As previously mentioned, this past long weekend I was up in Burlington, MA at Readercon and I had a wonderful time. Most of my time was spent seeing old friends and meeting new people. I won’t post a list as I’d be certain to leave someone out, but if you were there, and I saw you, it was wonderful to see you.

Some personal highlights were seeing Zombies: Shambling Through the Ages at both the Prime and Lethe Press tables in the Dealer’s Room. It helped convince me to read my story from the zombies anthology, “Hauntings and Hungers on the Banks of the Vipasa” in the Altered Fluid reading on Saturday. It just so happened that the timing of the story worked out really well.

I also got a look at the ARC of Suffered from the Night, the other upcoming anthology I’m in coming out from Lethe Press.

Then there were all the great readings, the great beer, the parties, and all the writing inspiration. I always come back from the con feeling energized (at least creatively). Case in point, last night, while exhausted and trying to fall asleep, my fatigued brain combined two disparate concepts that I had been considering into one project that I have decided to start writing. Not that I need another novel in the queue, but, hey, I’ll take the inspiration.

Now to catch up on sleep and settle back into a more regular rhythm…

Has it really been a month since I last posted? I suppose it has. It’s not that I don’t enjoy updating the blog, it’s just that it usually takes a back seat to fiction writing and article writing and the reading I have to do for articles and reviews and, well, I’m going to try to be better about it in the future.

But first I have a few updates that I thought I should mention:

LitReactor

Some of you may know that I’m the fantasy columnist over at LitReactor, but as of last month I began tackling science fiction as well. For the most part I’ll be writing four columns for them every month, 2 each of F & SF, covering a variety of topics and books. My most recent columns were a Post-Apocalyptic Top 10, and a Primer on Dune. Coming up in July I have two posts inspired by Pacific Rim (Giant Monsters and Robots), a post about the Sandman Slim series, and a post about Alfred Bester’s novels. I’m always looking for new topics to cover, so if there’s something you think would be interesting, let me know.

Sales

I don’t believe I’ve mentioned it here, but I recently sold two stories to Steve Berman. The first is for an anthology coming from Prime Books — Zombies: Shambling Through the Ages (see cover above).  My story is set in India during the time of Alexander the Great’s invasion. The anthology looks like it should be out in August and you can pre-order it here if you like. There are some great writers in this one, including my friends, Mercurio D. Rivera and Paul Berger.

The other story will be appearing in the Queering Stoker anthology, Suffered From the Night.This one picks up a little while after the events of Dracula, tackling both Dracula’s and Van Helsing’s legacies. I’m not sure when it will be released, but I’m happy to be in another of Lethe Press’s anthologies (after A Study in Lavender, the Sherlock Holmes anthology).

I have a few other things in the works, hopefully with some surprises, but I will talk about them when I have more to say. Hope everyone out there is doing well.

I have some writing-related news from the past few weeks.

First off, my story, “The Case of the Wounded Heart”, which I enjoyed the hell out of writing, is now available in the anthology, A Study in Lavender: Queering Sherlock Holmes from Lethe Press. I’ve mentioned the anthology here before, but it takes characters from the Holmes mythos (including, of course, Holmes and Watson) and imagines them (or reveals them, perhaps) as gay. I haven’t had a chance to read it, but I’m dying to get my hands on it. It’s available now here or at Amazon .

Second, while the story was accepted a while ago, I finally signed the contract for my story, “The Burning Bridge to Heaven”, which will be appearing in Abyss & Apex next quarter. I will, obviously, link to it when it’s up. It’s a kind of British 60’s X-Files story and was also a lot of fun to write.

Finally, I also signed a contract for my story, “Doors”, which will be narrated as a podcast on Podcastle. “Doors” was originally published in GUD Issue 6 and, though I usually don’t have favorite stories, is probably one of my favorites.

That’s all for now.

I refrained from saying anything earlier, despite receiving the acceptance, but now that I’ve received the contract I can reveal that my story,”The Case of the Wounded Heart”, will be appearing in the Lethe Press anthology, A Study In Lavender. The anthology is basically a gay-themed Sherlock Holmes anthology containing stories in which at least one of the characters from the Holmes mythos is portrayed as gay. I love Holmes stories, so I had a great time writing this one. It features Inspector Lestrade. Publication is currently set for summer of 2011.