E. Catherine Tobler Honors Poe

E. Catherine Tobler sold her short story "Beyond Porch and Portal" to Ellen Datlow for an anthology tentatively called Poe: New Tales inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, that will be published by Solaris in 2009 to honor Poe's Bicentennial. As E. Catherine says:

I love working with Ellen; she's a gem.

James Van Pelt Floats Before Recess

James Van Pelt sold two short stories recently. The first, "Floaters," went to Talebones while the second, "Just Before Recess," was a short-short sold to Flash Fiction Online.

Garcia and Ramos Appear in Anthology and Blog

Rudy Ch. Garcia y Manuel Ramos have short stories coming up in Latinos in Lotusland: An Anthology of Contemporary Southern California Literature from Bilingual Press. Look for it on February 15, 2008. Rudy is a bilingual teacher in Denver and wrote "LAX Confidential" while Manuel Ramos, author of several crime-fiction novels and the Director of Advocacy for Colorado Legal Services, wrote "The 405 is Locked Down." The anthology can be pre-ordered from Tattered Cover, et al., in hardcover or trade paperback.

In addition, Garcia and Ramos are founders of and contributors to La Bloga, a Chicano lit blog. Garcia also had a fantasy titled "Memorabilia" accepted by Drollerie Press.

About the "Lotusland" anthology, from editor Daniel Olivas's introduction:

The stories and novel excerpts sandwiched in between "Kid Zopilote" and the excerpt from Chicano bring us to modern day Latino denizens of Los Angeles and the city's surrounding communities. And what a complex and diverse group of people we observe: young and old, gay and straight, rich and poor, the newly-arrived and the well-established. There's a Cuban-American screenwriter trying to pitch the "real" story behind the Bay of Pigs fiasco. We see the Mexican woman struggling with barrio life who believes she's seen a miracle.

There are youths trying to avoid gang life, and others embracing it. And we're introduced to aggressive journalists, cement pourers, disaffected lovers, drunken folklórico dancers, successful curanderos, teenage slackers, aging artists, wrestling saints, aimless druggies, people made of paper, college students, and even a private detective hot on the heels of a presumed-dead gonzo writer. These actors perform on a stage set with palm trees, freeways, mountains and sand in communities from East L.A. to Malibu, Hollywood to the San Fernando Valley, Venice Beach to El Sereno. The storytelling comes in all packages: social realism, lyrical fantasy, tough-talking noir.

James Van Pelt Bested

James Van Pelt has two short stories that are going to appear in Best Of anthologies. "How Music Begins," from Asimov's, will be in David Hartwell's Year's Best Science Fiction and "Of Late I've Dreamt of Venus," from Visual Journeys, will be in Gardner Dozois's year's best.

Rex Burns Shoots for Derringer

Rex Burn's short story "Shadow People," which appeared in Alfred Hitchcock, was nominated for a 2007 Derringer, an award for the best mystery short stories of the year. Sure, this is somewhat old news, but it was new to me. Besides, Dr. Burns (as I knew him) was my professor at UCD awhile back. Took a fiction workshop and a lit class from him (I remember reading five Great American Novels in a week to pass my final).

His short story "Homestead" came out in the November 2007 issue of Alfred.

Win Scott Eckert's Pulp Fiction

Win Scott Eckert's short story "The Atomos Affair" is out this month in the Tales of the Shadowmen 4: Lords of Terror anthology from Black Coat Press. With stories from Win, John Shirley, Brian Stableford, and others, this looks like a great anthology to pick up.

But what has me really excited, is that you can pre-order The Avenger Chronicles at Amazon right now. Win's short story "Death and the Countess" is appearing in this anthology, coming out from Moonstone Books in March 2008. Moonstone obviously bought the rights to The Avenger.

Why does this have me excited? I was a fan of The Avenger growing up. I have all of the paperback reprints (including the dozen or so written in the '70s when they ran out of the original magazine from the '40s because it had stopped production, but the series had picked up steam again in the '70s. Confused? Welcome to my world).

Steve Rasnic Tem Gets all Technological with Podcast

Steve Rasnic Tem has a podcast up of his short story "The House by the Bulvarnoye Koltso." Click the story title to hear the story.

Carrie Vaughn's Wild Card and Silver Bullet New Year

Carrie Vaughn's having a happy new year so far. Her novel Kitty and the Silver Bullet is out this month from Grand Central Publishing. It's her fourth book in the Kitty series. And if you didn't know, Kitty also happens to be a werewolf, hence the scary looking wolf on the cover. Good doggie. Sit ... stay! Ah, crap.

But that's ain't all, folks. Also this month her story "Chosen Ones" appears in the Inside Straight anthology from Tor, which happens to be the latest Wild Cards book to hit the mean streets.

Ed Bryant's Movie Moves to Post

Ed Bryant's short story, "While She Was Out," is currently in post-production with AngryFilms (Natural Born Killers, Bully, Apt Pupil) with a 2008 release date. See the info on IMDb.