College Student. Sales to Chizine, Flesh & Blood, Flytrap, and Pine Magazine.
| Dan Carbaugh, terrible landlord in Shippensburg PA |
| LitHaven is now officially relaunching. Even though its previous focus dealt a lot with reviews, it will now primarily focus on writer markets and interviews with writers and publishers (about writing craft and submissions). Please spread the word. |
| heh, who posted that? how did you find it? |
| I regret
to inform you dreams have been stilled Aspirations have wilted Happiness has vanquished I regret to inform you your son has been killed in an act of war where no one can fully comprehend how a man who is still a child can collapse in someone`s arms while blood quickly seeps out of a whispering mouth which utters the words "Mom I love you" Try not to think about his boyish grin and childhood remembrances of a three year old who sits in the summer sun while playing in his own world A beautiful baby boy you loved transformed into a soldier only to die with the sound of screaming inside his cauliflower ears Try not to think about the future which will never be Try to cry on your own time while putting a brave face on for the public to see But most of all Try to cringe back and forget something that never was or never should have been SIMON OWENS AGE 16 |
| Simon Owens |
| Yay for LitHaven! |
| Oh! Thanks, Simon! |
| There is a place where you can find all the author interviews:
http://www.lithaven.com/main/index.php?cat=10 There's a "category listing" on the sidebar of lithaven |
| Simon, it'd help me a lot if you had one spot where all the authors' interviews were listed, and live-linked to each interview. I don't have a lot of time to hunt around. Or, maybe I'm just being owly because I've got a cold and feel like crap. Take my suggestion as you like it.
Handsome blog, btw. |
| Starting today, posting on LitHaven will resume, though with a pretty light posting schedule for the next few months while I get Bloggasm off the ground. I'll try to post a bit of writing news every day and also a few literary tidbits, but nothing too extensive for now.
Feel free to spread the news. |
| I've interviewed a bunch of SF writers over at bloggasm |
| Very cool, Simon.
Greg Beatty |
| That's great, Simon! Congrats1
Justin |
| Congratulations!!! |
| Congratulations! |
| w00t! |
| Congrats! |
| I just received an email from the editors of Horror: The Best of 2005 , saying they were interested in my story This Hand, Waving and asking if it was available for reprint. So we have that to look forward to. |
| Since Comcast deleted my email address without telling me, I've been forced to start a new public email address: SimonDOwens@gmail.com
Please take note of this, all email concerning LitHaven or anything else to do with me is to be sent to this address. |
| To start up the month, Lithaven has posted a best-of-the-month list for short fiction. Go check it out |
| Flashquake has been reviewed over at LitHaven |
| Vestal Review has been reviewed over at LitHaven |
| Simon, I've been reading a lot of your articles at LitHaven and wanted to say thanks for sharing the information.
Kaori |
| Strange Horizons has been reviewed over at LitHaven |
| Shadowed Realms has been reviewed over at LitHaven |
| Sci Fiction has been reviewed over at LitHaven |
| Lenox Avenue has been reviewed over at LitHaven |
| Nice, Simon! |
| If you look around LitHaven, you'll see a few changes. For one, our archives have become more accessible. You can browse both by month and by category. We have a slightly improved page for submitting links and market news, and we now have a page that gives information for review copies. We even have an advertising page, though you won't find much information on it right now.
In addition to our livejournal feed, we also have links to several other feeds as well. Enjoy. |
| Ideomancer has been reviewed over at LitHaven |
| Futurismic has been reviewed over at LitHaven |
| John Joseph Adams has been interviewed over at LitHaven |
| The Journal of Pulse-Pounding Narratives has been reviewed over at LitHaven |
| Fortean Bureau has been reviewed over at LitHaven |
| Feral Fiction has been reviewed over at LitHaven |
| Simon, I just read your story "For Dirt" in the current issue of Carillon, and I enjoyed it very much. Well done! |
| Flytrap #4 has been reviewed over at LitHaven |
| Deathlings.com has been reviewed over at LitHaven |
| Not completly, but I'll have a lot more free times. You can expect a ton of new reviews coming up. |
| LitHaven lives!
