The Hunger of Empty Vessels, my stand-alone novella from Bad Moon Books, is now available for pre-order.

Check out that cool Dominic Harman cover. He and I worked together back at Science Fiction Age, and after all those years commissioning his pieces for the magazine to accompany stories by others, it’s great to finally see him illustrating one of my stories.

In addition to my dark and disturbing tale, the volume also contains an introduction from old pal Gene O’Neill, with whom I attended the Clarion Writers Workshop in 1979 (can it really be almost thirty years?), as well as additional illustrations from Dominic.

This edition, which will ship in April, is limited to 150 signed trade paperbacks, so act fast.

And at $15.00 apiece, they’re a steal! So buy two!

I got an e-mail this weekend from someone asking about my Tales From the Darkside episode “Baker’s Dozen,” which originally aired on November 24, 1986. It’s the only one of my three episodes I haven’t already shared about here. There’s a reason for that. (You can find information about the other two, “Fear of Floating” and “My Ghost Writer the Vampire,” by clicking on the tag at the bottom of this entry.)

Prompted by that note, below is the video for “Baker’s Dozen,” since someone has already done the work of uploading the episode to YouTube in its entirety. But for anyone else who might be tempted to watch it, let me explain why I haven’t offered it here until now. Unfortunately, I found the final script spun from my treatment so offensive that I almost removed my name from the screen.

In my original treatment, I made no mention as to the races of any of the actors. But for some reason, in the final script, the baker’s assistant was transformed into a shiftless character along the lines of Stepin Fetchit and Mantan Moreland, and I was appalled. I didn’t want anyone to think I had come up with such a stereotypical caricature, so I haven’t talked about this episode much in the years since.

Maybe I’ll post my original treatment someday, so you’ll all be able to see the story I’d originally wanted to tell. But in the interests of completeness, and to fulfill the wishes of my recent correspondent, here’s “Baker’s Dozen.”

If you’re offended, too, don’t blame me. (more…)

Though the official release date isn’t until February 24, I’ve already received contributor copies of The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction: Volume 3.

Here’s the cover.

My contribution, “Glitch,” which is set in a robot-filled far future at a time when humans are but a myth, is in good company there, surrounded by short stories from Jack Skillingstead, Alastair Reynolds, Stephen Baxter, John Meaney, Paul Di Filippo, Warren Hammond, Ian Whates, Paul Cornell, Adam Roberts, Jennifer Pelland, Daniel Abraham, Ian Watson, Tim Akers, and Ken MacLeod.

Go! Buy! Enjoy!

A blogger over at Creature Cast went through the zombie anthology The Living Dead and reviewed every story, including the only one that really mattered (right?) …

Mine.

Of “Almost The Last Story By Almost The Last Man” (which was a finalist for HWA’s Stoker Award last year), he wrote:

Oh, man. I never really expected to discover anyone new, and I never really expected to adore a writer whose previous work was published by Eden Studios All Flesh Must Be Eaten zombie RPG anthologies, but this was one of the big pleasures of this collection. A multi-layered tale of a writer desperately telling stories in the middle of Romero’s apocalypse, the narrator succeeds in drawing us into his desperation. It covers every type of story you could imagine Romero devotees telling and does an amazing job engaging us with the narrator as he goes to his doom.

‘Tis a good thing to be adored!

The Horror Writers Association has just announced its 2008 Preliminary Stoker Ballot. I’ll skip listing the entire ballot, so that LJ doesn’t get clogged with dozens of us posting the same thing. Instead, I’ll just point out a category near and dear to my heart.

Look closely, and you’ll see why:

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN SHORT FICTION

“The Last Word” by Maria Alexander (Sins of the Sirens)

“Mama Strangelove’s Remedies for Afterlife Disorders, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Mother Death” by C. Dean Andersson (Brutarian)

“Consumed” by Michael Louis Calvillo (Horror Library Volume 3)

“Petrified” by Scott Edelman (Desolate Souls)

“Mechanix” by Christopher Fulbright (Bound for Evil)

“The Lost” by Sarah Langan (Cemetery Dance Publications)

“The Dude Who Collected Lovecraft” by Nick Mamatas and Tim Pratt (Chizine)

“The Haven” by John Palisano (Horror Library Vol. 3)

“Turtle” by Lee Thomas (Doorways)

“The Blog at the End of the World” by Paul Tremblay (Chizine)

“Those Eyes” by Mark W. Worthen (Thinner Than Mist)

Good luck to all the nominees—and may the best stories make it to the final ballot!

