More stuff pertaining to the mail

Yes, another grand post about...mail! Settle down, settle down!

• Received my contributor copy and check (mmm money) for the beach-themed anthology Strange Stories of Sand and Sea, which contains my short story "Birds, Gods, and the Naming of Things"...and boy is it a big book. Over 300 pages. Lots of stories in here and I'm looking forward to sitting down with it and checking the others out. I don't re-read my work. But if I was to I'd probably describe the piece as an in-and-out hallucination trip under the boards of Atlantic City where an angry boy learns a mighty lesson from a talking seagull. Yup.
  
• Received my review copy of the latest issue of the urban horror magazine City Slab, #12, which I'll be handling for The Fix Online sometime in the near future.
• I mailed out my latest entry into the Writers of the Future contest this weekend. Go, little story, go! Shine on you crazy diamond! Er, I'll keep my fingers crossed that it makes it to California safely.

And that's that for now. I suspect I'll be getting a few more interesting items this week, but most of them will be bills. Ah, the bane of my existence! Bills! And CVS ads!

I gots mail

Look at what arrived in the mail today:



What's that? You can't read that really long Italian name on the cover? Oh, here let me help:



::pets::

::looks at some more::

::keeps on petting it::

An authorly post

Hmm, I don't get to make too many of these so I'll revel in them while I can.

Let's see...Strange Stories of Sand & Sea, which has my short story "Birds, Gods, and the Naming of Things" in it, is almost out. The ISBN is 978-0-9794770-5-8. The book will be distributed exclusively by Ingram to bookstores, both online and brick and board. It will be available online at www.amazon.com and Barnes & Noble's www.bn.com by the end of March. It will be searchable there by the title and the editor's name (Esther Schrader).

Here's the final cover, I believe:



Also, as it is March that means the latest issue of Aoife's Kiss is available. The March issue has my story "After Effects" in it, and I'm very eager to see the printed product. You can order an issue here, and the TOC looks like so:

Josh English: The Simple Life
Lee Clark Zumpe: Babel
David C. Kopaska-Merkel & Kendall Evans: Serial Salvage
Michael A. Pignatella: The Book of Sherman
Sheri Fresonke Harper: Knees
Matthew Keville: Killing Time
Howard Cincotta: Eat the Flow
P. E. Vogel: The Fox and the Wizard
JA Howe: A Tale that Tells Songs
Kajsa Wiberg: The Cali Roll
Paul Abbamondi: After Effects
Lawrence R. Dagstine: A Soul to the Stars
Ron Savage: That Tabloid Life
Gordon A. Graves: Witness
John Bowker: Apron Strings
poems
Dorine Ratulangie: 0559
Andrea Fakete: Fireworks
Marcie Lynn Tentchoff: The Changeling's Song
Andrea Fakete: Outside
L. A. Story Houry: Secret Love
Jennifer Jerome: Telling
Linda Herring: When Things Go Wrong
Phillip A. Ellis: The Immortal
Terrie Leigh Relf & Marcie Lynn Tentchoff: Sea Ball
Melissa Sihan Mütlu: Scarlet Walls
Kyle Heger: Message to a Guard Dog
L. N. Allen: Merwoman
Melissa Sihan Mütlu: Butterfly Forest
E. P. Fisher: Countdown Begins at Ten
Jennifer Crow: Forsaken
William R. Ford Jr.: Land of the Broken Cities, Land of the Nuclear Sun
Julie Shiel: Visions
Kathy Kubik: Android Blue
Aurelio Rico Lopez III: Wizard's Betrayal

Okay, that's all from me for now. Back to writing the next WOTF story...

Sporty Spec has arrived

NaWriMo wordage for the day: 586 words



I forgot to mention that I received my contributor's copy for Sporty Spec: Games of the Fantastic edited by Karen A. Romanko over the weekend. It's a nicely put-together book, and I'm not just saying that because I'm in it or that my story "The Sport of Kings" is first in the lineup. Though it helps! I kid, I kid.

Featuring work by 42 authors, there's bound to be something for everyone. Though I'm not afraid to admit that me and poetry get along like snails and salt. Or am I thinking of slugs? Eh, let's move on. So far, I've enjoyed "Perpetual Check" by E.C. Myers, a planes-traveling chess story with some emotional depth, and "Hang Twenty" by Jude-Marie Green, a lighthearted tale about a surferboy, his wolf, and their time amongst the waves. I hope to get to read some more of the stories later on, but I'm very much liking what I've seen so far.

Another review of "67442"

Phil Soletsky reviews the first real issue of Murky Depths over at Tangent Online. Of my story he says:

"67442" by Paul Abbamondi is likely the shortest story in the issue. An android has its old personality thoroughly and graphically stripped away—the hair, the skin, the muscles, the memories—and a new one installed in preparation for its reentry into society. Excellent as a descriptive scene, but only makes a hesitant attempt to deliver a tiny plot in the last couple of paragraphs.

I received my contributor copies the other day, and yes, they're gorgeous. Strangely, they even smell good. The layout of each page is unique and well-down except for one section where it's hard to read the text due to a dark watermark in the background. Still, a neat looking magazine that is really more of a graphic novel than anything. More thoughts on the fiction once I finish reading them...

Busy mailbox

Let's see, let's see. My mailbox has been pretty bloated lately, stuffing itself with a bunch of different meals. First, it's been snacking on four different rejections over the weekend (mmm, needs some salt!). These were mostly forms and have no effect on me whatsoever. The stories will be going back out some time this week.

Next up, a hearty meal consisting of a free copy of The Princes of the Golden Cage by Nathalie Mallet and my contest prize, The Best American Comics: 2006. Yay, books!

And finally we come to dessert. My mailbox has no will power, and has decided upon an official certificate that marks me as a kickass member of the New Jersey Ghost Hunters Society. Yummers!

And even with all that, I'm thinking I should be getting a few more things in the mail this week. Still anxiously awaiting my contrib. copies for Murky Depths...

Hate mail

Fact: The USPS hates science-horror.

Got my contributor copies (along with money! I like money!) for Apex Digest, #9 in the mail yesterday. I think I can safely say that I've never seen a package so beat up and trampled on before in all my times of going to and fro from the mailbox. This was a medium-sized envelope, probably around 8" X 11", and appeared to have been drop-kicked over a dozen times. There were black smudges everywhere, all four ends smushed and wrinkled worse than your grandmother after a solid three-hour soak in the tub. The envelope was also ripped open along its side; luckily, the magazines and my check did not fall out. I'm guessing that some chafed postal worker got curious, took a quick look at the type of fiction Jason Sizemore likes to buy, stuffed everything back inside the envelope, and felt the need to let his inner soccer player out.

Yeah, that sounds about right.