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!

Couple of Mentions for Until Forgiveness Comes

IROSF had this to say about the story:

If you want to posit a distinction between a fiction and a story, this one is a fiction. The events of the story, or the several stories, that lie in the background of this scene must be inferred by the reader. Nor is it clear even to the participants just how the ghosts are invoked, or what sort of presence they have there. None of this really matters in this piece, where the point is the presence of the observers and the different reason that each of them have for coming to confront their ghosts, or not.

Also, Willow Fagan (whose artist spotlight is up today and you should def. check it out) mentioned it on his blog.

At the beginning of this story, I thought the use of the style and format of a public radio show was clever and interesting.  By the end, I was very moved.

That’s what I was going for :)

I Have Not Yet Stopped Doing The Happy Snoopy Dance

I Have Not Yet Stopped Doing The Happy Snoopy Dance

A bit of most excellent news — yesterday I found out that Strange Horizons will publish my story Until Forgiveness Comes!  Yay!  SH is one of my favorite magazines and a market I really, really wanted to crack.  And that story is, I believe, one of the best I’ve ever written.

Apparently SH sent out a bunch of acceptances yesterday as I saw at least one mentioned on my flist and my fellow Altered Fluidian, Kris Dikeman, also got one.  I’m pretty sure AF is taking over markets one by one, as three or four of us have something coming up in Electric Velocipede as well.

I should also say that the story benefited tremendously from critiques from both Altered Fluid and, later, the Black Beans (who took a look at the revision I did for SH, mentioned here).  Big thanks, y’all :)

My story will come out in late 2008/early 2009, and I’ll definitely make mention when it does.  And next month my Podcastle story comes out.  Lots to look forward to.