Slowly catching up, slowly getting there. My second of three Mars-related stories will appear in M-BRANE SF around the Fall. Issue #9. This is my 2nd appearance with them. They’ve recently released print versions of issues #1 through #5, and No. #6 may already be out. They are also available via PDF subscription (very affordable!), which I highly recommend checking out. The publication features many forms of scifi, non-fiction, and analyses of the genre itself. It has a retro-60′s feel. Sort of like the pulps. They’ve featured many familiar names in the SF short fiction arena.
M-BRANE SF is not only a PDF and print publication but a regular science fiction news source, too. One of the ideas they’re juggling around right now is a ’Shared World’ theme, which might be of interest to genre lovers.
I’ll be coming with my 3rd appearance to one of the longest-running horror webzines out there, Midnight Times. In the meantime, check out their free archive. The current story will take place in July 2009 in what I believe to be a special “zombie-themed” edition.
I must confess… with the upcoming signings and reviews, book fairs, bookings and new opportunities which have recently been tossed in my lap, I have not had the time to update this webpage as much as I’d like. I must also confess I’m now behind by roughly twenty blog entries and twenty fiction pieces which, due to having a personal life besides writing, I will not entirely catch up to anytime soon. So if you see the blog entries few and far in-between, that’s a good sign. In the meantime, let’s embrace the digital era (take note of the new eBooks & Kindle link above – things are coming).
There are some good science fiction webzines out there. Then there are some fine ones. ATOMJACK is by far one of the better ones, and it’s proven rightly so with their material and lineups over the past four years. This would be my 3rd appearance with them. Published by Susurrus Press, Atomjack is edited by Adicus Ray Garton.
And for you Prolific “yet-to-bes” out there, take a look at this picture below. Some of you may recognize it from a particular handbook that comes out once per year…
Look Mom, I'm Famous!
It’s a little blurry, but do you recognize the name in the picture? Yay! To think I gave up career opportunities in art, pharmacy, neuroscience, and the science of publishing for this. It’s gotta be worth at least a Big Mac. Still, check out Atomjack. They’ve got the goods.
You can now find me in the latest PDF edition of the immensely popular, ever-growing Necrotic Tissue. April 2009, available via download. It’s a great horror magazine with a bright future ahead of it. If you love zombies, then you’ll love what I have to offer this round up. Starting in July 2009, Necrotic Tissue will abandon its PDF roots to become a quarterly print.
You can now find a heavily researched, post-apocalyptic tale about plagues, the death of the human race, and an alien species trying to save what’s left of mankind in… The current issue of THE FIFTH DI. March 2009, to be exact. The narrative is first-person, and comes from the perspective of an extraterrestrial doctor/coroner. The Andromeda Strain was very much an inspiration here, but I wanted to change it up a bit and make my story otherworldly. If you like 28 Days Later, you might also like this tale. The Fifth Di is edited by J. Alan Erwine, and published by Sam’s Dot Publishing. They’ve been around for years, and I’ve appeared there on up to almost 20 other occasions.
THE FIFTH DI… Edition No. 11, Issue #1
March 2009; Edited by J. Alan Erwine
Cover Art: "After the Fall" by Mitchell Davidson Bentley
Hope aboard and read “The Plague Planet”. Click below:
Fiction & Poetry by: Lawrence R. Dagstine, Robert E. Porter, Rick Novy, Joshua Allen, Eric Penner Haury, Scott Virtes, Shelly Bryant, Jaime Lee Moyer, G.O. Clark, and John Nichols
Ten to fifteen years ago, a new technology was developed called print-on-demand (POD).Publishers and small authors alike who didn’t know any better explored it as a means to getting their works into print.The Web, fairly new by publishing standards, helped become a vehicle for this phenomenon.Back in those days you didn’t have to worry about garages or basements filled with over 500 or more titles not being sold.No, you could order two or three at a time without having to sweat.Vanity presses took the most advantage of this, but now anyone and their mother can become a writer-turned-printer-turned-publisher (if you get the gist). Still, no matter how far POD has come, no matter how much it has been utilized and what it is capable of, media in the form of a virtual entity will eventually – no, I’m sorry, inevitably – reign supreme.
So toward the end of February 2009, Amazon’s new eReading gadget, KINDLE 2 makes its stunning debut.You can go and preorder it now for a mere $359.00 – kind of steep, if you ask me – or you could wait five to ten years until every book, magazine, and news periodical known to man makes the switch regardless.And that goes for the unknown or semi-popular ones, too. Think about it: saving trees and saving money, even saving shelf space unlike ever before, while being able to listen to music, read your favorite blogs, and go wireless on buses and subways or the road.Amazon and Sony know what they’re doing.In these tough times, where publishing companies are laying off hundreds if not thousands, where pro and non-pro magazines are folding left and right or going on hiatus, companies like Amazon are taking small steps through the cracks into what I call the ‘future of written word-related media’.
