When I was in kindergarten, my teacher wanted the class to dance around the room pretending to be flowers. We were to sing while twirling colorful scarves. Extremely shy, very serious, and somewhat repressed, I refused. It seemed silly, and I didn’t intend to make a spectacle of myself, not even when the teacher threatened me by saying that if I wouldn’t dance with the others (I was the only refusenik), I wouldn’t be allowed to take part in the visit to the pet snake kept by the kids in the next classroom. I was adamant, and so I ended up sitting stubbornly alone while everybody else got to play with that snake.

Flash forward a decade or two, and my personality was quite different. I spontaneously hurled myself at Steve Gerber’s feet in Times Square in a kind of improvised guerilla theater, begging him, while tourists watched wide-eyed, to return to the family he’d supposedly abandoned. I’ve acted in plays, done hundreds of panels and readings, was toastmaster at a Nebula Awards banquet, and will pretty much do anything in public, as long as it is good and kind, that seems as if it would be entertaining to me or to others.

How did the kid who wouldn’t dance become the adult who doesn’t worry much about what other people think?

A happy accident. And a very special teacher. (more…)

In October of 1981, I sent a short story titled “In the Kingdom of Eros” to Elinor Mavor of Amazing Stories, who rejected it three months later with a brief note scribbled on the back of the form reject below. The story, written in 1980, ended up collecting a total of 34 rejections before I retired it in 1991.

However …

“Eros and Agape Among the Asteroids,” a science fictional version of what started out a fantasy tale, was published in the anthology Once Upon A Galaxy in 2002.

Earlier this month, I asked you to help choose the cover to the upcoming anthology, Why New Yorkers Smoke, which is forthcoming from NonStop Press. (Why did I ask? Because it contains a short story of mine, of course!)

Publisher Luis Ortiz has announced the winner of his poll, and also that ten randomly selected voters (maybe you’ll be one of them) will receive copies of the book when it comes out on 9/11.

The winner is …

And you know what? That was MY choice out of all possible covers, too!

I’m just back from Long Island, where I went to take part in the Stoker Awards weekend, and I’ve got lots to say and neither the time nor the energy to say it all now. But one thing I want to make sure I do before the work week begins is share the remarks I made to present Al Feldstein with the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Horror Writers Association.

I may have deviated from the script below as I moved through my speech, but I think you’ll get the gist of it—to explain in 3-5 minutes to all those present the reasons why Feldstein deserved to be honored by the organization. (Fingers crossed that I haven’t deviated from fact.)

And so …

Those familiar with the Golden Age of horror comics our Lifetime Achievement Awards recipient Al Feldstein was responsible for back in the 1950s know that if HE had scripted the Stoker Awards weekend, it would start off with a punning title like, “I’m Fine, Horror You?” It would culminate in a banquet at which one of our Guests of Honor would mysteriously fail to show and meanwhile the steaks would taste REAL good. And once all the speechifying was over and we’d start rushing out of here to party, we’d find the halls lined with razor blades … and then some idiot would turn off the lights.

Feldstein was born in Brooklyn in 1925, and when he was 15, barely able to afford the subway fare to the High School of Music and Art which he attended in Manhattan, he learned that a friend was earning some money in the comic book business. Feldstein was hired by Jerry Iger of the Eisner and Iger shop, which created content for the comics publishing companies of the day, to do the scut work of ruling panel border, inking pointers on word balloons, and erasing pencils once pages were done … for three bucks a week.

He enlisted in the Air Force in 1943, where, among other thing, he designed flight jackets and painted squadron insignias, and after his discharge, he started freelancing for Fox Comics. But there was something missing about those assignments. Something like … getting paid in a timely manner, which I think many of you here in this room are all too familiar with. But he heard about another publishing company that treated its freelancers a little better, one called Entertaining Comics, owned by a guy named Bill Gaines. (more…)

Former Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Jim Shooter posted an essay the other day which makes it sound as if, once Stan Lee no longer had the time to oversee how others were playing with his toys, no other editor-in-chief paid much attention to what was going in any books except for those he wrote himself until Jim arrived to take the reins and put things right. Shooter repeated this line of thought in a second essay, writing that “any outside observer would have guessed that [Production Manager John Verpoorten] was the boss, at least during the time that Len, Marv, Gerry and Archie were Editors in Chief.”

As someone who was hired when Roy Thomas was in charge, and who continued on staff at Marvel under Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, Gerry Conway, and Archie Goodwin, I feel called upon to defend my former bosses and say—not so! Verpoorten, though important, was not acting as de facto editor-in-chief, making all art assignments for editors who were supposedly uncaring of what was going on in the rest of the titles. While Verpoorten made sure that Vinnie Colletta, who hit his deadlines, got more assignments than the rest of us would have liked, he wasn’t running the show. I witnessed this on a daily basis, as editors held plotting sessions with writers, were deeply involved in art assignments, and pushed all freelancers to be accountable.

