Mystery Monthly was a topnotch digest that published the likes of Ed McBain, Ron Goulart, and Harlan Ellison. But not me.

The first issue came out in 1976, and the last (or so I believe) in 1977, long before I figured out how to create a short story that would get an editor’s attention.

Or get me anything more than an impersonal rejection slip such as this.

Luis Ortiz, publisher of NonStop Press, has a problem. The booksellers don’t care for the cover of his upcoming anthology, Why New Yorkers Smoke, which features short stories by the likes of Paul Di Filippo, Carol Emshwiller, Barry Malzberg, Don Webb … and me.

So he wrote asking me which of three alternate covers I preferred, and now I’m asking you. Luis will randomly select 10 people who give their opinion a copy of the final book. That’s worth an email to nonstop@nonstop-press.com, don’t you think?

But before you look at the possible covers, check out how Luis describes the anthology, which will be released on September 11.

The stories in WHY NEW YORKERS SMOKE blend both the real and the fantastic in a topical mix that illuminates the full range of some of the best speculative writers working today: Paul Di Filippo, Scott Edelman, Carol Emshwiller, Gay Terry, Lawrence Greenberg, Barry Malzberg, Don Webb, Aligria Luna-Luz and others. From “Grey Area”, the story of a taxi driver who bears witness to 9/11 by becoming the Wandering Dutchman of lower Manhattan, to “Why We Talk to Ourselves”, where Osama is still alive, living in NYC, and getting into speed dating.

Got it? Good.

Here’s the cover that Luis had planned to use but which he now says the booksellers didn’t “get.” We’ll call this Cover D.

Now let’s take a look at the alternate covers, one of which you can have a voice is making the final cover. (more…)

Back on February 14, 1972, I sent two poems—one of which I later published in my high school yearbook—to the Poetry Editor of Ramparts. (Hey, I never said this series was going to be devoted only to genre magazines!) Ramparts was known mostly for its political content, but it published poetry, too, so I foolishly figured I’d give it a shot.

I never had a chance. And if you should ever happen to read those poems (which I hope you never will), you’d agree.

On August 30, 1971, I sent an early, clumsy, typo-riddled, poorly written short story (there should probably be further negative adjectives, but those are all I have energy for tonight) to editor Ted White at Amazing Science Fiction.

I received this rejection slip back. Even that was more than it deserved.

On June 27, 1972, I sent a short story (which thankfully no longer exists) to editor Ejler Jakobsson at Galaxy Science Fiction. Here, in what’s the first installment in a series of rejection slips received from magazines that no longer exist, is what I justifiably got back.

Welcome to the publishing graveyard.

Those Bronze Age Babies are at it again. Yesterday, they were talking up the character synopsis blurbs that used to appear on top of Marvel splash pages, and today they wrote about house ads and other comics ephemera. Which, though anonymous, also had authors.

And sometimes that author was me.

I’ve mentioned before how I wrote the Bullpen Bulletins page for a couple of years (save Stan’s Soapbox, of course), as well as a set of Marvel Slurpee cups, but I also wrote a whole bunch of house ads. Here are just three of them, plucked from a portfolio I assembled when I started looked for a publishing job outside of comics.

And as for who drew that illo in the last ad, well … I don’t have to tell you, right?

Since I failed to keep up a contemporaneous account of this year’s World Horror Con while attending this year’s World Horror Con, expect there to be many posts over the next week as I play catch-up. I’ve already shared twice about things that occurred on the way to the hotel, but now I’m going to start talking about con itself by posting video of my reading, since there’s no law that says I must write the trip up chronologically.

On Saturday, April 30, 2011, I read my short story “Are We Not a New People?,” which had originally appeared in the anthology Zombie Apocalypse. The faceless woman who introduces me is Martel Sardina. As for what you see me tossing to the audience before I begin, those are glow-in-the-dark zombie finger puppets, some of which I’d already given out before the reading began.

And now, a message from the President of the United States …

I don’t know how I missed this, but back on January 14, Peter Tennant had some extremely kind words to say about my zombie collection What Will Come After (which is now also available as an ebook).

Over at Black Static, Tennant wrote of the book:

A collection of zombie stories, with Edelman injecting new life into an old archetype and giving a kick in the pants to those who think zombies are good for nothing except shoot ’em ups (though those are fun too). What delighted me about this collection was the sheer variety, both thematically and in terms of technical virtuosity, with verse plays, stories within stories, grue playing off against a metaphysical dimension, and reifications of classic literature.

Thank you, Peter! Why, that’s almost enough to make my zombie heart start beating again.

Two weeks ago, I told you that my collection of zombie short stories What Will Come After (now a Shirley Jackson Awards nominee!) was available as an ebook.

But that’s no longer my only ebook, for those of you who’d prefer reading me via pixels as opposed to dead trees. Because The Hunger of Empty Vessels, which was a 2009 Stoker Awards finalist in the category of Best Long Fiction, can now be purchased electronically, too.

Why should you buy my novella? If you don’t trust me, trust David Mack, who wrote:

“The Hunger of Empty Vessels is an unnerving work that peers into the darkest corner of the human soul and makes one fear what lurks at the bottom of that abyss—but also makes it impossible to look away. I dare you to try.”

Plus it’s only $2.99. Cheap! What a deal!

I’d heard that my short story collection What Will Come After was going to be released as an ebook for those who prefer their zombies pixelated. But I don’t think I knew that Pete Crowther of PS Publishing had actually pulled it off until a number of people at Ad Astra last weekend told me they’d purchased it for their Kindles.

And it wasn’t until after Robert Shearman’s reading Sunday that I had proof.

Robert, who when we first met on Friday had told me he’d already bought an e-copy of the book, whipped out his Kindle and showed me what the book looked like on his screen.

I think that looks rather nice, don’t you? And if you’d like it looking rather nice on your own e-reader, you can order it from PS Publishing here.

In other electronic news, StarShipSofa 184 features a podcast of my story “A Very Private Tour of A Very Public Museum.” I think Jeff Lane has done an excellent performance of the piece, far better than I did myself the one time I read it aloud at Readercon. So if you’d like to hear one of my stories rather than have to read it, you know what to do.