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I’ve just uploaded a bunch of photos I took at World Fantasy. You can see them here.
Also, here’s a video of the World Fantasy Awards, where they announce Paper Cities as the winner for Best Anthology. That’s me accepting the award on behalf of Ekaterina Sedia.
My girlfriend keeps reminding me that dust is dead skin. It seems to be piling up everywhere around me lately, so I figured I’d dust off the old blog and do an update. It’s only been a few days since I last posted, but that’s an eon in internet time.
Work, family, and other obligations have kept me supremely busy as of late, but I thought I’d give you an update on what’s going on with Senses Five Press. As I (might have) mentioned on this blog, I’ve been working to get Paper Cities out as an e-book. I’ve just submitted the complete e-manuscript to Amazon and am awaiting their approval. So the first platform it will be available for is the Kindle (obviously). I expect to make the anthology available for other platforms as well in the coming weeks. If you haven’t had a chance to read this 2009 World Fantasy Award Nominated anthology yet, now’s your chance.
As for Sybil’s Garage, I’ve been so busy lately with work that I can’t conceive of trying to fit reading slush in with all the other things I have to do. This is not to say that Sybil’s Garage is going anywhere. I still plan to publish the magazine for a long time to come. But the next issue may be delayed some. I do not have a firm date for when I plan to open for submissions, and right now, to be perfectly honest, I am enjoying the downtime from reading & producing to work on my own fiction. Oh, you didn’t know? I also write too.
My most recent stuff is in Electric Velocipede and Apex Magazine, both of which you can read online by clicking the links at left. That’s about all I have for today. Merry blogging.
Support your favorite zines (including Sybil’s Garage!) today. Today is Support Our Zines Day:
(Cut from Damien G. Walter’s Facebook event page)
SUPPORT OUR ‘ZINES DAY – OCTOBER 1st 2009
What are ‘zines?
The short answer is that ‘zines are where we go to find good, new short fiction. Magazines like Asimov’s or Weird Tales. Fanzines like Electric Velocipede or Shimmer. Webzines like Clarkesworld or Strange Horizons. Podcasts like Escape Pod and The Drabblecast. There are hundreds and maybe even thousands of ‘zines publishing speculative fiction stories, and from the largest to the smallest they all contribute to building the SF community.
But our ‘zines need support. Professional ‘zines rely on subscriptions to pay their staff and the writers who make the stories. Smaller ‘zines often rely on donations just to cover their costs. But with the speed of life in the 21st Century it can be difficult to remember to renew subsciptions or make donations to the ‘zines who’s work we enjoy.
So. We need to do something to remind ourselves how much we love our ‘zines of all kinds and want to support them. We need a ‘Support our ‘Zines Day’. (SOZD) A day when everyone who has enjoyed reading and listening all year subscribes / donates to their favourite publications. We need to promote it as far and wide as we can and let all readers of ‘zines join in.
SUPPORT OUR ‘ZINES DAY. 1st OCTOBER 2009
What to do on Support Our ‘Zines Day.
It really could not be easier. On 1st October list the ‘zines you have enjoyed that year, then subscribe / donate to as many as feel you can afford. You can be modest and keep your donations a secret, or you can show off and list your donations on your blog or elsewhere top help encourage others to show their support.
3 ways to help Support Our ‘Zines Day
Promote SOZD on your blogs and social networks. Display the SOZD logo and link to the SOZD page.
Invite people to join our official SOZD event on Facebook.
If you are willing to donate any time to help develop more SOZD resources then email me or leave a comment.
From Damien G. Walter’s blog for Support Our ‘Zines Day*:
So. No idea if this will work. But, to give people a handy guide to ‘zines they can donate to on Support Our ‘Zines Day (1st October 2009), I’m going to try and put together a complete list of speculative fiction ‘zines! However, I don’t want to do all the work myself, so am stealing the recent SF Reviewers Link-up Meme to make the…’ZINE LINK-UP MEME! I’ve added a few of the big ‘zines, just to get it started.
The ‘Zine Link-up Meme
Copy and paste the list (including links) of speculative fiction ‘zines below to your blog or website (include this informative introduction as well). Add your ‘zine (and link). Any ‘zine of any size and format that publishes speculative fiction of any kind can take part. Let other people, especially people publishing ‘zines, know about the meme. And help publicise Support Our ‘Zines Day by linking back to: http://damiengwalter.wordpress.com/sozd/
Analog science fiction and fact
Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet
* I know technically some of these are not “zines” in the strictest sense. But they are an important part of the field and we should support them equally. Also, this list is nowhere near inclusive. If you see something missing, copy this entire post to your blog and add it!
Sybil’s Garage subscription information can be found here.
