 |
 |
|
 (just the) "News" Entries SALE! - "Dry Frugal with Death Rays" to Futurismic July 3, 2008 "Dry Frugal" is an oddball science fiction story, about 6500 words. Think "The Office" meets Catch-22 meets Alex as a poor substitute for Vonnegut (so lower those expectations, cool?). Futurismic is a popular futurism blog which publishes science/tech articles and tidbits, plus monthly fiction of the near-future and/or gonzo-satirical variety. This was my third sub to them. I'll talk more about the story when it appears online, possibly as early as next month. But I'm extra proud, for two reasons. First, it's one of my rare successes with humor. Most of what I've been placing are barely-successful attempts at "more serious" things I have less interest in. But as I'm developing my "voice," stories like this one--which tries to touch on the human condition in sometimes light-hearted, sometimes dark-hearted ways--are the sweet spot. The more stories like this one I place, the better I feel that my published work is representing me properly, even at this early stage of my fumbling through the writing jungles. And then there's the length. A problem when sending my Clarion application back in January 2006 was how far back in my repertoire I had to go to find a story that was between "ten and twenty-five pages." I tended to write flash fiction (too short) and novelettes (too long). I was lucky what I found to send in even qualified as stories. I've been working on normal-length stories since, and I'd view a few of them as among my best work to date. This is the first of them to find a home. Besides my novelette "Outgoing," this is my longest story sale by half. Next longest, at 2800 words, was my most recent sale "Harp" a month or so ago. Here's hoping good news comes in threes. Or tens. Tens work, too.
 "Groundbound" in FutureQuake #10 (out now) June 14, 2008  My five page science fiction comic story "Groundbound" with artist Shaun Gardiner appears in the current issue of the British comics-anthology series FutureQuake. Shaun and I are hoping to expand it into a four issue miniseries.  I don't think the book is available from Diamond, but I'll double-check. I'll be ordering a few copies direct on FRIDAY (June 20). If you're in the U.S. and want me to order you a copy (I'll absorb the overseas shipping, if you'll pay for cover price plus a buck or two for "local" postage), just let me know. LJ comments or contact form.  A few quick notes: The script got some heavy tweaking/edits both from editorial before going to Shaun, and afterwards from myself and Shaun after some of those changes (and some of my own idiocy) created some issues I didn't foresee. The changes much improved the piece, I'd argue, and I'll post a few of the more fun alternative solutions we came up with in the next week or so.  I gave the sociopath-protagonist the name "Holly" specifically because I didn't know any Hollys personally when I wrote the script in late 2005. I've since met at least three, including my Clarion instructor Holly Black. Oops.  Also in 2005, not knowing what would sell and what wouldn't, I very occasionally reused science fiction conceits (like maybe twice in a couple dozen pieces). Sure enough, this shares an idea with "Outgoing," which was accepted for publication in Asimov's within a few months of my placing this with FutureQuake IIRC. Two very different stories and not the most important detail in either, but still.  And, finally, I wrote this as a "Future Shock" spec script for 2000 AD, and FS stories have a certain... expectation that comes with the final panel or two. I make no apologies for staying true to that here, but if structure-wise it's hard to identify this as an "Alex" story (whatever that means this early in my career)... 
SALE! - "Harp" to Cabinet des Fees May 24, 2008 Real quick: checked email from WisCon this morning with the happy news that Cabinet des Fées wants my story "Harp" for their 2009 volume, due out October or November of next year. They put out such a beautiful book. So pleased I get to be a part of it.
Alex's Pregnancy Prevention PSAs May 18, 2008 I believe the finished two PSAs are currently showing before films in a few NC Triangle-area movie theaters, and will be airing on assorted television stations across the state by the end of the month. If I understand correctly (I get this all third-hand), APPCNC has also licensed/sold the PSAs to other organizations, so you might see them pop up outside of North Carolina as well. "Timing is Everything." This first one is aimed at the younger folk: "Unconditional" This second one is aimed at parents (while I do often cringe at the manipulativeness of heartstring-type ads, I probably only would've had an ethical issue with the job if this was aimed at kids/teens): Yes, that's me. And how's this for apt casting: while technically I could have been Lea's father, I would've been 14 or so when she was born. Third one's also aimed at parents, but it errs on the fun side like "Timing." Here's hoping we get to see it.