Does this mean your summer labors are over, Simon? Greg |
| Good to see Lithaven in action, Simon! |
| Sorry for the quiet months, but as of today, LitHaven is launching full speed ahead with new reviews, literary discussion, and market news.
http://www.lithaven.com |
| Samantha Henderson pointed me to an extremely nice Tangent review of my Chizine story:
"This Hand, Waving" by Simon Owens easily tops the magazine as the best in the issue. A father chops off his dead son’s hand so he can keep a piece of him wherever he goes and won’t have to suffer through the pain of mourning the child. The scene breaks revolve around his three reasons for taking the hand, opening the scene with the reason and then exploring the particular reason in that section through concrete details. Despite leaning towards the experimental and appropriately fitting Orson Scott Card’s definition of an "idea" story, this one still manages to maintain personal conflict between the characters and a heavy shroud of tension. Something much experimental fiction forgets to do. Throughout the story, the hand symbolizes a link with death and we see how the outside world reacts to this inanimate object, along with how it transforms into a separate character. I often talk about authors doing their job when they manage to capture the emotions of an experience; well, this story swims with grief, despair, and sadness. Simon Owens makes me wish I had written this story. |
| Damn, Simon. |
| Fantastic story, Simon. |
| My story "This Hand, Waving" is live over at Chizine. Go Check it out. |
| About a year or two back, I had a story called "Schoolhouse Runway" published in a zine called SDO. Well, they've just launched their Best-of Anthology with my story in it. You can order it at Project Pulp. |
| We published a book review Catherynne M. Valente's new novel up at LitHaven:
http://www.lithaven.com |
| heh, I almost has no idea what you were talking about. |
| But I did find my way to this website! :oP I don't care that you put my SN online, as it's friends only anyway. But never say never!
-Andrea |
| Thanks for the warm words!
Samantha, I'm so glad you sold to them too! |
| Congrats, Simon.
Chizine has bounced everything I've sent them, so I'm jealous. Greg |
| Congrats, Simon. That was a very strong story, and I'm not surprised it sold to a pro market.
And it turns out you must be good luck for me... |
| Multi-congo-rats to YOU, Simon! That's wonderful! (You don't need booze to celebrate. Chocolate's the BEST. Here's a virtual chunk of milk chocolate-cashew. Enjoy!) |
| Today I found out that Chizine wants to buy my story, "The Child Looks Back At You," for a future issue.
I wrote the first few paragraphs of this back at Tobias Buckell's Writing Jam. I let my girlfriend read those first few paragraphs and she loved them and kept begging me to finish the story throughout the entire summer. I finally finished it during the fall semester (its original title was "This Hand, Waving"). Special thanks to Samantha Henderson, Pam McNew, Chance, and the Codex Writer's workshop for helping me revise this story. It's times like these when I wish I was 21 so I could go out to the bars to celebrate. |
| We just published a new piece of fiction by Doug Lain up at LitHaven:
http://www.lithaven.com --Simon |
| I already posted this at LitHaven, but I wanted to post it over here too:
One of my favorite Strange Horizons stories ever has been posted for this week: "On our street...," by Donald Barthelme. http://www.strangehorizons.com/2005/20050328/street-f.shtml |
| Simon,
Yes, I knew you weren't judging the entire series on the one ep; it's just unfortunate that it happened to be the one you saw, because I really do think it was the weakest. "First Contact" does seem a good way to introduce people to Next Gen. Have a great weekend! |
| For those of you who don't know what Amy is talking about, she's referring to an episode of Battlestar Galactica.
You're right, that's the only episode I saw, and I know the hype is big enough that I didn't judge the entire series based off that one episode. I'll probably get around to watching more episodes if I remember to when they're on. When it comes to Star Trek Next Generation, I usually show newbies First Contact first to get them a sense of the series. You're right though that some episodes are downright ridiculous and could turn people off forever. |
| Simon, commenting on a post you left over at Kameron Hurley's blog (I would have commented there, but didn't necessarily want to highjack her blog with a discussion of a television show, not really related to her initial comments)...
Anyhow, I agree the show is less successful when it's portraying politics in that manner. I would probably call that the weakest episode of the season. I would consider the episode "33" one of the strongest, and I suspect it might end up nominated for the Hugo for Dramatic Short Form. It really got to the heart of exhaustion and desperation and fighting for survival. Had you seen the mini-series and watched other episodes? Maybe I misunderstood, but I thought you meant you'd just seen this one political episode. But imagine if someone decided on whether to watch Star Trek Next Gen based on the second or third ep of the first season in which they all get drunk and start climbing all over each other like overstimulated dogs! ;-) |
| Woops, typo :-) |
| Way to go, Simon! But, er, are there really two "The"s in the title? How unique.
