Susan Forest

But the good news is, I sold another story! “The Director’s Cut” will appear in Tesseracts Fourteen this fall! Yay!

The other good news is, I am off to Banff today for a writers’ retreat for 2 days – will be fun, and I hope to teach my computer (and myself) to use Dragonspeak (MacDictate) so I can stop typing with my left hand. Yay!

Okay, this one is non-fiction, and not speculative, but I still feel good about it — and I’ll still get paid! A friend who edits for Legacy Magazine said they were looking for essays about the province in Canada where I live — Alberta. At first, I thought I wouldn’t be able to do it because I don’t really write non-fiction. But there IS a place that means a lot to me because it reminds me of my father, who passed away five years ago. So it actually wasn’t hard to write the piece.

I wrote the essay Thursday and submitted a proposal. Based on my past sales, the publisher asked to see the piece so I did one final revision, had it beta-ed, and sent it in — still the same day. The next morning (Friday) I got a call from the publisher, buying it! Boy, was that fast! But she said the piece fit well with the intent of the column, and it will likely come out in October! Yay!

Randy McCharles and I signing for Edge Press at Denvention, 2008.

I got the schedule for panel participants for Worldcon in Montreal and programmers have been very generous to me! I have a reading and a signing, and have been invited to sit on panels on Horror and Dark Fantasy, Internet critical reviews and writing for Analog. I had to decline the panel on Battlestar Galactica, because I’m not knowledgeable in that area, having never seen the show. That doesn’t bother me too much, but I may also have to miss the one on Dark Fantasy as my plane will arrive too late for me to make it.

Exciting, though, to be asked to sit on panels with Stan Schmidt, Ellen Datlow, David D. Levine, James Patrick Kelly, Moshe Feder and others! My excitement level just went up three notches!

Thanks to everyone who took a moment to nominate me for the Aurora Award — I have been short listed in the Short Fiction category for my short story in Analog last June, entitled “Back.” Doubly good news, I am in competition with my good friend, Randy, who wrote a humorous novella, “Ringing the Changes in Okotoks, Alberta,” which appeared in Tesseracts 12 by Edge Press last November. Randy was also nominated in the category, Fan Achievement – Organizational for running the World Fantasy Convention in Calgary last fall, which was a great convention.

I wasn’t sure what happened to the last script I approved for the radio play adapted from my short story, “Playing Games” (OnSpec, Winter, 2005) but I received another version this week. The script is quite true to the original; I made a couple of edits, then approved it. Hopefully it will pass all the tests and be produced this time!

Speaking of one’s work being adapted for another medium, I was awed this week to learn that Rob Sawyer’s novel, “Flashforward” has been contracted by ABC Television in the U.S. to become a series! Rob, that is incredible!! Congratulations! It will be interesting to follow Rob’s website (you can see Rob’s site is one of my links) as the show moves through the labyrinth toward air.

Ta Ta!

I have friends who don’t write, who are invariably amused when I brag, “I got an excellent rejection letter!” People who don’t write don’t realize, I think, how hard we work for a personalized rejection, and what it can mean: the editor actually read the submission and liked it enough to take their time to be encouraging. In this competitive business, that is really awesome. And, as in my first sale to Asimov’s, an initial rejection can lead to a sale.

So, I’ve been yakking about science fiction writing, and didn’t mention that I belong to more than one writers’ group. Kensington Writers Group is a non-genre group that is quite small, but highly successful, and includes not only writers of genre, novels and short stories, but YA, non-fiction and poetry as well. As much as I value my connection to IFWA and the expertise they possess in SF, I have learned a lot about writing by working with people from a wide range of backgrounds.

One member of my group, Jan Markley, has just received a very positive rejection from a Canadian publisher for her YA novel, “Dead Frogs on the Porch.” The editor wrote her almost a page of critique, praising the novel on a number of levels and suggesting Jan look at just a little tension-tightening (and who can’t benefit from that?). She’s doing re-writes for another submission and we’re all on the edge of our seats, waiting to see what happens (okay, we may be on the edge of our seats for a few months)!! Jan’s novel is funny, gripping, unique, and has great characters with distinctive voices. I would not be surprised if she doesn’t wind up with a sale on her hands.