Sean Markey’s story, “Waiting for the Green Woman,” which appeared in Sybil’s Garage No. 6, has been added to the “Nebula Suggested Reading” list by the SFWA. Congratulations, Sean!
I will be putting the story online in the next day or so.
Here are a whole bunch of pictures I took at WorldCon. I am too lazy to caption them all.
My first Worldcon was a resounding success. Due to a stroke of luck or misfortune, depending on your point of view, our hotel room was also on the same floor as the consuite and several of the parties, and within stumbling distance of the elevators. This being at a con with some 5000 individuals spread across several hotels. This meant that we were always paces away from coffee, cake, beer, chips, breakfast, lunch, dinner, and conversation. That helped, as I sometimes went far too long without eating.
I have a thousand and one stories. Like how I saw ten people enter a bathroom with Neil Gaiman and close the door. Or how I saw several of my friends walk up on stage to accept Hugos. Or how we drove home in a monsoon that threatened to sweep the car away. But right now, still suffering from sleep withdrawal, it is all blending into a pleasurable ball of memory that I will slowly, over the next few days, try to digest.
I got to meet several wonderful people for the first time. Like Keffy R.M. Kehrli, who made his second sale while at Worldcon (his first was in Sybil’s Garage) and will be appearing alongside a story of mine in next month’s Apex Magazine. And the super-friendly Kevin J. Maroney, who was nominated alongside my friend Kris Dikeman for a Hugo for his work on NYRSF. Kevin ushered myself and Mercurio D. Rivera to the Hugo Losers party, where I got to speak with Kij Johnson (of the famed “26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss”) and John Kessel (”Pride and Prometheus”). It was really exciting to be surrounded by such talent and, for the most part, not a drop of ego from anyone. With few exceptions, even the all-stars were approachable. One of the nice thing about conventions is getting to meet the people behind the work you have admired for so long. I had spent many a winter-break down at my grandfather’s condo in Florida reading through Larry Niven novels. Then, in a hotel party this past weekend, I shook his hand. There are few words to really describe that feeling.
Also, some highlights: Jetse de Vries “Optimism” t-shirt (it’s a type of whiskey) and his explanation to us how he was “overly optimistic” about finishing his ham hock at dinner, and therefore had to take home a giant doggy bag. How when Paul Berger’s alarm went off which sounded like a door bell, Mercurio, half-asleep, opened the door to our room and looked outside, before placing a do-not-disturb sign on the hinge. And Non-Sequitur man, a strange person who ran around the con interjecting one word or sentence into people’s conversations and then running off again.
Plus, I got to see a little of Montreal too. China town (or Region Chinois) and Le Olde City. Walking around, Tom Crosshill opined that the reason waiters were so slow to serve us was perhaps, with our con badges, we were Le Geeks.
At some point when I wake up later today, I will post photos.
Dan Alamia from The Fix has reviewed Sybil’s Garage. Before a detailed review of each story, he says:
‘Issue six of Sybil’s Garage from Senses Five Press is fun. Few journals and magazines I’ve read could be described with the “F” word, and probably fewer still aspire to it at all. Liberally illustrated, this issue is crowded with 16 works of fiction, an interview with Paul Tremblay, and 13 poems. Not only that, there is a kind of meta-story woven through the pages in the form of a mysterious series of notes from a time traveler. Yet another feature of the issue is a note preceding each piece on what song (or even collection of sounds) should accompany the reading. Combine that with more bells and whistles in the design, and you have an issue eager to please. Reading it is like wandering into a house party where you not only mingle with the guests, you peruse the décor and absorb the mix of tunes emanating from the stereo.’
You can read the full review here.
Mercurio D. Rivera informs me that Sybil’s Garage No. 6 is reviewed in this month’s Locus by Rich Horton:
‘Another grouping of SF/fantasy little magazines could perhaps be described as the Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet circle. One fine fairly new example is Sybil’s Garage. Its sixth outing has plenty of fine stories and poems. I liked Simon Petrie’s “Downdraft,” set on a planet with intelligent zeppelins and flying human-like people. The story is about a young flyer’s ill-advised attacks on one of the zeppelins — a story really about misunderstanding, with no bad guys. That’s straightforward SF, but Sybil’s Garage has more atmospheric fantasy and, yes, slipstream work — stories like Becca de la Rosa’s “Not the West Wind,” about, variously, and among other things, a woman in love with a guitar, the west wind, Ireland, and a foundling girl; or Sean Markey’s “Waiting for the Green Woman,” about a man with a tree for a daughter.’
