The Writer Jonathan Shipley

The time from Easter of this year to April 14 was filled with events — and not tax events.  During this space of time, I heard back from editor after editor with acceptances, and when the dust cleared, I had sold five stories in three weeks.  That’s a new professional best for me.  Those sales in order are:

“Between Two Heartbeats” on March 27, Easter morning — this science fiction story is going to the Third Flatiron Anthology themed “hyperpowers.”  This is the fourth story I’ve sold to Third Flatiron over the last several years.

“Lady Trap” on April 3 — this fantasy story was picked up by Farstrider Magazine for their second issue.  The editor commented how complete the world felt, probably because I’ve used the setting and main character extensively in two of my novels.

“Whisper” on April 5 — the first version of this science fiction story was expanded and revised at the editor’s request, and the changes were accepted for Visions IV: Space Between Stars, which was released today.  Very fast runaround from Lillicat Publishers.  (For more on “Whisper.” see my previous post.)

“Scow of Destiny” on April 10 — I submitted this science fiction story to INvective INk’s “mistaken identity” issue, but it was accepted for their later “end of the world” June issue.  When this was critiqued in my writing group, it came to light that not everyone knows what a scow is, but when you read this story, you’ll understand.

“Lab Rat” on April 14 — This is a mad scientist story that will appear in Lit Select’s anthology Legendary Stories: What Went Wrong.  With a mad scientist story, you can safely assume that everything goes wrong.

So five acceptances in three weeks – huzzah! And already they’ve started appearing in print.

Today was the release of Visions IV: Space Between Stars, a sci-fi anthology of deep space events that might go on far away from planets and stars.  My contribution to the book was the story “Whisper,” a vampire story.  Yes, vampires in outer space sounds like a parody, yet the possibilities are strangely limitless when it’s all night and no dawn.  What could happen to the polymorphous vampiric body away from the confines of sunlight and gravity?  In “Whisper,” a traditional, planet-bound vampire confronts his deep space brethren and discovers the answer.  Visions IV is available on Amazon at this location .

. . . The Worlds of Science, Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror, Vol. 2 for my short story “Sanguine.”  This is an Australian anthology edited by Robert N. Stephenson, the second in a series of two so far.  It all came together very tightly.  My copy of Volume 1 (pictured here) had just arrived on my doorstep when I heard back from Robert that he was buying “Sanguine” for Volume 2.  So an all-round good day for Worlds of SF, F & H.  “Sanguine” itself is a 10,000-word science fiction tale revolving around blood as a nutritional source for two alien hemovore races.  Sounds like a vampire story, but it isn’t.  Nothing supernatural about this clash of cultures.  Because of the way supply-and-demand works,  there arise viable employment opportunities for humans to serve as sangreanos — blood donors — on these alien ships.  Walking food sources, you might say.  However, it’s politically controversial.  Rightist, hawkish factions among the local human colonists think selling blood is a pandering to alien tastes — literally — when a good war would be a better solution.  So this is the backdrop of the story, and the main character, Venda Senjak, is dumped into the middle of it when she accepts a post as sangreano handler on a hemovore ship.  And the situation keeps getting more and more complicated.

The story in Volume 1, “Pale as the Noonday Sun,” is not about hemovores and sangreanos, but it is about a clash of cultures, this time between humans and a dominant saurian senient race.  The viewpoint character is a velociraptor-ish species who is very full of himself as the biggest and the baddest.  Then he encounters a human on the run from bounty hunters, and the two discover they have more in common than they’d ever dreamed possible.  You can find “Pale as the Noonday Sun” here on Amazon.

My story “Tearcatcher” has been published in the Whortleberry Press anthology Strange Mysteries 6, edited by Jean Goldstrom and Tim Tobin.  This is another Justin Tyme tale with the same characters from “Up on the Housetop, Gargoyle Paws” that appeared last summer.  The inspriration for “Tearcatcher” was an antiques show where I encountered a mysterious silver vial.  The dealer proceeded to explain that it was used during Victorian times to store the tears shed during the mourning period.  I’ve encountered a lot of strange implements used by the Victorians, but this tearcatcher was new to me.   So I went home and wrote a story about it, also working in a Rasputin reference because what doesn’t go better with a little Rasputin thrown in?  I have one more of these antique-based Justin Tyme stories written, and a whole list of ideas that I want to eventually write with titles such as “Drapes of Wrath” and  “Meissen Men.”  With a main character named Justin Tyme, the puns tend to be an integral part of these stories.

