My novels THE OUTBACK STARS,THE STARS DOWN UNDER and THE STARS BLUE YONDER are about love, duty, and really big spaceships. My stories about sexy firemen, cross-dressing ghosts, gay superheroes and more have appeared in many national, small press and online magazines and anthologies. My master's degree is in Creative Writing, and among other things I teach college composition. All the rest of the dirt is at Sandra McDonald.com.

Every now and then someone will say, "The short fiction market is thriving!" and I scratch my head. Here's a partial list of markets I've been published in during the last 5 years -

Fictitious Force - now closed
Talebones - now closed except as an annual anthology
Lone Star Stores - now closed
Best New Romantic Fantasy anthologies - long closed
Electric Velocipede - closed to submissions
Space and Time - closed to submissions
The Town Drunk - closed to submissions
Realms of Fantasy - closed to submissions
Fantasy - closed to submissions until Sept
Chizine - closed to submissions until Sept

and there are markets that I've never been in that are also closed/on hiatus: Apex, Polyphony, the big fat Best of Fantasy and Horror, etc.

For short fiction genre writers, this is all bad news.

There are still markets out there, of course; big ones like Strange Horizons, Asimov's, Analog and F & SF (been in two of those; working now on a story whose first stop will be Analog); smaller but good ones like Ideomancer, Abyss and Apex, Interzone, etc; baby ones that pay a dollar, no money, "exposure;" and non-genre magazines that take genre upon occasion.

Still, bad news all around.

(Updated: Notice I did not say any variation of "short fiction is ded! ded! ded!" I noted that there are a lot of markets closed to writers right now. Markets closed to writers = bad thing for writers.)

Been up since 4:30 a.m. thanks to the senile cat; going back to bed now!

I have 5 Advance Reading Copies of Aussie book 3, aka THE STARS BLUE YONDER, to give away. If you'd like one, drop me a line here or at samcdonald (at) mac.com and I'll send you one. The caveat? Please post a short or long review in your well-read blog around July 21st, the release date.

You can say whatever you want in your review: I won't read it. But my mom will.

This book is my Return of the Jedi. it's got lovers torn apart, lovers reunited, spaceships chase scenes, intergalactic war, furry aliens, lost friends, the return of bad guys (kinda), and the triumph of good guys (almost certainly guaranteed). It's also got a pregnant military officer, time travel, more time travel, the condensed history of Australia, convicts, Indigenous Australian mythology, and the answer to life, the universe and everything. For actual Ewoks, however, you will have to go elsewhere.

Where else are you going to get your space opera military romance this summer? Take it to the beach, take it on the subway, and enjoy :-)

(cross posted, sorry)

Two weeks until the Arizona peer workshop. And only 700 more pages to read :-)

Have decided to bail on WorldCon. Though there are many people I want to see, and love Canada, it's too far for too short a time, and too much money. Instead, hello DragonCon! Which is bigger, is only a 6 hour drive up the road, and has the benefit of Joe Flanigan and other fine guests. They've already accepted my guest application and now I just have to find a hotel.

Am hoping to be in NYC in July for a few days to housesit. Totally looking forward to visiting the Cloisters, the Met, and some other places that have always been on my to-do list, and visiting friends in the tri-state area.

Just finished the YA novel Flygirl, which is about a young black female pilot who passes herself off as white to help the US fight WWII. It's a good look at prejudice, gender roles and the history of WASPs. I wanted a little more historical accuracy (see the author's own notes) and it's a YA in terms of content and tone (rated G) not the age of the protagonist; still, a fast and insightful read.

Here's hoping everyone has a safe and happy weekend...

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. This book hits the ground running and then slows down a bit, but sucked me in overall with its YA Victorian heroine, secret societies, boarding school secrets, etc. The book doesn't conclude its major plot - you have to go on to the sequels - but two thumbs up anyway.