Reading at WisCon 5.23.08 May 16, 2008 I'll be attending and reading at WisCon, next Friday night at 11:45PM, with my Clarion bud Will Alexander, as well as authors-I-look-forward-to-meeting JoSelle Vanderhooft and Ben Burgis. Can't promise sparks, but let's not forget what happened last time Will and I got together. (Hint: our lovechild is now grown up and directing Punisher sequels). I didn't ask to be on any panels this time around on account of the PCS, but there's a number of firsts here for me:
Look forward to seeing a few old friends and many new ones. Old photo, but I'll bring it out again for lack of anything both shaved and recent:  I'll likely be wearing a bandana most days. And just in case there's more than one intentionally bald individual at WisCon, go ahead and assume that I am all of them. EDIT: The posted schedule says 11:45PM, not midnight, so there you go.
"Contents" in The Rambler (out now) March 4, 2008  My flash fiction (non-genre) piece "Contents" appears in the March-April 2008 issue of the literary magazine The Rambler, and I've just seen the first copies at Weaver Street Market, the local food co-op. "Contents" appears on page 48, but, ironically enough, not in the issue's table of contents. Available in many independent bookshops, campus bookstores, and Barnes & Noble chains. Where to Buy.
ABNA: Publishers Weekly Reviews Pinocchio is Punching You January 24, 2008  "In this funny sendup of the classic fairy tale, Pinocchio, having been made a boy, wants one more thing: to be made a ninja. Pinocchio hangs out at the mall, where a bully convinces him that ninja mastery can be had-at a price. The story sharply outlines the oddity of pre-pubescent boys' fixations (ninjas, zombies, petty theft and bra straps), and its playful blend of realism and fantasy is just right. The author has a sharp ear for dialogue and for the unusual highways and byways that adolescent conversations take. It's a clever idea executed ably; lots of laugh-out-loud moments and off-beat humor pepper this fun, inventive romp." --Publishers Weekly Pinocchio is Punching You! Cool, I might be able to sell this. (The above review is based on the entire novelette, not just the posted excerpt.)
Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award: Semifinalist January 18, 2008 My novelette Pinocchio is Punching You is a current semifinalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, which puts it in the top 17% or so, and in the running for the next step: Top 100, to be chosen about four weeks from now.You can read and review the first 5,000 words of Pinocchio, and your comments/rating (along with a to-be-posted, likely-weighted review from Publisher's Weekly!) will determine whether it makes it any further in the contest. ABNA is offering some reviewer incentives, and has posted general guidelines about "what makes a good review." To these I'll just add: Don't assume negative reviews are all from shills for other entrants who want their competition to look bad, nor that all positive reviews were written by members of the author's cult. Both will happen, neither are worth anybody's time. Let Amazon sort it out. Much obliged for any reading and/or reviewing you feel like doing, and I think these fine friends o'mine would be, too: Ruth Nestvold, Michael Jasper, Bradley P Beaulieu, Tom Pendergrass, and Laurel Amberdine (whose note on a forum tipped me off to the contest in the first place). 
SALE! "Contents" to The Rambler January 11, 2008 "Contents" is a 500-word non-genre story based on a photograph published in a previous issue. It'll will run in the March/April 2008 "Your Stories" section of The Rambler. It's a tiny thing (the story), but The Rambler just might have the largest news stand circulation of any periodical I've appeared in to date. (Locally: Weaver Street Market, Internationalist Books, McIntyre's, the Regulator, and Quail Ridge Books, for starters. Nationally: many Barnes & Nobles and university bookstores) Followed only 4 rejections into the new year, which is a great start to 2008!
