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How Does Story Happen? An Interview with Jane S. Fancher

How Does Story Happen? An Interview with Jane S. Fancher

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Ring of Lightning Jane S Fancher-small Ring of Intrigue Jane S Fancher-small Ring of Destiny Jane S Fancher-small

In my report on the 2016 Nebula Awards weekend, I talked about my two-part interview with SF and fantasy writer Jane S. Fancher, author of the Groundties trilogy and the Dance of the Rings novels. (It turned into a two-part interview because the memory on my new iPhone maxed out while recording CJ Cherryh’s epic Grand Master talk, and my first attempt at an interview lasted all of three minutes. Fortunately, Jane was understanding enough to pick up our interview 24 hours later.)

The Dance of the Rings novels were some of the first review copies I ever received, back in the late 90s when we were first getting the review site SF Site off the ground, so they meant a lot to me personally, and it was a delight to finally meet Jane in person. Turns out we had a lot in common, not the least of which was fond memories of the 90s comic scene (especially WaRP Graphics, publishers of ElfQuest, where Jane got her start in the industry), and a fascination with SF publishing. She was kind enough to share her stories of breaking into the industry, the tumultuous ups and downs of starting with short-lived Warner Questar, publisher of her first three novels, and switching to DAW for her first fantasy series.

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Superheroes in Prose: A City-Smashing Interview with the Editors of the New Anthology Tesseracts Nineteen

Superheroes in Prose: A City-Smashing Interview with the Editors of the New Anthology Tesseracts Nineteen

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Tesseracts Nineteen Superhero Universe-smallGet a load of this: Superheroes! Supervillains! Superpowered antiheroes. Super scientists. Adventurers into the unknown. Costumed crimefighters. Mutant superterrorists. Far-future supergroups. Crusading aliens in a strange land. Secret histories of covert superspies… and more! All in a Canadian setting.

This is the call for stories that went out in 2014 for the anthology Superhero Universe: Tesseracts Nineteen by EDGE Publishing which is launching this month. Its editors are Claude Lalumière and Mark Shainblum.

Claude has edited thirteen previous anthologies, including Super Stories of Heroes & Villains, which was hailed in a starred review by Publishers Weekly as “by far the best superhero anthology.”

Mark Shainblum co-created the comic series Northguard and the bestselling humor book series Angloman, which later appeared as a weekly strip in The Montreal Gazette. Mark also collaborated on the Captain Canuck daily newspaper strip. I caught up with Claude and Mark for an e-interview.

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Interview With James Stoddard: To Tour Evenmere, The Night Land, and Other Exotic Locales

Interview With James Stoddard: To Tour Evenmere, The Night Land, and Other Exotic Locales

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james stoddardJames Stoddard made his first short-story sale to Amazing Stories in 1985, under the pen name James Turpin. His first novel, The High House, published by Warner New Aspect in 1998, made an impressive debut. Publishers Weekly enthused, “In his first novel, Stoddard tells a thrilling story that features not only a unique and powerful family but a magnificent edifice filled with mysterious doors and passageways that link kingdoms and unite the universe.”

Cynthia Ward concurred:

“The modern armies of Tolkien clones have vanquished the diversity of high fantasy, with few exceptions: Little, Big by John Crowley, The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman, Clouds End by Sean Stewart — and now The High House, an astonishingly imaginative, individual, and assured first novel by James Stoddard.”

What would prove to be the first book in the Evenmere Chronicles was followed up two years later by The False House. And then the House went dark.

Loyal fans waited years — 15 years, to be exact. But on December 9, 2015, Stoddard fulfilled their wishes without help of a major publisher, releasing Book 3: Evenmere (Ransom House, available through Amazon for $12.89) and completing the story of Carter Anderson and the strange house that goes on forever, the house with a dragon in its attic and monsters in its basement and countless wonders in between.

In the decade-and-a-half between visits to the High House, Stoddard also took readers on a tour of William Hope Hodgson’s strange future nightmare vision in The Night Land, A Story Retold (2010). He also returned to shorter forms, producing highly-regarded short stories and novellas for magazines like Fantasy & Science Fiction.

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Running with the Post-Apocalyptic Dogs: An Interview with Comic Creators Sam Sattin and Chris Koehler

Running with the Post-Apocalyptic Dogs: An Interview with Comic Creators Sam Sattin and Chris Koehler

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LEGEND_issue 1 cover_koehlerIn May, Z2 Comics is going to be publishing Legend, a new series by writer Sam Sattin and artist Chris Koehler. I had previously interviewed Ian McGuity for his Z2 release Welcome to Showside and so when I saw the early news on Legend, I knew I wanted to have a chat with Sam and Chris.

