Category: career

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2014

Should I start with the good…or the bad?  Or mix them up?

I’ve been muttering for the last couple of months that I’ve never been through a year I will be so glad to see gone, but the last couple of weeks have been not so horrible and a more sober assessment may be possible.  Sometimes, though, sobriety is overrated.

The last time I had a year so replete with highs and lows was maybe 1979.  But it was all one thing, then, the high and low orbiting the same subject.  This one, this 2014, has been just one-damn-thing-after-another kind of up and down.

Firstly, I turned 60 this year.  That in itself occupies neither side of the scale, unless one wishes to suggest that just arriving at this age mostly intact, largely sane, and relatively whole is a net success, which puts it firmly in the positive column.  As they say, consider the alternative.  So, fine.  I turned 60.

A long, long time ago, back in grade school, I was tasked with one of my first writing gigs, penning a series of future history portraits of my classmates as we approached graduation from 8th grade.  I was told to project ahead 50 years or so and tell where I thought we’d all be.  I remember imagining myself and one of my classmates as being art gallery owners on the moon.  About this year.

Well, so much for the predictive capacities of science fiction!  (I was at a party recently where a gentleman I’d never met before found out I write SF and began regaling me with the virtues of all the neat stuff “sci-fi” foresaw.  I listened politely and then tried, gently, to explain how few things written in SF stories ever came true and almost never in the way they were depicted, and then tried to explain the true virtues of the genre, but his eyes glazed over and later, when he declared in front of a roomful of people that Bernard Goetz was a hero of his…well, it sort of encapsulated in sardonic form much of my experience of this past year.)

I am still writing, though.  Currently I am working on two novels. I’d hoped to get one or both done this year, but life, as it will, had other plans.  I’m doing okay, though, on that score.  I’m 2/3 done with one and I’m pretty excited about it.  If I pull it off it will be a wholly unexpected work for me.  Not at all what I thought I’d be doing at this stage.

One of the most fun writing gigs this past year was the Left Bank Books birthday celebration, wherein I and three others local writers—Ann Leckie, Scott Phillips, and Kevin Killeen—jointly wrote a story in the shop window.  Took a few hours, we had ideas from customers, and we actually came up with a story.  I’m toying with pulling it out and polishing it up.

So about that 60 stuff…yeah.  How has that affected me? I admit I’ve been having more trouble psychologically with it than I thought I would.  But Kris, my boss, told me that it’s a good age, because now I can own whatever wisdom I may have.  I’ve been thinking about that a lot since she said it.  Still thinking, but it was a good observation.

The thing that bothers me most about turning 60 is the consciousness that most of my life is behind me, barring some unexpected breakthrough in medicine that will extend our lives out past 120, which is entirely possible but highly unlikely to benefit me.  And it’s not that all those years are behind me so much as the fact that I feel like I still have too much to do and now maybe not quite enough time.  I’m not where I wanted to be at this point.

After wallowing in that kind of depressing assessment for a while, I am rescued from just digging a hole and pulling the earth over my head by the fact there where I am is pretty amazing.

Back in May, I achieved one of my physical goals.  I broke a thousand pounds on leg presses.  Got up to 1040.  (This morning I went to the gym and I’m still pressing 920, so I might still get back up over a thousand again before my body goes phftt.)  Believe me, that made me feel pretty good.  Along with that I was doing a full weight-lifting schedule and aerobic workout.

In July, at work, I tried to lift something (one-handed) that I probably shouldn’t have, and something in my right arm popped.  I’ve had pain and weakness since.  I went to the doctor, had an MRI, and voila! I have a partially-torn biceps tendon.  I’ll need surgery to fix it.

(See what I mean about this having been a mixed bag year?)

After that, it seemed I kept catching one damn bug after another and it’s been months of bleh!  Some of this is depression.  I’ll get to that later.