E-publications are more cost-effective than print.So get with the program now, before it’s too late. I’ll miss hardcovers and paperbacks like every other reader or writer from my generation.But if we don’t assimilate now, we may be missing out on a mighty fine resurgence.Only in a different format.
What do you think of the Kindle 2, or eBooks and eReaders in general?
And here’s a quick appearance from over two months ago to THE RANDOM EYE: An Ezine Dedicated to Alternatives. You can find a lot of cool stuff here (from alternate history to parallel universes). SFWA member Rick Novy is also in this issue, and I believe we’ll be appearing in some other stuff together later in the year. Great writer, and an even greater fella to chat with. In the meantime, be sure to read the premiere edition; it’s only published once per year.
Featuring Work by: Robert Freese, Eric Steele, Robert Paul Blumenstein, M. Jones, Jeffrey Sims, Richard S. Levine, Rick Novy, Emily Neiley, Lawrence R. Dagstine, and Mark Fewell. Edited by Melissa Jones.
Didn’t catch my Sci-Fi love story, A Virtual Affair, the first time around…? Well, you can always read it again before it goes into retirement. Below in the January 2009 issue of SURPRISING STORIES. Edited by John and Eric Thiel. This well-received story would be one of the final 30 hobbyist venues which will feature work of mine over the next twelve months.
Featuring Work by: Steve Sneyd, David Zeldis, Lawrence Dagstine, Jamie Meyers, Herbert Jerry Baker, Gerald F. Heyder, Rose Gordy, Bob Bolin, Joanne Tolson, Albert J. Manachino, Anne M. Valley, Paul Truttman, Gary Every, and John Thiel. Reviews by Elmwood Kraemer. Art by Ramos Fumes and Peter Zenger.
My New Years Resolution was to retire from many a small venue, with 350 publishing credits as rocket fuel, and see where I can take these crazy horror stories and science fiction-cluttered thoughts of mine. And while I will still be an integral part of the Small Press, I’ve decided to take a leave of absence from the hobby press to search for a little more. As I invest over four hours per day into a new novella with “true” emotion and real, identifiable characters, make up marketing materials and get ready for the premiere of my first short story collection, and outline fresh ideas for a hopefully pro-paying anthology, I really can’t wait to see what this year off from shorter work brings. In the meantime, please, enjoy what the publication above has to offer.
The issue is a bit late, but my story DEPARTURE FLIGHT is currently up at The Written Word Magazine, Issue No. #15. The Web-based publication is also connected with Rebel Dawn Creative Force and Masterpiece Comics.
WRITTEN WORD ONLINE MAGAZINE #15 - November/December 2008
Featuring work by: William Markly O’Neal, C.A. Ellis, Kate Smith, Christopher Hivner, Billy Wong, Lawrence Dagstine, Dudgeon, Byron D. Howell, Roger Haller, and Morgen Kirby. Edited by Ace Masters and Barb McCaffrey.
There are some good science fiction webzines out there. Then there are some fine ones. ATOMJACK is by far one of the better ones, and it’s proven rightly so with their material and lineups over the past four years. This would be my 3rd acceptance with them. Published by Susurrus Press, Atomjack is edited by Adicus Ray Garton.
Previous authors have included Bruce Boston, Carmelo Rafala, Kristine Ong Muslim, Rick Novy, Lou Antonelli, Gary Cuba, Cory Doctorow, James Maddox, and more.
Aoife’s Kiss #27 is now available (or up should I say). In both print and online format. For December 2008, I would be in their Web component with a juicy new werewolf story. The artwork for this edition is entitled “Athanor” by Mitchell Davidson Bentley (www.atomicflystudios.net). Check it all out below.
Featuring stories by: Lawrence R. Dagstine, Diane Gallant, Richard Jones, Jamie Killen, and Andrew Knighton
Since it’s the end of the year, and there’s the possibility of the story making it into a Sam’s Dot anthology, you can vote for your favorite tale on the same page. Enjoy.
I’ll have a zombie story coming to the April 2009 edition of NECROTIC TISSUE. They’re a free PDF download and a fairly new webzine with a liking for horror stories which explore the human condition, the Golden Age yarn, or Tales from the Crypt meets the classic morality play. They also give free T-shirts with each acceptance. How cool is that? Link below.
