Happy March! And a very happy March it is. I don’t usually get to announce good news again so quickly, but my story “Mother of Waters” is out in the March 2013 issue of Crossed Genres Magazine. Here’s a taste:

She shaped the mud into a tiny manikin, a baby-doll with stubby little legs and arms and a large head. She knelt in the streambed with the dolly in the palm of her hand and pressed her thumb to its forehead and said, “You are Shasa. You are precious water. You are life in the desert. I mark you with the name of God.” Then she swallowed the mud baby.

Eighteen weeks later, she gave birth to me.

Crossed Genres Magazine is kind of fascinating. I already knew their name from some very interesting-sounding anthology calls when they ran a Kickstarter to re-launch their magazine as a monthly release paying SFWA professional rates. But there’s a twist: each issue has a theme. March’s theme is myth.

You can read “Mother of Waters” and the rest of the magazine on the web for free. Each issue is also released in e-book format, and every six months they collect six issues’ worth of stories into an anthology that’s available in both electronic and dead tree formats. So if you like my story or or the magazine or both, consider a donating or subscribing so they can continue as a professionally-paying market after this Kickstarter-funded year is done. They offer two subscription options, one strictly electronic format, the other for both paper anthologies in addition to the monthly e-book issues. It’s kind of a fascinating model and one of the best editing experiences I’ve had with regards to short stories. I’d really love to see them continue it.

“Quick Karma” is now available in FISH

“So how do you screw up your karma so badly that you come back as a goldfish?” Read “Quick Karma,” by April L’Orange, now available in Dagan Books anthology

FISH, ed. Carrie Cuinn, is now broadly available as an e-book from major online booksellers. If you buy it directly from the publisher, you get a nice clean DRM-free version. You can also get it through Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com if you prefer. The dead tree version should be available soon–I’ll let you know!

I’ve been waiting excitedly for this one, both because I have a story, “Quick Karma,” in it and because I want to read it. FISH is now available direct from Dagan Books. It will be available through third-party resellers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble soon, both electronically and in print. I’ll update you when that wider release rolls around.

The publisher describes FISH as “a genre-bending anthology of delightfully fishy tales,” and so far I agree. The very first story sucked me in, which is almost never the case with me and anthologies for some reason. I consider it a positive sign.

Want to win a copy? The publisher is doing a giveaway at Goodreads. The contest is open through February 15.

More good news: I’ve had another sale! I’m never sure how much I really ought to talk about them before the publication actually happens, but it looks like this one will be published within the next couple of months, both on the web and as an EPUB. The story may also become available some months after that in print format, anthologized with other stories from the same online magazine.

The city where Nalo’s spaceship crashed is beautiful and ever-changing, a near-ideal environment governed by one central rule: its citizens always come first. “Stop Errors” is science fiction in a classic style, one of ten stories in Orbital Hearts, an anthology of love gone wrong.

Now available from Escape Collective Press, this electronic-only anthology runs $3.99 from either Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com. We’ve already got some good reviews coming in based on advance review copies, and we hope to see some more now that it’s actually on sale.

I haven’t read this one yet, but it’s fantastic fiction of all kinds–science fiction, fantasy, and horror have all been mentioned specifically in the advance reviews–and it’s just in time for Valentine’s Day. If you’re not into hearts and flowers, don’t have special plans, or just generally feel like thumbing your nose at the notion of one very commercial day devoted to love, consider staying in with a book bent on proving that happily ever after may not be.

Never read an eBook? Read All About eBooks for an overview.

Good reviews are starting to come in for Orbital Hearts! Check ’em out on GoodReads! Release date 2/11/12 from Escape Collective Publishing. Want to celebrate Valentine’s Day by reading twisted tales of love gone wrong? It sounds like this will be the anthology for you. *g* Featuring my short story “Stop Errors.”

Today (December 26), Escape Collective Press is donating all the profits from their eBooks sales to ProLiteracy.org, including sales of Corpus Pretereo. If you haven’t bought a copy yet, it would be a great time to do it. The cover price is $4.99, and there are several great stories in it in addition to my story “Crash.”

My author’s copy of the trade paperback edition of WTF?! arrived today. It looks darn good, and the italics are, in fact, where they’re supposed to be in my story–we had great fun with that during the proofing process, let me tell you. *g*

I’m about 100 pages into the electronic version and really enjoying it. There’s a definite surrealist aesthetic going on, which means that if you like a very traditional storytelling style, this may not the the anthology for you. But if you can go with surrealism, it’s really pretty awesome so far. I just read “The Squirms,” which made me giggle very hard. Never eat zombie powder!

Seriously, if you need a last-minute gift for somebody, you might consider buying them a copy of the eBook version–both Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble will let you buy an eBook for someone else and have it instantly delivered to them.

"Magic Man" is now available in WTF?!

Davis said his mother once referred to what he did as “hit-and-run hope.” I got the feeling she didn’t really approve.

“Magic Man” is a “concept story,” which makes it awfully hard to describe without giving away certain integral bits of the story. It’s near-future speculative magic realism, I guess you’d say, in a book with who knows what other kinds of genre-bending goodies. The cover price is $16.99 for the trade paperback or $8.99 for the eBook. If that seems high, just remember, you’re getting thirty-seven stories for that price, which is about double what you’ll find in most traditional anthologies. *g*

You can read “Magic Man” in the WTF?! anthology from Pink Narcissus Press. Available in trade paperback directly from the publisher, or buy it at Amazon.com or at Barnes & Noble in both eBook and dead-tree formats.

The WTF?! anthology, containing my short story “Magic Man,” is now (really) available for pre-order in dead tree format directly from Pink Narcissus Press! It’s not yet listed through Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com, but I’ll let you know when it goes up there and when the electronic version is available. If you’re planning to order the dead tree version, please consider ordering directly from the publisher through one of these links, as the authors make a little more money that way.

Here’s a short teaser from “Magic Man” to tide you over. *g*

Davis said his mother once referred to what he did as “hit-and-run hope.” I got the feeling she didn’t really approve–he always looked sad when he mentioned her. But he had a job to do, and he was going to do it. Davis was a magic man, and we need more magic in our lives. “They killed Santa Claus,” he said.

“They’ve forgotten what wonder is.”

May I introduce you to the cover art for WTF?!, soon to be available for pre-order from Pink Narcissus Press. By which I mean the pre-order link is up, but not live. Don’t let the price listed scare you away–that’s for the dead tree version. The electronic version will be less. Do keep in mind that if you’re planning to purchase the book and you go directly through the website, rather than through Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com or another such third-party reseller, the authors generally make a little more money. But let’s face it, we’re happy if you buy it at all. ;-) The WTF?! anthology will feature my story “Magic Man,” a short tale about what happens when you really surrender to hope, along with a host of other genre-breaking and otherwise weird SF/F stories.

As cover art goes, it’s awesome and kind of creepy, and just a little naughty (just enough to make me giggle every time I look at it).

Random English geek trivia of the day: that “?!” at the end of the title is actually considered a single piece of punctuation and referred to as an interabang. They are awesome, but you should never ever use them in writing you are submitting for publication. Much like using more than one exclamation mark in a row, it’s one of those little signs that makes you look unprofessional. But you should totally know the word, because it’s just cool. *g*