In July, at the beginning of the month, I had my release party for my new book, Gravity Box and Other Spaces, at Left Bank Books.  I can’t fully express how pleased I am about this book.  My first full short story collection, it has a wonderful cover, my publisher (Walrus) did a fine job on it, and my coworkers at the store did a terrific event.  We packed the store.  It was a banner night.

Subsequently, Walrus has merged with another local publisher, Blank Slate Press, which has a bit more of a track record, a different approach to their books, and it looks like in one year I’ve acquired two new publishers.  I’ve spoken with Kristi, the owner, and she Has Plans.  Stay Tuned.

(A word here about Left Bank Books.  Kris Kleindienst, Jarek Steele, Wintaye, Randy, Jonesey, Lauren, Erin, Shane, Cliff, Mariah, Kea, David, Jenni, Bill, Sarah…they are all amazing people and I have not been so glad to work somewhere, with a bunch of people, since the years at Shaw Camera Shop with Gene and Earline.  We are an independent book store that is not only surviving but thriving and I put it down to the brilliance and dedication of the people working there, who account for most of the new, very good friends I have found over the last few years.  This is one of the things that has made this past year not only bearable but in many ways pleasurable.  So.)

I also had a second book-length work come out this year from the good folks at Yard Dog Press.  The Logic of Departure is a collection of three novellas set in the same milieu.  Two of them are older works published by Yard Dog, but I fleshed it out with a new novella, Raitch, Later, which I hope has some teeth.

So in this, my 60th year, I can say that I have 12 books to my credit.  Twelve.  And about 60 short stories.  As has been pointed out to me, that is a career.  How can I not be pleased with that?

Well, I am.

But I’m not done.

Onward.

I have a new car.  a bright, shiny 2013 Corolla.  This was not in the budget or in our plans.  But a large pickup truck hit me in the ass on Kingshighway and totaled my trusty ’98.  I came out of it all right, but a bit poorer.  (Mixed bag.)

This after I had to get new glasses because I’d lost my old ones by doing a thoroughly stupid thing—leaving them on the trunk of my car and driving off.  I did find them later, crushed and irreparable.  (I still have them.  I may erect a monument.)

My oldest friend’s son got married this past year and I was asked to photograph the wedding.  We spent a weekend down in Springfield and had a wonderful time.  As it is with such things, it was close-run thing what with disaster shadowing the proceedings, but never manifesting, and I gotta say, Isaac’s partner, Bryttany, is a delight.

We could have used a few more of those kinds of weekends.  One of the best was in November when our good friends Nicola Griffith and Kelley Eskridge came to town on tour for Nicola’s novel, Hild (and if you don’t have a copy, why not?  It’s a great book and I think, really, you ought to get one) and we spent a terrific weekend with them.  They live in Seattle, which is far away and expensive to get to and we don’t see nearly enough of them.

The real downside to this year has been the time family matters of a not particularly pleasant nature have taken up for Donna, who has shouldered a massive burden.  It’s worn on both of us, but mainly on her.  I won’t go into details.  Many who may read this already know much of what’s going on and if I haven’t chosen to tell you, then you won’t read about it here.  We’re fine, though, as far as that goes, just…overwhelmed.

We went to a convention in May, the first time we’d been back to Kansas City in some years.  We came home with some new hats and pleasant memories of seeing good friends.

We did not make it to Pittsburgh, which we had planned to do, something that has also been several years since last we’ve done.

We’re coming out of 2014 with a certain ambivalence.  In some ways we’re doing better than we ever did before, in others…

I said I’d get to the depression.  This might be a good place to put it, but in retrospect I have to admit that most of my “depression” has just been a combination of weariness and impatience.  I don’t do depression, it’s not an organic condition with me, and I have never been down for any long stretch of time.  I run on an even keel for the most part.  But this year has tried my stamina sorely.

One thing that has made it not only bearable but outright good have been our friends, both new and old.  We’re rich in that and I find each year that I appreciate them more and more.  Friends make the difference between keeping time and living.

