Ellen Datlow's Blog, page 21

Porter Square Books in Cambridge, MA has posted the pre-Readercon Naked City reading on their website. Please come by the evening of July 14th if you're in the neighborhood.

And I was traveling and so I forgot (shame on me).

Introduction Ellen Datlow
The Dingus by Gregory Frost
The Getaway by Paul G. Tremblay
Mortal Bait by Richard Bowes
Little Shit by Melanie Tem
Ditch Witch by Lucius Shepard
The Last Triangle by Jeffrey Ford
The Carrion Gods in Their Heaven by Laird Barron
The Romance by Elizabeth Bear
Dead Sister by Joe R. Lansdale
Comfortable in Her Skin byLee Thomas
But For Scars by Tom Piccirilli
The Blisters on My Heart by Nate Southard
The Absent Eye by Brian Evenson
The Maltese Unicorn by Caitlín R. Kiernan
Dreamer of the Day by Nick Mamatas
In Paris, In the Mouth of Kronos by John Langan

http://tinyurl.com/6ycud4v

http://tinyurl.com/6xe48ej

I didn't take many but think I got a few good shots.

Fall River Press, the proprietary arm of B&N is reissuing the first volume of Terri Windling and my adult retold fairy tale anthologies, SNOW WHITE, BLOOD RED. It will be out in hardcover for $7.98 and the official publication date is July 25th.
No link yet but I'll post it once the book is for sale.

TOC
Like a Red, Red Rose by Susan Wade
The Moon is Drowning While I Sleep by Charles de Lint
The Frog Prince by Gahan Wilson
Stalking Beans by Nancy Kress
Snow-Drop by Tanith Lee
Little Red by Wendy Wheeler
I Shall Do Thee Mischief in the Wood by Kathe Koja
The Root of the Matter by Gregory Frost
The Princess in the Tower by Elizabeth A. Lynn
Persimmon by Harvey Jacobs
Little Poucet by Steve Rasnic Tem
The Changelings by Melanie Tem
The Springfield Swans by Caroline Stevermer and Ryan Edmonds
Troll Bridge by Neil Gaiman
A Sound, Like Angels Singing by Leonard Rysdyk
Puss by Esther M. Friesner
The Glass Casket by Jack Dann
Knives by Jane Yolen
The Snow Queen by Patricia A. McKillip
Breadcrumbs and Stones by Lisa Goldstein

I'd like to thank Nick Mamatas, Del Howison, John Skipp, and Stephen Jones for their quotes about me and my work, read by Lisa Morton when she introduced me Saturday night.

The entire event was webcast live and will, hopefully soon, be put online but in the meantime for anyone burning with anticipation as to what I said when accepting the Life Achievement Award:



For me, the best horror leaves a residue of unease, and for as long as I can remember, I've loved that feeling. I thrive on the sense, that just beneath the surface or just around the corner of our world lurks another, slightly different world –weirder and unexpected, frightening and dangerous. If I'm lucky, when a story has ended, I'll still have that delicious sense of unease, that maybe things aren't quite right.

The journey that took me from my father's luncheonette to being here tonight has been a grand and unscripted adventure. After an unremarkable university career, I came to New York City, where I was fortunate enough to land a job with a mainstream publisher, and even more fortunate that, as a lowly editorial assistant, I had the opportunity to edit some works of fantasy and horror. It was only after several years, a bout of pneumonia, and a period of unemployment that I learned of the recently-founded Omni magazine, and starting haunting their offices for a job. While I didn't want to be pigeonholed as a genre editor, I needed a job and Omni sounded like an exciting place to be. That, and I wanted the opportunity to work on original fiction. The rest, as they say, is history.

I remained at Omni for seventeen years, until the magazine folded in 1998. During that time I published the first Stoker Award winning story in the Long Fiction category: "The Pear-Shaped Man" by George R. R. Martin. I also began editing the Year's Best series, beginning in 1988, and original anthologies in 1989. When OMNI folded. I co-founded Event Horizon, a webzine that published science fiction, fantasy and horror, along with relevant nonfiction, including Douglas E. Winter's seminal speech 'The Pathos of Genre,' which has become the clarion call of our field. After the demise of Event Horizon, I worked for SCIFI.COM for almost six years, and now, I've been editing anthologies exclusively since 2005.

