litfarm

Not the late King of Pop–Michael Chabon. Just when I thought my painful nerdrection about John Carter of Mars couldn’t get any more pronounced, I find out (months late, it turns out) that Chabon was hired to revise the script. Sproing!

Also, this post is something of an announcement that I’m going to stop updating this blog once I’ve published the last few drafts remaining in my lineup. There are better people than me doing a much better job covering the publishing world, and I’m going to let them keep at it, while I concentrate on my own work.

I’ll be bringing my author site online in the next month or so, at which point litfarm the blog will exist only as an archive for me and my handful of dedicated readers (thx Mom). The new site will be updated with news about my work as often as I can convince someone to publish it.

I’ve got another project slated for the litfarm.com domain name though. Probably something that I’ll get off the ground later this year. So don’t be strangers.

Merry Xmas, people. The blog will be back next month, with content that hasn’t been mouldering in my drafts folder for a year plus.

Stay out of trouble, or if not, enjoy it.

ck is in charge until I get back.

‘Tis the season.

Nyarlathotep, I’m Breaking Up with You by Jason Henninger.

Ia, ia, ia, ia, ia! Ia, ia ia! (From Tor.com.)

Because it’s been a while since we’ve had any short fiction here. Hasn’t it? I can’t remember.

Farmer’s Almanac by Christopher James Klingbeil. (From slushpilemag.)

The NYTimes reports that The Atlantic, formerly The Atlantic Monthly, will publish short stories on the Kindle at $3.99 a pop.

This is potentially really exciting news for short fiction, a form that used to be hugely popular (F. Scott Fitzgerald was considered to have squandered his talent writing short fiction for ready cash). Personally, I think the price tag is wrong–it should be $0.99, like an iPhone app.

It could be a great little money-maker for magazines who have enough reputation to give the experiment their editorial imprimatur, not to mention market it to their subscribers. It’s a good thing for authors too, as one author points out:

had she sold it to a small academic journal, it would have had “limited distribution anyway.”

It’s unlikely that unknown authors will be able to break into the Kindle on their own… for now. But if this is the first step towards an iTunes-like distribution model for fiction, then it could be.

In any event, it’s another market for short fiction and that ain’t bad.

(From bookninja.)

I just found out tonight that Gurjinder Basran’s novel Everything Was Goodbye has won Mother Tongue Publishing’s Search for the Great BC Novel Contest!

Gurjinder, who was named “one to watch” in 2008 by the Vancouver Sun, also had her novel short-listed for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award in the same year.

From contest judge Jack Hodgins:

“Gurjinder Basran’s ambitious novel Everything was Good-bye is the fascinating story of  a strong-willed young Indo-Canadian woman raised in the Lower Mainland, and traces her life from adolescence to middle-age — a life of  rebellion against the expectations of a tradition-bound widowed mother and the demands of her community. Meena’s story brings us intimately into her world, and allows us to identify with the difficulties of trying to live in the culture of a new world while dealing with expectations and demands originating in another.  Although she is to a certain extent representative, Meena is also a unique rebel, imaginative and passionate, torn between a weakening attachment to her family and her desire to be part of the larger Canadian culture she has been raised within. There is heartbreak here, and violence, but there is romance and bravery as well, and some triumph. Above all, there is the reward of getting to know this bravely determined young woman.”

Other judges were Karen X. Tulchinsky and Kathy Page.

I’m really, really, really happy for Gurjinder. I love it when the good guys win.

I’ll be reading from a work-in-progress at the next TWS Reading Series, Thursday, Dec 10th, 7-9:30pm.

The reading is at Rhizome, 317 East Broadway, Vancouver, BC (map).

Also reading is Gurjinder Basran, fellow TWS alum, and the event is hosted by the always gracious and charming Eufemia Fantetti.

Here’s the listing in The Straight, for more details.

Sounds about right. (Via ffffound.com.)

who's your daddy?

Another long time draft from the Litfarm vault, a great article about telex, the Associated Press, and the abbreviated speech that predates ;-) and lol.

Telex revolutionized reporting, and the AP was the first conglomeration of news feeds, created to deal with the limited bandwidth on the teletype network.

tl;dr version: wtf, telex pwns. roflmao? qq.

–88–

From the litfarm vault,  mouldering away in my drafts list, here’s a new short story in The Guardian from Lorrie Moore. This was a much better post before Obama got elected.

Foes, by Lorrie Moore.