Ellen Datlow's Blog, page 8

Photos of sunset/sunrise (SLC/NYC respectively), the weekend at the hotel, of Salt Lake City and some of its oddities:
http://tinyurl.com/c7mbopl

I realized that I need to do this every few months as people forget.

If you want me to consider your 2012 stories for The Best of the year, I must see them. I urge publishers of anthologies, single author collections, and magazines to send me 2012 material during the year. Do not send me a huge box of material in November and expect me to get through it all.

What brought the problem to my attention is that this past weekend at WHC/Stokers in Salt Lake City, I stopped at several tables in the dealers' room. One had on display a number of what looked like original anthologies. I asked the pub date-- 2011. I commented that it was too bad I never saw them for my best of the year in horror (implying, hey dude, send me this year's volumes). The proprietor responded (I kid you not): "we publish a best of the year too". I was nonplussed, moved away and when I drifted back to check out this best of the year--he then said. "Yeah, it's a best of what we published last year"...Did he offer to send review copies? Nope. So will I ever see his anthologies? Probably not. I'd never heard of the publisher and presumably he hasn't heard of my best of the year. If you're one of his contributors, I pity you.

There was also a new magazine publisher that started a horror quarterly last year. Did I know they existed? No. And I'll bet you don't either. I've asked them for this year's issues. Maybe I'll get them.

Call for Submissions

I am editing the anthology series Best Horror of the Year (Night Shade Books) and am currently reading for the fourth volume, which will include all material published in 2011.

I am looking for stories from all branches of horror: from the traditional-supernatural to the borderline, including high-tech sf horror, supernatural stories, psychological horror, dark thrillers, or anything else that might qualify. If in doubt, send it. This is a reprint anthology so I am only reading material published in or about to be published in 2011. Submission deadline for stories is November 30th 2011. Anything sent after this deadline will reach me too late. If a magazine, anthology, or collection you're in or you publish is coming out in December, you can send me galleys or manuscripts so that I can judge the stories in time. No email submissions. I strongly suggest that authors check with their publishers that they are sending review copies to me as I don't have time or energy to nag publishers to get me material. I request it once (maybe twice) and that's it.

There will be a summation of "the year in horror" in the front of the volume. This will include novels, nonfiction, art books, and "odds and ends"-- material that doesn't fit elsewhere but that I feel might interest the horror reader. But I must be aware of this material in order to mention it. The deadline for receipt of material for this section is December 15th, 2011.
Ellen Datlow
Best Horror of the Year Volume Four
PMB 391
511 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10011-8436

****I do not want to receive manuscripts from authors of stories from venues that it's likely I already receive (like Interzone, Black Static, Crimewave, Cemetery Dance, Realms of Fantasy, Postscripts, Weird Tales, F&SF and the other digests, etc) or from anthologies and collections, unless I don't have or can't get that anthology or collection. Please contact your publisher and ask him/her to send me the magazine or book.
For online publications, I prefer print submissions, so if your publisher doesn't send them out please do so yourself. I will also accept printouts of stories produced and first "published" in 2011 as podcasts.


Please do not send a SASE. If I choose a story you will be informed. If you want to confirm that I've received something, enclose a self-addressed-stamped postcard and I will let you know the date it arrived. For stories that appear on the web, please send me (or have the publisher send me) print-outs of your story.
thanks

I hadn't been for two years running and had a fantastic time this year. Fiction GOH were China Miéville and Kelly Link. (and we saw the alligator)

http://tinyurl.com/7jsouka

Publishers' Weekly will be reviewing it officially March 26th.


