An intriguing string of tweets earlier this week:
That’s right, after all these years, the “Best American …” series will finally start to showcase the best in Sci-Fi and Fantasy, and you can help guest editor Joe Hill by sending him recommendations for stories via this webpage: http://submissions.johnjosephadams.com/basff/submit/.
My father, Max, and my brother Anthony at West Point.
This past weekend, my father celebrated his 60th college reunion at the US Military Academy at West Point.
He attended the long weekend of activities with my older brother who, unlike me, had vivid memories of when we lived on post (I was but a wee toddler, and yet I remain a proud Army brat and always feel an upsurge of emotion when I’m at West Point).
I met up with them on a Sunday morning, after all the official reunion events were over. I met some of my father’s classmates in the lobby of the hotel as they were getting ready to head back to their respective homes. We went into town for a brunch at Andy’s Diner (a place that has been around since 1903 and which many Plebes went to, though my father had never been there. I gave them copies of a short fiction anthology of military sci-fi that includes one of my stories. We toured the West Point Museum.
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In case you didn’t know, the anthology of all-new short fiction “Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History” comes out on Friday, May 9, 2014.
A review from RT Books says the editors “have assembled some superstar-powered stories,” and then it goes on to point out three “standout tales” out of the 27 in the volume. And, yes, the story I wrote, “Angela and the Scar” is one of those standout tales.
Thanks!
Read the full review here http://www.rtbookreviews.com/book-review/long-hidden
UPDATE: Change of date and time (see below)
The anthology “Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History,” which includes one of my short stories (“Angela and the Scar”), has a release date: May 9, 2014.
Where can you buy the book? Check out the publisher’s page, Crossed Genres. The trade paperback edition is $19.95, and it is 363 pages. In addition to my story, it includes stories by some big-name writers such as Tananarive Due, Sofia Samatar, Ken Liu, Victor LaValle, Nnedi Okorafor, and Sabrina Vourvoulias. For a complete list of authors, check out my earlier post.
And while you’re at it, you may also want to kick in some bucks for the Crossed Genres Magazine’s current Kickstarter Campaign.
But wait, there’s more!
A book release party will be held at 9 pm Saturday, May 10, at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, 236 E. 3rd St., New York, New York 4 pm Saturday, May 10, at Alice’s Arbor, 549 Classon Avenue, Brooklyn, New York. Here’s the event page on Facebook. So if you’re in NYC, please go to the event and buy a copy. (Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend, as my day job is taking me to a conference at Yale.)
Tony Shalhoub as George S. Kaufman and Santino Fontana as Moss Hart in “Act One” at Lincoln Center (Photo by Joan Marcus)
“Act One” officially opens at Lincoln Center later this week, but this weekend I saw a preview showing of it. It’s good. Not great — the story of the life of Moss Hart, the playwright who grew up poor in the Bronx and had only a eighth-grade education (he had to go to work) but who went on to win the Pulitzer Prize.
The production is magnificent — a rotating set, great period costumes, top-notch acting from Tony Shalhoub (as an older Moss Hart, narrating Our Town-style; as the father of the 11-year-old Moss Hart; and as George S. Kaufman, who works with the young adult Moss Hart); the young adult Hart is strongly played by Santino Fontana, who may be best known as the voice of the evil prince Hans in the movie musical “Frozen”; and Andrea Martin, nailing multiple roles.
The play (written and directed by James Lapine), though, moves a bit slowly in, yes, Act 1, and feels very much like a less madcap Moss Hart play — a little dated in trying to stay true to the source material, Hart’s 1959 autobiography about his Dickensian early 20th-century life. What also seems dated is the ease of access Hart had to some of the brightest minds of his day, despite his lack of education. Perhaps a 21st century analogy would be talented computer coders and programmers who drop out of college and gain access to the best and brightest in that field.
What was most interesting to me though was what happened before I saw the show. I wanted to see the play in no small part because I had acted in Hart and Kaufman’s “You Can’t Take it With You” in high school, back in the 1980s.
At work, one of my coworkers, when I told her I was going to see the play, said, “I performed in ‘You Can’t Take it With You’ in high school.” She’s in her 60s, which means her high school days were in the 1960s. And also at work, another colleague said, “I was in ‘You Can’t Take it With You’ in high school!” That colleague, however, is an intern, a college senior, and her high school days were in the 2000s.
There it was, three generations of people all working at the same place all having been in the same play, which was first performed 1936 and won the Pulitzer in 1937.
So if you love the theater, and if you’ve been in any of Hart’s plays (such as “The Man Who Came to Dinner”), then this play is highly recommended.
When I was in college, my friends and I often joked about the life of being of writer, especially the low pay, imagining a scenario in which a publisher would say something like … “Great story. Here’s a dollar. What else ya got?”
What we didn’t talk about was all the waiting that goes along after sending stories out, and the sometimes in-between emails that can come it.
So on March 17, I got an email from a writers contest telling me of my status in the contest. I was told my story wasn’t lost, that others had been told they hadn’t won, and some had gotten Honorable mentions, but that I was in the “hold” category — which I had never knew existed. The thing is, in one of the write-ups announcing the contest, it had said that winners would be notified around the end of March, so I wasn’t expecting to hear anything — certainly not as soon as March 17. Continue reading →
So this is next on my reading list, thanks to a random drawing on Tor. com.
Publisher’s Weekly says of Eileen Gunn’s collection of short stories, “Questionable Practices”: “Nebula-winner Gunn combines humor and compassion in 17 short, intricate gems that showcase her many talents.”
Can’t wait.
(Note the Tor.com buttons, too)
Lake Atitlán as seen from the road in the hills above the town of Panajachel, Guatemala.
One of the biggest tourist draws in Guatemala is in the highlands, Lake Atitlán, and the many towns that surround it. We stayed over night in Panajachel and then, led by a tour guide from Guatemala City, we took a boat to visit three towns: Santa Catarina, San Antonio and Santiago.
A view of Lake Atitlán, with the Atitlán Volcano to the left and the San Pedro Volcano to the right.
I was recently interviewed via email by a high school student interested in arts and entertainment journalism. Here are some of the questions and answers:
Q: What different professions have you held in order to get where you are now?
A: I had a journalism internship at the Bellingham Herald in Bellingham, Wash., when I was still a college student majoring in journalism, but I also taught English in Japan, edited a phone book, worked as a copy writer for an advertising agency, and worked as a copy editor at a newspaper before becoming the arts and entertainment editor, all the while I wrote freelance reviews of books, plays and concerts.
Q: What classes did you take, throughout high school and college, to put you in a place to get the job you wanted?
A: In my high school, I was on the honors track, meaning I got to take AP classes (history, chemistry, English, calculus), as well as other advanced-level class, but I also took theater courses throughout high school. In college, I was a journalism major, but also took many courses in political science, philosophy and English. In graduate school, I earned a master’s of fine arts in creative writing, but also studied Japanese language and culture.
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