Cock-A-Doodle-DOOOOOO!!!!!
Sorry, the title just seemed appropriate for what is essentially just another post of me, well, crowing. Cause as well as getting me pirate shanty placed at Farrago's Wainscot, I just got me first Interzone sale for "The Whenever at the City's Heart".
Re the first of these, I mentioned this at the GSFWC the other night after the crit session on a cool wee story by relative newcomer, Mark Harding, and was answered with "Farrago's what?", to which I shook me head in disappointment. OK, so apart from Neil, none of the Gissiffywickers had the pleasure of meeting the FW guys at WFC, but for anyone else who hasn't heard about this cool wee project, go check out the links below. As well as putting on a swell party, the FW crew are putting together a sorta cabinet of curiosities, an emporium of eccentricities or, as they put it: "an exhibition of weirds, an almanac of experimentation, decay, and the problems with form." Which sounds good to me. And given that one of the editors, Michael Constantine, I'm reliably informed, is a concertina-playing veteran of the bawdy pirate song, it seems only too apt that "The Ballad of Matelotage and Mutiny" should find a home with them. I'm just wondering if, at some future WFC, we can get a rousing, carousing, drunken chorus going with musical accompaniement and all. Now that would be fuuuuuun.
Anyway, yeah, go check 'em out. They're full-up in terms of fiction submissions at the moment, I think, with a line-up that includes forthcoming work from some quality writers, but they're still looking for non-fic.
http://www.farragoswainscot.com
http://farragoblog.livejournal.com
Re the second, the sale to Interzone is way cool on a couple of counts. For one, the story in question is the fourth in that "story-sphere" thing I blogged about previously, the one that's been doing me head in for over a decade. So with this one finished and placed, it's finally all done and dusted (barring any edits, copy-edits and/or proof-reading that might force me to face the demonspawn bastards again). And the fact that these stories riff off each other means it's good to have them *all* out there. As I said they stand alone, but it's good to know the "complete thing" will be available for anyone as wants to chase them all down.
For another thing, though, this is me first Interzone sale and it looks like the story'll be in the 25th Anniversary Issue. Given that Interzone was one of the things that first got me seeing how far out there you could go in the field (like, the first ever story I read in the mag being Ian Watson's "Jingling Geordie's Hole", for fuck's sake), I'm pretty damn chuffed about that. I came to the magazine as a teenager, while I was still at the hand-nailed-forehead, schizo "Kill them all" journal-writing stage, and it's been there all the time, surviving through thick and thin, so I kinda feel like I've grown up as a writer with Interzone there in the background. It's cool to be a part of the birthday celebrations, so to speak.
Anyway, enough of my crowing. Back to the actual writing.
Re the first of these, I mentioned this at the GSFWC the other night after the crit session on a cool wee story by relative newcomer, Mark Harding, and was answered with "Farrago's what?", to which I shook me head in disappointment. OK, so apart from Neil, none of the Gissiffywickers had the pleasure of meeting the FW guys at WFC, but for anyone else who hasn't heard about this cool wee project, go check out the links below. As well as putting on a swell party, the FW crew are putting together a sorta cabinet of curiosities, an emporium of eccentricities or, as they put it: "an exhibition of weirds, an almanac of experimentation, decay, and the problems with form." Which sounds good to me. And given that one of the editors, Michael Constantine, I'm reliably informed, is a concertina-playing veteran of the bawdy pirate song, it seems only too apt that "The Ballad of Matelotage and Mutiny" should find a home with them. I'm just wondering if, at some future WFC, we can get a rousing, carousing, drunken chorus going with musical accompaniement and all. Now that would be fuuuuuun.
Anyway, yeah, go check 'em out. They're full-up in terms of fiction submissions at the moment, I think, with a line-up that includes forthcoming work from some quality writers, but they're still looking for non-fic.
http://www.farragoswainscot.com
http://farragoblog.livejournal.com
Re the second, the sale to Interzone is way cool on a couple of counts. For one, the story in question is the fourth in that "story-sphere" thing I blogged about previously, the one that's been doing me head in for over a decade. So with this one finished and placed, it's finally all done and dusted (barring any edits, copy-edits and/or proof-reading that might force me to face the demonspawn bastards again). And the fact that these stories riff off each other means it's good to have them *all* out there. As I said they stand alone, but it's good to know the "complete thing" will be available for anyone as wants to chase them all down.
For another thing, though, this is me first Interzone sale and it looks like the story'll be in the 25th Anniversary Issue. Given that Interzone was one of the things that first got me seeing how far out there you could go in the field (like, the first ever story I read in the mag being Ian Watson's "Jingling Geordie's Hole", for fuck's sake), I'm pretty damn chuffed about that. I came to the magazine as a teenager, while I was still at the hand-nailed-forehead, schizo "Kill them all" journal-writing stage, and it's been there all the time, surviving through thick and thin, so I kinda feel like I've grown up as a writer with Interzone there in the background. It's cool to be a part of the birthday celebrations, so to speak.
Anyway, enough of my crowing. Back to the actual writing.
posted by Hal Duncan | 2:47 pm
10 Comments:
Congrats on the Interzone sale! Very groovy!
Welcome news indeed! Well done!
I don't suppose you'd mind recapping for those completists among us what the four stories are in the cycle and where they can be found?
And another GSFWCer in IZ. Always good to see!
Good on yez, sir.
Answering my own question but positing a supplementary one in its stead.
Does this sum up the cycle?
"The City of Rotted Names" Grendelsong chapbook, illustrated by Gabe Chouinard
"The Tower of Morning's Bones" Moonlit Domes anthology
"The Prince of End Times" Solaris Book of New Fantasy
"The Whenever at the City’s Heart" Interzone 209
The supplementary question is: is there a recommended order people should read them in?
Ha. Well done - and welcome to the establishment.
Jim Steel
Cheers, guys. And, yup, them's the ones, Neil. They should work however, so I wouldn't worry too much about sequencing, but if ye want to follow the "chronology" (in so far as the story themselves follow a "chronology"), if I was putting them together in a collection or whatever, the order would be CoRN, PoET, WatCH, ToMB.
And now I see that you get "watch" if you shorten "The Whenever at the City's Heart", which is very appropriate.
And the other stories also have some typical abbreviations: "corn", "poet", "tomb". Coincidence? I suspect not!
Great stuff. If the other three are half as good as "The Whenever at the City's Heart" then we're in for a treat. I'll track them down.
And we're always happy to publish upcoming talents, as long as we don't have to settle your bar bills at Cons!
;-)
--Jetse
Dude, if you do not compile these four stories into a chapbook of some sort, called Corn Poet Watch Tomb, I will personally fly to Glasgow and kick your ass. Really.
Jetse: Sheer coincidence, honest, guv. Why, the idea that I'd code extra meaning into titles -- how pretentious would that be?! Why, it couldn't be more poncy if I'd done the same in, oh, the chapter titles in the first half of Vellum, say. Heh.
Jason: Ah, but I'd want to call the chapbook something even more punfull. Like, "Stories: Threads of Ragged Yarns" or something.
Chris: It was in Fopp?! Ya fuckin dancer! Fopp is my fuckin temple, man, and my frickin ideal selling place, I've always reckoned, perfectly fucking positioned in terms of that elusive cross-over market of 18-35 year-olds whose tastes are defined by their eclecticism more than anything else. So I can't tell ye how happy I am to hear that it's for sale there. Fuckin monster news, dude.
And, fuck, yeah, I'd forgotten about the BSFA thing; it was arranged a while back. Anyway, look forward to catching ye there, man.
Congrats, Hal! Careful, looks you're becoming one of the popular kids...
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