Tangent Online posted a review of Interzone #221, which contains my short story “Saving Diego.”  They say:

“Told with cyberpunkish verve, ‘Saving Diego’ takes full advantage of its intergalactic setting to interlay themes of the vast and the unknowable alongside human-scaled concerns of addiction, friendship, and betrayal.”

They also have positive things to say about Paul Berger’s and Alaya Dawn Johnson’s stories, also in the issue.

You can see the entire review here.

From Readercon 20 (2009)

Right now I’m still severely depleted from Readercon, so an in-depth review of my time there will be forthcoming.  In the meantime, here are some photos from the con.  It really was a wonderful time, and I think perhaps my favorite Readercon to date.  It was so great to see everyone and just be surrounded by such creativity.  I know I will be inspired for a long time to come.

The photos.

Transmissions from Beyond has just posted Mercurio D. Rivera’s story, “The Scent of Their Arrival,” read by Mercurio and myself as the voice of the human.  You can listen to the podcast here.

I had set three alarms.  Two on my clock radio which I’ve had since college, and one on my iPhone.  Of course, I was up at before all of them.  It was 2:45 am, and I was on my way to Jim Freund’s radio show, “Hour of the Wolf.”  Still Friday night/early Saturday morning, the noise from the evening (I happen to live close to several bars) had just faded only an hour or two before.  I showered and swallowed a cup of coffee when normally I’d be delta-deep in REM sleep.

As soon as I stepped downstairs the car service I had reserved pulled up, and next thing I knew I was off, speeding out of Greenpoint towards the BQE.  I told the cabbie to listen to WBAI, 99.5 FM and he immediately tuned in to a reggae/talk politic show.  “Do you like science fiction and fantasy?” I asked.  “No, not really,” he said.  But he seemed more than happy to tune into the station and listen, I suppose because most of the folks he picked up at this quiet hour were either drunk or business folk worried about catching their flight.  How many had asked him what he liked?  Or perhaps he just wanted a good tip.

The caffeine kicked in as we sped along the BQE.  I felt high, superb.  It had been a long time since I was up this early, long before my circadian rhythm would have me, and as we sped over the Brooklyn Bridge, I glanced over at Manhattan, half-asleep, city lights dimmed for the night.  It felt magical, surreal, wonderful.

When I pulled up to the WBAI station, out pops Jim Freund from his car service.  With bagels.

We went upstairs and noshed and chatted and soon the rest of Altered Fluid showed up.  This time it was Rajan Khanna’s time to read on the air.  We shuffled into the studio, introduced ourselves to the listeners, and then Raj began “School Bus,” a story of a bus driver whose mother is dying from cancer and enrolls in an experimental drug program to get money to support her treatments.  But the drug, it seems, has unintended side-effects.  It was interesting, I recall as I write this, that in the car on the way to the studio, the talk-show host was talking about how prescription drugs often have side-effects which cause the same symptoms they are trying to cure.  Sometimes the universe just synchronizes that way.

Rajan has an excellent radio voice and did a superb job with his story.  (He’s recorded podcasts for Jeffrey Ford, among others.)  Then it was time for our critiques.  Eugene Myers, who was traveling, could not attend.  But thanks to the magic of Google Voice, Jim was able to play Eugene’s critique live on the air while we read a mostly accurate speech-to-text conversion of his voice.  Had we not prompted him, the casual listener might have thought he was present.

Overall, the morning went extremely well.  We even got to take several calls.  (Though, sadly, no trolls.)  Before we knew it, it was 7am, the show had ended, and the sun had risen over New York, and the East River, dark before, was now flooded with light.  All too fast, I thought.  All too fast.  Not to worry, though, I told myself.  We’d be back before long to do it again.  It’s become a regular thing.

For those interested, you can listen to a recording of the show here.  And you can see some of my photos from the show here.

Altered Fluid will be appearing this Saturday on Jim Freund’s radio show “Hour of the Wolf.” We will be critiquing a story by Rajan Khanna live on the air. The program airs from 5-7am on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NY Metro area, or can be heard live and after the show anywhere in the world at http://stream.wbai.org. Here’s a link to the Facebook Event. You can read about our previous on-air hijinks here.

Kris Dikeman’s “Nine Sundays in a Row” has made the top ten list for the storySouth Million Writers Award. Congratulations, Kris!

Voting is now open for the best story of the year.  Go there and vote now (for Kris)!

Electric Velocipede 17/18

John Klima has recently posted the cover to the latest issue of Electric Velocipede.  In its pages are Altered Fluid members K. Tempest Bradford, Mercurio D. Rivera, and yours truly.  I think the cover looks really cool!  Thanks to Barbara Krasnoff (also in the issue) for the link.

