After my Omni story, Tomorrow’s Child, optioned and then sold outright as a feature film to Universal Studios, I went off for some years to study screenplay writing. I wrote half a dozen, including Tesla: A Worthy of His Time, now an ebook.
As generous as the people were who helped me with the Tomorrow’s Child deal, the Hollywood Machine is even more difficult to deal with than New York Publishing.
Anyway, writing prose is my first love.
When the e-book revolution took off in 2010, I devoted time to uploading Summer of Love, The Gilded Age, a number of my longer previously published stories, a story collection Strange Ladies: 7 Stories of previously published short fiction, an urban fantasy, The Garden of Abracadabra, and a historical romantic suspense, Celestial Girl (A Lily Modjeska Mystery).
Four years of relaunching into ebook publishing just wasn’t enough, though, and I returned to my roots: writing short stories. I spent some months in 2014 writing stories. Two of them sold, “Teardrop,” published in the May-June 2015 Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and “Tomorrow Is A Lovely Day,” to be published in the November-December Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
The editor who acquired both stories was Gordon Van Gelder, the eminent publisher of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, a venue that has published continuously since 1949 and featured Stephen King, Harlan Ellison, Jane Yolen, and other renowned authors.
While preparing a story for publication, Gordon asked me in January, 2015 if I might be available to serve as a judge for the 2016 Philip K. Dick Award.
Of course I jumped at the chance.
The Philip K. Dick Award is conferred each year by a panel of five judges who are themselves professionally published authors. Each year, there are four Finalists and one Winner.
Serving as a judge has been an amazing experience. Publishers—large, medium, and small—have sent their original trade and mass market paperbacks for the year. I’ve been fascinated to read what SF authors are writing and publishers feel strongly enough about to invest in.
This year’s judges are Eric James Fullilove, James Glass, David Higgins, Lisa Mason (that’s me), and Jack Skillingstead.
A series of events then led me to assume the duties of the Curator of The Philip K Dick Award Storybundle.
So there you have it, my friends. The Philip K Dick Award Storybundle includes Aestival Tide by Elizabeth Hand (PKD Finalist), Life by Gwyneth Jones (PKD Winner), The Cipher by Kathe Koja (PKD Finalist), Points of Departure by Pat Murphy (PKD Winner), Dark Seeker by K. W. Jeter (PKD Finalist), Summer of Love by Lisa Mason (PKD Finalist), Frontera by Lewis Shiner (PKD Finalist), Acts of Conscience by William Barton (PKD Special Citation), Maximum Ice by Kay Kenyon (PKD Finalist), Knight Moves by Walter Jon Williams (PKD Finalist), and Reclamation by Sarah Zettel (PKD Finalist).
The Philip K Dick Award Storybundle runs only until October 15. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. Act now and download yours today at http://storybundle.com/pkdaward and enjoy world-class, award-winning reading right now and into the holidays.
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