Welcome to both of you and thanks for the chance to chat!

Sam and Chris: Thank you so much for having us. Black Gate magazine for life!

I read an advance copy of Legend. It’s strikingly different and I’m buying into the school that describes it as “Post-Apocalyptic Homeward Bound.” Can you give our readers a sense of what Legend is and what you were trying to do?

Sam: I love the idea of Legend being referred to as a “Post-Apocalyptic Homeward Bound.” But I also like describing Legend as a “Post-Apocalyptic Watership Down… meets The Walking Dead… and/or Game of Thrones?”

The thing that I love so much about Watership Down — along with other Richard Adams books, like The Plague Dogs — is how it employs myth. A much overlooked linchpin of Watership Down‘s success is its reliance on a religious text, one which turns a story of rabbits journeying from a home threatened by human development into a story of prophecy and redemption.

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Canadian Steampunk: Chatting with Anthologist and Editor Dominik Parisien

Canadian Steampunk: Chatting with Anthologist and Editor Dominik Parisien

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Clockwork-Canada 2In December, Black Gate editor John O’Neill scooped the world with the cover of Clockwork Canada, Dominik Parisien’s newest offering as an anthologist. Dominik is best known as a poet and writer, but also for his editorial work with the Ann and Jeff VanderMeer and Saga Press. Exile Editions is launching Clockwork Canada this month and I wanted to chat with Dominik about his intriguing vision behind this anthology.

To set this up, I include the back-cover blurb:

Welcome to an alternate Canada, where steam technology and the wonders and horrors of the mechanical age have reshaped the past into something both wholly familiar yet compellingly different. These fifteen supercharged all-new tales reimagine Canadian historical events, explore alternate Canadas, and gather inspiration from the northern landscape to make us wonder: what if history had gone a different way?

Experience steam-powered buffalo women roaming the plains; join extraordinary men and women striking out on their own or striving to build communities; marvel as giant rampaging spirits are thwarted by a miniscule timepiece; cringe when a great clock chimes and the Seven O’Clock Man appears to terrorize a village in Quebec; witness a Maritime scientist develop a deadly weapon that could change the course of the American Civil War.

Anachronistic technologies, retro-futuristic inventions, alternative history, fantasy, horror, historical fiction, and other branches of speculative fiction all culminate in this uniquely Canadian search for identity.

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The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories: An Interview with Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Award-Winner Ken Liu

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories: An Interview with Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Award-Winner Ken Liu

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ken Paper-Menagerie-his-rezKen Liu has so far been principally known for his short fiction in science fiction and fantasy, although The Grace of Kings, the first novel in his Dandelion Dynasty trilogy, has been released by Saga Press. Ken’s short fiction has been nominated for tons of awards, and he won the Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Awards. Recently, Saga Press also released his short story collection, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories (which John O’Neill covered here, and about which BG blogger Amal El-Mohtar said “I have never been so moved by a collection of short fiction.”)

It features some of Ken’s most impressive work, although he’s written so much that he could have filled a few more collections of similar quality and size without any trouble. The collection contains: “The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species,” “State Change,” “The Perfect Match,” “Good Hunting,” “The Literomancer,” “Simulacrum,” “The Regular,” “The Paper Menagerie,” “An Advanced Reader’s Picture Book of Comparative Cognition” (previously unpublished), “The Waves,” “Mono no aware,” “A Brief History of the Trans-Pacific Tunnel,” “The Litigation Master and the Monkey King,” and “The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary.”

I managed to catch up with him to e-talk about The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories.

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Goth Chick News: 13 Questions for Double Stoker Nominee Michaelbrent Collings

Goth Chick News: 13 Questions for Double Stoker Nominee Michaelbrent Collings

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MbC and his look of smoldering intensity
MbC and his look of smoldering intensity

Mr. Michaelbrent Collings is an internationally-bestselling author who also currently happens to be a double Stoker Award nominee for 2016.

His work The Deep is nominated for Superior Achievement in a Novel while The Ridealong is up for Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel. And though you might expect a horror writer with these types of creds to be long in the “EA Poe” persona and short in the humor department, Collings is… well… downright funny — which makes him perfect for fodder for a Goth Chick News interview, where it’s not about how many gallons of blood you can sling, but how entertaining you are.

So without further ado; everyone, this is Michaelbrent.

Michealbrent, meet everyone…

GC: How did you first get into writing? Was it to meet girls?

