I received a phone call today from a nice administrator lady at the Writers of the Future contest. I have been named one of eight Finalists, for the First Quarter of 2008. (The formal announcement will appear on their blog.) The eight Finalists’ stories, I’m told, will be sent to the external judges, the famous-name writers. Then the First, Second, and Third Place stories will be announced in mid-March.

I’m delighted to have made it this high in the contest. I happen to know, through various writing workshops, three of the twelve place-winners from last year: Andrea Kail, Aliette de Bodard, and Kim Zimring. The high quality of their fiction leads me to suspect that all the Finalists’ stories must be quite good, but I think mine is damn good too. So, into the breach!

Several of my writer friends will be appearing in the Clockwork Phoenix anthology, forthcoming from Norilana Books. The Table of Contents has been released, and it includes a story by rising short fiction superstar Cat Rambo, who I had beers with at a workshop last summer. It also includes pieces by my Homeless Moon cohorts Mike DeLuca and Erin Hoffman. Well done, all!  I will definitely be snagging a copy when it comes out this summer.

I found a nice review of my story “Excision”, which appeared in Weird Tales #347. It’s by Jeremy Tolbert, a neo-pro SF/F writer whose work I had not heard of, but whose name I recognize as a former editor of Fortran Bureau. I’m glad that he was intriuged by the healing magic and that he wants to read more in this setting. I am currently outlining a new story that fits perfectly into this setting, so hopefully I can make it work.

My personal favorite in WT #347 so far is Amanda Downum’s story “Catch.” It’s not the sort of setting or tale I usually enjoy, but the characters’ emotions just dripped off the page. Very well done.

Spurred by Simon Owens’s blog post that I blogged about yesterday, several other people have chimed in on the viability of the genre e-zine, including John Kilma, Publisher and Editor of Electric Velocipede.

I usually find his posts very insightful, and I agree with pretty much everything he says here. I had the exact same reaction to ESPN.com when they started charging–I went elsewhere. I also think that e-zines have the potential to hook casual fans reading online in free moments at work, but that type of reader likewise would not pay for content.

My friend Erin, who has great ideas about building online community, thinks that e-zines could snag funding from the ad budgets of big companies like game publishers. I think such arrangements are more luck (Sci Fiction) rather than repeatable strategies, because those companies are going to expect a return on their investment and the e-zine audience doesn’t overlap enough with their customer base to provide it. I think the only way to make a genre e-zine work right now is the Strange Horizons model–set it up as a non-profit company and depend on the kindness of donations.