In lieu of an elaborate rebuttal right now, here are a few memos to let you see that even though once in a while a slip-up might let a superhero do something preposterous like drag Manhattan Island, not only did the editors who came before Jim try to make the trains run on time (something Jim was admittedly very good at), but they also paid attention to what the heck was happening on those trains. (more…)

So J.J. Abrams and Steven Spielberg were interviewed about Super 8 in the June 17 issue of Entertainment Weekly, and when Spielberg was asked, “If you were starting out today, with a shot at directing a franchise, which one would it be?,” here’s what he had to say:

When I first started making movies, the only franchise I cared about and wanted to be a part of was James Bond. When I started out as a TV director, my pie-in-the-sky dream was to make a little movie that would get some notoriety, and then [the late Bond series producer] Cubby Broccoli would call me and ask me to direct the next James Bond picture. But I could never get Cubby Broccoli to hire me—and now, sadly, they cant afford me.

Let me get this straight. Steven Spielberg, one of the richest and most powerful men in the world, won’t be able to make a childhood dream come true … because they won’t PAY him enough.

There’s something extremely—and perversely—sad about that.

I wrote an awful lot of poetry when I was a teenager. (Or should that be, a lot of awful poetry?) And for some reason, I often submitted it to women’s magazines.

I guess I thought there was a market there for the kind of sappy love poems teenaged boys write. In any case, whatever I was selling, no one was buying (either on the page or in the flesh).

Here’s what I got back when I sent a few poems to New Woman, a U.S. magazine which may or may not have had anything to do with the UK magazine of the same name.

I don’t think I ever received another form reject requesting that I supply my fee requirements in future submissions.

On February 20, 1974 (four months before I started on staff at Marvel Comics), I sent a script for an eight-page comic book story to Creepy, one of the magazines put out by Warren Publishing. The script, titled “When the Old Gods Die,” thankfully no longer exists, so it won’t be necessary for you to suffer through it.

The form rejection slip I received in return, however, has survived.

Since I’ve yet to survive June’s Stoker Awards weekend, or July’s Readercon or San Diego Comic-Con, it seems a bit early to be thinking of August and the World Science Fiction Convention. But luckily, the Renovation committee has been doing that thinking for me.

So here’s where you’ll be able to find me in Reno two months from now. This is only the list of panels, though—readings, autographings, and other solo events are still to come.

Will Eisner: Pioneering Comics Genius
Thursday, August 18, 12:00-13:00
with Tom Galloway and Stu Shiffman

Fantasy and Horror in the New Century
What to look for and where to find on the darker side of literature
Saturday, August 20, 11:00-12:00
with John Joseph Adams, Susan T. Casper, Ellen Datlow, and Nick Mamatas

Giving and Receiving Critiques
Many writers participate in writers workshops, but it can be difficult, especially for new writers, to give critiques helpfully and receive critiques gracefully. Experienced workshoppers discuss techniques for critiques.
Saturday, August 20, 12:00-13:00
with Margaret Fisk , Daniel Abraham , Sheila Finch and Tim Pratt

Crisis Fatigue: The Pros and Cons of Cross-book Universe-changing Comic Epics
Almost every year, it seems, the comics world has a major multibook crisis/civil war/semi-reboot. Is it overused? Does it bring in new readers or deter them?
Saturday, August 20 17:00 – 18:00
with Tom Galloway, Lenny Bailes and Brenda W. Clough

Considering what’s going on in the world of DC Comics at the moment, the timing of that last panel couldn’t be better.

See you all in Reno—and at three other cons first!

So there I was at the Winchester Medical Center this afternoon, waiting to get some routine tests done, when I pulled out my iPad to check what was up with the Twitterverse. I saw that Ellen Datlow had retweeted Caitlin R. Kiernan’s tweet about an article titled “Texas Court Says Transgenders Don’t Exist,” so I thought I’d give it a read to see what Texas had done now.

Not so fast, sayeth the web filter. That’s porn!

Yes, according to the Winchester Medical Center’s free wifi, transgender = porn. Check out the screen grab below, which advised me that the article had been blocked “because the web category ‘Porn’ is not allowed.”

Considering the fact that this was taking place within a hospital complex, where people might head seeking additional information on and conferring with doctors about transgender issues, the censorship seemed even more offensive and obnoxious than usual. (Not that such clumsy web filtering should EVER be taking place.)

As you can see from the screen grab, I’m advised to contact Valley Health if I have any questions. Well, I do, and I will.

I’ll let you know what if anything they have to say.