Sum-up: The variety of concepts and styles on display, and Datlow's comprehensive introduction, will please horror readers of all stripes. (May)

FANTASTIC FICTION at KGB reading series, hosts

Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel

present:

Caitlín R. Kiernan is the author of numerous novels, most recently The Red Tree and The Drowning Girl: A Memoir. Her short fiction has been collected in eight volumes, including, The Ammonite Violin & Others, Two Worlds and In Between: The Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan (Volume One), and the forthcoming Confessions of a Five-Chambered Heart. She also writes for Dark Horse Comics. Kiernan was recently hailed by the New York Times as "One of our essential writers of dark fiction," is a multiple nominee for the World Fantasy Award and the Shirley Jackson Award, and has been honored by the James Tiptree, Jr. Award.

&

Scott Lynch, whose current projects are the forthcoming The Republic of Thieves, third novel in the Gentleman Bastard sequence, and the ongoing Queen of the Iron Sands, a serial pulp adventure set on a hidden Mars in the early 1950s.

Wednesday April 18th, 7pm at
KGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street (just off 2nd Ave, upstairs.)
www.kgbfantasticfiction.org
Subscribe to our mailing list:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kgbfantasticfiction/
Readings are free
Forward to friends at your own discretion.


Books will be available for purchase from the readers

Sponsored in part by Cemetery Dance Publications

By Allen Williams--isn't this great?

http://tinyurl.com/7bcxvzr

I'll be in Salt Lake City the weekend of March 29-April 2nd for the World Horror Convention and the Stoker award weekend.
Just got my official schedule:

Thursday, 10PM
-Writing a believable ghost story. How can you make your paranormal seem, well, real?
(Ellen Datlow, Michaelbrent Collings, Christine Morgan, JoSelle Vanderhooft)

Friday, 11AM:
-A Short Look at Horror Fiction: why short fiction is still popular
(Gene O'Neill, John Skipp, Ellen Datlow, Stan Swanson (M), Darren O. Godfrey)


Friday, 2pm:
-Women in Horror. Some of the top women in their field talk about beign female in the horror industry.
(Ellen Datlow, P.N. Elrod, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Lisa Morton, Kim Richards(M))

Friday 8PM
Mass autographing open to public -I will bringing as many of my OP horror titles as I can carry for sale. If someone as a specific request, please let me know in advance and I'll try to bring copies.

Saturday 11AM:
What an Editor Does
(Scott Allie, Don D'Auria, Ellen Datlow, Dave Wolverton (M))

Saturday 8pm Stoker Banquet

In between I'll likely be in the bar.

For those of you who can't wait, here's the list of Honorable Mentions that will be appearing in The Best Horror of the Year volume four (I'll post the full list at a later date):

