I was very pleased to find out this morning that my story “The Wrong Bots” (a rather daft caper involving space pirates and a consignment of sexbots) has been accepted for the 100 Stories for Queensland anthology. I actually wrote it quite a while back when I was a regular participant in the Café Doom weekly flash challenge (I think the prompt word on this occasion was indeed “pirate”) and I never got around to sending it anywhere. So it’s nice to see it finding a good home. If you take a look at that link above you will see that there are some very fine writers involved in this one, so it’s going to be a collection worth getting hold of.
In other news, I’ve had another story (“The Colour of Criticism”) picked for the Every Day Fiction Three anthology (if you’ve got time, check out this excellent post on genre and literary fiction by EDF supremo Camille Gooderham-Campbell which pretty much sums up what I love about EDF).
I’ve also been taking part in this year’s STIRRED POeTS competition over at The Write Idea, and I was very pleased to bag a third place for my second-round entry. I was even more pleased, not to say stunned, to win the third round – especially as my winning entry was a sonnet. The results are decided by anonymous popular vote of the participants (who include some first-rate poets), so I am extremely chuffed to find myself in joint second place at the mid-way stage. However, I have a feeling that my fourth round effort may very well score nul points, so I am not counting my chickens yet by any means.
Oh, and I almost forgot to say that last week I completed the last rewrite on Mrs Darcy, on receipt of which my editor pressed the button that sent the finished manuscript to Salt. Exciting, eh?
Well done on 100 Stories — such a great project — and great news about your book. Exciting times!
Congratulations on your various acceptances, Jon. It must be great to reach the milestone of Mrs Darcy being off to the publisher – what’s the next stage? Proof copies and the like? Is the last rewrite the last, ultimate, final rewrite or might there be other changes?
One of my stories was also selected for the EDF anthology, so I’m very pleased to be sharing those pages with an actual proper writer with a book deal and everything. Just ignore the extra weight on your coat-tails, eh?
@Martha Thanks! Exciting indeed 🙂
@Dan Thanks! I have no idea what happens next, tbh. The book is being launched in September, so I guess there need to be marketing plans sorted out before then. I can’t see there being any other significant changes, though – my editor has been stupendously thorough.
And congrats on EDF – good anthology to be in!
Great stuff all round. I feel I don’t have enough sexbots in my work, you know …
You can never go wrong with a few sexbots, Simon 🙂