Looking forward to doing a lot more living in 2015.

 

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Another Year Gone By

I’ve been doing these annual assessments for a while now and this weekend began wondering why.  Maybe a way of marking time and keeping track.  Not quite keeping score, I’ve never been much concerned with that.  At times, maybe, but I really am not competitive that way.

I’ve also never been one for keeping a journal.  This blog has been the most sustained attempt at something like that ever, but if it had all been about my life and what I did today or last week, it wouldn’t have made it much past the two month mark, which was the longest previous attempt at maintaining a journal or diary.  I’ve noted before that I don’t consider myself very interesting and if proof of that claim is required, there it is.  I find myself too dull a subject for continuous consideration.

Which has had the curious consequence of making my fiction difficult.  My protagonists have pretty much all been, in first or second draft, the least interesting characters in their stories.  I write by seeing through the eyes of the viewpoint character, which for that period means I am that character.  My own lack of appreciation for any “special” qualities I may possess translates into a muffled persona on the page.  I find myself having to go back in later and insert all the stuff that makes the character worth following.

But the secondary characters thrive under this problem.

Turning around and using that insight to look at my own life yields some…troubling observations.  While wanting in many ways to be the hero of my own story, I give far too much, sometimes, to everyone else.  They’re important, not me.  My granting them that importance is both habitual and a desire that they see what I’m doing and reciprocate.  I want my friends to be important so that when they then see me as a friend it must mean I’m important.  It can be a tortured way of validation.

(And a bit too complex for any sustained reality—I have my friends first and foremost because I love them.  How I deal with them is another matter.)

But it has gifted me with some very good friends and a workable framework for writing.

That assumes I’ve always done this, always used this, always moved accordingly. There’s a certain amount of disempowering going on regarding my friends, as if they had no choice but to accommodate my particular peculiarities according to the way I wanted them to. They accommodated me, sure, but on their terms.

As far as the writing goes…

I put out two new books this year, both of them collections.  Gravity Box and Other Spaces is published by a local small press, Walrus Publishing, and a fine job they did of it.  John Kaufman, a local artist, did the amazing cover.  I’ve bragged about this before.  What I would like to add here is that most, over two thirds, of the stories are new, previously unpublished.  So far I’ve heard nothing bad about any of them.  People have their favorites, their less-than-favorites, but no one has said anything negative about the word, which bemuses me somewhat as there’s a reason these stories have first appeared here and it goes to the question of career trajectories and choices and values.

The other is a reissue of sorts, The Logic of Departure, from Yard Dog Press.  Yard Dog was an early supporter of my work.  A micropress, they put out two chapbooks by me and a short novel as part of a series of “doubles” (two short novels back to back, like the old Ace Doubles).  Logic… is a reissue of the two chapbooks along with a brand new story which I wrote to fit that particular background.  They are loosely connected but all three share a theme of getting out, getting away, getting free.  I’m very proud of these stories, this is a good collection.

I’m looking at these two books now and trying to understand how I got here instead of somewhere else.  I’m looking at my shelf of published works, which now contains about 60 short stories as well as 10 novels.  Twelve books.

Donna Tartt, in a career spanning about the same length of time, has published 3 novels and a handful of shorter works. She’s won a Pulitzer and is a regular on bestseller lists.

There’s no comparison between us other than the fact that we are writers who write for publication, which is another way of saying we want to be read by strangers and be, on some level, relevant to the culture at large.

I had plans to have closer to 20 novels out by this time, but plans are often like farts in the wind.  You make them, they dissipate, sometimes you don’t even remember making them.

If I have a new recognition this year, today, it’s that I have no likelihood of getting anywhere close to those old plans anymore.  I’m not being pessimistic just realistic.  I have now turned 60.  In most important ways, this means nothing, but importance is relative, and perspective is all important.  I’m 60.  I am now, in the estimation of my childhood, an Old Man.  It’s just a number but I remember clearly wondering how it was possible people could live that long and still be able to walk.  Some childhood assessments are difficult to shed and this is one that I find myself wrestling with now.

