The Official Susurrus Press Blog

To everyone who’s interested in the upcoming e-anthology, The Butterfly Affects, the choices have been made.  When I get confirmation from the contributors, I’ll post who they are.  Right now, it weighs in at 7 stories and 33,000 words, and contains more than a fair share of surprises.

Adicus Ryan Garton, editor Cosmic

Atomjack Magazine

Just passing on some information that some of Atomjack’s readers/submitters/contributors might find interesting.

Adicus Ryan Garton, editor Cosmic
Atomjack Magazine

Dear Friends,

I am pleased to share some of the feedback we’ve been receiving regarding the Dzanc Creative Writing Sessions.

This letter is designed to remind you of our program and invite you to sign up for, or let others know of, what we at Black Lawrence Press and Dzanc Books believe is one of the most innovative online writing workshops being offered today. If you’ve got a website, literary journal, literary blog, or any other means of spreading information along, we’d greatly appreciate your sharing the news of this program.

Since announcing the program less than three months ago, we’ve provided mentoring help for nearly 100 writers – here is what some of them had to say afterward:

“I can’t say enough about how valuable this process has been for me — and will continue to be as I digest her comments and revise my story. Her insight, encouragement and suggestions are just what I needed.
I will definitely participate in this program again in the future! Thanks so much for the opportunity.”
– Jennifer Hollmeyer (regarding mentoring author, Katrina Denza)

“I am so glad you guys have this, I cannot tell you how pleased I am.”
– James Moore

“I found the experience quite wonderful.”
– Caitlin Hamilton

“Thank you so much for your time and for your words of encouragement. And thanks especially for being so straight with me — this is exactly the kind of tough coaching I need.”
– Michael Mussman

“Thanks so much for the in-depth critique . . . Also, I’m applying your no-holds barred editorial style to many of my other stories. I appreciate your time and insights.”
– John Fox

I wanted to let you and Michele Battiste know that your program through her guidance has been extremely useful for me. I had gotten to a point in my project at which I felt stuck, and I don’t have an effective writers group here in Japan to help me. Michele’s comments and critique reminded me of some long-standing tendencies that I had forgotten I need to avoid, and she also made some insightful points which were new ideas for me. Best of all, I am reinvigorated and working hard on the project again. Thank you so much for that.
– Jessica Goodfellow

Another student of the sessions wrote up a really nice review over at HTML Giant.

As a reminder, the DCWS is founded on the principle that many authors’ lifestyles do not afford them the opportunity to obtain feedback on their writing – be it where they live, their work schedule, or finances. We feel that all authors deserve the opportunity to have their work reviewed. Unlike most of the current workshop opportunities – MFA programs, Low-Residency programs, colonies, online classes, etc. – the DCWS is unique in that it allows the writer to determine the parameters for their own review sessions. With the DCWS, you sign up for what you want and need, not some pre-determined program.

The DCWS is set up to provide a one-to-one working relationship with a published author, allowing you the benefits of their experience, in many cases both writing and teaching. Nearly 100 great authors have already agreed to volunteer their services as mentors in our DCWS program. The names you’ll find in our database include award winning authors and teachers such as: George Singleton, Myfanwy Collins, Dawn Raffel, Peter Markus, Leora Skolkin-Smith, Katrina Denza, Laura van den Berg, Kevin Wilson, Nancy Cherry, Jeff Parker and Mike Czyzniejewski. From this list, writers paying to participate in the DCWS may select an available author to work with. Participating writers will then have their work critiqued and can discuss in detail their writing and any other areas of writing in general they wish to explore with their DCWS author.

The DCWS will utilize email to reduce the difficulties writers such as yourself have when looking to find feedback on your work. Our workshops remove the limitations of both time and distance as you’ll send your work and questions to your mentor when and where you have access to the internet. Each participant will determine how many hours of mentoring they need, as well as how to progress – you asking specific questions about your work, or you asking for your manuscript to be edited (10 pages per hour), or simply looking for a back and forth conversation about your work after the mentor you select has read the work.

The program is being offered at an extremely low rate – many of the instructing authors volunteering their time to Dzanc do similar work as freelancers and charge much greater rates than are being offered here through the DCWS. Other workshops and writing programs charge a lump sum of several hundred dollars up front. Not only does the DCWS allow you to control and target your expenses, but 100% of the money brought in by Dzanc by our DCWS goes to supporting the writing programs we run for students grades 4-12. These additional programs – currently being run nationally by Dzanc – are offered free of charge to students who would not otherwise be able to afford and experience these sort of writing programs.

