Quail Ridge Books gets ready for a run of events.

The November events newsletter is just about ready, but I wanted to give a little bit of space to Quail Ridge Books this evening, as they're hosting a run of sf events in November and into December.

First up is a recently-added event for L.E. Modesitt, Jr.'s SCHOLAR on Wednesday, November 9 at 7:30 pm:

Then, while Doc does not fall under the rubric of speculative fiction, Mary Doria Russell, author of the spectacular science fiction novel The Sparrow, is reading on Tuesday, November 15, at 7:30 pm:

This might be the first "sighting in the wild" for Kafkaesque, an anthology of Kafka-inspired short stories edited by John Kessel and James Patrick Kelly. Ruth Gross joins NCSU's Prof. Kessel for an event on Wednesday, December 7, at 7:30 pm:

Lastly, Cassandra Clare comes on Friday, December 9, at 7:00 pm:

Whew. Anyway, these events (and more) will go out in tomorrow's newsletter, but since I was recently in the store and all these events and books were just staring me in the face...

Speaking of -- I didn't get these next few posted for a couple of mid-September events at QRB, but, hey, better late than never. (And some of these stacks of books are still waiting, signed, for you.)

Fantasy novel from a Connecticut 13 year old with Crohn's Disease.

http://www.sarah-story.com/sarahs-writing/

Chronicles a bit of the struggles of a young girl with Crohn's Disease, and talks about her short fantasy novel which was self-published in Nook, Kindle, and (free) ePub form. It's not the greatest story ever told (contemporary fantasy, Ash, Rayne, the council and its Head) but it's probably a good step up from my efforts at that age :) (if I were foolish enough to read what I have safely boxed away in my closet, I suppose a comparison could be made, but really, nobody wants that).

(Like the recent Marine Expeditionary vs. Rome thing, "it came from reddit".)

Update: It looks like I'm going to be sending a books/etc. "care package" from the Triangle area, so if you have some middle grade books or something you want to send, get ahold of me.

Closing to poetry submissions until (at least) January.

Hey all. Still open for fiction until (planned) December 1, but we're now closed to poetry submissions until (at least) January. I've updated the guidelines page to reflect this. We've got a full slate of poetry through issue 8 and more, along with some fun things which Dan hasn't announced. Also, if anyone has a poetry submission pending, that they should hear from Dan within 2 weeks. So: get writing! No need to rush. We'll be here when you're ready. -Sam

Bull Spec contributors at World Fantasy Conference 2011

The 2011 World Fantasy Conference program is out, along with day-by-day event listings. As San Diego is a bit of a walk from Durham, once again I'll live vicariously through poking through the program and filtering for Bull Spec contributors.

THURSDAY:

9 pm: Pacific 1: Out From Under the Bed: Monster as Protagonist - Nick Mamatas (story, "Oh, Harvard Square!" in issue #4)

FRIDAY:

1 pm: Pacific 6/7: Reading - Cat Rambo (story, "The Coffeemaker's Passion" in issue #5)

2 pm: Pacific 1: The Successful Misfit as a Theme in Fantasy - Erin Hoffman (story, "City of Shadow and Glass", issue #4), Mark L. Van Name (interviewee and excerpt for Children No More, issue #4)

SATURDAY:

10 am: Pacific 4/5: Reading - Tim Pratt (story, "Hell's Lottery" in issue #5)

11 am: Pacific 1: Here There Be Krakens: Monsters of the Deep - David Drake (interviewee and excerpt for The Legions of Fire in issue #3; interviewee in forthcoming issue #7)

2 pm: Pacific 2/3: The Year in Fantasy - Jonathan Strahan (interviewee in issue #5)

8 pm: Pacific 1: Out of the Broom Closet: Integrating Magicians and Fantastic Creatures into Society - Rebecca Rowe (participant, issue #4 launch reading)

9 pm: Pacific 6/7: Open Poetry Reading (2 hrs.) – Emcee Rose Lemberg (poem, "Beastwoman's Snarled Rune", issue #4)

SUNDAY:

1 pm: What do eight (8!) nominees -- Lou Anders, Lauren Beukes, Kij Johnson, Nick Mamatas, Jonathan Strahan, Charles Tan, Lavie Tidhar, and Jeff VanderMeer -- have in common? They've all been contributors to Bull Spec. Best of luck to all the nominees!