Sixty.  As a matter of practicality, barring any kind of revolutionary change in the culture of which I am a part, I’m on the downslope.  Most of my life is over.  What this means to me primarily is that I don’t have the time now to have the kind of career I imagined for myself when I embarked on it.  Barring something extraordinary, I’m likely going to remain a small-press author, publishing books a small audience will buy and read.  A couple of years ago I was encouraged greatly about the trilogy I’d been working on, that it might open major publishing doors for me, and I had good reason to be encouraged, but as time has dragged on without a publishing offer I am beginning to conclude that my writing is simply not what major publishing wants or knows what to do with.  If I could write it differently to accommodate whatever the disconnect is I would.  (I’ve recently read a synopsis of a new SF novel which suggests strongly that certain elements of my Secantis Sequence have been imagined by someone else and will now inform their career, not mine.  No, I’m not suggesting plagiarism in the least.  Wheels get reinvented all the time.  The resurgence of Space Opera flowered a couple years after my publisher began to implode and so none of my stories now get included in any retrospectives nor my name mentioned with those who are credited with this renaissance.  Am I annoyed by this?  Sure, but at whom should I direct it?  It is pointless envy.)

There were supposed to be at least six Secantis novels by now and perhaps two short story collections set therein.  As it transpired, I didn’t think the original three were viable to be marketed elsewhere and without them further novels would be orphans of a sort.  I wrote one more Secantis novel and turned my attention to other things which have likewise been unwanted by the market.  Since I do not know why it is near impossible for me to change the way I do them.

I have a supportive agent now.  She’s helped quite a lot with the writing.  She’s one reason I haven’t simply given up.

In a very real sense, this is a relief.  I can now stop fretting about my career.  It is what it is and, being as objective as I can be about something this personal, it ain’t bad.  I can now write the next book or short story without the extra weight of wondering how it will “further” my career.  I feel right now, today, that my career isn’t going to be what I wanted it to be.  I could pick it apart and name a dozen reasons why—sure I made some bad choices, didn’t do certain things I might have, went with some ideas that were perhaps not as good as I thought they were at the time—but it changes nothing.  I’m still where I am.

I went to the gym on my birthday.  My right arm has been rather nastily injured lately, so I’ve been finding my routine truncated and often painful.  I should probably not work out at all for six months, but by then I would resemble a bowl of mashed potatoes and I don’t have the energy anymore to start all over after that long of a lay-off.  I’m stuck with what I have.

That said, I leg pressed 920 pounds.  Ten reps.  Not shabby.

For my birthday, they gave me a free smoothy, a very healthy one with blueberry and banana and whey.

I came home and found that Donna, my partner for going on 35 years now, laid out a birthday feast for me that just made me want to cry for happy.  We ate, drank good wine, and watched an excellent film (The Hours) together.  No pressure.  Wonderfulness.

On those off-moments when I’m not obsessing over this or that, I have to admit my life is pretty damn good, and I’m just happy to be able to recognize that fact.

Even in my dotage.

Later this week I intend to write a post about my fiction.  Time for a (self) critical assessment.  Till then, thank you all for bearing with me.

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A Bit Of Bragging

My new book, Gravity Box and Other Spaces, has been getting some notice.  I offer, in a spasm of unusual self-promotion for me, a selection of recommendations and quotes:

This author is among the most valuable—and insufficiently appreciated—visionaries in the SF field, and his new collection is an important addition to his corpus delectable. Allow me to reprint a quotation I offered the publisher. “Ranging from rural fantasy to urban dystopia, Gravity Box and Other Spaces is the opposite of a black hole: Mark Tiedemann has wrought a stellar event from which phenomena of every sort—fancies, fears, ideas, aspirations, surges of eros, irruptions of violence—escape to transfix and enlighten us.”

