Received a form letter from Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine today. No ceremony, no comments, no worries. It was my first sub to them. I usually send my mystery stories to Ellery Queen and thought I’d give the other mag a shot.

Speaking of Hitchcock, I queried the editors of Paging Mr. Hitchcock, the anthology of movie-theme fiction that I submitted to about a year ago, to see if they might want to take a look at “The Converted.” If not, I found a few other markets that might be interested. Including a couple that publish very handsome chapbooks, not unlike the one I got in the mail the other day – Teeth, by Therese Littleton. It even came with a snazzy shark’s-tooth bookmark.

Last week Kathryn told me that her boss, one of the head honchos of the communications department at Trent, wanted to read some of my stories. I finally got around to sending her a few — “Dr. Fall,” “The Tattletale,” and “Charlotte’s Frequency” — and this morning she sent me an e-mail with her comments.

In short, she loved them. She thought the dialogue was “authentic,” and that there was a maturity in my writing. Your prose is smart, crisp, but warm, with an ability to linger over just the right details. Somehow, you move the reader along and I think it’s because of the strong narrative voice. I don’t mean anything overpowering, just the sense that the phraseology is so well built that it creates an empathetic, unwavering and very human “voice.”

I like feedback of any kind, positive or negative, just as long as it’s insightful. It beats the shit out of Your story was really good. As a rule, I don’t let a lot of people read my work before it’s published. I made an exception in this case because Kat’s boss has been asking me for some time, and because she meets a lot of the writers who come to Trent for various events and functions. She said she wasn’t surprised that I was already getting published, and that at this point in my career it’s just a matter of meeting the right people. I’m hoping she might be able to do a few intros some day down the road.

In other news, work on my novel slowed down a bit this week. It was starting to kick my ass, so I decided to take a break for a day or two. Then this morning, I happened upon Jeff VanderMeer’s blog where he gave an update on the pirate-themed anthology he’s currently editing.

Now, I don’t read pirate fiction — never read a pirate story in my life, in fact — and I sure as hell don’t write it. But in typical fashion, as I was reading this blog, a germ of an idea started to form in my mind. I don’t know if this would have happened had I been going great guns on my novel, but that’s beside the point.

All that matters is that on the day I decided to take a break from my novel, I ended up writing two thousand words of what may be the only pirate story I’ll ever write. It’s got a sf twang to it, and will probably be called “Invisible Treasure,” unless I can come up with something better (please oh please). I don’t like the word treasure in the title, but I can’t think of anything else. “Invisible Booty” sounds stupid and vaguely pornographic. I think Claude Rains would do a triple gainer in his grave.

Anyway, the story is really coming along. I’m having a lot of fun writing it, and I’m taking pride in the fact that it contains absolutely no pirate speak, which was ruined for me a few years back after listening to a bunch of fangirls at a Toronto Trek convention.

You can only hear “Ar!” and “Avast!” so many times before you want to shoot someone.

• Currently reading: Teeth, by Therese Littleton

Woke up to some good news this morning. My short-short story, “The Black Tree,” is now online at 55 Stories.

It’s not much, but I still had a lot of fun writing it. It’s harder than you might think to craft a story that has to be exactly 55 words long.

Anyway, I hope you dig it.

Also: “What Monster Could Have Done This?”: Horror Films For Left-Wingers / Horror Films For Right-Wingers

• Currently reading: "The Green Man," by Christopher Fowler

As usual, the moment I mention how slow things have been around here, all kinds of publishing news suddenly starts pouring in. Not that I’m complaining, of course.

Although the anthology doesn’t come out until April or May, the cover to Fall and Rise, featuring my story “Everything Gets Bigger After Nuclear War,” is now online.

The artist’s name is Michele Murray, and I think she did a fantastic job. I was impressed mostly by the originality of the image. I like the idea of a collection of post-apocalyptic stories being promoted without resorting to familiar images of, say, mushroom clouds or mutants.

Although one is not supposed to judge a book by its cover, if this one is any indication, then Fall and Rise is going to be great.

It’s hard to believe I haven’t posted a cover since last May, when Dark Wisdom #9 came out. That was my only published piece last year, and I can only hope that the ten or eleven others due out this year stay on schedule. Hope, hope…

• Currently reading: "The Machine," by Conrad Williams

Received an e-mail from Brian A. Dixon at Fourth Horseman Press saying that Revelation 4:1 will be released early next month.