PS: And WFC attendees, check your bookbag for a flyer with a free download code for Bull Spec #6 from Weightless Books!

Breaking event news: Quail Ridge Books to host L.E. Modesitt Jr. for SCHOLAR on Wednesday, Nov 9 at 7:30 pm

Quail Ridge Books event manager Rene Martin let me know that L.E. Modesitt Jr. will be coming to town for a reading of Scholar, the latest in his Imager Portfolio series, on Wednesday, November 9th at 7:30 PM:

Bio from the Macmillan website: L. E. Modesitt, Jr., is the bestselling author of the fantasy series The Saga of Recluce, Corean Chronicles, and the Imager Portfolio. His science fiction includes Adiamante, the Ecolitan novels, the Forever Hero Trilogy, and Archform: Beauty. Besides a writer, Modesitt has been a U.S. Navy pilot, a director of research for a political campaign, legislative assistant and staff director for a U.S. Congressman, Director of Legislation and Congressional Relations for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a consultant on environmental, regulatory, and communications issues, and a college lecturer. He lives in Cedar City, Utah.

This is the first of four events of note at Quail Ridge Books in the next month and a half:

• Tuesday Nov 15th, 7:30 pm: Mary Doria Russell (author of The Sparrow) for a reading of Doc (on Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp)
• Wednesday Dec 7th, 7:30 pm: John Kessel and Ruth V. Gross to discuss Franz Kafka and Kessel's new anthology Kafkaesque: Stories Inspired by Franz Kafka
• Friday Dec 9th, 7:30 pm: Cassandra Clare with the latest in her YA series Infernal Devices, Clockwork Prince

All four of these events are now updated on the October events calendar as well. Happy reading!

Last minute call for advertisers for issue 7.

Well, this is pretty much a cut and paste job from a few months ago, but: Still haven't sold the back cover ($250) or both front inside cover ($150) and back inside cover ($100) for issue 7. Full color, 8.5x11. Publication date November 8, on newsstands until late January. Final art due October 31. Contact sam@bullspec.com for details. Previous back covers have included Pyr, Tor, Solaris, and ConTemporal. Also have black and white full page space at $50. Thanks! Front inside cover runs opposite the table of contents, back inside cover runs opposite editorial.

More info: full page is really 8.75 x 11.125, with outside 0.125 the bleed area, and the next 0.125 not a good spot for important text or line art (machine cut might cut into the trim).

And yes, there's an advertiser copy. Two for the back cover spot.

Some 'new-new' updates to the newsletter and some other fun bits.

One of the first things which always happens when I send out the monthly events newsletter is: I immediately learn of several things coming up which I didn't include in the newsletter. For the events, I did go back and add them to the October newsletter -- search for "NEW-NEW".

OCTOBER

7 (Friday), 7 pm: Hillsborough author John Claude Bemis reads from The White City, the last book in his The Clockwork Dark trilogy from Random House Books for Young Readers, at The Regulator Bookshop: http://www.regulatorbookshop.com/event/john-claude-bemis

10 (Monday), 7-8 pm: Join author Mark Van Name as he talks about “Characters and Setting” in your writing as part of the Wake County library's "Readers to Writers Workshop" series. This one at the West Regional Library: http://www.wakegov.com/images/Library/calendar/?trumbaEmbed=view%3Devent%26eventid%3D96406577

18 (Tuesday), 7-8 pm: Continuing the Wake County "Readers to Writers" writing workshops, Mark Van Name talks "Plot & Conflict" at the Eva Perry Regional Library: http://www.wakegov.com/images/Library/calendar/?trumbaEmbed=view%3Devent%26eventid%3D96373397

19 (Wednesday), 6:30 pm: Clay and Susan Griffith talk "Plot & Conflict" as part of the Wake County "Readers to Writers" writing workshop series, at the Cameron Village Regional Library: http://www.wakegov.com/images/Library/calendar/?trumbaEmbed=view%3Devent%26eventid%3D96392404

NOVEMBER

26 (Saturday), 9 pm to midnight: The Blotter Magazine is celebrating its 100^th issue with a Barbecue Bash from 9 p.m. to midnight, Saturday, Nov. 26, at the Pinhook, 117 W. Main St., Durham, NC. Storm Front, http://www.stormfrontlive.com, and The Gonzo Symphonic Presents,http://www.facebook.com/#!/thegonzosymphonicpresents, will perform. The public is invited. The Blotter Magazine, www.blotterrag.com, exists to nurture underground, outsider literature and art, and to provide it to a wide audience. Our mission is to encourage and support new writers and artists. We hope to see you there.

