“Here’s how it works: Authors write a science fiction or fantasy short story which is inspired by a scientific discovery or innovation made or announced within the past year. It can’t be peripherally added: the science must be integral to the story. Writers must include a link to a relevant article or study of the applied science when they submit their stories.”

A panel of 6 amazing judges will vote on the finalists. Two of the six judges (Nicola Griffith and Cat Rambo) are members of Outer Alliance.

There’s $400 of cash prizes to be won, plus subscriptions, books, etc.

Please visit the contest page, read the entry guidelines, see who the judges are, and read about our Kickstarter drive to put the winning stories in print!

Then, enter your story! The contest will be open for entries from April 1 through June 30. Winners will be announced on July 21.

Show us there’s still room for real Science in fiction! Huge thanks to everyone who helped us make the contest happen!

The Chronicles Of Jack Primus by Michael D. Griffiths is set in a contemporary world, but one far different than ours. Evil is not a concept for philosophical debate, but rather a strong force, made tangible and real, when it Darkens and corrupts killers and madmen. These Chronicles document Jack’s attempt to not only keep his life, but also his sanity as he delves deep into the realm of the foul Xemmoni who seek to increase their own ends by draining the life force of their Human victims.

Jack discovers far more than how stay alive. His journey exposes him to terrors no man should be forced to witness, but unlike some poor victim in a traditional horror story, Jack not only fights back, but also takes the battle to his enemy. Armed with only the small weapons he can fit on his motorcycle, what was once a man fleeing for his life transforms into a hero out to save whomever he can from these foul creatures that few ever realize exist. Travel with Jack as he embarks, not only on the road to
survival, but also struggles to unravel the foul mysterious of the evil race know as the Xemmoni. Just released by Living Dead Press, this is Michael D. Griffith’s first published novel. http://livingdeadpress.com/

Chris and his longtime partner Jeff moved from St. Louis, Missouri to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 2007, after the restaurant they’d run together failed financially. Chris took that failure as an opportunity to reboot his creative writing side, and in February of 2009, started the magazine, M-Brane SF.

As one of the very first people to join The Outer Alliance, Chris has been an active Outer Alliance blogger and advocate from the start. In addition to M-Brane SF, he also recently edited an anthology of queer speculative fiction called Things We Are Not, which contains several stories by other Outer Alliance members. On the horizon, slated for a June 2010 release is another anthology to be published by Hadley Rille Books called The Aether Age, which Chris is co-editing with Outer Alliance member, Brandon Bell.

Chris keeps a personal blog at mbranesf.livejournal.com and is active on Twitter as mbranesf. He has two cats names Maus and Jack.

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Would you tell us a bit about Things We Are Not? How many of the contributors are Outer Alliance members, and what kinds of LGBTQI themes are included in the collection?

I am very pleased with this book. It is my first such project, and I am really proud of the great work that the writers did for it. Nearly all of the writers in it ended up joining the Outer Alliance either early on or a bit later, including the straight allies, which I found very gratifying. I was pleased that some straight-identifying writers wanted to contribute to my queer book, and then even more so when they all supported the Alliance (which was founded right around the time that I was finalizing content and starting to promote the book).

The project formed when I decided that I wanted to read and publish some queer science fiction and realized that none of was showing up in the normal M-Brane slush. Though the zine is not queer-focused, I would have been happy to publish more queer material if I ever received any. So one day I decided to see if I could manage to do a stand-alone book. I put out a call for submissions and was amazed at the number of stories that showed up.

I decided from the beginning that I wanted the collection represent a lot of points of views and orientations. In particular, I didn’t want it to be too gay male-oriented or too focused on sexual matters or erotica. As it turned out, however, I didn’t need to think about it too much, nor apply any kind of quotas to my selections. It just happened to work out that the stories that I liked best also represented a lot of diversity. Several items are gay male stories, but just as many are about lesbian characters. Some of the other stories feature variations that are probably only possible in science fiction (a young man’s love affair with a giant sentient machine, for example). Some of them deal with other issues, such as reproduction and marriage, in a quite subversive way. One disappointment that I had with the selection of stories is that I did not end up with anything that I can point to as a “real” trans or intersex story. There are certainly some items in the book that get away from the gender binary, but which might do it in too science fictional a way to really satisfy someone looking for transgender content. It’s just the way it ended up this time, but if I ever do another queer anthology, I may make a more deliberate effort to find more stories that fit under the “T” in LGBT. I was a bit surprised that I didn’t see more of it when submissions were coming in.