Editing and writing are completely different things, favoring different types of skills and thinking. You can teach literature. You can teach basic composition, both fiction and non-fiction. I don't think you can really teach editing or writing. Either you understand the shape of a story, the way it feels and needs to work, or you don't. Editors and writers need one another, and it's possible, even likely, for a person to have a visceral understanding of one, not the other. For me, editing is like filling a house with furniture. I'd know what to do with an empty house and a massive shipment from Crate and Barrel, but I couldn't actually build an end table or even stain an armoire; it's the writer who builds the actual objects. I've been fortunate enough to work with many of the best writers in the business, and frequently, I'll feel the thrill of discovering and publishing a new and original voice.

I'd like to thank the committee that chose to honor me, my fellow members of the Horror Writers Association, the readers who have enabled me to continue to edit horror and especially all the writers who have contributed to the body of work you honor tonight. Without those writers I would literally not be up here.

After the wonderful soft shell crab dinner I ate, while dining with Susan and Peter Straub and Gary Wolfe Friday night of Stoker Award weekend, Gary invited Peter and me to join him in his weekly podcast with Jonathan Strahan.

I wasn't sure I wanted to participate, as Jonathan and Gary always sound so erudite --I worried that I'd have nothing substantial to add to the conversation. Anyway, Gary persuaded me, and here's the result (I haven't listened to it and probably won't) Episode 56: Live with Gary K. Wolfe, Ellen Datlow and Peter Straub

I'm leaving Wednesday for the Locus Awards weekend and will doing the following, in addition to hanging out and partying!! (yay)

10:55 a.m. to 11:40 a.m.: "The Near-Future World of Publishing" panel with Ellen Datlow, Nancy Kress, Mary Robinette Kowal, Paul Park, and Gary K. Wolfe (moderator) at the Best Western Executive Inn.

12:00 p.m. to 12:30 p.m.: Autographing session with books available for purchase thanks to University Book Store. Participating autographers include Connie Willis, Nancy Kress, Mary Robinette Kowal, Jack Skillingstead, Gardner Dozois, Ellen Datlow, Bruce Taylor, and Eileen Gunn.

12:45 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.: Locus Awards Lunch Banquet and Ceremony at the Best Western Executive Inn with M.C. Connie Willis, who will present the awards and judge the traditional Hawai'ian Shirt Contest.

Photos will be taken. If I think of anything else I'll add it here.

Doc today and now I've got two bandaids on it. I have to put purell or equivalent on it daily and change the band-aids. Keep the boot on indefinitely and the stitches will stay in till I return from Seattle next week. When I left the doc and started walking, my foot hurt and I realized that I hadn't made the boot tight enough. Also, I've got to find a shoe that's slightly higher for my right foot as the ones I've been wearing aren't quite the same height as the boot. I don't want to strain my left hip.


Off to Seattle Wednesday for the Locus Awards. I didn't really process the fact that I'm only home two days then off again. Too much to do.

Oh and I'd like to apologize to Verizon, who I blamed for my misery over the weekend. AT&T is my cell service provider and they're who I was on the phone with for 2 1/2 hours. There may be plenty to blame Verizon for, but not this time.

Today, upon my return from the Stokers I discovered cartons of my copies of Naked City--which is very exciting. This means contributors will receiving their copies shortly and that the book will be in stores verrrrry soon.

The very first Naked City event will be the evening Readercon begins and will take place in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I hope some of you can make it.
I'm hoping to set something up in New York during the summer or fall.


Naked City: Urban Fantasy stories edited by Ellen Datlow

Readings/signing hosted by Ellen Datlow at

Porter Square Cambridge
Thursday 7pm, July 14th


Matthew Kressel

Matthew Kressel's fiction has or will soon appear in Clarkesworld Magazine, Interzone, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Electric Velocipede, Apex Magazine, GUD Magazine, and the anthologies The People of the Book, After, and Steam-Powered: Lesbian Steampunk Stories, as well as other markets. He runs Senses Five Press, which publishes the magazine Sybil's Garage and published the World Fantasy Award-winning Paper Cities, An Anthology of Urban Fantasy.