I received my shiny new copy of Interzone this weekend with my story “Saving Diego.”  It’s not my first story in print, but it’s probably the largest venue I’ve been published in so far.  I was blown away by David Gentry’s art for my story.  A mid-eastern-looking man crouches in a windowsill before a desert cityscape.  In the distance are satellite dishes and antennas.  It’s so damn close to what I had envisioned when I wrote the story.  It makes me really happy.

Also in the issue are Alaya Dawn Johnson’s “Far and Deep,” and Paul Berger’s “Home Again.”  Our stories run sequentially in the issue.

Darin Bradley over at Farrago’s Wainscot just informed me that he will be taking my story, “All the Worlds,” for their next issue.  The story takes place in the tense moments before a play begins, with multiple intersecting realities befuddling all attempts at predictability.

Thanks to Mercurio D. Rivera for his last-minute commments on this story which really made it sing.

Check out the fantastic cover for Interzone 221.  Not one, not two, but three members of Altered Fluid will be in this issue: Alaya Dawn Johnson, Paul Berger, and yours truly, Matthew Kressel.  I just keep falling in love with their cover art.  (Thanks to Jim Steel for posting it.)

Ellen Datlow has posted the table of contents to Naked City: New Tales of Urban Fantasy on her blog:

Curses Jim Butcher
How the Pooka Came To New York City Delia Sherman
On the Slide Richard Bowes
The Duke of Riverside Ellen Kushner
Oblivion by Calvin Klein Christopher Fowler
Picking up the Pieces Pat Cadigan
Underbridge Peter S. Beagle
Priced To Sell Naomi Novik
The Bricks of Gelecek Matthew Kressel
Weston Walks Kit Reed
The Projected Girl Lavie Tidhar
The Way Station Nathan Ballingrud
And Go Like This John Crowley
Noble Rot Holly Black
Daddy Long Legs of the Evening Jeffrey Ford
The Skinny Girl Lucius Shepard
The Colliers’ Venus Caitlín R. Kiernan
King Pole, Gallows Pole, Bottle Tree Elizabeth Bear

Needless to say, I’m psyched to be printed alongside such a fine cast of characters.  The book comes out in spring 2010.

It’s been a good week for Altered Fluid. Among other things:

• K. Tempest Bradford sells a story to John Joseph Adams’ FEDERATIONS anthology
• Alaya Dawn Johnson sells “A Song to Greet the Sun” to Fantasy Magazine
• Mercurio D. Rivera, K. Tempest Bradford, and Matthew Kressel share the Table of Contents in the next Electric Velocipede

Congratulations to all!

I hope everyone is having a happy Holiday Season.  Ellen Datlow has posted her photos from the KGB Fantastic Fiction event this past Wednesday, with Christopher Barzak and Altered Fluid’s very own Alaya Dawn Johnson.  You can find the images for this and other past KGB events here.

Please join us at the KGB Bar tonight for a night of surreal fun.  There will be slides!  There will be beer!  There will be holiday good cheer!  What are you thinking?  Get your arse in gear and come out to KGB!

Details here.

Check out this beautiful trailer created for The Field Guide to Surreal Botany:

Hopefully you can join us for a reading from this wonderful little guide this Friday at the KGB Bar in Manhattan.  Details here.

Mercurio D. Rivera writes to tell us that Rich Horton selected his story “Snatch Me Another,” (currently online at Abyss and Apex) for inclusion in a new anthology, tentatively titled Unplugged: The Year’s Best Online Fiction scheduled for publication in 2009 by Wyrm Publishing.

Congratulations Mercurio!

I crashed a party last night and so woke up very late this morning to a message in my inbox stating that Interzone wants to publish my story, “Saving Diego,” about two drug-addicted friends on a distant, technologically backwards planet, in an upcoming issue.  I am so thrilled!

I have been reading Interzone for a few years now.  I have read some amazing stories and have seen some of my very talented friends get published in its pages, so it’s quite an honor to be there myself.

The Fix has some nice things to say about Mercurio D. Rivera’s “The Fifth Zhi,” his story in the current Interzone.  Among other praises, they say:

“This theme is familiar, from Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War to Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game and countless others. “The Fifth Zhi”’s use of clones is an excellent, highly appropriate riff on the theme.”

You can read the full review here.

Congratulations on the nice review, Mercurio!

My story, “Different Spheres,” is now up at OG Speculative Fiction.  You can download the issue as a PDF.

So if you are alive and well on December 19th and you are in the NY area, please join us for a night of readings from THE FIELD GUIDE TO SURREAL BOTANY.  It will be held at the KGB Bar (no, it’s not the same night as the Fantastic Fiction reading series; this event will be on a Friday).  I will be reading my entry of the star-borne Spasmodica plasticosa and will be joined by Christopher Cevasco, Kris Dikeman, Susan Fedyna, Livia Llwellyn and others, reading of their blasphemous discoveries found while researching earth’s myriad fauna.

Full information is available here.