my mother’s mother’s mother, Katie Bell Rembert, passed away when I was just 3.

Ever since my mother died I’ve done my best to ignore Mother’s Day for my own sanity.  I can’t completely, though, because there are many mothers in my life. Many of whom I love and admire a lot for how awesome they are as mothers and how awesome they are in general. I’m especially partial to my friends who have daughters, because it makes me think of me and my mom — she was my favorite person in the world even when I didn’t always show it. It makes me so happy to see that in a lot of the mother/daughter relationships my friends have. I see all their beautiful girls growing up into strong, intelligent, independent young ladies and I am so jealous of them.  I want to tell them to cling to their moms as tightly as possible for as long as they can, because there’s no guarantee they’ll be there forever.

This year I decided to not ignore Mother’s Day and instead offer up one last gift to my mom: my story, Élan Vital, from Sybil’s Garage #6 is now live on the Senses Five website as a special preview for the zine (out by WisCon!). Matt Kressel and I thought it would make a nice Mother’s Day promotion. Go read and then go hug your mom for me :)

Tidmore Family Portrait

Another Nice Review and Another Sale

First, the sale: some time ago Matt Kressel of Sybil’s Garage informed me that he would like to buy my story Elan Vital, which I affectionately refer to as my Dead Mother story.  I wrote the beginning of that story when I was last in England (in Penzance to be exact).  England and Penzance are apparently inspirational — part of the well that Black Feather came from originated in my first visit many years ago.  Perhaps I should look in to living there.

Anyway, Sybil’s Garage rocks and I’m all excited to have a story in it.

Next, the review: Mercurio Rivera is the designated Locus subscriber in our writing group (this is probably not his official function…) and he passed along Rich Horton’s review of Until Forgiveness Comes:

“K. Tempest Bradford’s ‘Until Forgiveness Comes’ was intriguing.  Most simplistically, it’s a 9/11-derived story — well enough done, about a yearly ceremony remembering a terrorist attack.  But as an SF reader I found myself far more intrigued by the tantalizing hints of a cool alternate world in the background — with, perhaps, Ancient Egyptian culture having survived in some form, leading to a radically altered Jesus-figure, and a much more different Western Europe.  The story is only two thousand words long, and that sketched background isn’t at all the point — but I confess it’s what gripped me.”

Thanks, Rich!

Magazines That Want (More) Diversity

Magazines That Want (More) Diversity

I often talk about the need for markets and their editors/publishers to do more to up the diversity in their slush pile and, consequently, in the publication itself. And one of the steps toward doing so is making sure that people know about your intentions in that direction. It does help to make the statement outright, but you still must back that statement up with results. Editors sometimes ask me how they get the word out, and, as I said in my Mind Meld contribution the other week, one of the ways is writer to writer to writer. Since I’m a writer whose blog is read by other writers, I guess I should do my part. :)

I recently sent this list of magazines looking for more POC authors and stories with POC characters and non-standard cultures/settings/etc to the Carl Brandon mailing list. I know that the editors of these markets want more because they told me so (which is as good an indication as any).

Fantasy — Any magazine I’m involved with definitely cares about this issue. One would hope it goes without saying, but not everyone is aware of who works for what and the goings on behind the scenes.

Sybil’s Garage — Before the last reading period, Matt Kressel and I had several discussions about how to draw in more diverse submissions. We edited the guidelines to make that desire clearer and I encouraged authors I knew to apply. I believe the next submission period is in early August, so keep an eye out and, yes, send your stuff in. Matt also says not to make any pre-judgments on what a Sybil’s Garage-type story is.

PodCastle — Rachel Swirsky is definitely on the look out for great stories by POC authors. I gave her some names and stories to check out, but you increase your own chances by submitting. PodCastle, like EscapePod, takes reprints. And it doesn’t matter how long ago the story was published, just so long as it’s good (and fantasy — for SF stuff, submit to EscapePod).

Asimov’s — Sheila Williams has mentioned to me a couple of times that she’d like to see more women in her slush (particularly with SF stories) and I suspect that she could use more submissions from POC and/or with POC characters and under-represented cultures.

As always, none of these markets is likely to publish a story just because it’s written by a POC or has POC characters. But in order to have a chance, you need to send the story in!

There are probably markets that I’m missing or editors who want more diversity but haven’t mentioned it to me. If so, mention it in the comments. I’ll add it to the main post as we go along.

Other markets looking to increase diversity (as indicated in the comments):