OUTGOING at Fictionwise, Kindle, and AnthologyBuilder January 2, 2008  My sf/fantasy novelette "Outgoing" (Preview)--which originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, February 2007--is suddenly available all over the place: Nebula Awards Website - (SFWA Members Only) "Outgoing" has been recommended for a Nebula Award! SFWA people can find the full text at the NAR site (or email me) through the end of the month. I believe it has until January 31 to gather enough recommendations from active members to make the preliminary ballot for next year. Fictionwise - Multiple  ebook formats for a variety of electronic readers (PDF, Palm, Sony eBook, etc.) for 99 cents.Amazon Kindle - DRMed sadly, but availabe on the Kindle "Whispernet" for 99 cents. (Please feel free to rate/review it if you read it in Asimov's.) AnthologyBuilder - Custom-assembled, print-on-demand anthologies starting at $14.95. Fill the book up with a variety of available texts, up to 350 pages total. ("Outgoing" takes up 54 pages). Yes, I intend to be a bit aggressive about making sure my previously published material is available. And I'm pretty excited about the AnthologyBuilder project, enough so that I supplied a few of the initial cover designs. Note to interested parties: wonderful-but-closed bookseller Clarkesworld Books has reopened its online store through January 12, but it looks like they've sold out of the Feb 2007 Asimov's (I might have purchased the last happy few). If anybody steps up to more-permanantly fill that CB void, I'd love to hear about it.
SALE - "Spoils of Springfield" to Shimmer December 21, 2007 It's a Christmas miracle! Very happy about this. Shimmer's one of my favorite SF publications these days, if this post (LJ mirror) didn't already make that clear (and, incidentally, they're running their own subscription drive through January 10).  No, Loki, we don't have to do something every time someone holds a subscription drive. 
That's right. Back to bed. "Spoils" is another pre-Clarion humor piece. With zombies. Or class warfare. Or my attempt to write a manga fight sequence as prose. Something. More about it later; I wanna save some stuff for the "reader bonus content" Shimmer runs for each issue.
Murky Depths #2 Now Available December 20, 2007  My story-poem "Church of Saturn" is in the current issue of Murky Depths, a quarterly stories-comics-poetry anthology from across the pond. "Church of Saturn" is a science fiction update of probably the oldest missionary joke in the world, told in the twelve-line structure of "Stock Car Relativity" from Inconsequential Art #1. The issue (MD #2) also includes work by writer-editors Jason Sizemore (of Apex) and Katherine Patterson (of AlienSkin), among other recognizable names. MD's ("Graphically Dark Speculative Fiction") art and text combo makes for a beautiful, glossy book (this in spite of the occassional 4+ fonts per page, heh) packed with stories. And shipping from Great Britain to North Carolina is surprisingly fast. Wish all British publications were this easy to order.
Telltale Audio - November 2007 November 26, 2007  This month in Telltale audiobooks:Bulfinch's Mythology, podcasted free, continues. (Browse all free Telltale audio and/or subscribe to the podcast.) And The Boarding House by James Joyce, one of the funner stories from Dubliners--and, if I do say so myself, probably my best performance from the collection so far. (Browse all Joyce at Telltale.)
Telltale Audio - October 2007 October 26, 2007 This month in Telltale audiobooks:Bulfinch's Mythology, podcasted free, beginning with The Age of Fable, Chapter One. Now, I know a narrator isn't supposed to have favorites, but this project is one of the reasons I started Telltale in the first place. (Browse all free Telltale audio and/or subscribe to the podcast.) And When the World Was Young, a classic horror tale by Jack London, narrated by William Coon. (Browse all horror at Telltale.)
SALE - "Church of Saturn" to Murky Depths October 22, 2007 Not spilling the beans on Acceptance 69 yet, though it is tempting. So on to... Acceptance 70! Murky Depths is a new UK-based prose-comics-poetry publication, focusing on dark speculative fiction. Warren Ellis pointed it out last month. I had the first issue in my hands a week later, and it's very nice--a fun read in glossy package. Just wish it didn't cost so much to ship it across the pond, though that does mean that the payment plus contributor copies add up to the highest compensation I've ever received for my poetry. "Church of Saturn" is a twelve line humor/sf story-poem, a similar format to "Squatter's Rites" (which I just sold to Weird Tales) and "Stock Car Relativity" (which appears in Inconsequential Art #1). Glad these little story-grenade-poem-things are finding an audience. This was my second submission to Murky Depths, and my first poem submission there. "Church of Saturn" will appear in Murky Depths #2.