James Morrow, author of The Godhead Trilogy and The Philosopher’s Apprentice

Mark Tiedemann’s worlds are surreal, sexy, and strange. This is an inventive collection from an author who never fails to surprise.

Carolyn Ives Gilman, author of Isles of the Forsaken and Halfway Human

Mark Tiedemann includes enough scientific and fantastical details to satisfy the most demanding sf/f reader, but the stories really draw their power from the book’s human elements—a woman’s longing for her lover’s touch, a young boy’s yearning to belong, an adolescent’s desperate attempts to break free of the poisonous gravity of home. It’s the familiar that makes the alien so relatable and so real.

Sharon Shinn, author of Archangel, Royal Airs, and The Turning Season

The stories here may make you smile or cry.  At least once, I wanted to hurl the book in anger at what the author had allowed to happen to a character I had come to care about.  That I cared enough to be that angry shows Tiedemann’s success as a writer.

Stephen Bolhafer, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Mark Tiedemann’s Gravity Box and Other Spaces…contains the marks of quality from beginning to end.  The dishes he serves are varied, nicely spiced, and will satisfy a variety of fantastical palates.

Janet L. Cannon, Revision is a Dish Best Served Cold

One of Tiedemann’s strengths has always been his ability to create fascinating worlds and complex characters and this book is no exception.

Brittany Porter, St. Louis Books Examiner, Examiner.com

I’m blushing (not really, but I could).  It’s one thing to be allowed to publish and offer my stories, but to see responses like this is a real pleasure.  I hope the book continues to please and by all means, express your opinions!

Thank you.

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Monday Morning Surprise

A friend of mine called while I was out. He left a message (which I thought had to be a mistake) to the effect that apparently my new book, Gravity Box and Other Spaces, made the local (St. Louis) independent bookstore bestseller list of the week ending June 29.  Post-Dispatch page here.

Well, not one to be fooled, I looked it up.  And there it is. (See link above)

I’m stunned.

I’m…well…stunned.  Gravity Box Cover

I mean, the last thing I expected was for something like this to occur with this book.

Not that I had a list of expectations, mind you.  I was just very pleased with the finished product and that it arrived on the shelves.  I was gratified right down to my socks that people showed up at the release party.  (No, that’s an understatement, I was beyond gratified.  I never expect people to pay any attention.  I’m always surprised and pleased and blown away.)  If I got a couple of positive reviews and the book sold well enough to justify my publisher’s commitment, well, that would be great.  Beyond that, no expectations.

Hopes, on the other, I got plenty.

But to be real, it’s a short story collection.  Best seller?  Granted, it is a local list, but even so, I’m in the top three with Gone Girl and Orange Is The New Black.  What?

So right now I am about as happy as a writer as I have been since…

Well, since I sold my first story.  Then sold my first professional story.  Then sold my first novel.  I was elated when I was informed that I’d made the short list for the Philip K. Dick Award.  And again when I made the short list for the Tiptree a few years later.  Yeah, I’ve had some moments in this insane business.

But this!  Wow.

So, what would be very cool would be to see this happen elsewhere.  I doubt this will be anything other than a word-of-mouth success.  That being the case, please—say something.  Push your local independent bookstore into getting it.  Talk to people.  With a little help from my friends (well, maybe a lot of help) I may yet have a decent career.  It would be really strange if this were the book that made the comeback for me.  But I wouldn’t be the least bit unhappy about that.

For those of you who have already bought the book, thank you very, very much.  Picking up a book and laying out cash for it is an act of faith.  One that, I hope, will be justified in this case.

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…and another shoe falls…

By all appearances, I seem to be having a good year.  After my new collection came out last month from Walrus Publishing, a second book has now been released by Yard Dog Press.  The link to this “new” title is here.

