While reading the latest issue of Esquire, I noticed an advertorial page purporting to salute “the finest men’s speciality stores in the country.” Included in a list of what the magazine considers “The Gold Standard,” along with stores we’ve all heard of such as Barney’s and Bergdorf Goodman, is a clothing store in Cleveland that goes by the name of … Kilgore Trout?

A high-class men’s clothing store named after Kurt Vonnegut’s most famous character, a crazed science-fiction fiction writer? I found it hard to believe. And yet, it’s true.

The store’s site states:

Whether the call is for a made-to-measure tuxedo or for a suitcase full of resort pieces, Kilgore Trout tailors its inventory and service around you. Founded in 1977, and named in honor of writer Kurt Vonnegut’s favorite character, Kilgore Trout has evolved into a premier menswear and womenswear resource with relationship retailing at the core. Our 10,000 square foot store is filled with essential clothing for him and her, accessories and luxury homegoods.

Which doesn’t explain why a clothing store would be named in honor of Kilgore Trout. I would have expected a store by that name to be selling propeller beanies and t-shirts, rather than “the finest mens and womens apparel available.”

Any theories?

I braved the elements last night to go hear Gregory Frost read an excerpt from his new novel, Shadowbridge, at Main Street Books in Frostburg, Maryland. I joined Greg, along with Frostburg transplants Sydney and Andy Duncan, for dinner beforehand at The Sand Springs Restaurant and Saloon. Even with the falling snow, a decent crowd turned up for the 7:30 reading, which began when Andy took the podium to introduce Greg.

The most important thing I learned last night? The title Sydney intends to give to the account of her life spent with Andy, which I will leave to her to reveal to the world when the time is right.

Tuesday night, authors Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant held a launch party for their novel Gotta Keep on Tryin’ at B. Smith restaurant in Manhattan. DeBerry and Grant had just completed a 14-city tour in support of their newest novel, the sequel to their 1997 bestseller Tryin’ to Sleep in the Bed You Made. At least 100 of their friends and fans (if not 150; a head count was difficult) turned out at the elegant restaurant to cheer them on, share wine and hors d’oeuvres, learn about a possible film adaptation, and get copies of the new book autographed.

I was one of them.

As I’ve mentioned before, I attended high school with Donna, so I was thrilled to be able to join in the celebration of her and Virginia’s hard-won success. (You can find a few more pictures from the night here.)

Avant-garde author and filmmaker Alain Robbe-Grillet, perhaps known best for his Academy Award-nominated screenplay for the 1961 film Last Year at Marienbad, died Monday. He was part of a group that came to be known as the New Novelists, which, as yesterday’s New York Times obituary pointed out, eschewed “literary conventions like plot and character development, narrative and chronology, chapters and punctuation.” While that may be true, I’ve still managed to find wisdom in his essays contained in For a New Novel: Essays on Fiction, which offer good advice far more clear-headed and down to Earth than that previous description would indicate.

In the 1957 essay titled “On Several Obsolete Notions,” he had this to say about the novel: (more…)

I had a couple of hours to spare after my visit to 30 Rock yesterday afternoon, so I walked a few blocks north to the Museum of Modern Art. I hadn’t visited it since its renovation. (Come to think of it, the last time I had been inside might have been before my escape from New York in 1985.)

Call me a philistine, but most of what I saw for the first half an hour or so had me thinking that instead of being in an art museum, I was trapped in the You’ve Got to Be Kidding Me Museum. In one room, I saw a pinkish fluorescent light bulb mounted vertically in a corner. In another, I saw completely blank canvasses. These constructs, and others like them, had no emotional effect, other than causing me to think, “Oh, please!”

And then I walked down a hall, and there was Rousseau’s “The Dream.” The moment I saw it—POW! I started to tingle. The hair on my forearms literally stood up. And in the next gallery, in front of Rousseau’s “The Sleeping Gypsy,” I nearly wept. And then van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” … and Wyeth’s “Christina’s World” … and Picasso … and Chagall … and I thought …

How can the “artist” who thought to lean a fluorescent light bulb in the corner see those and not then curl up in shame? (I do like Jenny Holzer’s work, but I’ll leave the reasons why for some future entry.)

But I’m not just here today to rant. I’m also here to share a little known—well, little known to me, anyway—publishing fact. (more…)

In Dr. J. Berg Esenwein’s 1908 book Writing the Short-Story: A Practical Handbook on the Rise, Structure, Writing and Sale of the Modern Short-Story, he not only tells us exactly what sort of story we should write, but he also gives advice as to what sort of stories we should avoid.

Here’s what was apparently off limits a century ago: (more…)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

As Co-Chairman of the HWA Stoker Awards Committee, I’m proud to announce the nominees for the 2007 Bram Stoker Awards. Below is the Final Ballot for this year’s awards. The winners will be announced at the World Horror Convention in Salt Lake City during the Stoker Awards Banquet on March 29th.

This information is for immediate dissemination and publication.

Please contact me or HWA President Deborah LeBlanc if you have any questions or need further information.

Thanks in advance.

Hank Schwaeble (more…)

Yesterday’s mail brought a copy of The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction: Volume Two, edited by George Mann. I noted the presence of contributors whose work I’ve long admired, such as Paul Di Filippo, Robert Reed, Michael Moorcock, and others, and I looked forward to hunkering down with it over the weekend.

This morning, in a wonderful example of synchronicity, I received an e-mail from editor George Mann in which he accepted an 8,200-word short story of mine, “Glitch,” for the third volume of his anthology series, due out in exactly a year. What remarkable timing!

“Glitch” is my first original fiction sale of 2008 (but not my first sale, as I did place a reprint last month with John Joseph Adams for his forthcoming zombie anthology). I can’t wait to learn who’ll be joining me on that table of contents!

Rejection is eternal, but so are the very human responses of fight or flight. When that manuscript comes back, the reaction that springs up deep down in the gut, whether we are conscious of it or not, is to either tell off the editor, or to curl up in a ball in the corner and get depressed. Then we must shrug it off and go on.

So even though this may be one instance in which some things never change, it’s still useful to take a look at Dr. J. Berg Esenwein’s advice for handling those emotions from his 1908 manual Writing the Short-Story: A Practical Handbook on the Rise, Structure, Writing and Sale of the Modern Short-Story.

Here’s what he had to say about rejection: (more…)

I’ve often told my wife that if I should die while working on a new story and I haven’t completed at least two or three drafts that she should cremate us both.

My first few drafts bear little resemblance to the story which will eventually exist, with sentences reordered, scenes added and deleted, subtext altered, points of view changed, characters added and deleted, tone tinkered with, tenses switched, endings trashed, and the whole often so transformed that sometimes I wonder whether readers would actually be able to tell that the first and final drafts related to the same story. Sometimes, in the midst of revisions, I even realize that I want the story to say the opposite of what it started out to say.

So until I get to the end of that second or third draft (better make that the third draft at minimum) I wouldn’t want the story to have any kind of independent life. By then, maybe it can clumsily hint at my point, but until then, it’s not yet anywhere near truly mine. (more…)