"Shooting Dogs for Fun and Profit" free at ChiZine October 9, 2007 My story "Shooting Dogs for Fun and Profit" is up at ChiZine/Chiaroscuro. As a comedy piece, it should be a bit more amusing than the story behind it, below: I don't give a lot of thought to genre when I'm writing. Or if I do, it's more comedy vs drama rather than science fiction vs mystery vs non-genre or anything. There've been times I've written an entire story specifically for a market only to discover that, in the process of turning an idea into what I think is a workable story, I'd taken out the very element that would have made it appropriate for that particular market (no speculative element for an SF publication, no pirates for a pirate anthology). Even after years of writing and reading genre fiction, I spent the first half of Clarion failing to figure out the expectations of genre, and the second half failing to figure out my expectations of genre. I've never made it any further than the addage: good stories are good stories. So I've come to haphazardly put works into categories only after the fact, which probably contributes to my difficulty in placing my favorite work, and is probably why regular readers of non-genre fiction enjoyed "Outgoing" so much more than regular readers of science fiction or fantasy did (and why it's no great gamble to recommend "Shotting Dogs" to people who don't typically like horror; it's the horror fans who'll be wondering what the hell they're reading...). "Shooting Dogs for Fun and Profit" was a ten-minute play I submitted in 2005 to the Actor's Theatre of Louisville's National Ten Minute Play competition, which I try to enter every year. It didn't place, but this summer I dug it up because a filmmaker friend was looking for pieces we could shoot in a weekend. I realized there were still things I liked about it. So I'd meant to send it to another short play competition, but misread a deadline as "postmarked by" instead of "received by" because I'm silly like that. At the same time, I was trying to come up with a story for James Van Pelt's Hardboiled Horror, a crime-horror crossgenre anthology. It occurred to me (two years after I wrote it, of course) that "Shooting Dogs" had elements of both crime and horror, but I'd never thought of it as anything other than a comedy. So I kept most of the dialogue, and filled in some gaps, completely Hemingwaying it at times with... "DIALOGUE, DIALOGUE." He stood. His eyeballs itched. "DIALOGUE, DIALOGUE." ...an example which thankfully didn't make it into the submitted draft. So I felt like a hack. But prose can take many forms, and some stories are all about the dialogue. Why try to make "Shooting Dogs" something that it's not? I finished the prose version of the story at the end of June, plenty of time before the anthology deadline, which meant plenty of time to sit on it, work on other things, and come back to it with fresh eyes (which might mean a completely different thing in horror than it does in writing in general; I'll have to be careful). But the ChiZine/Chiaroscuro short fiction contest closed in a few days, so I figured why not let it sit in their slush pile instead of on my hard drive? And I forgot about it, except to wince when the Michael Vick/dogfighting allegations were dominating the news in the months between the ChiZine deadline closing and the announcement of the winners. I thought: okay, there goes the chance in hell I had of placing in the contest, and I'll need to change the title (which is figurative--no dogs even appear in the story) before I send it out to Hardboiled. But I never got the chance. It won third place in the contest and became my second SFWA-qualifying sale. And, for what it's worth, I offered it up to Mr. Van Pelt as a reprint, but it wasn't a good fit for the anthology in the first place, alas. Ah well. I've got nothing to complain about, and clearly I've demonstrated that I'm not the best judge for where mys tuff belongs. Now of course, I'm wondering whether we can really film it on a weekend...
Telltale Audio - September 2007 September 30, 2007 Another quiet month in lake Telltale, with just the one audio release:  The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe.What's a Prince to do when his people are dying of plague? Why, wall himself off with a thousand other nobles and throw a masquerade ball, of course! Silly prince. Doesn't he know he's in an Edgar Allan Poe story? ...but I also did the aforementioned free chapters for Night Shade Books, and tweaked the Telltale payments process to behave as a shopping cart (multiple downloads on one purchase) instead of the Buy-It-Now behavior that mimicked Bitpass. And, as mentioned yesterday, I'm getting on track to get things out more regularly starting in October.