I’ll have a story appearing soon in a new and interesting ezine called THE RANDOM EYE. Published Annually, they seem to accept work which is dark and speculative, but borders on the alternative, parallel (like universes), and the overall bizarre. More than just “weird fiction”. Be sure to check them out.
From their homepage:The Random Eye is a yearly anthology of horror and speculative fiction that focuses on the possibilities of parallel universes. Have you ever wondered what would happen if Rob Zombie became president, or if the Titanic was used for space travel, or if television was invented for communicating with the dead rather than entertainment? The Random Eye takes a simple theme for each anthology and encourages authors to imagine an existence far removed from our own, where a myriad alternate universes reside and where these strange possibilities exist.
And there’s yet another positive review of my story ‘A Virtual Affair’, from Issue #22 of Jupiter, over at Stephen Hunt’s: SF CROWSNEST.COM (www.sfcrowsnest.com). Like SF REVU, this would be another good venue dedicated to science fiction and fantasy. Conducted by Rod MacDonald, you can find the review link below…
I’ll add SF Crowsnest to Author Resources. Other than that, over the past three weeks I’ve nabbed another six story acceptances for various publications throughout 2009.
I received word that SF REVU (www.sfrevu.com), reviewed two magazines featuring stories of mine in it. For those of you unfamiliar with SF REVU, they’re a web-based publication devoted to SF industry news, reviews, interviews, book plugs, and more. I see them as a smaller, online version of LOCUS. Review links, magazine issues, and ordering info below:
SF REVU Reviews Jupiter:
Jupiter XXII: Harpalyke – October 2008 Edited by Ian Redman
Cover Artist: R.J. Bartrop
Review by Sam Tomaino
Jupiter ISBN/ITEM#: 1740-2069
Date: 26 October 2008
Tales of the Talsiman – Volume 4 – Issue 1 Edited by David Lee Summers
Cover Artist: Laura Givens
Review by Sam Tomaino
Hadrosaur ISBN/ITEM#: 1558-0377
Date: 26 September 2008
I highly recommend reading Jupiter and Tales of the Talisman… Both fine magazines now going into their fifth years with a slight modicum of success. As for SF Revu, I’ll add them to Author Resources.
I’ve just been commissioned byWhispering Spirits’ editor, Diana Cacy Hawkins, for a 5thshort storyrun, and this time for a special-themed Halloween issue. Whispering Spirits is published semi-annually, and its content is based around ghost stories, the supernatural, and the occult. It’ll be available as a free PDF.
On October 1st you can find me at SpecFicWorld in Doyle Wilmoth’s OTHERWORLDS ANTHOLOGY. There are many other great PDF anthologies at the same place! One such scifi project in the loop is: IT CAME FROM PLANET MARS. SpecFicWorld is also an excellent resource for finding paying genre markets.
Another old-schooler in the horror genre (after a few years hiatus and formerly being a print mag), story No. 300 comes to MIDNIGHT IN HELL. Entitled “Departure Flight”, this story is not for the faint of heart…lol… nah, just kidding. Seriously though, Midnight in Hell is a fantastically entertaining webzine. Some big names in the U.S. and UK have appeared there in more recent years: Rhys Hughes, Des Lewis, Willie Meikle, Paul McAvoy, and Amy Grech among others.
It would appear I have a short in the premiere edition — available as a free ebook download — of THE VAMPIRE MANIFESTO, Issue #1. Edited by A.D. Dawson. It features some spot poetry, too. If you’re all about vampire fiction, this might be up your alley. It’s free, so why not give it a try…
Featuring Fiction & Poetry by: Mike Philbin & Alex Severin, Dominic McDonagh, Amanda Lawrence Auverigne, Lawrence R. Dagstine, Gary J. Beharry, David Byron, Chris Meekings, Kristine Ong Muslim, and two-three book/movie reviews by Brian Rosenberger and Mike Philbin.
Also, a rather interesting article here: “VAMPIRES AMONG US, Actual and Imagined Vampirism in Contemporary Society.”
My most recent acceptance comes to the May update of Silverthought Press Online, and it should last straight through the end of June. In total, this would be my 59th acceptance with them — yes, that would be correct, fifty-nine — over the past three years. Silverthought is not only an online webzine and peer review/writing discussion forum, but ALSO an independent publisher of high quality novels and anthologies. They’re well known for breeding talent in the short story arena. And they’re now a paying press, too.
May 2008′s update features fiction by: Kimberly Raiser, Gayla Chaney, Lawrence R. Dagstine, Thomas Henry Dylan, Isaiyan Morrison, Justin Oldham, Mike Philbin, Pavelle Wesser, and excerpts of David S. Grant’s new books and an exclusive interview with the author.