Logic of Departure is a neat thing.  Last year, the marvelous Selina Rosen, chief cook and bottle washer of Yard Dog, called me to ask permission to reissue the two chapbooks of mine they had published.  Extensions and Diva are novellas which, being novellas (and notoriously difficult to place), made their debut as nifty chapbooks.  Yard Dog has consistently sold them for years.  The strangeness of publishing being what it is, it is now more economical for them to issue them together, in a perfect-bound edition, than to continue pushing the chapbooks—which are, of course, both still available singly as ebooks.  Of course I said yes, and then suggested they hold off a bit, as I was then working on a new story that might fit in very well with those two.

Without intending it, Extensions and Diva both fit a loose background universe.  So I wrote a third novella set in that milieu, called Raitch, Later.  I was inspired to write it by a wonderful short story by Adam-Troy Castro called Arvies, which I urge you all to look up.  It’s one of those logical projections of a current thing that blows the mind.  A few days after reading it I had what I considered a suitably nasty idea and started work.

It took the better part of the last six months.  This past year has not been the most conducive to writing I’ve ever had (though not by any means the worst), but the end result is something I’m good with.  Lynn and Selena took the piece and now the completed book is available, with cover art by David Lee Anderson.

LogicOfDeparture_small   I don’t write very many novellas.  Mainly because they’re damnably difficult to sell, but also because most of them end up becoming novels.  That happened with the last Secantis novel I wrote—in fact, the last two, because Peace & Memory began life as a novella as well—an unpublished novel called Ghost Transit which is lying fallow, awaiting the day when.

But these three I doubt could be expanded, at least not as conceived.  So this is a neat thing, having them between covers, all together.  I think they work well together.

So I can now officially claim 12 books to my credit.  Published books, that is.

The link above is directly to Yard Dog.  Please, if you intend to order it online, do so directly from them.  They are a very small house and buying their product through Hamazon, ahem, while not profitless for them certainly takes a bigger bite out of their bottomline than is comfortable.  And while you’re there, check out some of their other titles.  A lot of fun work gets put out by these smaller publishers, work that one occasionally scratches one’s head and wonders, “how come Simon & Schuster didn’t take this…?”

I’m hoping this bodes well for the near future.  Maybe the freeze is beginning to thaw and I can get some of my other books in the pipeline to print.  I have learned in this business than 95% of it happens at a glacial pace, balanced in the end by 5% that requires time travel to complete.

(I just finished reading a time travel novel for my reading group.  What if…?)

A word about the stories included here.  This is a near future world, just on the brink of breaking out of the solar system.  You could easily read them as (loosely, very loosely) part of the Secantis universe.  They’re about class divisions, underdogs struggling to overcome, and the byzantine workings of social systems are laid bare for the reader’s scrupulous examination.  They are all about knowing when it’s time to leave.  Beyond that, I wish to leave everything else for you to discover.  Enjoy.

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News and Such

I have another book out, from Yard Dog Press, The Logic of Departure.  More on that later.

I’m having something of a productive year, career-wise.   To recap, the official release party for my first short story collection, Gravity Box and Other Spaces, if this coming Wednesday at Left Bank Books, 399 N. Euclid, St. Louis, MO, at 7:00 PM.

Also, I’ll be doing another program with the St. Louis Science Center at the end of July.  More on that when things are firmed up.

But on July 11th, we’ll be celebrating the 45th birthday of Left Bank Books and for that we’ll be doing something wild and crazy and insane—you know, normal fare for Left Bank—called Writers Under Glass.  I have roped, er, enlisted the participation of three very talented local writers for this.  We’ll be writing a story in the window of the store. Scott Phillips, Ann Leckie, and Kevin Killeen will be tag-teaming along with me in this endeavor and who knows what we’ll produce, but it will be fun and there will be refreshments and it will be for a good cause and, well, it’s a party and a show, so not to be missed.

I’m writing two books more or less simultaneously, did I mention that?  More crazy, but it needs doing, for many reasons.

But right now I want to talk a bit about the books.