You’ve been an active Outer Alliance member since the beginning. What has your experience with that been like? Do you have any goals or wishes for the future of the group?

I think I might have been the first or second person that joined it, literally moments after Natania Barron announced on Twitter that she wanted to start this organization. It just seemed like it was the right time for something like the Outer Alliance. As members recall, it started in part as a mobilization against the homophobic attitudes expressed by John C. Wright in his psychotic screed about the Syfy channel. But even if there had not been something really outrageous like that to stand against, I think it was still time to gather together queer and queer-allied writers and publishers into an association like this. A number of queer sf/fantasy groups exist that one can join—in fact, I belong to a couple of them—but they are mostly focused on visual media fandom and not so much on reading and writing. I don’t mean to knock movies or TV or fandom in general, but it’s really nice to have a group that is focused on the written genres, has a lot of creators in its membership, and which also has a pro-queer stance.

Since the group is still very new, it’s hard to know how it will grow or what it will be like in the future. We’ve already demonstrated that we can put together a respectable group action, such as the Pride Day on 9/1, and also our very measured and reasonable handling of the Flash Fiction Online controversy. The latter was really quite remarkable since no one was formally “in charge” of the situation and it could so easily have spiraled into a loud, ugly “fail” thing. So we’re already pretty good at things like that when they come up, and I expect we’ll have more chances to face bad situations or put together positive events as a group. Also, I see the Alliance potentially being a terrific networking resource for its members. I’ve already made contact with so many cool people that I did not know before, and I’ve enjoyed that a lot.

M-Brane SF has been going for several months now, and you’ve just put an anthology out. How hard was it to start these things? Do you have any advice for other individuals who might like to venture into the world of indie publishing?

It’s certainly been a lot of work in that it consumes a great deal of the time that I am not at my day job. But it gets easier with time, too. The monthly issues of the zine get easier each month because I learn new things about how to work better and more efficiently with each issue. If it were still as hard now to complete my tenth issue as it was to do the first one, then I probably would not have taken on the anthology. But I’ve found ways to work smarter and I now feel that I have the ability to do other projects like that anthology and still manage everything else. I can see it coming to a point where I will need help if I want to grow as a little indie publisher, but we’ll see how it goes. Right now, it doesn’t generate real income, and so it remains more-or-less a one-man show until I find a way to make some money from it.

I don’t know that my advice to anyone else that wants to venture into something like this would be any good. I am no expert. I just do what seems right and what seems to work, and then keep trying to learn from my mistakes and build on my successes. Most people who want to publish zines are basically out of their minds. It’s like some kind of chronic illness that can only be treated by publishing stuff. Fortunately, effective treatments are now within the easy reach of people who have computers and internet access. It’s become quite easy and inexpensive to launch a blog or a webzine or a publication like M-Brane SF where I am able to do electronic and print editions with no real up-front cost other than buying fiction. Even publishing a book using the new tools is not that difficult or costly. The biggest challenge seems to be getting the word out about what you are doing and convincing other people that it is good and worthwhile and that they ought to care about it. So you have to have a lot of patience and perseverance because people will probably not respond in great numbers right away. I am only just now starting to feel the beginnings of some progress toward the next level, so I am glad that I didn’t quit after a couple months.

You took a break from writing for several years in order to pursue a culinary career. Do you ever think about going back into the restaurant business? What are some of your favorite foods?

During the good years of my culinary career, I always did a little bit of writing but never in a way that yielded any finished manuscripts. I also toyed around with an early version of M-Brane that never got launched. During the last couple of years, where my day jobs are much less demanding, I’ve had the time and motivation to get more serious about it. Though I am in no way making any money off of writing or publishing yet, I have committed myself to the idea that I am publisher and a writer, and that’s what I do now as my real profession whether it pays the bills yet or not. I have no interest in returning to high-end restaurant work. I love cooking and still do it everyday at home, but I feel that I accomplished professionally everything that I could accomplish in that business and it no longer holds the appeal. My partner is also a fine cook (and gardener), and we enjoy doing that together at home nowadays. It’s hard for me to specify favorite foods because I am very curious about all cuisines and I move with great enthusiasm from one to the other. When I’ve had chances to travel abroad, I am the guy eating one of everything from the street vendors and the shabbiest dives so that I can learn something new. I’m sometimes mistaken for a food snob because I reject chain restaurants for various reasons, not all of them food-related. I’m not a snob at all, but I tend to be impatient with people who claim that they don’t like stuff that they have either never tried or not tried when properly prepared. Our everyday casual food around the house is currently pretty heavy on Mexican dishes, Asian-style items, curries, stews and pastas. These all have the virtue of being very economical yet delicious.