He apologized for the delays, which were related to problems with the interior artwork, and said that for a time he was considering not including any at all (which would have been a first for the magazine).

Fortunately he was able to find a talented illustrator who is right now composing original artwork for each of the stories in the new issue, including my own “Winter Hammock.”

Looks like my long-awaited (by me, at least) second story is only a few weeks away from finally being published!

(I had a fun post planned for tonight, but this damn publishing news got in the way. Guess you’ll all have to wait…)

• Currently reading: "Porno in August," by Carlton Mellick III

Not much to report these days. Work progresses on the novels, in fits and bursts; still have to remind myself that a) it’s not a race, and b) a week’s worth of work, be it two thousand words or ten thousand, is still progress even though I haven’t finished anything.

I expected to have more publishing news to balance out the lack of writing updates, but things have been quiet on that end, as well. I haven’t heard anything from Fourth Horseman for the last couple of weeks, same goes for Naked Snake Press, and I’ve only gotten the occasional response from the 30 or so other stories I have out and about. I guess this is just a quiet time of year. Everyone is trying to get back into the swing of things, and I imagine the crummy weather isn’t helping.

I didn’t do much on the weekend — not writing-wise, anyway. Kathryn went to see David Suzuki speak at Trent on Friday night. She helped organize the event, and actually got to perform a one-on-one interview with Suzuki beforehand. Very cool.

I was at home not writing and watching Dirty Harry. Kat bought me the box set of all five films for Christmas, and I have to say they still stand up pretty well thirty years later. I’ve always been a big Eastwood fan, everything from his Westerns to the Dirty Harry movies to his directorial efforts like Bird.

I did accomplish one good thing on the weekend. I read a great novella by Elizabeth Hand called Illyria. The author’s name was familiar to me, but I had never read any of her work before. That might have remained the case if Illyria hadn’t been included as a free gift for subscribing to Postscripts magazine. A genuine good read that has prompted me seek out more of the author’s work.

• Currently reading: "Northwest Passage," by Barbara Roden

I’m usually pretty good at sussing out the legitimate publishers from the sketchy ones. Websites like Preditors and Editors help a lot, but usually you only have to look at the websites. One shouldn’t judge a publisher by its website, in much the same way one shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but I had a bad vibe right from the getgo when I first came upon DNA Publications.

To say that they published a slew of crappy sf/fantasy magazines would be giving them too much credit. It would be more accurate to say they planned to publish a number of magazines, but most of them arrived late, or not at all, and the company eventually stopped responding to queries.

This is not the first time something like this has happened, and it won’t be the last, but the problem in DNA’s case was that throughout all of this they were still taking people’s money. If you Google “DNA Publications,” you’ll find all kinds of horror stories (ha-ha) from writers who have dealt with them over the years, and you’ll be hard pressed to find someone willing to defend them. I count myself lucky that I never sent them a story.

Anyway, it seems the authorities have finally decided to investigate DNA. It’s doubtful if anyone will get their money back, but at least it serves to deliver the final nail in the coffin on one of the snakier publishers around, and will prevent other writers from wasting their time on them.

• Currently reading: Illyria, by Elizabeth Hand

This morning I received the contract for the story that will be appearing in Horror Library - Volume 2.

A copy of the table of contents was included, and it looks like it’s going to be a great book. I have the first volume and the quality of the production and the stories themselves was first-rate. Also, it received a great deal of publicity and a number of reviews (most of which were positive), so there’s the possibility of getting a lot feedback on my story.

According to editor R.J. Cavender, they still hope to launch the book at this year’s World Horror Convention, with a reading by some of the authors who will be in attendance (including yours truly).

Appended to the bottom of the message was a short note from Cavender saying he was very excited to include “Charlotte’s Frequency” as a part of the collection, and that it was one of his personal favourites.

Ex-cellent.

• Currently reading: Apocalypse Now, Voyager, by Jay Russell

Just heard from the editor of 55 Words that they accepted my very short story, “The Black Tree.” She said it should be on the website within the next couple of weeks.

It’s not much to get excited about – a 55-word story that took me about five minutes to write – but hey, an acceptance is an acceptance, right?

I’ll let y’all know once it’s online.

• Currently reading: Apocalypse Now, Voyager, by Jay Russell