Sybil's Garage No.6
The IAF (Interstitial Arts Foundation) has reviewed Sybil’s Garage. They say:
“This is the most interstitial volume of the innovative magazine to date. From the composite front photograph of a scarecrow emerging from a New York subway station (the G line) into a lonely pumpkin field to Susannah Mandel’s surreal page entitled “Metamorphic Megafauna” (which so defies description, it doesn’t even appear in the Table of Contents*), this issue ranges widely through genres and your brain. ”
You can read the full review here.
* Susannah’s poem does actually appear in the ToC, but we’ll forgive them this minor oversight. 
More praise for Sybil’s Garage from Sam Tomaino at SFRevu. Sam says:
“Sybil’s Garage #6 has arrived in my mailbox. The stories were varied and all worth reading. It’s moved its home from Hoboken to Brooklyn but is still a unique mix of unusual stories, poems and articles, all with suggestions on the appropriate music to play while reading…Sybil’s Garage is still a strange little magazine with old-fashioned illustrations accompanying the text. For those that want their fiction to be truly different, this is for you.”
He also has specific praise for more than half of the fiction in the issue, mentioning several authors by name. You can see the full 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.
At ReaderCon, I’ll be hosting a Kaffeeklatsch at 10 AM on Saturday for Sybil’s Garage, and then I’ll be participating in a panel about the future of spec fic magazines on Sunday at 11 am. Here’s my official schedule:
Saturday 10:00 AM, Vineyard: Kaffeeklatsch [Sybil's Garage]
Sunday 11:00 AM, ME/ CT: Panel
The Future of Speculative Fiction Magazines, Part 2: Online Magazines / Conclusions. K. Tempest Bradford, Neil Clarke, Robert Killheffer, Mary Robinette Kowal (L), Matthew Kressel, Sean Wallace
“Are print magazines doomed? (Heck, if _newspapers_ can’t make it …) Or will they survive in their tiny niches? Are there ways to make them more viable? Is that even worth the bother? After all, online magazines are now easy and relatively inexpensive to start-are they the answer? Part two of our discussion concentrates on online magazines and then moves onto the Big Picture.”
I’m looking forward to seeing friends and meeting new folks there.
I am happy to announce that Sybil’s Garage is now available for sale at Word Brooklyn in Greenpoint, with a possibility of readings at some future date. Thank you, Stephanie & Kelly!
Not one, but two Sybil’s Garage reviews were posted yesterday. The first was from Cat Rambo at Fantasy Magazine. She says:
“Ever since first discovering the magazine Sybil’s Garage in 2005 after being shown it by Kris Dikeman, I’ve loved the small press magazine produced by Matt Kressel of Senses Five Press. The magazine’s steady climb in quality moves to upward from an already pretty high starting point, and this issue shows the trend continuing.”
You can read the full review here.
The second review came just minutes later from Charles Tan at Bibliophile Stalker. Charles says:
“One of writer Damien G. Walter’s challenges is that “We need more beautiful magazines” and Sybil’s Garage No. 6 easily fits that bill. While not as experimental as McSweeney’s, editor Matthew Kressel does a lot of outstanding things with this issue. Aside from the well-designed layout, each story/poem is preceded by a recommended song and this presentation is consistent. There’s also what seems like random scribblings by an enigmatic writer at the end of various texts but it all culminates into one meta-narrative that this reviewer found tear-jerking, even if it’s just a simple plot and conceit.”
You can read his full review here.
And remember, you can always get a copy of Sybil’s Garage No. 6 here.
In the introduction to Mercurio D. Rivera’s “The Fifth Zhi” on Escape Pod, editor Stephen Eley says, “Sybil’s Garage [is] one of the best run and downright prettiest of the small press magazines…” Coming from the editor of one of the most successfull SF podcast magazine (and arguably with the largest listenership), that’s high praise.
For Sybil’s Garage No. 6, Devin Poore interviews Paul Tremblay, author of the novel The Little Sleep. Devin and Paul talk about genre (and writing outside of), Mafia, and throwing chairs.
Here’s an excerpt:
“It sounds as if you do not consciously sit down with a mantra of “today I write horror”. Your story in Sybil’s Garage No. 3, “Holes” is also decidedly ambiguous in regards to its genre. Was that a conscious decision?
I think ambiguity is an undercurrent in almost all of my more recent work. As a reader, I enjoy stories that do not spoon feed and that can give even the most mundane scenes/occurrences multiple meanings or possibilities. Maybe it’s better put this way; I gravitate to stories with something to say, but that something to say always leads to more questions. To me, ambiguity is interesting, scary, and, well, real.
“Holes” was a very personal, auto-biographical story, one in which I wanted to have a heavy atmosphere of dread, even if the protagonist, or the reader (or the writer, for that matter) wasn’t exactly sure of the source or nature of the dread.
