Miscellaneous Stuff

Dell Magazines, which includes ASIMOV'S and ANALOG, is currently accepting submissions for its more-or-less annual undergraduate SF writing contest. The contest is open to any full-time college undergraduate, carries a prize of $500 (more than ASIMOV'S pays me for a short story!) and instantly brings to the attention of SF editors the young aspiring writer who wins. So if you know of any such, direct them to the contest's website at http://www.asimovs.com/info/iaaward.shtml

Diabolical Plots, a website devoted to SF, currently has up an interview with me. For the interested: www.diabolicalplots.com/?p=532. I especially like the question mark in the URL -- "Is this thing really here?" :)

Jonathan Strahan took the much-labored-over Mars story. There are three kinds of stories: gift stories, that come easily to the writer from who-knows-where; composed stories, written with no more than the usual effort and revision; and the inelegantly-but-accurately-titled "shitting rocks stories," which require enormous effort to get out. This one was the latter. The odd thing is that, in my experience, quality seems unrelated to category.

Clarion East (although now that it's in San Diego, I suppose we'll have to call it something else) has come up with one of the coolest fund-raising ideas ever. They are soliciting old keyboards from writers who composed something memorable on them. Then one key from each keyboard will be extracted and rebuilt by Datamancer, who does this for a living (Google him; his products are amazing). The result will be auctioned off, with a booklet saying what famous SF works were written with which key, to benefit Clarion. I am in Seattle right now, but I think I have in my basement in New York the keyboard with which I wrote "Beggars in Spain." If so, I will certainly contribute it. Great idea, isn't it?