The DCWS sessions are set up in hourly blocks and can be ordered as follows:

1 hour – $20
2 hours – $30
4 hours – $50

The DCWS eliminates your need to travel to a university. It also eliminates your need to lay out a few hundred dollars up front for an 8 or 10 week online course. It allows you to jump in and out when you are available, and also allows you to select from the list of authors that have generously volunteered their time to this project. A full list is available at our website. This list includes published novelists, short story writers, flash fiction writers, poets and non-fiction writers. If you don’t feel the need to select a specific author, we’ll simply assign a writer to you.

For more information on our Creative Writing Sessions program, please send an email to info@dzancbooks.org.

In order to sign up now, head over to visiting the DCWS page at our website and select your author. After deciding how many hours to work with your mentor, click on the Paypal button that corresponds to that number, and fill in the mentor name in the appropriate field and we’ll get you started.

Sincerely,

Diane Goettel
Executive Editor, Black Lawrence Press

This week’s story, “Warden,” and interview  comes from Kjell Williams.

AJ:   Why do you write?

KW:  Writing helps me stay sane, I think. I tried writing bad fanfiction when I was laid off several years ago. I threw away everything I wrote (it was rather awful), but found out I really liked writing. A few years later, while struggling to endure the College of Education at UCF, I found myself in Creative Writing I–only this time, my stories didn’t suck (too much). I even changed majors and finally graduated.

As a husband, expectant father, and glorified repo man, my world is more insane than it’s ever been, so I need to write now more than ever.

AJ:   What’s the greatest piece of fiction ever created?

KW:  I’m limited by what I’ve read, but I’ve always loved Voltaire’s Candide.

AJ:   What do you wish you had invented?  Why?

KW:  I’m still hoping for a breakfast drink that tastes good after I’ve brushed my teeth.

AJ:   What do you hope you will live to see in the future?

KW:  I’d really like to see an organic computer system.

AJ:   If you could step into the Quantum Leap accelerator  (but this one actually works the way it’s supposed to) and change one
event, big or small, that has happened during your lifetime, what would it  be?

KW:  I’d go back to the day before my paternal grandfather was killed by a drunk driver, so that I could meet him when I’m old enough to remember it.

AJ:  Thank, Kjell!

Adicus Ryan Garton, editor Cosmic
Atomjack Magazine

I just watched Push, a new film by Paul McGuigan, and it’s not nearly as terrible as everyone says it is.  It is not a superHERO movie, it is a movie about superpowered people.  Much like the difference between Heroes and the 4400.  I won’t review it (because I’m pretty sure no one reads this blog), but I would like to say that I think I’m finished with “scientific” explanations of telepathic/kinetic powers.  You all know the drill:  Nazi scientists experiment on people with psychic … blah blah blah.  I think that because there has never been any scientific evidence that shows any sort of mental ability that sets one apart from another, I think SF writers should put that idea in the fantasy drawer, along with magic (I’m talking to you, George Lucas) and dragons.  (Although the case can and has been made for dragons as SF and I’m okay with that.)

Anyone out there with me?  Are we ready to let telepathy, telekinesis and prophecy just become part of “magic” in general instead of trying to explain it with bad science?  I know I am.

Whatever your thoughts, check out the movie.  It’s not as explosive as the movie poster would like to suggest, but it’s fun and it’s got lots of colorful imagery of Hong Kong.   (And don’t forget the superpowers.  Can’t forget the superpowers.)

Adicus Ryan Garton, editor Cosmic
Atomjack Magazine

AJ: Why do you write?

RT: Stories pop into my head, typically while I’m engaged in some mindless activity like washing dishes, mowing the lawn or shoveling snow. Then they writhe around in there, causing me to break the dishes I’m washing, until I can get them out by writing them down.

AJ: What’s the greatest piece of fiction ever created?

RT: Back to the Future. I’ll stack Dr. Emmett Brown up against Raskolnikov any day.

AJ: What do you wish you had invented?

RT: The leisure suit.

AJ: Dear God, why?

RT: Then, I could have suppressed it and spared the world the horror.

AJ: What do you hope you will live to see in the future?

RT: Widely available functional immortality. Then I won’t have an excuse to not start over from scratch, I hope on a slow boat to Alpha Centauri.

AJ: If you could step into the Quantum Leap accelerator (but this one actually works the way it’s supposed to) and change one event, big or small, that has happened in your lifetime, what would it be?

RT: The incompetent filing error in the Primitive Cultures Bureau on the Galactic Capitol Planet that landed Earth on the “Dangerous, Quarantine!” list instead of the “Contact and Offer Junior Membership” list.