Kit Reed

Kit Reed is the author of The Baby Merchant, Dogs of Truth, and Thinner Than Thou. Her short novel Little Sisters of the Apocalypse, and the collection, Weird Women, Wired Women were both finalists for the James Tiptree, Jr. Award. Her most recent novel, Enclave, appeared in 2009. Her short fiction has been published in various anthologies, and magazines. Her short story collection, What Wolves Know, was recently published.


Caitlín R. Kiernan

Caitlín R. Kiernan is the author of several novels, including Low Red Moon, Daughter of Hounds, and The Red Tree, which was nominated for both the Shirley Jackson and World Fantasy awards. Her latest novel, The Drowning Girl: A Memoir, will be released by Penguin in 2012. Since 2000, her shorter tales of the weird, fantastic, and macabre have been collected in Tales of Pain and Wonder; From Weird and Distant Shores; To Charles Fort, With Love; Alabaster; A is for Alien; and The Ammonite Violin & Others.

Jeffrey Ford

Jeffrey Ford is the author of the novels The Physiognomy, Memoranda, The Beyond, The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque, The Girl in the Glass, and The Shadow Year. His short fiction has been published in three collections. His fiction has won The World Fantasy Award, The Nebula Award, The Edgar Allan Poe Award, and Gran Prix de l'Imaginaire.


Ellen Kushner

Ellen Kushner's first novel, Swordspoint, was hailed as the progenitor of the "Mannerpunk" or "fantasy of manners" style. Its eventual sequel, The Privilege of the Sword, won the Locus Award, and was a Nebula nominee and a Tiptree Honor book. A third novel set in the same unnamed city, The Fall of the Kings, was co-written with Delia Sherman. She is also the author of Thomas the Rhymer, winner of the Mythopoeic Award and the World Fantasy Award, and many short stories

John Crowley
John Crowley is the recipient of three World Fantasy Awards (including a Lifetime Achievement Award), the Premio Flaianno "Superprize," and an Award in Literature of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Prominent in his ouevre are the novel Little, Big and the four-volume Aegypt series (1987 - 2007). Other works include The Translator and Lord Byron's Novel: The Evening Land. His most recent novel, Four Freedoms was published in 2009.

I know I'm the female equivalent of the "johnny come lately" but I haven't been online since Saturday afternoon.
I had a ball at the Stoker weekend and not only because Nick and I won the anthology award for Haunted Legends along with Joe R. Lansdale's wonderful "The Folding Man" from the book). The panels were smart and fun, interviews with the guests of honor illuminating, and the weekend itself well-organized. Also, I was able to meet and/or hang out with Dacre Stoker, great grand-nephew of Bram Stoker, Joe Hill, Gary Wolfe, Peter and Susan Straub (Gary, Peter, and Susan and I had a delicious Italian meal at the Rialto restaurant), Scott Edelman, who after the Stokers drove me and Gary Frank to an ice cream parlor he discovered the night before. I partook and I should not have. Delicious but my eyes were most definitely bigger than my stomach. Caught up with Kelly Laymon, Doug Clegg, Lisa Morton, Vince Liaguno, Rocky Wood, and so many others. I enjoyed meeting some of the new faces, who are members or are thinking of joining. And I thank Stephen Graham Jones and Brad Carpenter for sharing a cab with me to Westbury station (and Stephen for lugging my garment bag up the stairs of the station).


Superior Achievement in a NOVEL

A DARK MATTER by Peter Straub (Doubleday/Orion)


Superior Achievement in a FIRST NOVEL (Tie)

BLACK AND ORANGE by Benjamin Kane Ethridge (Bad Moon Books)

THE CASTLE OF LOS ANGELES by Lisa Morton (Gray Friar Press)



Superior Achievement in LONG FICTION

INVISIBLE FENCES by Norman Prentiss (Cemetery Dance)


Superior Achievement in SHORT FICTION

"The Folding Man" by Joe R. Lansdale (from HAUNTED LEGENDS)


Superior Achievement in an ANTHOLOGY

HAUNTED LEGENDS edited by Ellen Datlow and Nick Mamatas (Tor)


Superior Achievement in a FICTION COLLECTION

FULL DARK, NO STARS by Stephen King (Simon and Schuster)


Superior Achievement in NON-FICTION

TO EACH THEIR DARKNESS by Gary A. Braunbeck (Apex Publications)


Superior Achievement in a POETRY COLLECTION

DARK MATTERS by Bruce Boston (Bad Moon Books)