Sale! "Squatter's Rites" to Weird Tales September 25, 2007 Via email (from poetry editor/creative director Stephen Segal), 52 days. "Squatter's Rites" is a poem that tells a quick ghost story in 12 lines. Weird Tales is a magazine that, in its previous incarnations, launched the careers of Ray Bradbury, Robert E. Howard, and H.P. Lovecraft. In its current, quite-strong form, fellow Clarion '06er Will Ludwigsen has a poem (and a few other writers I admire have stories) in the current issue. I'm in excellent company. Flattered and honored. I still remember getting my first rejection from Weird Tales (Guidevines wiki link) in my Ashland University mailbox almost nine years ago. This was my second sub--and first poetry sub--to the magazine under its recently-changed creative masthead. Phew, I needed that.
My Interview at the Comicon Pulse September 21, 2007 A few months ago, writer Chris Beckett interviewed me for his Pulse indie-spotlight column "For Your Consideration." Went up last night. Strange and wonderful to see one's name in the top headline on the front page of the Pulse (until the next story's posted anyway, heh). Thanks, Chris!
Hope: New Orleans TODAY, Rejection Contest Update September 6, 2007 As discussed here, Hope: New Orleans is available in comic shops now. Locally, copies should be in stock at Chapel Hill Comics (Chapel Hill/Carrboro) and Acme Comics (Greensboro). For those out of the area, find the store nearest you. Thanks for the support! Also: my 300th rejection has arrived (and possibly my 301st, 302nd, etc). But who was it from? Get your guesses in by Saturday, midnight US Eastern time, and win a prize. I'll announce my failure to sell this particular piece on Sunday.
Hope: New Orleans in comic shops THURSDAY! September 4, 2007 At long last, the fundraising anthology from Ronin Studios is getting into stores on Thursday the sixth (it's a holiday week).  Four random panels from "Persistent City," the second piece in the book (click for larger):  This is my story with Mario Boon (of Texas Strangers fame), written two years-and-a-day ago. The story also appeared in the literary magazine The Florida Review in the interim between completion and this book's release. Thanks for your patience, all! Looking forward to finally reading the other 35 stories. And my understanding is that your local comic shop (find the store nearest you) can order more copies from Diamond with the original order code: MAY07 3690. Profits go to the Southeast Louisiana Chapter of the Red Cross. More info.
Telltale - August 2007 September 3, 2007 A quiet month in lake Telltale, with just the one audio release:  Two for a Cent by F Scott Fitzgerald, where a man makes a pilgrimage to his hometown and finds you can, indeed, put a price on fate. Narrated by William Coon, who also performed Katherine Mansfield's A Dill Pickle back in June.
Trinoc*coN 2007 Schedule, What I Look Like Now August 1, 2007
I am soooo outclassed. (If this gets changed between now and Friday, I'll add an "Updated" to the header. Otherwise, look for last-minute tweaks near the registration desk. Visit the Trinoc-coN website for more info.) If you're in Raleigh, NC this weekend and would like to say hello, here's what I look like this morning, according to the self-timer on my camera:  But I might be wearing a hat this weekend. My hair is at that length where it'll stick straight up if I don't do anything, it'll look like a combover if I push it forward, and it requires a lot of "product" to keep back like this. (Though, looking at this pic, I should forget about figuring out what to do with hair now that I have it; I need to work on my smile.) Edit: Okay, yeah. It turns out I'm wearing the same sleeveless shirt that I wore in my intentionally bald photo from the first time I shaved my head in '04. It's comfy.
SALE/3rd Place Win in the 13th ChiZine Story Contest July 27, 2007 My story "Shooting Dogs for Fun and Profit"* will be published in ChiZine #34 later this year, having won 3rd place in the latest Chiaroscuro/Leisure Short Story Contest. Which means my second SFWA-qualifying sale arrives almost 14 months and over 150 submissions after my first one. Phew. It felt like even longer. (*For what it's worth, the title is quite abstract. No animals appear--much less are shot for any reason--in this piece.)
Telltale - July 2007 July 26, 2007 This month in Telltale audiobooks:  Darkness by Lord Byron. This verse about the end of the world came out of the very retreat in Geneva where, on a create-a-ghost-story dare, Mary Shelley began Frankenstein and John Polidori fathered the vampire/vampyre genre (based on novel fragment by our Romantic hero Byron). Read by Alex Wilson.And Told After Supper by Jerome K Jerome. It's a Christmas mystery story (In July! It's crazy! I know!) where even the narrator can't be trusted to stay sober or keep his clothes on. Performed by Susie Berneis and Robert Bethune.