What’s next? Can we look forward to reading more anthologies in the future, or seeing you at any cons?

In addition to continuing the zine, I have a number of other book projects in the works. I recently announced The Aether Age, which will be an anthology of short fiction set in an alternate historical universe. Alliance member and writer Brandon Bell originally suggested the idea, and we are pretty excited about it. The shared universe will be a Creative Commons-licensed project that we hope will inspire some other projects as well. Hadley Rille Books has partnered with me as the publisher, and this should be a big benefit as far as getting the book distributed. We are aiming for June 2010 for this. I am also planning a couple of single-author short fiction collections. I can’t reveal details on these right now, though by the time this appears, I may have made an announcement or two. And there may be a second queer anthology, but a decision on that is at least several months away.

I definitely hope to make it to a con or two next year. I couldn’t fit any travel into the budget this year, but hopefully that will change, and hopefully I’ll be able to meet some Outer Alliance members in person!

***

Thanks, Chris! Join us next week for another Spotlight, and in the meantime, check out M-Brane SF and Things We Are Not, or consider submitting to The Aether Age.

K.T. (Kay) and Bart are married, and both of them are bisexual. They started Crossed Genres together in 2008, and decided in the first couple of months that they wanted to do an extra large LGBTQ themed issue for the magazine’s first anniversary. The idea for Crossed Genres, which features stories that combine SF/F and another genre, grew out of Bart’s Genre Challenge community. Genre Challenge (which prompts members to write in a new genre each month) is still going, but has a new moderator now that Crossed Genres has taken off.

Kay’s love of speculative fiction runs deep. She wrote her first story (about a talking dolphin and his pet boy) at the age of six, and later got into college because of an essay on worldbuilding. Bart started writing poetry when he was in 8th grade, and took up prose fiction the next year. His non-fiction piece, “The Successful Hero’s List”, appeared in the April 2009 issue of Fantasy Magazine.

Bart and Kay live in Somerville, Massachusetts with their 3-year-old son, Bastian, and two cats named Romeo and Scout. In addition to writing and editing, both Kay and Bart take a keen interest in science. Kay works a day job in medical research administration, and is appalled at how little money brilliant researchers make. Bart’s particular scientific area of interest is sustainability, and people who use minimal resources to do amazing things. Kay and Bart encourage anyone with an interest in the future to blog about their favorite science news stories, and to fund research if possible.

What’s the story behind Crossed Genres? How did you come up with that particular idea for a magazine, and how do you choose the theme for each issue?

K: Bart tells this story better than I do.

B: I do? News to me!

It started with the Genre Challenge, which was something I came up with to help myself as a writer: each month I picked a new genre and had to write a story of at least 1000 words in that genre (without mixing it with genres that I found easier, like SFF). I’d originally intended to only do it myself, and spontaneously decided at the last minute to open the idea up to others. Now the Livejournal community has 250-plus members. See how I failed at that?

We’d talked about the idea of converting Genre Challenge into a magazine, but felt it wouldn’t work for a variety of reasons. Kay was the one who came up with the idea of having each month combine a new genre with SFF. Some conversations we had at Denvention III (WorldCon 2008 in Denver, CO) solidified the idea, and we decided to go for it very shortly after.

How we choose the genres varies. We want to encourage as much diversity in submissions as possible, and from all over the world, so we try not to pick any genre that’s too narrow. We never want to have any that are too similar too close to each other. We also really like pushing the boundaries of what defines a “genre”, which is how we’ve ended up with themes like Child Fiction (September 2009) and Antihero (accepting submissions in February (2010). We’ve got some real doozies on our list but we’re saving the really tough ones for further down the road.

In the current LGBTQ themed issue, how varied is the queer content? Did the submissions trend toward any particular part of the LGBTQ spectrum? Were there any types of characters you would have liked to see more of?

B: I think it’s not surprising that we received a lot of stories about transsexual and transgender characters – SFF has a long history of playing with the definition of gender. But for the same reason, I was pretty surprised at the lack of genderless or intersex characters. Still, overall I was very pleased with the diversity of submissions we got.

