I heard first from oldcharliebrown via e-mail, and now clarkesworld reports on the magazine's Honorable Mentions in the Year's Best SF, 25th Annual Collection.

I am very pleased that "A Dance Across Embers" made the list.

benpayne  discusses some of the offerings of Elecric Velocipede 14 at lastshortstory:

Lisa Mantchev's Perfect Tense is another story that transcends its packaging. Ostensibly the story of a woman who goes back in time to warn her younger self not to make the same mistakes she did, the story then fills itself out and patches in the colours, leaving us with a kind of real-world version of an old trope. Nicely done.  

Lois Tilton at IRoSF reviewed Fantasy Magazine, which includes “The Stolen Word.”

"Oh, oh! The naughtiness of you, now. Haven't you been warned time and again? You, with the dirty face. And you, with the ragged rip in yer smock. I'll trade ye to the Pins-n-Needles Man, I will.

And to make the threat more credible, Ol' Gran tells the tale of the first child she traded "for a pair of blue-ribboned bloomers and a bag of white sugar." But it was Pedlar Mam who had the worst of the bargain, as did everyone else who came into contact with the filthy little monster.

The Ransom of Red Chief as a Cautionary Tale. I can imagine that quite a few fairy tales might have begun in this way, in an effort to scare the children into good behavior. I wonder, however, if this tale might not have inspired them to emulate the little beggar, instead, as she clearly comes out ahead, despite her awfulness. By sealing the pedlar's bargain with the word, "Evermore," Mantchev inverts the "happily ever after" of the fairytale ending with the more ominous echoes of the raven's cry."

jaylake  started a community writing project here, entitled "A walker's guide to the city of Axqa."

Here's my contribution, also posted there:

Whatever I intend to say with a story, whatever I mean, the ONLY thing a reader has to go by is my words on that page.  Those words have to be able to stand alone, without me propping them up, without me rushing to their defense.

That said, I want to link to others who've furthered the discussion on "The Stolen Word":

The Comment Thread after the story (up to 129, as of this posting.)

myli_ny_sy posts on Historical Trauma.

myli_ny_sy posts her deconstruction of "The Stolen Word" (there are spoilers in this.)

ktempest discusses how it's never just a fairy tale.

"The Stolen Word" is live at Fantasy Magazine. 

After sixty comments (some of which were posted under a pseudonym) I felt compelled to add:

"The Girl With Blueberry Eyes" made Rich Horton's short story Recommended Reading List, Virtual Best of the Year, 2007. 

I started to type in the LiveJournal handles of all the fine company I'm in over there and managed to crash my browser twice.  But just on the short story list, I spy with my little eye half my flist.

In honor of the 2nd Annual International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day, I am proud to present the world premiere of  The Hermit's Address Book!

Rated PG for the use of the word "Buggeroff" as a proper noun, a constipated donkey and mockery of the movie Titanic, among other things.

(And in case you missed it last year, my Choose-Your-Own Adventure Story, "The Book Of Prophecies Proudly Presents...")

deedop  thankfully reminded me that tomorrow is the 2nd Annual International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day.

I haz prepared something with a hermit, a cat, a cruise ship, a constipated burro, and mockery of both the Titanic movie and religions that convert people door-to-door.

You have been warned!

My lovely and talented (and wiseass and funny) friend Amanda Mitchell drew a picture of Vera Violetta for me.  :)



Gawd, I love artists.

You can still read "The Girl With Blueberry Eyes" at the Fantasy Magazine website.

Scifi.com has named Fantasy Magazine Site Of The Week.

The Fantasy Magazine site is built around a showcase of original fiction by newer authors like Lisa Mantchev and Kelly Barnhill. The 'zine has an active book-review team, which includes some very seasoned readers indeed: Paula Guran, Victoria Strauss and Rich Horton, to name three. Tucked in among the stories and reviews are artist profiles, author and editor interviews and a lengthy round-table discussion about people of color in fantastic literature. New material is posted to the Web page on an almost daily basis, encouraging faithful readers either to check back regularly or to subscribe to the RSS feed.

That is just made of shiny, right there...

"The Girl With Blueberry Eyes" is live at Fantasy Magazine for your reading enjoyment.