Telltale - June 2007 June 29, 2007 This month in Telltale audiobooks:  The Prisoner of Chillon by Lord Byron, the most Romantic of all the Romantic poets. And how Romantic was he? He was soooo Romantic that he died of a fever while writing his version of Don Juan. Read by Alex Wilson.And A Dill Pickle by Katherine Mansfield, featuring a beautiful day, a discussion of classlessness, and a snobbish ex-lover. What could possibly go right? Read by William Coon.
I'll be a Guest at Trinoc*coN 2007 June 18, 2007 So I'll be a guest at Trinoc*coN in Raleigh, NC, August 3-5. I haven't asked to do any readings (next year, maybe), but I should be on a few panels, maybe even with Literary Guest of Honor George R. R. Martin. Which, yes, would be cool. I emailed them shortly before the 2005 convention in Durham, asked if they needed anyone to fill a panel or two. It was too late in the game, and last year I was out of town for the convention. But just a few days before I was planning to contact them again, they emailed me and asked whether I was still interested. It'll be my first convention experience as a guest.
Thanks for your patience. May 31, 2007 Server updates in progress. This could get messy.
Hope: New Orleans in Diamond Previews May 10, 2007
Hope: New Orleans, the long-awaited comic book anthology from Ronin Studios, is solicited in this month's Diamond Previews catalog, page 338. It includes the reprint of "Persitent City," my Florida Review story with illustrator Mario Boon (which was originally created for this book, first blogged about in September 2005). If you ask your local comic book store to reserve a copy for you, tell 'em: Diamond Order Code: MAY07 3690. Profits go to the Southeast Louisiana Chapter of the American Red Cross. Thanks!
Inconsequential Art at Chapel Hill Comics May 4, 2007  Tomorrow! A limited number of free FCBD edition copies of Inconsequential Art #1 will be available at Chapel Hill Comics in Chapel Hill, NC, as part of Free Comic Book Day. First come, first served.
Inconsequential Art - Now Available April 27, 2007 
The first two issues of my humor minicomic Inconsequential Art are available now for a buck each. These are business-card-sized and 12 pages each, including cover. First one features a comic story illustrated by Dennis Culver, plus a one page SF story-poem. Second issue has reprints of an interactive story (think "Choose-Your-Own-Adventure") which first appeared in the humor zine Planet Relish, as well as a fantasy gag cartoon. 
Telltale - April 2007 April 23, 2007 So I'm back to my huckstering ways. This month at Telltale we've got: The Star by H G Wells, wherein old HG scares the crap out of Victorian London with a science fiction tale that inspires the films Armageddon and Deep Impact 101 years later. And... The Book of Philippians from the King James Bible, wherin Paul writes from prison that there's still a lot to be happy about.
Twain, Sherlock, and Whitman at Telltale March 22, 2007 
Latest spoken word recordings at Telltale include...
A Locus Mention January 21, 2007  Wow, so I got my hands on the Jan '07 Locus this weekend, and it turns out my friends weren't lying to make me feel better. Nick Gevers calls me a "promising new writer" when discussing my novelette "Outgoing." Thanks!
Outgoing in Asimov's Feb 07 - Out Now! January 4, 2007
The Florida Review - Fall 2006 December 19, 2006
Carrboro Hill on MySpace December 8, 2006 Community Wiki Carrboro Hill has topped 100 entries and it now has its own MySpace page. From now through the end of the year, I'd like a big push to get as many local bands, musicians, and venues as possible into the directory. Thanks!
YouTube December 7, 2006 "All's Fair" and "The Three Rs" are now available on YouTube.
The First Noel (Webcomic) December 6, 2006 
Kinda-New standalone webcomic story for the holidays: The First Noel by myself and Jack Lucido. Details here.And as long as I'm plugging webcomics here: check out the fun stuff that local boys Ted and Kit are up to.