***

I want to thank Ray for his time and some great answers.

Adicus Ryan Garton, editor Cosmic

Atomjack recently talked with Robert Laughlin, the author of Vow of Silence, review here, about his first novel, his publisher and more.

Atomjack:  As I mentioned in my review, it’s pretty hard to nail down your first novel, Vow of Silence, in a specific category. So I’ll just ask, what kind of writer are you, Robert? What do you consider Vow of Silence to be?

Robert:  I consider Vow of Silence a pretty rigorous example of science fiction if we count mnemonics as a science. The civilization described in the novel developed a means, early in its history, of training people to develop perfect memory. This made it possible to record and pass on a large body of knowledge orally, and inhibited the development of written language. If Vow of Silence seems to be unlike any other science fiction novel you’ve read, I don’t mind. Saying that a book is unclassifiable is another way of saying that it’s original.

Atomjack:  Where did the central idea of the Datists, men and women with perfect memories, come from?

Robert:  The one question writers dread most is “Where do your ideas come from?” My notebook contains scores of story outlines, and almost every one of them came to me in a flash, little or no conscious thought involved. That’s how it was with Vow of Silence. The timing of the novel is informative, though—I conceived it at age 35, that age when a thoughtful person starts to take stock of his life. Much more about reminiscence than anticipation, Vow of Silence is not a young writer’s novel.

Atomjack:  The book’s main character is Karal, a young man from the farmlands who comes to the big city to learn how to harness his talents. Where did this character come from? Do you see a lot of yourself in Karal, either during his schooling days, or later in life?

Robert:  First novels do tend to be autobiographical. In some ways I empathize with Karal and have had life experiences cognate with his. But this is true of the protagonists in all the fiction I’ve ever written or plan to write. There is something in every one of my central characters with which I strongly identify. Should you ask how that can be, I’ll have to crib from Whitman: I am large, I contain multitudes.

Atomjack:  Obviously, since your entire society revolves around the Datists, it is not a historical fantasy, or historical fiction. Its cities and customs seem to be its own. But in terms of European history, where would you place your novel?

Robert:  The orally-based civilization in Vow of Silence has come up to the early Industrial Revolution in our world—1800 or thereabouts. Further advancement would not be possible; modern science and technology are dependent on the ability to (1) perform lengthy calculations on paper and (2) turn out precisely engineered manufactured wares from detailed written specifications.

Atomjack:  What were some of your literary influences for Vow of Silence, especially in terms of style, which I thought was one of the most prominent features of the novel?

Robert:  Mediocre writers have influences. Writers who matter survey the field and then try to write books that are singular. Vow of Silence, I think, was a good first step for me. I have read enough science fiction to fill a dump truck, and the kindest thing anyone could say about Vow of Silence is that it reminds them of no other science fiction novel.

Atomjack:  You published Vow of Silence through POD. Why?

Robert: Vow of Silence is 45,000 words long and major publishers today won’t release a science fiction novel shorter than 80,000 words. That’s ridiculous, really; the scientific romances of H. G. Wells were well under 80k, as were most of the classic novels of American science fiction’s Golden Age. But the market today is what it is, and I knew I would have to publish Vow of Silence in the small press. David Matusik, the managing editor at Trytium, has been very supportive. His outfit is no vanity press, either—his writers pay him nothing and he turns down hundreds of manuscripts for each one he accepts.

Atomjack:  You are also the founder of the Micro Award. Tell us a little bit about that.

Robert:  I’ve long had a special affection for the short short story. In the last few years, their popularity has exploded, especially in the ezines. It struck me that no one was trying to point out the best examples of this genre and honor their writers, and so I created the Micro Award. Running it costs me time and money, but it’s one of those support activities a reasonably successful man of letters has to do in the service of literature.

Atomjack:  What are you working on at the moment? What’s next?

Robert:  The story of Karal Evender has been told, but I have more to tell about the world he lives in. I’m about to start writing a quartet of novelette-length stories, set before and after Karal’s lifetime, that fill in the history of Dreiden and develop themes touched on lightly in Vow of Silence. I’m also working on a novel long enough to sell to a major publisher, a satirical science fiction novel set in present-day California . I continue writing short stories from time to time, and I have plans for many more novels, literary criticism, editing assignments…well, you can see I won’t be twiddling my thumbs.

…

I want to thank Robert for a great interview.  For more information on Robert, the Micro-Awards and Trytium, check out these links:

Author’s website

The Micro Award Official Website

Trytium Publishing, LLC