One other thing I was surprised at was how few stories we received that had human/alien pairings. But in retrospect I can see how that type of story might be seen as drawing a parallel (however unintentionally) between queer relationships and something literally alien.

How is it working as a husband and wife editing team?

K: Well, I think it’s more relevant that we’re best friends than that we’re married. First and foremost, we have fun running CG together. The fact of our marriage just means that we can run it from our living room. Spending this much time together is certainly good for our marriage, but I doubt that would be so if we didn’t both enjoy the work so much.

B: If we didn’t love doing it then we’d have quit long ago, married or not. But one of the biggest things that brought us together as a couple in the first place was a shared love of literature, fandom and geekery. Crossed Genres is essentially an extension of our shared passions, which makes it so easy to enjoy together.

Bart, you gave Kay an amazing birthday surprise at WorldCon this year. How did you manage to pull that off? And Kay, just how excellent and unexpected was it? Have you been getting a lot of use out of your CINTIQ in the past couple of months?

B: Rather than try to condense what happened, I think it would be easier if people read my after-the-fact blog post. It’s long but worth the read.

Pulling it off was… well read the post to see just how tricky it was. But it’s the first time I ever spent 5 solid months on a birthday surprise, I’ll tell you that. (And another HUGE thank you to all the wonderful conspirators!)

K: Completely unexpected. It was good enough for me that I was attending WorldCon for the second birthday in a row!

I’ve been having a lot of fun with the Cintiq, though of course I wish I had more time to spend making art. Soon after I started playing around with the Cintiq, I was honored with an invitation to do a guest comic for The Apple of Discord. And since then I’ve been posting the occasional doodle to my DeviantArt gallery, not counting the still-secret art gigs I’ve been doing for very patient friends.

Crossed Genres is a year old, and it’s still going strong. Do you have any advice or resources for other people who might want to start zines of their own?

K: The learning curve is steep; if you’re honest about the mistakes you make and learn from them, most people will understand. You don’t have to pander to the masses; it’s okay to start small and stay small. Don’t quit your day job. And get some sleep, for goodness sake!

B: Remember that you won’t make money – if you do it, you’re doing it because you love it. If you don’t love it, don’t start, because it won’t last. Set deadlines and stick to them, because the second one thing falls behind, everything will. Plan as far in advance as possible – in fact, set aside time just for planning ahead. And I’ll second what Kay said about starting and staying small. If that’s what you love, it’s what you should do. Don’t allow your zine to be forced to be something you don’t enjoy yourself. Keep it yours.

***

Thanks, Bart and Kay! Join us next Friday for another Spotlight, and in the meantime, go check out the LGBTQ issue of Crossed Genres!

Maria Lima’s essay, “Another Roadside Attraction: The Role of the Trickster in Supernatural” is featured as this week’s free essay at SmartPopbooks:  http://www.smartpopbooks.com/essay/full/96

Brandon Bell’s short story “Found Objects,” which he describes as a “zombie Texan King Lear apocalypse” appears in the webzine Nossa Morte.

Alex Jeffers’ novelette “Jannicke’s Cat” appears in M-Brane SF #10.

K L has been playing around with a fantasy world in her head ever since she was a child. As an adult, this has manifested itself in her Heart quartet, which features gay teens in an adventurous high fantasy setting. Heart Sense, Heart Song, and Heart’s Price are available now through Prizm Books, and she’s currently working on the fourth novel in the series, Heart’s Peace.

As a straight ally, K L makes a point of advocating for LGBTQI acceptance both in speculative fiction, and in real life. In addition to novel writing, K L is in the process of earning a PhD in Medieval Studies. She has a passion for hats, and all things Arthurian.

What drew you to write queer YA stories?

I’ve always wanted to write YA novels, because those are mostly the stories that I read. Queer or straight, my head has always been populated by a plethora of teenagers of all shapes and sizes. Katjin and Mikael’s story is part of a larger world I’d been building in my head since I was a kid, and when Torquere Press announced that they were introducing a new line of Young Adult-focused novels and asked if I was interested in writing for it, I thought this would be a great avenue to introduce Kat and Mik to the world. They had started out as a comic script that never went anywhere, but this seemed like a better home.