Oscar Winner Speaks Out November 23, 2006 See the front page of The Carrboro Film Festival website (first few paragaphs) for what Oscar winner--and Carrboro Film Fest winner--Barbara Trent thought of my All's Fair in Love and Police Actions. My own take: "All's Fair" works much better on a smaller screen than a big one.
The Florida Review - Ordering Info November 19, 2006 The Fall 2006 issue of The Florida Review should be getting back from the presses any minute now. It includes my 5-page New Orleans comic story, "Persistent City," illustrated by the amazing Mario Boon. This was finished over a year ago for a Ronin Studios anthology (still forthcoming) and I'm ecstatic that it's finally seeing print. Ordering Info. 
Carrboro Film Fest Schedule November 18, 2006 
The Carrboro Film Festival is tomorrow, featuring short films with some tie to Orange County, NC. I'll be there at least for Series Two (3:45PM), which includes a screening of "All's Fair in Love and Police Actions." I'll probably stick around for Series Three (5:20PM) which includes a screening of "Balloon Animals," but I've got people in town. See appearances for a bit more details.
Newsletter Reboots November 17, 2006 Due to an overwhelming number of email bounces (regularly over 100 on a 1200-member list, even after manually deleting the previous issue's bounces), and worries about jerkface people subscribing others without their consent, I'm moving my newsletters back to Yahoo Groups. As noted in last night's newsletters, you will need to resubscribe if you wish to continue receiving either the Alex Wilson Studios newsletter or the Telltale Weekly/Spoken Alexandria one. Sorry for the inconvenience, but I take your privacy seriously. Thanks.
The Morals of Chess, etc. November 16, 2006 
I've been slacking off when it comes to promoting Spoken Alexandria/Telltale stuff here, so here are the last three releases: The Morals of Chess by Benjamin Franklin, The Facts in the Case of M Valdemar by Edgar Allan Poe, and Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka.The Kafka was one of the first recordings I ever did, but I'm releasing it free today. The Franklin's also free, also with a CCL. The Poe is a buck, and will be free in four years and eleven months. 'Kay, I think we're all caught up now.
Acceptance 64 - Carrboro Film Festival October 30, 2006 Got the call last night. My animated short: "All's Fair in Love and Police Actions" will make its big screen debut at the Carrboro Film Festival on Sunday, November 19, 2006. The festival will be held in the Carrboro Century Center.
Social Phobia at Spoken Alexandria October 4, 2006 
Today's freebie: readings of two brochures from the National Institute of Mental Health: Social Phobia: A Real Illness and Facts about Social Phobia. Free MP3, AAC, and Ogg Vorbis downloads at Spoken Alexandria. This is the third release I've done from NIMH literature (after recordings on Eating Disorders and Men's Depression).
Young Goodman Brown September 13, 2006
Yeah, I bet I got sick of my voice long before you did.
Kelly Link's "The Girl Detective" August 30, 2006 
Just released a free narration of Kelly Link's story "The Girl Detective" over at Spoken Alexandria. It's the first recording I've done post-Clarion, and my second favorite story in Link's first story collection. Last week my narration of my favorite Link story ("Most of My Friends Are Two Thirds Water") got a mention in The New York Times as "worth downloading" and I guess I felt emboldened.
New York Times Hearts Telltale Again August 25, 2006 EDIT: Article and Sidebar reprinted in full at the N&O (no login required). Thanks to Craig Silverman of The New York Times for including me and my audiobook project Telltale Weekly (and sister site "Spoken Alexandria") as part of his Public Domain Books, Ready for Your iPod article (onine with free NYT registration, or page B29 in the today's print version. Sidebar here). The article also offers positive mentions of other great audiobook projects for spoken word connoisseurs: Librivox and LiteralSystems. And fie on my spam filter for earlier this week not understanding that sometimes "Interview Request" in a subject line actually means interview request.
Thirty August 17, 2006 So I'm thirty years old. And the cats are one. They're too old for kitten food and Cosmo says I'm too old to wear mini-skirts. I think that's bullshit.
Clarion Week 6: Kelly Link and Holly Black Bring the Pain. August 7, 2006  On Friday night, the last night of Clarion 2006, Kelly Link and Holly Black brought the pain. And by pain I mean squirt guns.  Complete photo set here.