If there are any HWA members out there who haven’t yet had a chance to read “Petrified,” please drop me a line and I’ll get one into your hands before the mailing of the ballots.

It seems that I made a mistake last month when I offered copies of my short story, “Petrified,” which appeared in Desolate Souls, the World Horror Convention souvenir program book last year, to active HWA members only.

Though voting is limited to active members, all members of the Horror Writers Association, and not just actives, may recommend a work.

With only a week to go until recs close for this year’s preliminary ballot, this is a reminder that you can either go to the rec list and click on the link to download a copy of “Petrified,” or else drop me an e-mail and I’ll send it to you as an attachment via return e-mail.

If you’d prefer, and if there’s enough time, I’ll even get a uniformed government employee to deliver it to you. Yes, I have that power.

You know where to reach me.

Here’s how 2008 turned out for me … or rather, how it turned out for my words.

I completed three new short stories, but I won’t be telling you their titles or giving out any other details about them until they’re either sold or published. What can I say? I’m superstitious that way.

But here’s what I can tell you—

I published two stories:

“Petrified” in Desolate Souls, the World Horror Convention souvenir program book

“A Very Private Tour of a Very Public Museum” in Postscripts #15

And I sold five:

“Glitch” to The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction: Volume Three

“The Human Race” to Space and Time

“The Hunger of Empty Vessels” to Bad Moon Books, where it will be published as a stand-alone novella

“The Only Wish Ever to Come True” to Talebones

“The World Breaks” to Postscripts

All five of those stories are slated to appear in 2009. Watch for them!

This entry is meant for active members of the Horror Writers Association only, so as for the rest of you, I am now gesturing hypnotically while incanting, “This is not the post you’re looking for.”

Now that we’re alone and I’m speaking just to those active HWA members …

Recommendations for the Stoker Awards close exactly one month from today, on January 15, 2009. According to the most recent Bram Stoker Award Recommendations update, my short story, “Petrified,” which appeared in Desolate Souls, the World Horror Convention souvenir program book earlier this year, seems to be garnering some attention.

If you happen to be an active member (and how could you be anything else but, since everybody else disappeared as soon as I cast my spell above) and would like a copy of the story for Stoker consideration, this is a reminder that you can either go to the rec list and click the provided link for a download, or else drop me an e-mail and I’ll send it to you as an attachment via return e-mail or snail mail it to you on dead trees, whichever you’d prefer.

I am now gesturing hypnotically once more, so the rest of my readers can return.

As you were.

I completed the second draft of a new short story last night.

Those of you who come here regularly know that I tend not to give out the details of stories either when I’m writing them or attempting to sell them, preferring to only share about my writing when a story is sold, published, or nominated for an award. I guess I’m superstitious in a way, in that I’m afraid spilling the beans will jinx a story’s fate.

I’ve only made a few exceptions before. So why am I opening to the door to the vault today?

Well, as I wrote above, I just finished a second draft, which once again followed my tradition of doubling the word count of the first draft. According to Word, the first draft was 3,762 words, while the second draft came out to 7,023 words.

Between the two, I tore the story apart and rebuilt it. I sometimes think of myself more as a rewriter than a writer, because it’s in the rewriting that my stories discover what they’re truly about. I do many drafts before I’m satisfied enough to start submitting a piece to editors, but the first three are usually the most extensive.

Something popped into my mind as I was wrapping up this particular rewrite that crystallized my feelings about these earliest drafts, about all of my early drafts, and that was—

I write the first draft so that I understand what happens.

I write the second draft so that the characters understand what happens.

I write the third draft so that the reader will understand what happens.

All the drafts that follow are polishing drafts, though there are sometimes larger rewrites closer to the end if a major plotting or thematic flaw suddenly comes to light.

I don’t know how any of this compares with how those of you out there do what you do, but I find it fascinating that though my own process hasn’t changed much over the decades, this is the first time I’ve been able to identify exactly what it is that I’ve been doing all along.

Just after we finished eating dinner, the phone rang. Irene answered.

“It’s someone from the Writers Guild,” she said.

I picked up the phone, and heard a woman tell me, “We’re holding some residuals for you. We tried to send them to you, but they were returned by the post office.”

She asked for my new address, which I gladly gave her.

“How much are you trying to send me?” I asked. She rattled off three figures, which totaled $116.74.

This was money earned for work I did on Tales From the Darkside from 1984 through 1986.

It’s not a huge amount of money, but nothing to sneeze at either, and so I repeat—I just got paid for work I did more than twenty years ago.

Do you need any further evidence than that?