I always considered short story collections to be a kind of marker that a writer had “arrived.”  There was a time when they constituted a substantial part of an author’s published Å“uvre, equal to the novels, but that changed while I was growing up and beginning my career.  Received wisdom in the industry is that anthologies and collections “don’t sell” and hence I came to see such things as the equivalent of “best of” or “greatest hits” album, something not likely to sell as well (if at all) but an indicator along the road that one’s work is worthy of attention.  I saw them as a bone thrown to the writer by a publisher if the sales of the novels seemed to merit it.

Which would mean that I was unlikely to have one.  For many reasons, some of which I’ve discussed here, my sales are…not what I’d prefer them to be.

So it is with considerable pleasure (and pleasurable surprise) that an opportunity more or less fell into my lap when Lisa Miller of Walrus Publishing approached me about a project several years ago.  She was starting up her publishing company, looking for projects, and she asked me what I wanted to do.  I confessed that I would really like to put out a collection.  After looking over some stories, she enthusiastically agreed, and here we are.

Gauging one’s impact in this business is difficult at best.  I’ve published just north of 50 short stories and to the best of my knowledge none of them garnered much notice.  I’ve consistently failed to be nominated for awards in short fiction and I’ve had to date only three stories anthologized (one in a best of the year!) and my production of short fiction fell off after I began selling novels.  For all I know, few people thought much of my short fiction.

Initial reaction to the release of Gravity Box has been surprisingly positive, though.  The echo chamber in which many of us work may be returning some of our early shouts finally.  I choose to be hopeful.

I am very proud of my short fiction.  I never worked so hard at anything.  My inclination was always to be a novelist.  Short stories were not my preferred form, but in order to be a professional I thought I needed to learn how to do them and in fact they taught me a tremendous amount about craft and character and all the small indefinable yet indispensable things that comprise “story.”  Time permitting, I desire to write more of them.  I came to genuinely enjoy the form.

What people will find in Gravity Box and Other Spaces is a collection of stories orbiting around themes involving family and relationships tied to family.  The theme emerged during the process of assembling the pieces.  A third of them have been previously published, the rest are making their debut here.  I ignored subgenres—there are science fiction stories, full-blown fantasies, borderline horror, a lot of “slipstream” and a couple of quasi-historical magic realism types.  I feel they all fit comfortably within my definitions of speculative fiction.  Without wishing to seem presumptuous, I hope they appeal to an even wider audience looking for literary merit.

The second book now out is a happy accident.  Yard Dog Press has published a few of my longer short pieces.  They did two chapbooks for me, Extensions and Diva, both novellas.  Anyone in the business will tell you that novellas are damnably difficult to market.  Not long enough to be a book, not short enough to leave room in a magazine for everyone else.  I’ve written few of them in consequence.  Last year, Lynn and Selena, who run Yard Dog, contacted me to let me know they intended combining the two chapbooks into a single, perfect-bound edition.  At the time I was wrestling with a new story that seemed determined to sprawl into a novella, but which also seemed workable as part of the background world in which these two chapbooks shared.  I asked their indulgence to wait till I finished and perhaps they could publish the three of them together.  It still took me an inordinate amount of time to finish the third novella, now entitled Raitch, Later.  But they were happy with it and now the three pieces, under the title The Logic of Departure, are out.  Serendipity.

Now I’m back at work on the novels, hoping for further good news this year.  We could use some, given certain other things that are going on (and not for public consumption).  Be that as it may, I am thrilled right now and of course I look forward to seeing throngs at the release party this Wednesday.

I will be updating everyone on the other events as details come in.

In the meantime, my thanks to Lisa Miller and John Kaufmann and the terrific people at Left Bank Books.  See you all Wednesday.

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Come One, Come All!

One of the things I have been notably bad at over the years is promoting myself.  I’ve published ten novels and still have a hard time sounding my own trumpet.  So this is a departure for me.

Announcing the official release party for my new book, Gravity Box and Other Spaces, published by Walrus Publishing.