*pops champagne cork for Simon's toast* |
| After not submitting anything forever, I sent out some subs recently and tonight made a mainstream sale (for a surrealist story) to an Australian mag called Coppertales that's been publishing for about 10 years. I'm not sure exactly how much they pay since their guidelines aren't very specific, but I'm happy to make a paying mainstream sale either way. The name of the story is "The The Executioner's Lament." |
| We've just published a brand new Greg van Eekhout Interview over at Lit Haven.
http://www.lithaven.com |
| We've now published a brand-new piece of fiction by Aimee Bender called "Night" over at Lit Haven. Please read and enjoy and comment. If there are any Aimee Bender fans out there, I'd really appreciate it if you spread the word by linking to it so others can read it as well:
http://www.lithaven.com --Simon |
| We have prep links for one of our upcoming interviews over at Lit Haven:
http://www.lithaven.com |
| Lit Haven has revamped its site some. Now we have both top and sidebar advertising:
http://www.lithaven.com |
| More good news, we'll be publishing an original piece of fiction aolong with our interview with her at Lit Haven. |
| Good news, we have an interview with Aimee Bender coming up. I'm allowing readers to submit questions they would like to see asked in the interview, and I also made a showcase of where you can find Aimee's work for free over here:
http://www.lithaven.com/main/index.php?p=95 You can use the "submit" function at the top of the site or email me the questions if you'd like. |
| I tried to put together a kind of ultimate fiction market listing up at Lit Haven.
http://www.lithaven.com |
| Just finished a new interview with Catherynne M. Valente at Lit Haven:
http://www.lithaven.com |
| Thanks, guys |
| Hi, Simon,
I think it's a wonderful idea--and much needed now that WH has closed shop. Thanks for your efforts. Best regards, Laird |
| Thanks for offering that service, Simon. |
| http://www.lithaven.com
Earlier today I posted a message on several boards asking if writers would be interested in me opening Lit Haven up to writer’s market posts about submissions guidelines since The Write Hemisphere has been discontinued. On the message boards where people responded, everyone said they’d like me to do this. So starting today, I will be accepting submissions from publishers and editors for submission guidelines and other related writerly info. You can either use the “submit” function at the top of Lit Haven or email me at SimonOwens@comcast.net. You can also submit links to your markets if you’d be interested in me recommending any writing in your publication. I’d like to ask those who were interested to spread the word about Lit Haven so that publishers and editors can find their way to this site. You can also point livejournal users to Lit Haven’s livejournal syndication at http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=lithaven if they want to add it to their friends list. I’ll issue a disclaimer now that I reserve the right to not post certain submission guidelines on this site. I’ll also say that Lit Haven will continue to serve its previous function as a valuable link portal resource for readers. |
| As many might have noticed, it looks as if The Write Hemisphere has been discontinued. Would anyone like to see Lit Haven pick up where the Write Hemisphere left off by putting in occasional writer's market posts?
http://www.lithaven.com |
| We've been mostly quiet for the past month, but over the last week we've added some new posts that others might like to read.
http://www.lithaven.com |
| Really? How cool. :-) |
| oh, thanks Eric, didn't see your post before. I got the idea for the story from your webzine. |
| We just posted an interview with M. Rickert over at Lit Haven:
http://www.lithaven.com |
| Simon, I just read "Holding Your Lone Star" in Flytrap 3, and I enjoyed it a lot. Nice work! |
| Since the election, many liberals have decided to turn back to activism, but are unsure of where to start. At Lit Haven, I just posted an essay on Political Activism through Literature, perhaps as a thinking point on how to start:
http://www.lithaven.com |
| We published an interview with Doug Lain at Lit Haven.
http://www.lithaven.com |
| We published an interview with Paul Tremblay over at Lit Haven.
http://www.lithaven.com |
| just posted another interview, this one with Nick Mamatas.
http://www.lithaven.com |
| We just posted an interview with Elizabeth Bear:
http://www.lithaven.com |
| Thanks, Simon!
