I’m at Capclave, my local D.C.-area F/SF con (where reading is not extinct!), this weekend.

I’m on four panels, all dealing with online magazines or podcasting or secondary-world fantasy:

• Friday 7:00 pm: New Media, New Markets, New Business Models (a review of notable genre ezines, their forms and business models)
• Saturday 2:00 pm: World’s Shortest Epics (epic fantasy in short fiction; what makes it work and who’s doing it)
• Saturday 3:00 pm: Hearing Voices? (a survey of podcasts)
• Saturday 5:00 pm: The Evolution of Fantasy (modern fantasy trends and tastes)

I also have a reading Friday at 8:00 pm, where I may read something forthcoming in BCS or some of my own fiction. Drop by and find out!

Other than that, I’ll be wandering the halls with plenty of BCS flyers and anthology-cover postcards, in the bar, or trawling the party floor.  Feel free to say hello!

My story “Excision,” from Ann VanderMeer‘s first issue of Weird Tales, is now out as an audio podcast from the good folks at Podcastle. Read by well-known podcaster Jen Rhodes. Thank you!

Their content rating for it says “Rated R: Contains Surgery”. How can a story with that label fail to entertain!

My recent story “The Halberdier, by Moonlight,” out in the current (Fall 2011) issue of On Spec, got a great review on Locus online.

Lois Tilton, long-time short fiction reviewer, is well-known for being hard to impress and stingy with her praise.  So I was delighted to see her review of “Halberdier” include comments like this:

A tragic, moving tale, an effective portrayal of the horrors of war, as well as an individual’s yearning for atonement.

The halberdier yearns for atonement for a past incident in his life.  The story includes an odd concept for the afterlife, and I was quite pleased that Ms. Tilton said: “The afterlife is well-conceived.”

Not much of my fiction has gotten reviews, especially by a top-level reviewer such as Ms. Tilton. I’m delighted to be noticed and to get such good praise.  Thank you!

“The Halberdier, by Moonlight,” my “slipstream plus armor” story, is now out in the Fall 2011 issue of On Spec.  With my name on the cover!  Pretty cool.  And a gorgeous cover it is:

The story comments on death and the afterlife, and features icewine: a unique wine made using grapes that are still frozen.  This removes a lot of the water, because it’s ice crystals, which leaves all the other stuff–sugars, alcohol, flavor compounds–much more concentrated. That results in a wine that is thick and syrupy and sweet.

On Spec, a long-standing literary SF/F journal out of Canada, was great to work with.  And I enjoy the irony that a ‘zine from Canada, one of the biggest producers of icewine, gave the story a home. :)

(Yes, for anyone who’s wondering, I did buy a bottle of icewine as  “research” for the story. :) )