June 25th, 2014, at Left Bank Books— here —we’re having a book release party.  There will be refreshments, there will be fascinating people, there will be copies of my new book (plus copies of some of my other titles).  Seven PM, in the Central West End, St. Louis, MO.  Did I mention to go here for more information?

This is my first book-length short story collection and I am very proud of these stories.  As a bit of a departure from the normal collection, most of these stories are new and previously unpublished.  A number have seen print elsewhere.  I have been graced with a wonderful cover by the brilliant John Kaufmann.

 

Gravity Box Cover

I’ll be posting updates when I have updates to post.  But for now, be aware, this is a happening thing.  I’m sending out direct invitations via email to various people, but consider this notice as well that, if possible, you should come to this event.  It would make my heart glad.

More later.

 

career

Gravity Box

So now it can be told…

I have a new book coming out this May.  It is my first short story collection* and will be published by

Walrus Publishing, a small press right here in St. Louis.

Here’s the cover, done by the remarkable John Kaufmann, also local to the area.

Gravity Box Cover

There are eleven stories, a mix of previously published and new, a mix of science fiction, fantasy, “slipstream,” and a mix of short story and novelette.  I am, needless to say, very excited about this, and I throw myself on the mercy of anyone reading this to spread the word.

Tentatively, there are plans in the works to have a release party at Left Bank Books in mid-May.  I will also be at ConQuest in Kansas City over Memorial Day Weekend where copies will be available.

The first publicity post is up at the Walrus site, here, which is an interview.  So rather than ramble on about the book here I urge you to click through and read the interview…and while you’re there check out some of Walrus’s other titles.

 

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*Hmm.  Not strictly true.  I should say this is my first BOOK LENGTH short story collection.  The estimable Steve Miller and Sharon Lee published a chapbook of three stories some years ago called Other Ways: Three Tales From The Secant.  As of this writing, I do not know if these are still in print.

Art

Upcoming Events

I have a couple of events coming up that I’d like everyone to know about.  Back to back, this coming Thursday and Friday.

The first one will be at the Missouri River Regional Library, Thursday, February 6th, at 7:00 PM.  I’ll be there with Tom Dillingham, good friend and educator.  Here’s the announcement on the MRRL calendar:

Contact: Madeline Matson   634-6064, ext. 250   matsonm@mrrl.org
 

What Science Fiction Can Teach UsThursday, February 6
7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
MRRL Art Gallery

Mark Tiedemann, author of numerous science fiction novels and short stories, and Dr. Thomas F. Dillingham, retired professor of English, who has taught science fiction courses at Stephens College and the University of Missouri-Columbia, will take part in a “conversation” about science fiction as significant literature.
Location: MRRL Art Gallery

 

Tom and I will conduct a dialogue about science fiction and its implications, with a Q & A for the audience.

 

Next, the following evening I will be at the St. Louis Science Center for their First Friday event.  Again I will be paired with an educator, Mr. Keith Miller from UMSL.

Center Stage (Main Building, Lower Level)

8pm                Humans, Cyborgs, and Robots: Who Is a Person and Who Is Not?
Join in this conversation between scientist Keith Miller and science fiction writer Mark W. Tiedemann as they bring a historical context to the question of persons and non-persons and speculate as to how St. Louis will be different in the future, due to a new category of non-humans — robots.

– See more at: http://www.slsc.org/february-first-friday-st-louis-2264#sthash.uDo65pUN.dpuf

 

I’m jazzed about both and it would be cool to see some of my friends there.

Starting in March, I will be conducting a reading group at the Pulitzer Art Foundation once a month in conjunction with their newest exhibit, Art of its Own Making.  They have selected five classic SF titles to go along with the exhibit.  This is being done in cooperation with Left Bank Books.

As well, I’m conducting an ongoing reading group at Left Bank Books—Great Novels of the 22nd Century.  Here’s the FaceBook page.  I enc0urage those interested to like the page and come to the discussions.

That’s all for now.  Thank you.