Why queer YA novels in particular? Because, while there were (at the time) several genre books and ‘coming out’ stories, there didn’t seem to be a lot of spec fic stories with queer teen characters. I tried not to write Kat and Mik as advocates for GLBT issues and rights, but just as kids who were caught up in a political battle bigger than they were, who just happened to ‘like-like’ each other. Well, and I complicated it with the whole blood bond thing, but that’s another story. Spec fic itself has always been a lot more lenient and accepting toward GLBT characters in books that I wanted to extend that a little bit into the YA fic realm. It may sound sappy, but I just wanted my characters to have a story worthy of them, and a home at a press that would treat them right.

The clans in the Heart books use songs to communicate. How did you come up with this idea, and do you imagine the songs sound like any music you’ve heard in this world?

I was actually inspired by the Hoist the Colors song from Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. The song in the film was the supernatural call for the Pirate Brethren, and I thought that was a great idea. The Clans, in my mind, had always been a culture of oral tradition — there is no written Clan language — so the idea of this aiding song really appealed to me. One by one, the other songs, including a song of the dead for Heart’s Price, came into existence. I like the idea of this song passed on from generation to generation, carrying with it the weight of tradition and of obligation. It also gave me a nice way to bring Katjin and Mikael together.

As for what it sounds like, for some reason “Thunder Down, Lowland Towns,” a song that occurs in both the Clan lands and the Lowlands, can be sung to the tune of “Yankee Doodle”. The other songs, though, don’t have a tune, per se. Clan culture is based off of a lot of Mongolian/nomadic culture, so I’d imagine some of the kind of tonal, complex vocal music that’s native to Mongolia, accompanied by fiddle and flute.

Katjin and Mikael have a blood bond that forces them to stay very close. How much does that bond influence their attraction to each other?

This is one of those places where I might’ve written myself into a corner. I’ve actually had the book criticized for the fact that it seems like the bond forces Mikael’s attraction to Katjin. I didn’t want it to seem that way, which is why Kat and Mik are so antagonistic to each other at first. They have to eventually come to agreement and admit to mutual admiration and friendship, which eventually deepens into something stronger. Kat likes Mikael from the first — at least, in the physical sense. Mikael sees Katjin as an odd sort of savior, and eventually falls for Katjin’s big heart and odd charm. It’s hard to portray that, though, since the first book is entirely Katjin’s POV, and we don’t see Mikael’s side til the second. The bond doesn’t force their choice of sex, or even their initial attraction. It just…complicates the matter, because I thought it would be fun to complicate their lives with this very physical bond/pain if they happened to separate. And to see what two people would do if they were tied that closely, mutual attraction or not.

What has the road to publication been like for you? Is there anything you’d do differently if you had to start over from scratch?

I’ve been writing and submitting stories since I was a teenager, but to little success. I took a long break from publication attempts for a while, and didn’t really get back into it until I thought about submitting Heart Sense. I take rejection hard, so those first few (many) rejections in my teens/early twenties hit me in a painful way, and I was scared to send things out. So I just wrote and wrote and rewrote until I found a market. I’m considering getting an agent, and I know I should branch out, but with school, my life is a little complicated right now, so I’m pretty happy with one project at a time, one small press at a time. The large publishing houses aren’t taking too many chances on new writers right now, so I’m content with where I’m at.

If I could start over from scratch, I might submit to more markets, maybe short stories to build a portfolio. I’d probably also do more concrete world-building/plotting out before I started writing, since I seem to discover new aspects of Clan culture with each book. Sometimes it’s nice to work out the bugs beforehand.

I’m guessing you’re a Star Wars fan since your website claims that you are sailing the writing seas with your lightsaber. Have you ever thought about writing a space opera of your own?

I am a huge Star Wars fan, and I actually do have a space opera idea in the works. There’s also that Arthurian idea playing around in my head, and a play on the old summer camp stories. Once the Heart quartet is exorcised from my brain, I’ll probably tackle one of these projects.

***
Thanks, K L! Join us next Friday for another Spotlight. In the meantime, check out Heart’s Price.

Keira Kelly has come into her full powers, and they are frighteningly strong, creating a distance between her and her human friends in her beloved Rio Seco. It is time to obey her great-grandmother Gigi’s orders, and rejoin her family in northwest Canada, where Keira can learn to handle her dangerous new skills.

Blood Kin, along with Matter of the Blood (book 1) and Blood Bargain (book 2) is available in your local bookstore, online or at major chain stores.

The Blood Lines series is published by Juno Books, an imprint of Pocket Books, Simon & Schuster.

Maria Lima can be found online:
Web site: www.thelima.com
Blog: www.chickwriter.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/chickwriter
Facebook: www.facebook.com/MariaLima