If you are planning on attending WorldCon in Denver this year, you NEED TO BUY YOUR MEMBERSHIP by the 31st (that's tomorrow) to nominate people for the Hugo Award.

Shameless plug, right ahead, sir! *clang*

Of my pieces that appeared last year, I am particularly fond of "The Girl With Blueberry Eyes" (Fantasy Magazine #6) and my Clarkesworld pair, starting with "A Dance Across Embers".

Girls in beauty pageants are sometimes maligned for not having enough brains. But this year, the Phoenix Comicon is holding its inaugural Miss Zombie Beauty pageant, where the contestants are the types who like brains so much, they want to eat yours!

WEIRD TALES is proud to sponsor this luscious parade of decomposing pulchritude. The two runners-up, Miss Pathogenic and Miss Congeal-iality, will each receive a copy of Weird Tales: The 21st Century, Vol. 1 and a year’s free subscription to the magazine — but that’s just the beginning! The winning Miss Zombie Beauty herself will be awarded a truly unique prize: a one-of-a-kind, handmade, zombified WEIRD TALES edition called Zombie Love, designed and created by Patricia Lee of Bookwyrms Art, and collecting Lisa Mantchev’s “Zombi” and Trent Hergenrader’s “Working Out Our Salvation” from issue #344.

Never before has there been such a WEIRD TALES artifact! Stay tuned to WeirdTalesMagazine.com for next week’s announcement of the newly crowned undead queen…

Just got a "we think we'd like to publish this" note from Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. "Halfway to Dead" will see print in 2009.

Wapow! Blammo!

Excerpt:

Merry Havok woke up the morning after her thirty-fifth birthday and decided she was going to kick serious ass for a living. That's what it would say on her business card, so it was a matter of truth in advertising.

When the alarm went off promptly at six, she reached under her pillow for the pistol Raz'r had left behind when he'd skipped town and shot the little f----- (the alarm clock, not Raz'r, who had drained her bank account and ruined her credit and knew better than to come back to her apartment if he valued his balls at all.)

This one is for your favorite stories from Fantasy Magazine this year.

Choose up to three.  No stuffing the box.

 The Fix put up its review of Aeon 12, which was written by marshall_payne.

There is luv for many LJ people (including jkratman!) and some most excellent wordage about "Her Box of Secrets":

...the author saves her best for last with a schism of characterization that washed away my doubts. I was left with a lump in my throat and a warmth as powerful as Mantchev’s evocative prose.

Hooray!  I do understand that this story is not going to appeal to some, and it will certainly be hard to empathize with the POV character, so I am doubly-pleased the ending worked to bring it all together.

Shimmer's next themed issue is going to be  "Clockwork Jungle".

Steampunk fables with animals, oh my!

Guidelines here.

 Fantasy Friday! 

And catrambo's got a question: Do you have a favorite story from this year's run of Fantasy? Which one and why?

Fiction Published in 2007:

• Threads of Red and White
  Appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine
  
  
• Her Box of Secrets
  Appeared in Aeon, Issue 12
  
  
• A Dance Across Embers
  Appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine
  
  
• Bittersweet
  Appeared in Behind the Wainscot: The Five Senses
  
  
• A Bouquet At Twilight
  Appeared in The Town Drunk
  
  
• The Greats Come A-Callin'
  Appeared in the Fantasy Magazine Anthology (from Prime Books)
  
  
• The Girl with Blueberry Eyes
  Appeared in Fantasy Magazine Issue 6
  
  
• Leaving Avalon
  Appeared in Into the Dreamlands, from Simian Publishing
  
  
• Six Scents
  Appeared in Weird Tales, Issue 344 and the Weird Tales Sampler (from Prime Books)
  Also available at the Weird Tales website!
  Hear Stephen Segal of Wildside Press read "Zombi" on Hour of the Wolf. (1:22 minute mark)
  
  
• A Curious Palette
  Appeared in Dark Recesses Press, Issue 7
  
  
• The Story of the Princess Without a Destiny
  Posted on my website in honor of International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day: Step this way, if you please...
  
  
• Moonshine and Mayhem
  Appeared in FUTURES Mystery Anthology Magazine