Very useful info. |
| We just published a mini-interview with Jack Fisher, editor of Flesh and Blood, up at Lit Haven. Potential writers can get an inside look at his tastes:
http://www.lithaven.com |
| Just writing this to say that Lit Haven is back up and running, and it's gone to blogger format:
http://www.lithaven.com Check it out, tell your friends. |
| Writers Market Question
I began an essay today, titled "English Major Woes: In which I complain when I have no right to." Below, I'll paste the first paragraph to give you an idea as to what kind of essay this. I'm looking for a place to publish this, hopefully a publication that actually pays. Any suggestions? *** We drink wine (in fact, I'm drinking wine as I write this). We smoke self-rolled cigarettes. We consume coffee in cafes. No, we do not wear berets and embrace deconstructionists with fervor. We are sometimes looked down upon by the hard sciences. We recognize this, process it, sometimes even accept it. We are English Majors, and despite your assumption that we merely must assess Hemmingway, Beowulf, Faulkner, and the occasional Shakespeare-- child's play at best, these masters have given us something so rich and enjoyable --- and that these things in this particular field are "easy," one must only look at our actual course load, for instance, a class called "Selected Topics: Virtue and Vice in 18th Century British Literature." :: Later in the essay :: No, this is not merely a pamphlet, or a short article, but rather an essay (?) that spans over fifty pages long, all of which we are required to read. This is not the literature we dreamed of when we signed up for our major, when we imagined ourselves curled up on our bed reading A Farewell to Arms or The Complete Oscar Wilde, reading ahead of the syllabus schedule like we did in high school because we actually enjoyed them. No, this is extremely thick, 18th Century medical language, almost arguably as thick as any language set in a science text. But, whether or not we expected it, it is literature, and it is through our own naivety that we were surprised. We hit this kind of literature with modern criticism hiding in the back of our brains, and it is this subconscious criticism which provides a wall for us to get around. Why did he use so many words to describe so little? Why does he hide the point within pretty prose? These are the questions we assail ourselves with when we try to navigate ourselves through these thick texts. |
| I've begun a new news link blog over here:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/simonsaysnews I come across too many links every day, whether it be weird, news, etc... and wanted to have a blog for it. --Simon http://www.lithaven.com |
| We're about to make some major changes to Lit Haven in order to increase traffic. Instead of a monthly basis, we're going to combine the current format with a slashdot-type blogger format.
We'd like to open up to ideas and discussion regarding suggestions for changes. http://www.lithaven.com |
| I have a new slipstream story up here:
http://www.darkenergysf.com/stories/CandyChild.htm If you like slipstream lit stories, you might like this one. There's very few speculative elements. Some could argue there's none at all. |
| The next month of Lit Haven has launched:
http://www.lithaven.com Spread the word! |
| http://fukthis.com/fun/car_commercial/
This is such a cool car commercial, I love how well the music flows with the action in the scene. I don't think they showed it in America, though. |
| I read the first story in Polyphony, and sent this email to Jeremy:
Spoilers ahead . . . . . I read your Polyphony story, "The Girl With the Sun In Her Head," and wished to comment on it. So far it's the only story I've read from the antho (I just received it today) and falls within my favorite genre: Subtle surrealism. First, comments about the world you created: I noticed that the world your characters live in is very similar to the alternate world created in Clive Barker's Everville, a world on the edge of a kind of mythical sea, a kind of odd world in an ocean of other odd world we can't even begin to fathom. With this story, you seemed to mix three genres: A. Literary. This is evident with the writing itself, especially your use of present tense. B. Myth. The Myth aspect enters in the very end, when your main character becomes a star who chases the sun, since many myths try to explain something in nature. You've carried this out nicely. C. A mixture of surrealism and realism. It isn't completely surreal, since your characters perform many realistic actions, but you have a few small parts: The mother stolen up the chimney, the laws that govern her drawing on the sidewalk, etc... which work well enough to add nice aspects without taking the reader out of the story. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Cafe Irreal www.cafeirreal.com, but sometimes they publish stories a little too surreal for my tastes, a surrealism so convoluted it's impossible to draw the metaphors out of the story. There were a few confusing parts. The green chalk for instance. I recognized that it was a segway into the old woman talking about the man in the green hat, but she seemed confused for some reason, which was kind of contradictory, as if she knew exactly what she was doing and yet didn't at the same time. Also, I never understood whether or not the man in the green hat was good or bad. For most of it, I considered him a good guy, especially when he gave her a reason to run fast enough to catch the sun. But there were other parts: When the old woman told her to stay away from him, and then also your last line, "Anyone he meets gets what she wants, but not always what she deserves." Anyway, just thought I'd comment on it a little bit. I know, as a short fiction writer, that sometimes short stories get published and then writer never finds out if the public enjoyed it or not, or if they even read it, so I wanted to email you to let you know that I did read it, and I enjoyed it as well. Thanks for writing it. Take care, Simon Owens |
| Crap, I'm supposed to be doing reading for classes tonight, but my purchased copy of Polyphony 4 arrived in the mail today.
Ok, just one story and then I'll stop, I promise... |
| Mainstream sales are good, too! Yay, you! |
| Well, as you'll see, we say over and over again that even though it's very much possible, it's still not easy. |
| Interesting discussion, although I have to admit I would probably weigh in among the pessimists. Obviously new writers do break in - and you're living proof! - but the sad fact is, the majority of us won't. You're right, though, it's not because some hidden cadre of editors has decided whom to anoint and whom to discard. It takes talent, and luck and a whole lot of hard work. Still, you have to admit, the odds of breaking through are less than encouraging. *G* |