MC: It was definitely to meet the ladies. I’d go to parties, lean suave-like-Bond-style against the nearest booming woofer and lay down my opening line. Then, when I realized they couldn’t hear me because I was standing next to a frickin’ booming woofer, I’d move to a tweeter (yeah, I went to weird parties), and say, very casual-like, “So I researched today how to make a tent out of the face-skin of virgins.” I never did get a phone number, but I’m pretty sure they all talked about me when they ran to the bathroom.

No, strike that, I did get a phone number once. I thought it was pretty strange at first that it had eighteen digits, but the girl must have been an exchange student, because I got some kind of Chinese phone number and some other woman showed up at my house a few days later claiming to be my wife. It was really weird. Especially for my parents, who didn’t know how to feel about the fact that my wife was older than they were. Plus I still lived at home at the time.

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Post-Modern Pulp: Speaking With Indie Action Writer Jack Badelaire

Post-Modern Pulp: Speaking With Indie Action Writer Jack Badelaire

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COA_SmallToday we’re talking to Jack Badelaire, author of numerous action books in the tradition of the 70s “Men’s Adventure” genre. His best known work is his Commando series of WWII action novels. Jack reflects on indie publishing and the state of the genre.

Full Disclosure: Jack is a critique partner of mine. He’s also a fellow member of the secret commando group Sicko Slaughterers (“SS,” we really need a new acronym), which goes after terrorists and human traffickers. So far I’ve killed 1,487 sickos, while wimpy little Jack has only killed 1,059. He gets props for killing that ISIS commander in Raqqa with a blender, though.

Anyway, on with the interview.

The Men’s Adventure fiction of the 60s and 70s is obviously a huge influence on your work. You’ve mentioned that you think there’s a lot more going on in these books than many people think. Could you expand on that?

This genre of fiction was brewed up during an especially turbulent period of history. The Cold War, Vietnam, rejuvenated organized crime syndicates, the rise of international terrorist organizations, the War on Drugs… and those are just the chart-toppers.  These post-modern pulps of the period were a direct reflection of, if we want to get Freudian for a moment, society’s collective Id. The Executioner went out and slaughtered Mafiosi because we wished someone would, and Phoenix Force obliterated terrorists because we wished someone would. Even today, the modern successors to these stories feature ex-SEALs and former Delta Force operators hunting terrorists and organized crime syndicates, stories little different than those written thirty or forty years ago.

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Patrick “Not the Starfish” Samphire on His Novel, Secrets of the Dragon Tomb, Building a Career as an Author, and Supporting a Family in an All Author Home

Patrick “Not the Starfish” Samphire on His Novel, Secrets of the Dragon Tomb, Building a Career as an Author, and Supporting a Family in an All Author Home

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patrick-samphire-author-photo-3-col-290x406Patrick Samphire has already had a long and impressive career as a short story author. Now he’s got his first novel out, Secrets of the Dragon Tomb. This pulp adventure is set in the Regency era, in a British colony on Mars. It’s got high adventure, action, mystery, dinosaurs, and of course, dragons. What more do you need?

These days both Patrick and his wife, Stephanie Burgis, work full time as authors and support their young family in Wales.

He and I sat down to talk over Skype about his new book, and also about building a life as an author. In this interview, he details his journey from his childhood in Africa, to his earning a doctorate in physics, to his being accepted to and attending Clarion West.

I’ve been reading Patrick’s work for over a decade, now, and highly recommend it to anyone!

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Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Pro-Tip From Craig Shaw Gardner

Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Pro-Tip From Craig Shaw Gardner

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Craig Shaw Gardner-smallOur Pro-Tip author this week is the prolific and funny Craig Shaw Gardner. Perhaps best-known for his humorous fantasy, he also writes horror and science fiction. Craig sold his first short story in 1977, and began writing full time in 1987. He’s written six or seven trilogies and a whole bunch of stories and novelizations. (At least 34 novels and two collections, and still going strong.) His trilogies include The Cineverse Cycle, Dragon Circle, and Arabian Nights.

Critique Groups and First Readers: Good Idea or Bad Idea?

Most writers (myself included) have something of a Love/Hate relationship with their prose. Often, when I start writing a story, I think “What a great idea! What a clever approach! This will be my best story ever!” And then, somewhere in the middle of the process, doubts creep in. “This is too long! No one will ever read this! I could have done a better job of characterization/ plot/ suspense/etc.”

Chances are, neither one of these visions of your work, both the high and the low, are entirely true. It’s hard to get the distance from your own prose to seriously judge yourself mid-story. This is where other readers come in. Many writers (myself included) depend on a writing group or first reader to give them perspective on what works and what doesn’t. A good writing group can gently tell you about the good and the bad in your story. You may not always agree with their proposed solutions, but their critiques will help you write a better story.

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