Clarion Week 6: Kelly Link's The Cannon August 3, 2006
Kelly suggested a few of her pieces, and, time-wise, the only one I'd be able to read in its entirety was "The Cannon" from Magic for Beginners. I read it for the first time an hour or so before the reading, and, because the piece is structured as a series of questions and answers, I asked fellow thespian-turned-Clarionite Will Alexander to read the questions. (more after the jump)
Continue reading "Clarion Week 6: Kelly Link's The Cannon" Filed Under: Clarion, Journal, News, Pretty Pictures, Prose and Poetry Clarion Week 4: Jamming with Joe Haldeman July 21, 2006
Tonight was poetry and music night courtesy of Joe and Gay Haldeman. Tough that it came on a night with five stories to critique, a few of them pretty long, but it was a good stress reliever (or exacerbator, depending on how difficult it was to squeeze in writing a poem this week). And I got to jam with Joe, so I'm a happy man. (more after the jump)
Continue reading "Clarion Week 4: Jamming with Joe Haldeman" Filed Under: Clarion, Journal, News, Pretty Pictures Clarion Week 3: Chess with Kress REMATCH! July 16, 2006 
After Tuesday's chess game with Beggars in Spain author Nancy Kress, she requested, nay, demanded a rematch. After some delays that neither of us will admit were due to cowardice, we finally met again in Owen Hall to settle some scores. (more after the jump)
Continue reading "Clarion Week 3: Chess with Kress REMATCH!" Filed Under: Clarion, Journal, News, Pretty Pictures Clarion Week 2: Clarion Theme Song at ISBW July 7, 2006 My "Clarion Journey" theme song got some additional airplay on writer Mur Lafferty's I Should Be Writing podcast. Thanks, Mur!
Clarion My Wayward Son 1 June 23, 2006
Featuring Clarion alumni Michael A. Burstein and Jason Erik Lundberg. Theme song available separately here. Links/shownotes after the jump.
Continue reading "Clarion My Wayward Son 1" Filed Under: Audio Projects, Clarion, Journal, News, Prose and Poetry Carrboro Hill - Community Wiki Launch June 18, 2006 
I'm probably not going to get a chance to work on this anymore until I get back from Clarion, so let's quietly introduce it into the wild in the meantime and see what happens: Carrboro Hill - Community Wiki for Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and the greater North Carolina area.As with Guidevines, I expect this to grow very gradually at first. Your contribution is welcome either way. (And, yes, after this I believe my wiki-starting days are done.)
AWS Guitar Tuner, Now Ad-Free June 14, 2006 I've removed the ads from my Guitar Tuner (online and download versions) and have made the supplemental "Digital Pitch Pipes" free as well, so now it's all completely free and ad-free.
Trade Up - Our Firefox Commercial June 1, 2006 The folks at Mozilla finally posted our commercial for the Firefox web browser: Trade Up.  Directed by Drew Buchanan. Shot by Steve Milligan (who talks about the project here). Creative Commons music by Remi. Written by Alex Wilson. Actors: Megan Randall, Justin Meckes, and Alex. I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out, which says a lot because I wrote it as a joke and initially thought it was too offensive to shoot. And a part of me is still looking forward to finding someone else who is offended by it, just so I can hear Steve say: "That's okay. So is the writer."
I Am Mike Resnick's Bitch May 25, 2006 So just before I found out how my game design will appear in the appendix to Mike Resnick's Starship: Pirate, I volunteered to do another narration for the podcast Escape Pod: Today's release of Resnick's Hugo-nominated "Down Memory Lane," free in MP3 format. My previous narration for EP ("Robots and Falling Hearts" by Tim Pratt and Greg van Eekhout) is also still available. Just after I finished it I figured out a way to drastically improve spoken word audio quality using my recording setup (this after 27 months of Telltale recordings, grr.). Sorry about that, but it's not something I can fix in post. Compare the audio samples from yesterday's "A Plea for Captain John Brown" (Henry David Thoreau) to the previous release: "Valley of the Spiders" (H G Wells) to hear the difference. I was pleased with the old standard of quality. I'm actually impressed by the new one. Live and learn.
Clarion Auctions Take 2 May 22, 2006 A few more comics auctions are up (helpin |
