For those who don’t know, I have a podcast with Devin Poore called Spirited Discourse, where creative people chat over drinks and we record the conversation. We had a bit of a gap in our episodes due to the intrusion of life and work, but as of yesterday we are back on track. Up right now is Episode 007 with writer Matthew Kressel. We talked about writing and critiquing, television, beer, Alice in Wonderland, and of course, with Matt, Blade Runner. It was a good time recording the episode (and drinking the applejack and beer) so please check it out if you have the chance. And if you haven’t heard the earlier episodes, please check them out as well. And if you like them, please leave us a review on iTunes (or wherever).

Here’s the iTunes link

Here’s the SoundCloud link

I wanted to get a post up today but I just finished writing a post about Rising Tide that will appear on LitReactor later this week. So rather than talk more about it here, I thought I would instead help spread the word about King of Shards, the debut novel by my friend and very talented writer, Matt Kressel. I read the novel back when it was just a draft and I was impressed with the fantasy that Matt put together, drawing heavily on Jewish mythology. This is one to look out for. King of Shards comes out October 13, the week after Rising Tide. Check out the book trailer below and then preorder it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, indiebound, or the store of your choice.

I’m often aware that I spend way too much web space on self-promotion here. Which is why I’m happy to shine the spotlight on others when I can. Today I’d like to direct you to the story, “The Sounds of Old Earth” by Matthew Kressel, recently posted on the Lightspeed Magazine website. Matt’s in my writing group and we critiqued this story in the group. It started out as a great story, but Matt’s revisions took it into extraordinary territory. I think it might be the best thing he’s written (so far). I’m truly impressed by the power he managed to imbue into it. I would encourage everyone to read it if you haven’t already and please, if you’re part of the science fiction and fantasy community, don’t forget this story come awards season. It’s just that good.

Last year I had the good fortune to be an Associate Editor for Sybil’s Garage, a small press genre fiction magazine that I greatly admire. The magazine has quickly established itself as a source for great fiction under the leadership of Matthew Kressel. So when I was asked if I wanted to be an editor again this year, I had to say yes.

The reading period opens on January 15 and the guidelines have changed slightly:

Sybil’s Garage publishes a wide variety of speculative fiction, including traditional science fiction, fantasy and horror as well as more atmospheric/slipstream stories. For issue no. 7 we seek to cast a wider net and encourage contributors to send us both atmospheric/slipstream stories as well as those with traditionally strong plots and characters.

We also will look at stories with little or no speculative element, but with speculative tendencies (e.g. weird but not-necessarily supernatural.)

In addition, we are very interested in seeing stories written by and/or including varied ethnicities, social classes, and nationalities. We’d like to see more stories featuring under-utilized cultures and settings as well. Our editors and readers represent a variety of backgrounds and we’re always working to ensure that our publication reflects that as well.

Please send us your best work.

Full guidelines can be found here.