Atkins, Peter "Dancing Like We're Dumb," Rumours of the Marvellous.
Ballingrud, Nathan "Sunbleached," Teeth.
Barron, Laird "The Carrion Gods in Their Heaven," Supernatural Noir.
Barron, Laird "The Men From Porlock," (novella) The Book of Cthulhu.
Barron, Laird "The Siphon," Blood and Other Cravings.
Baxter, Alan "Punishment of the Sun," Dead Red Heart.
Bear, Elizabeth "Needles," Blood and Other Cravings.
Bowes, Richard "Blood Yesterday, Blood Tomorrow," Blood and Other Cravings.
Braunbeck, Gary A. "And Still You Wonder Why Our First …"The Monster's Corner.
Carroll, Jonathan "East of Furious," Conjunctions: 56, Terra Incognita.
Colangelo, Michael R. "Blacklight," Chilling Tales.
Cowdrey, Albert E. "The Bogle," F&SF January/February.
Davidson, Craig "The Burn," The Cincinnati Review, April.
Dowling, Terry "The Shaddowesbox," Ghosts By Gaslight.
Fowler, Christopher "An Injustice," House of Fear.
Frost, Gregory "The Dingus," Supernatural Noir.
Gresh, Lois "Wee Sweet Girlies," Eldritch Evolutions.
Hand, Elizabeth "Near Zennor," (novella) A Book of Horrors.
Hand, Elizabeth "Uncle Lou," Conjunctions 57: Kin.
Harwood, John "Face to Face," Ghosts by Gaslight.
Hirshberg, Glen "After-Words," The Janus Tree and Other Stories.
Hodge, Brian "Hate the Sinner, Love the Sin," Picking the Bones.
Hodge, Brian "Scars in Progress," Demons.
Johnstone, Carole "Electric Dreams," Black Static 23, July/August.
Jones, Stephen Graham "Little Monsters," Creatures: Thirty Years of Monsters.
Kiernan, Caitlín R. "The Maltese Unicorn," Supernatural Noir.
King, Stephen "Under the Weather," Full Dark, No Stars.
Langan, John "The Third Always Beside You," Blood and Other Cravings.
Langan, John"TheUnbearable Proximity of Mr.Dunn's Balloons,"Ghosts by Gaslight.
Lees, Tim "Durgen's Party," Black Static 22, April/May.
McMahon, Gary "What They Hear in the Dark," chapbook.
Miéville, China "Covehithe," Guardian May.
Nate Southard "The Blisters on My Heart," Supernatural Noir.
Oliver, Reggie "A Child's Problem," (novella) A Book of Horrors.
Oliver, Reggie "Dancer in the Dark," Mrs Midnight and Other Stories.
Oliver, Reggie "Hand to Mouth," Haunts: Reliquaries of the Dead.
Partridge, Norman "Vampire Lake," Subterranean Tales of Dark Fantasy 2.
Piccirilli, Tom "But For Scars," Supernatural Noir.
Pinborough, Sarah "The Screaming Room," The Monster's Corner.
Shearman, Robert "Alice Through the Plastic Sheet," A Book of Horrors.
Shepard, Lucius "Ditch Witch," Supernatural Noir.
Smith, Michael Marshall "Sad, Dark Thing," A Book of Horrors.
Stalter, K. Harding "A Summer's Day," Black Static 24.
Tem, Melanie "Afraid of Snakes," Portents.
Thomas, Lee "Comfortable in Her Skin," Supernatural Noir.
Travis, Tia V. "Still," Portents.
Tremblay, Paul G. "The Getaway," Supernatural Noir.
Valentine, Genevieve "Bufonidae," Phantasmagorium #1.
Wall, Alan "The Salt of Eliza," Black Static 22, April/May.
Warren, Kaaron "All You Can Do is Breathe," Blood and Other Cravings.

These go on sale for the first time as e-books March 20th and you can pre-order them now. These are the first two middle grade titles Terri and I editing for S&S. They are still in print, combined in a hardcover format sold by B&N called The Dark of the Woods.


A Wolf at the Door
(kindle) http://tinyurl.com/7ndo4te

(nook) http://tinyurl.com/6rvm3fa

Table of Contents
The Months of Manhattan Delia Sherman
Cinder Elephant Jane Yolen
Instructions Neil Gaiman
Mrs. Big Michael Cadnum
Falada Nancy Farmer
A Wolf at the Door Tanith Lee
Ali Baba and the Forty Aliens Janeen Webb
Swans Kelly Link
The Kingdom of Melting Glances Katherine Vaz
Hansel's Eyes Garth Nix
Becoming Charise Kathe Koja
The Seven Stage a Comeback Gregory Maguire
The Twelve Dancing Princesses Patricia A. McKillip



and

Swan Sister
(kindle) http://tinyurl.com/76cwtcg

(Nook)http://tinyurl.com/7yqu2a6

Table of Contents
Greenkid by Jane Yolen
Golden Fur by Midori Snyder
Chambers of the Heart by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
Little Red and the Big Bad by Will Shetterly
The Fish's Story by Pat York
The Children of Tilford Fortune by Christopher Rowe
The Girl in the Attic by Lois Metzger
The Harp That Sang by Gregory Frost
Tom Thumb: A Life in Miniature by Bruce Coville
Lupe by Kathe Koja
Awake by Tanith Lee
Inventing Aladdin by Neil Gaiman
My Swan Sister by Katherine Vaz

Real Time Review of Wild Justice by D.F. Lewis. He seems to be enjoying it.