I think most of the best horror fiction takes advantage of ambiguity. Was Poe’s narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” just crazy or could he actually hear the heart, or neither; was the killer manipulating you, only trying to make you think he was crazy? Horror fails, most spectacularly, when our inherent state of ambiguity is ignored, when the lines of good and evil aren’t blurred or muddied.”
You can read the full interview here.
Under every poem and story in Sybil’s Garage is a song or album, a tradition going back to issue one. This song is chosen by the author, a tune that inspired or accompanies their work in an intimate, emptional way. It adds depth to the reader’s experience. For a long while now, I’ve wanted to create a playlist that people could download for each issue. With iMix, a feature of iTunes, I’ve finally done it. The playlist for Sybil’s Garage No. 6 is below.
The list is not 100% perfect. In certain cases, iTunes didn’t have the exact song available, so I chose one by the same artist. In some cases, the artist itself (or the suggested sound) wasn’t on iTunes, so I improvised. But, as a whole, the list is a close approximation to what appears in Sybil’s. The songs below link to the iTunes store in the US, but I hope that if you are out of the US you can at least glimpse the contents of the list here. If you’d like to see the actual list, in its entirety and read some great fiction and poetry then please support and buy Sybil’s Garage.
Well, of the dealer table where Sybil’s Garage was sold. From K. Tempest Bradford’s journal.
K. Tempest Bradford reports that Sybil’s Garage No. 6 sold out at WisCon. Apparantly it was a hot ticket there. This makes me really happy, that people are excited about the issue. I can’t wait to hear what people say once they start reading and reviewing the magazine.
In other news, I went down to a park in Williamsburg yesterday. It’s right on the Hudson, just north of the Williamsburg Bridge. I think it used to be a shipping/loading dock some decades ago as there are concrete pylons looking lonely, and I found several giant, rusted nails in the debris by the water which I think were used to hold down tracks. It was drizzling out, with the threat of heavier rains to come, so the park — completely full the day before — was now empty. I had the place to myself. I began chucking stones at a raised stone in the water. Years ago I had played baseball, and now I enjoyed trying to hit the stone in the water, using my arm again. It was tough. Every stone was a different weight, unlike a baseball, and their shape often gave them strange aerodynamic properties. As a helicopter flew over the Hudson, it seemed to slow over the park to watch me. Just at that moment I nailed the stone. “Did you see that?” I shouted to the airship. I think they did.
A few minutes later a ferry came by. Its wake came and went and reflected off the opposite shore, so that the stone bobbed above and below the waves. Now my stone throwing was compounded by timing. I had to hit the stone only when the water was low, about a two to three second window. I threw and threw. Many times, I would have hit the stone, but the wave came and engulfed my stone. At last, I nailed the stone. My rock bounced off it and I shouted with joy. My arm was getting tired. It was time to go. I threw one more stone, “For posterity,” I said. And nailed the stone again. Two in a row. That’s good luck.
So then I’m walking home down Bedford avenue and I pass a group of men playing softball. I pause to watch. I notice one of the teams is wearing “Coast League” uniforms. When I played little league, it was also called “Coast Leage.” So I asked one guy where he was from. “Here!” he says, as if my very question was offensive and absurd. I do not know if here meant Williamsburg, or Brooklyn, or New York City, or the planet Earth. I suppose I could have followed up, but he seemed miffed that I had asked.
After a single to midfield, a runner approached third. The throw went wild and looked like it was going to hit me in the face. I jumped out of the way, but I was behind the fence and was never in danger. The same fellow said, “He’s like your boy, ____ (insert sports nickname here). Flinching when he’s behind the fence!” I felt the need to defend myself. “It looked like it was coming right at my face.” Sports nickname comes over and the other dude repeats his mockery. “He’s just like your boy.” Nickname shrugs, smiles and leaves. The other one says, “He’s all love, that one.” And then he walks away from me. All love, but not him apparently.
So now I’m feeling less welcome because I just came to watch their ball game and then I get mocked for ducking, you know, when I see a ball hurtling right towards my face. But never mind. There’s another game going on, on the opposite side of the field. Their outfields overlap. They are playing each other’s outfield. And, if I didn’t mention this, the field is entirely made of concrete. No dirt or grass. Only hard gray stone and broken glass.
I start watching this second game. The pitcher is throwing heat. He slows it down with a changeup. Keep in mind this is softball. All underhand. I think it’s a small miracle just to get an underhand pitch over the plate. This guy’s doing curve balls and stuff. Someone hits a foul ball. It flies over the fence towards me. “I’ll get it!” I shout.
“Watch the oncoming traffic,” someone says. I fetch the ball from across the street and, with my arm warmed up from throwing stones, pitch it over the fence, right into the waiting first baseman’s glove. Perfectly aimed. “You want to play,” I hear someone say.
And I did, you know. I did want to play.