Strange Mysteries 6 can be found at http://www.lulu.com/shop/http://www.lulu.com/shop/jean-goldstrom/strange-mysteries-6/paperback/product-22189159.html

Last week I had the pleasant surprise of royalty at my door . . . well, in my mailbox, actually.  No, it wasn’t a grand duke stuck in the letterbox, but a royalty check.  It seems that Sword and Sorceress 27 has paid out its expenses and is now distributing a percentage of sales back to the contributing authors of the anthology.  This has always been a good thing in the writing universe but is even better now in this age of ebooks that never go out of print.  I can look forward to royalties on every copy of vol. 27 that sells from now until eternity.  There’s also a intriguing footnote.  I not only contributed to volume 27 of Sword and Sorceress, but also to volumes 25, 26, 28, and 29.  Sounds like more grand duke in the letterbox to me.

The anthology These Vampires Don’t Sparkle from Sky Warrior Book Publishing is now available in paperback and ebook editions.  My contribution to the anthology is “Safe Haven,” a story about friendship.  The fact that one of the friends happens to be Undead seeking his own kind makes this also a vampire story, but at core it’s still all about friendship.  It also has a strong art component in that one of the characters is an artist who needs to rely on his talent to save the day when all else fails.  This is the first Chapman story to make it into print, even though I’ve been writing about Chapman and his vampiric buddy Foxfire for literally decades.  In fact, I wrote the first version of this story, called at that time “The Dog and the Dead,” in the 90’s.  This later “Safe Haven” incarnation is a much stronger tale.   These Vampires Don’t Sparkle is available on Amazon here.

At the beginning of August, another anthology hit the market.  The book is Strangely Funny II from Mystery and Horror, LLC, and the story is “Up on the Housetop, Gargoyle Paws.”  It is, as one might guess, a humorous interaction with gargoyles, specifically the gargoyles of the Biltmore mansion in Asheville, NC.  Strangely Funny II can be found on Amazon in both paperback and ebook editions (and be careful typing “strangely” or it comes out “strangle” with an entirely different type of book) at http://www.amazon.com/Strangely-Funny-II-Jonathan-Shipley-ebook/dp/B00M8QEEVK

The other happy news is about another short story sale, this one to Our World of Horror, an anthology of modern day terror from Eldritch Press.  The story is “Demon in the Congregation” with Chapman and everybody’s favorite demon Soulstalker.  I’ve been writing about Chapman in stories and novels since 1990, and this story was finished in 2005.  It sold once before in 2010, but that anthology folded without seeing  print.  Coincidentally, an earlier sale this year was another, even older Chapman story, so the poor, demon-possessed kid is finally going public with two stories this year.

First time I’ve had the experience of a whole cluster of my anthologies hitting the bookstores within a few weeks of each other.  Cluster is in this case means three, and because each one is very different in genre from its siblings, these should appeal to a wide range of reading tastes.  Most recent to appear is Tales of the Black Arts: A Sword and Sorcery Anthology from Hazardous Press.  These are fantasy tales of wizards and warriors, possibly with a dark fantasy slant.  I don’t know for sure because my copy hasn’t arrived yet, but the title seems on the dark side.  My story “Flames of Madness” is definitely a little dark as it deals with the connection between magic and madness.  Tales of the Black Arts is available in Kindle and paperback versions at http://www.amazon.com/dp/0692223452.  Madness is also the center of the plot in “Perfect Memory,” my story in Trust and Treachery: Tales of Power and Intrigue from Dark Quest.  These tales are described as “stories that will linger in your mind,” which is ironic, considering my story tracks the descent of someone losing his memory after a treacherous encounter.  This book is available in paperback at http://www.amazon.com/dp/1937051919.  And rounding this trio of delights is World Weaver Press’s anthology Far Orbits: Speculative Space Adventures with my story “Charnelhouse.”  Yes, with a story title like that, how can this plot be anything but dark?  But it also has its funny moments.  The anthology itself is solidly science fiction for all of you sci-fi readers out there.  It comes in Kindle and paperback editions at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JSKGR6Y.  So a little something for everyone this summer.