I am a bad blogger. I haven’t updated this in a while. And the last few entries were all self-promotion. So I am hereby going to make an attempt to do this on a regular basis.

I think part of it is that right now my words all go to other places. If I’m not writing short stories or working on my novel, I’m writing articles for Tor.com or writing entries for FermentedAdventures.com or communicating with people on Facebook or Twitter. But I have to keep reminding myself that this is my website. And I don’t want it to languish.

Topics for discussion are always appreciated. 😉

I found out this weekend that my story, “Card Sharp”, has been accepted for the Way of the Wizard anthology edited by John Joseph Adams. The anthology will be out in November from Prime Books.

I just learned, also, that Jeffrey Ford has a story in the anthology and I’m thrilled to think that I’ll be in the same pages as one of my heroes.

Sorry to bombard you all with more self-promotion, but it just so happens that this week I have a few things up at Tor.com and thought I would mention them.

My appreciation of Michael Moorcock

My Iron Man 2 Review (with SPOILERS)

The latest Lost Round Table (with Bridget McGovern and Theresa DeLucci)

Please check them out.

It’s been a little while since I spoke about current or past projects here, so I thought I would list a few things that I have out in the world or soon to be out in the world right now:

Fermented Adventures – this is a website I created to talk about beer and wine and drinking culture. I realize this isn’t as interesting for some, but it’s something that I enjoy. I’ve been making more of an effort to keep this updated and have recently started blogging about my homebrewing adventures. If you’re at all interested, stop by, take a look, comment if you like.

Sales! – I recently discovered that I had a story accepted by the soon to be relaunched Dreams of Decadence. DoD was formerly a magazine of vampire fiction, but in its new incarnation it will be focusing on urban fantasy and paranormal romance. I’m looking forward to seeing the mag in its new form. I also had another acceptance that I won’t give details about until I get the contract. But both stories were stories I wrote as holiday stories, my version of Xmas cards where instead of sending a card, I send people an original story.

Recent Publications – the following are recent publications of mine, along with some nice words that people have said about them. They are all still available if you’re interested. Listed in reverse order of publication.

Skulls & Crossbones: An anthology of fiction about women pirates, containing my story, “The Furies”, which received Honorable Mention in the Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror. Now available at Amazon.com and at Bedazzled Ink.

Shimmer’s Clockwork Jungle issue: containing Steampunk animal fables including my story, “The Emperor’s Gift”. The Mad Hatter’s Bookshelf and Book Review had some nice things to say about the issue. Not if You Were the Last Short Story on Earth picks my story as a favorite. And Rich Horton mentions me as well in his year-end roundup of Shimmer. Finally, SF Revu calls the story “touching”.

Steampunk Tales #4: Just as the title suggests, steampunk stories including my zeppelin adventure, “The Juggernaut”. Available in digital formats and as an app for the iPhone/iPod Touch and now the iPad. For $1.99 it’s incredible value.

Shadows of the Emerald City: weird Oz stories (that’s the Wizard of Oz, not Australia which is weird in its own way) containing my story, “Pumpkinhead”. The Amazon review in the previous link lists my story in the top 3. Brandon Bell at M-BRANE SF likes the anthology. Innsmouth Free Press calls the story, “a fine effort”.

Articles –  I continue to participate in weekly Lost Round Tables at Tor.com, leading up to the finale. I also will have some other posts coming up soon on some fantasy favorites. All of my articles there can be found via this link.

Additionally, I should have a few more announcements to make in the coming months, one of them being my story, “Doors”, appearing in GUD’s next issue.

Enough about me, now. How are you?

I am apparently one of those people who not only embraces eBooks, but who is now starting to prefer them. Don’t get me wrong, I love books. I have shelves of them. And I know the power of old books, with yellow pages crisp with history. But I also live in NY. Aside from the limited amount of space that I have in the apartment, I am very often out and about from the moment I leave my apartment in the morning around 6:45 until I come home at night which is often after 9 PM. Typical days for me involve lots of walking, subway rides and a bus or two. And while I have a nice big backpack to carry all my stuff in, sometimes I like to streamline and I usually like to keep the weight of my gear down.

A paperback book is not a big deal. Only I tend to buy hardcovers and trade paperbacks over the mass market size. Then there’s the book(s) I’m reading now – Roger Zelazny’s Amber series. This is one of my favorite series. I re-read it every few years. Yet it only is available (right now at least) in one massive volume collecting all 10 books in the series. No single volumes. No eBook(s). I checked. See, this is the kind of book/series that I would keep in hardcopy and in electronic form. Since I revisit it often, it would be the perfect thing to keep on my phone (or in the future, an iPad). But it’s not available. And I find that this irks me. Five years ago I had never read an ebook and such a thing would seem exotic. Today I’m bothered when I can’t find something that way.

This is not to say that print is dead, or that I expect it to die soon. But I’m amazed at how quickly I got used to the idea of having options. In this case, the option to own something in multiple formats. I expect we’ll see the Amber books in electronic format eventually. Hopefully. Because people are getting used to the idea of being able to get something instantly.

What an interesting world…