Last year I had the good fortune to be an Associate Editor for Sybil’s Garage, a small press genre fiction magazine that I greatly admire. The magazine has quickly established itself as a source for great fiction under the leadership of Matthew Kressel. So when I was asked if I wanted to be an editor again this year, I had to say yes.

The reading period opens on January 15 and the guidelines have changed slightly:

Sybil’s Garage publishes a wide variety of speculative fiction, including traditional science fiction, fantasy and horror as well as more atmospheric/slipstream stories. For issue no. 7 we seek to cast a wider net and encourage contributors to send us both atmospheric/slipstream stories as well as those with traditionally strong plots and characters.

We also will look at stories with little or no speculative element, but with speculative tendencies (e.g. weird but not-necessarily supernatural.)

In addition, we are very interested in seeing stories written by and/or including varied ethnicities, social classes, and nationalities. We’d like to see more stories featuring under-utilized cultures and settings as well. Our editors and readers represent a variety of backgrounds and we’re always working to ensure that our publication reflects that as well.

Please send us your best work.

Full guidelines can be found here.

My reading of “The Narcomancer”, a very fine story from fellow Altered Fluid member, N. K. Jemisin, is currently up for your listening pleasure (hopefully) at Podcastle.

This one’s what they call a “giant”, so it’s longer than the usual stories they feature.

As usual, it was a pleasure reading it, except for the times when my cats decided to make noise in the background and I had to go back and edit. I hope I got all of those.

If you feel like it, please check it out.

http://podcastle.org/2010/01/05/podcastle-85-giant-episode-the-narcomancer/

This year was a good year for movies. At least for me. These days I tend not to visit the cinema too often – it’s much easier, and less stressful to wait the few months until the movie comes out on DVD and rent or, in some cases, buy it and watch from the quiet comfort of my home with my flat panel and my surround sound and only my cats to disturb my enjoyment of the movie. As my brother pointed out to me, it’s often cheaper to buy a movie on Blu Ray than it is to go to a movie and pick up a soda.

But I digress. My point is that this year, I went to see only a handful of movies in the theater, and they were all amazing. 2009 was by far the least disappointing movie year I can remember.

My top 3 this year were easy to pick (though I don’t feel like ranking them). UP was one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time and rose to the top of the already great Pixar lineup. Last year’s Wall-E hit my sci-fi tender spots, but was a bit heavy-handed with its message. UP on the other hand was tender and heartbreaking and yet filled with adventure and humor and I thought the relationship between Carl and Russell was handled really well. AND, it had a zeppelin, and dogfights (literally). As jaded as I sometimes feel I am, Pixar movies are always refreshing.

Inglourious Basterds was another surprise at the theater. I went to see Tarantino’s latest movie, but I didn’t expect to see what was perhaps his best. I was spoiled as to the certain surprise at the end before seeing it, but that didn’t really matter. And as fun as it was to watch the story of the Basterds themselves, far more engrossing was the story of Shosanna and her revenge.

Moon rounds out my top three, not just one of the best films of the year, but one of the best science fiction films I’ve ever seen. Twenty or so minutes into the movie, I thought I saw where it was going and was expecting disappointment, but the movie took a different turn, and I realized that it wasn’t about a twist or a plot point, it was about a man and his situation and that made the movie work. And despite a shoestring budget, the movie accounted itself well with the effects, building on predecessors such as 2001 and yet adding something to the canon.

As honorable mention, I’d add The Hangover to the list as the best comedy of the year. I went to see this in the theater and was laughing throughout the whole thing. It probably helps that I have a penchant for movies that take place in the space of one day or night, but it’s rare for a movie to make me laugh so much. I don’t really have a lot to say about it except for that.

So, now I’ll open this up to anyone reading this – what were your favorite movies of the year?

My movie roundup is coming, but I just wanted to take a moment to wish all those who are celebrating Christmas this year, a happy holiday. Christmas was my mother’s favorite time of year and she put a lot of time and effort into trying to make it as magical as possible every year. This year everything is much more subdued than usual, no decorations, no tree – it was too soon for any of that – but I will be thinking of her today and remembering her on her favorite holiday.

I hope you all have a wonderful day whatever you may be doing.

When my mother was sick, I had a hard time writing. I suppose it felt like too much of a disconnect, that I would be somehow too removed from the situation and I was desperate to have every moment that I could with her. Most of the writing I did at the time happened when I was not in the house, other places, and it wasn’t an issue.

After she died, I still didn’t write. I suppose it was a matter of the grief, of my brain being devoted to processing this thing that was both anticipated and yet seemingly impossible to truly fathom. Understandable, I suppose, but after months of feeling unable to write because of everything, I thought it needed to happen. I needed it as an outlet, a way to express myself. Yet still I couldn’t do more than revise old stories.

It was a deadline that ultimately helped me break through whatever the block was. I agreed to take over a writing group slot for someone else, which meant my story was due last weekend. Which meant it needed an ending, and couldn’t be messy or sloppy. Flawed, sure, but professional. And it took me down to the wire, and slightly beyond, to finish it. I hacked and and bludgeoned, whereas I wanted to surgically cut and massage, but in the end, I finished the story.

I expected a bloodbath at the crit session, I was steeled for one, but in the end, it turned out it wasn’t that bad. And that was just as important to me as finishing the story. As wrong as it felt. As forced and faulty and fucked up, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected.

Since the crit session (this past Tuesday), I’ve already started a new story and worked on a few others. The desire was always there, but now the ability to act on that, to know that it’s okay, has come back to. And for that, I’m grateful.

Now the stories await.