Jeremy Zimmerman/Dawn Vogel Anthology: I Didn't Break the Lamp

Here's another fundraiser for a new anthology (with an ensuing call for submissions) about imaginary friends.

Last I looked, they were over 2/3s to their goal, but the Kickstarter is winding down.

Everything Dawn Vogel and Jeremy Zimmerman have done so far -- five anthologies and an online magazine that has running for seven years has a fun edge and a playful sensibility that lights up their journal, not to mention their fine cover art and illustrations.

Give them a look.

Writer News and Social Media

I have two humorous short shorts forthcoming in the spring issue of Dawn Vogel and Jeremy Zimmerman's Mad Scientist Journal, which are prequels to the story I wrote for them last year, "Monsters of the Id".  Eventually the series may grow into a novella or novel.

Also forthcoming is a speculative poem in David Kopaska-Merkel's Dreams & Nightmares.

Writers are caught in a curious trap:  They're told, on the one hand, to self-promote.  On the other, if they self-promote, it's self-aggrandizing. Ploughshares posted a humorous piece about Facebook folks for whom it appears it's all about ego-stroking.

Let's skip to the subtext.  I don't often post about my own writing.  The blog didn't even have my name on it until last year, so this is not self-defense but a defense of other writers with much to announce. It's curious that the article's complaints are only things writers would care and grow jealous about. Regular folks will think "I ain't never heard of that writer dude, so he must be a nobody."

Most writers are human beings, and human beings need validation. Why do people post videos and pictures of their kids?  "Behold:  My kid walks!  Isn't my kid the awesomest ever!"  (And you respond, "Who'da thunk a kid of yours could ever walk?"  or possibly, "It's alive!  Alive!")

Celebrate life's triumphs, big and small. (I probably will throw in the joke on your status, after celebrating.)

Some folks need more validation than others, which isn't to say that some overdo it. But who cares? Are any of us card-carrying officers in the morality police? Either celebrate with people or unfriend them. Jealousy will eat you up.

In terms of etiquette--not that there is any or should be--if you wanted to be safe, you could build up your news over the week.  But news tends to come in waves, with peaks and troughs--troughs that could last months or more--so this is not a prescription.

Free Robert Reed ebook, Submit and/or Support Mad Scientist Journal

SF Signal gives you a chance to win Robert Reed's new ebook, The Great Ship.

Dawn Vogel and Jeremy Zimmerman's Mad Scientist Journal has a special call for submissions:  Basically, anything goes, but it also asks for unusual items like classified ads.

A new anthology from MSJ:

That Ain't RightA Lovecraftian Anthology:Tales from the Miskatonic Valley by the people who live there. 

This Kickstarter looks to be quickly funded, with a bunch of stretch goals, designed to pay its contributors more.

Cobalt City Rookies

Jeremy Zimmerman and Dawn Vogel, the editors of Mad Scientist Journal, are writers themselves.  Zimmerman has a clean prose which he uses to push the envelope with traditional tropes:

See Cobalt City Rookies for his short novel. It also includes short novels by Rosemary Jones and Nikki Burns.  A trio of super heroes fighting crime when the good superheroes have been disappearing.

Mad Scientist Journal

I neglected to mention the arrival of this magazine, Mad Scientist Journal.  It's a fun romp with tongue-in-cheek pretense toward mad-cap science.  This particular issue has an impressive list of writers:

K C Ball, Cat Rambo, David D. Levine,  K.S. O'Neill, K. Esta, Mathew Allen Garcia, Janka Hobbs

I am pleased to count myself among them.