And, along with those event updates, a couple more fun bits along the way today:

1. John Claude Bemis posted the wraparound cover for his next book, The Prince Who Fell from the Sky:

2. Stephen Messer's just-out book for young readers, The Death of Yorik Mortwell, got a nice review at Libary Journal.

Three bits of local author news.

Three bits of local author news, in order of when I heard about them: Dan Campbell, Michael Jasper, and Richard Dansky.

1. Dan Campbell's short story "Where Sea and Sky Kiss" was published this morning at Daily Science Fiction. Sent to e-mail subscribers, it will later be posted online, and finally be part of their monthly Kindle edition. I had a chance to read it and if you're a fan of Dan's, well, you won't be disappointed at all. I don't want to give anything away, and I don't have time to figure out "spoiler" tags, but for me there was a melancholy, beautiful echo of a Kaolin Fire poem that Dan and I both liked in there, and I hope you guys check out DSF if you aren't already subscribed. (It's free, by the way -- and newly SFWA approved -- so what are you waiting for?)
2. Michael Jasper's webcomic In Maps & Legends reaches its conclusion with Issue 9 tomorrow: "What started with an off-the-cuff tweet over two years ago will conclude -- nearly 200 pages later -- with a digital bang this Wednesday." There's a free issue #1 preview if you want to get started.
3. Richard Dansky is interviewed by Tracy S. Morris -- and even gives Bull Spec a name drop. Thanks, man! Update: and one of Richard's short stories was just announced in the table of contents for the anthology Haunted: 11 Tales of Ghostly Horror as well.

Whew! And something I don't think I've mentioned here yet is that Firetower Studios has recently started a veritable stampede of webcomics, from Jason Strutz's Faerie Sisters to Ennui of the Dead to Werewolf DA to... well, you get the idea.

Spec Poetry News: The Moment of Change

Rose Lemberg has announced the Table of Contents for The Moment of Change: An Anthology of Feminist Speculative Poetry, and it will include three poems and three poets who appeared (or soon will appear) in Bull Spec!

Athena Andreadis' poem "Spacetime Geodesics" was in the most recent Bull Spec, issue 6, while "Night Patrol" is forthcoming in issue 7.

Sofia Samatar's "The Year of Disasters" will appear in issue 8.

Lisa Bradley's poems in The Moment of Change, "The Haunted Girl" and "In Defiance Of Sleek-Armed Androids" were originally published, respectively, in Goblin Fruit and Fantastique Unfettered. But two other poems of hers appeared in Bull Spec issues 4 and 5.

I am terribly impatient to read The Moment of Change (it will be out next year). The selection of poets looks fantastic!

Congratulations and many thanks to Rose Lemberg and all of the writers whose work makes up The Moment of Change!

As of late last night, this is what you'll get if you submit a story:

Thanks for sending a story to Bull Spec! We are indeed open and reading submissions as of October 1, and yours has been received and tagged into the submissions process. Where it goes from here is: a first reader (right now: me) will take a look, and decide whether it looks like something that the fiction editors, Natania Barron and Eric Gregory, should consider. You may hear directly back from a first reader via a form letter in the case of a rejection, or you'll be notified when and if the story is forwarded on for further consideration.

The plan is to operate on a cyclical reading period basis of being open for two months, give or take based on the number of stories we need, and in the third month closing for submissions to make sure we don't hold onto stories longer than necessary.

Again, thanks for trusting Bull Spec with a story, I hope we can do a much better job of getting back to you sooner and more clearly than I have been able to manage up to now. It's good to be open!

-Sam

Sincerely,

Samuel Montgomery-Blinn
Publisher, Bull Spec