Susan

The sessions continue to be great — too many to choose among — and it is wonderful to hear about writing and the business straight out of the mouths of top authors and agents. The other thing is, of course, that you recognize them when you meet them. Although, that may not always be the best thing. My good friend, Kim Greyson, who is in charge of guests for World Fantasy (which will be in Calgary in October) knows EVERYONE, so last night he introduced me to writer David Coe. The first thing I said was, “I know you — where have we met?” He was a little confused; then I realized — I’d seen him on a panel. Oops! But he was very gracious about the mistake.

Parties, of course, are where a lot of the business is done. I fell into conversation with a top agent, Lucienne Diver, who gave me her card, then Kim introduced me to Kathleen Doherty who offered to place my manuscripts in front of the right editor at Tor. What an opportunity! Thanks, Kim! Also, for the first time, I got to make an introduction. I introduced Randy McCharles to Sheila Williams at Asimov’s. I read in her June editorial that she is looking for humour and the first person I thought of was Randy because he is not only an awesome writer, he writes humour. So, once the craziness dies down, he said he would send something to Asimov’s.

Would have posted earlier, but I only just today got Internet.

I’m very much enjoying Denvention. Sessions have been interesting and informative with lots of big name authors, agents and editors providing advice. One thing about advice is that once you hear it, it often makes so much sense you think, “Why didn’t I realize that before? It’s so simple!” John Scalzi, Michael Kabongo (agent) and Mary Robinette Kowal (Nebula nominee) gave a really funny panel on schmoozing that included, “What is a great elevator pitch?” Mary’s pitch for one of her current novels is “Jane Austin — with magic!” Just having a couple of examples like that is really helpful. So instead of the one I thought of earlier for my novel (“an adventure fantasy in which a journeyman thief is politically manipulated into. . . “) I’m thinking of, “adventure fantasy with thieves and con men.” Maybe I can still work on it (my daughter, Heather — a wonderful writer in her own right — could probably make it better), but at least it’s shorter and hopefully gets to the cool part sooner. Let’s hope I get a chance to try it out.

As for shmoozing, I’ve done a little. I had dinner last night with Edge Press publisher Brian Hades, and up-and-coming authors Ed Willett and Adrian (KA) Bedford. The day before, our table included L.E. Modesitt. Yesterday, I was on hand when friend, writer and OnSpec editor, Barb Galler-Smith learned that her first book has been picked up by Edge Press and will likely see its launch at Anticipation World Con in Montreal next summer. Very exciting news!! I also touched base with Analog editor Stanley Schmidt (who suggested I sit on a few panels — which I will be doing tomorrow), good friend Rob Sawyer, and generous mentor, Mike Resnick. Today, I signed copies of Tesseracts Ten and Tesseracts Eleven with Randy McCharles, a wonderful SF humorist whose stories appear in Tess Eleven and upcoming in Tesseracts Twelve. Afterwards, I volunteered at the SFWA table.

Tomorrow I sit on a panel on “Writing in Spite of Your Environment,” followed, of course, by the Hugo Awards (keeping fingers crossed for Rob’s book, Rollback). Looking forward to it!

Sometimes the news comes thick and fast. I was thrilled a week ago to receive a letter from Stan Schmidt, editor of Analog Science Fiction and Fact, telling me he was buying my latest short story. I had the good fortune to meet Stan a year ago at Worldcon in Los Angeles when I was invited to the Analog / Asimov party as one of the new contributors to Asimov’s. Asked if I had a story for him, I was able to say it was in the mail. Alas, “Tomorrow and Tomorrow” was too “bleak” for Stan–hey, I’m Canadian!–but it was subsequently picked up by Holly Phillips for Tesseracts Eleven, which will be out later this month.

So, I sent Stan “The Right Chemistry,” a short, funny piece that made him laugh out loud, but wasn’t what his readers expect science fiction to be. I had been reading Analog all along, of course, but I got out all my old copies and re-read the short stories, trying to analyze what the commonalities might be. Then I wrote “Back” specifically for Stan, and put it in the mail.

Months passed.

One night I came home from work and checked the mail. There was an envelope in my own handwriting, and I thought, “Oh, which one rejected me?” I only had two stories out in circulation at the time. I opened the flap and saw the “Analog” letterhead and thought, “Stan had that story a long time; I really was hoping he was going to buy it.” Oh, well. Then I read the letter. His first three words were “I’m buying BACK!” Needless to say, I had to jump up and down a few times before reading
the rest of the letter. He had a couple of edits for me, which I sent off within the week.

Ahh. Good times.