Talent is Overrated This was a very good read. The reason Scalzi is better than you, dear would-be writer, is not that he's talented. Talent is a vague and immeasurable concept that we use to shrug off failure: "I'm just not that talented." Scalzi's success, and that of many others, is because they put in the hours. And those hours are very specific and focused, and not necessarily in writing. Jerry Rice, the great NFL player, didn't excel on the field by practicing football; his extraordinary strength and speed came from the other things he did in his practice sessions. I liked this book a lot and it's made me re-think everything I value about Milford-style workshops, MFA programs, Clarion, etc.

also read Vertical Dive and Dangerous Ground for submarine research, both of them strong in their own ways; also, started the YA The Last Thing I Remember but haven't finished it.

Let us not discuss the Rain Apocalypse or the fact my Firefox browser has gone completely caput. May has turned out to be a lovely month.

- Sold a reprint to Podcastle!

- Sold a story to a new anthology!

- Turned in my story for the anthology Destination: Future and they like it. Special thanks to coveysd for his help with the Oort Cloud.

- Got a royalty check from Aussie books 1 and 2. Woo hoo! This means somewhere a spreadsheet balanced out, and I've earned out my advance. Very nice.

Am pleased.

Am swamped with teaching and projects, but pleased.

How about you? Five days left in May. Good month or bad month?

What I'm reading:



Well, okay, I'm not reading it right this minute, but I've read lots of it before, and I'll be buying my autographed copy from the author soon. It's gregvaneekhout's terrific debut novel about Los Angeles, Norse mythology, and the apocalypse. Go buy it now!

I've been reading lots of other great stuff too, more details to come.

And this weekend I will be at Oasis, the annual sf con down in Orlando, with great guests including Peter David. Hopefully the rain apocalypse over Florida (I blame Greg, naturally) will have abated by then. . .

More thoughts on women in the current Star Trek movie, with spoilers.

Spoilers!



I have one job to do on this ship. It's stupid, but it's mine!


( For all of its fun bits, Star Trek #11 does a piss poor job with portraying strong, capable women. I'm been disappointed that amid all the squeeing, few people (especially few people who support strong sf/f female characters) have talked about this. )

If you are looking for a science fiction movie with great female characters who exist as something other than an object of workship/fertility/lust, and female military cadets can stand up for themselves without sleeping with their instructors -- well, that movie is not currently playing in any cinema I know of.

I'm just saying.

Also, the cocktail waitress earrings? Not regulation.

Google Alerts sent me the first two lines of someone blogging about how much he hated my story "The Monsters of Morgan Island" in the June issue of Asimov's. I don't know everything he said, because I don't read reviews. But so what? There's lots of things I dislike that other people love, and vice versa. This list includes Nebula winners, Hugo winners, Academy Award winners, box office champs, popular blogs, popular bloggers, etc.

Things I dislike that other people like. Battlestar Galactica - bleh. Serenity - never liked it. Veronica Mars - nope. Robert Jordan novels, Mercedes Lackey novels, David Eddings novels - nope. Almost every vampire romance, just in principal.

On the other hand, I like Stargate Atlantis, even if the executives at Sci Fi didn't. I like shows from the 1970's like Starsky & Hutch, Emergency! and Planet of the Apes. I like bad apocalypse movies like "The Core" and "Countdown: The Sky's on Fire!"

What about you? Is there something you really like, or dislike, in opposition to popular opinion?

Congratulations to ccfinlay, whose book The Patriot Witch went on sale yesterday. Isn't it pretty?



Charlie's a great guy and I got to read much of this at his annual get-together in Ohio. It's the first of a paperback trilogy that will be released this summer, and there's lots of fun to be had with magic, menace and the American Revolution. Go buy!

And if you're in Columbus, Ohio on Sept 12, come see him at Barnes and Noble and buy!

(Er, Charlie will no doubt correct me if I've got the date wrong.)

Magic! Menace! History class was never this much fun. At least not my history classes . . .

Over the weekend the very kind and fun will_ludwigsen and aimeempayne took me down to the Friends of the Library sale in Gainesville, the big college town I have never visited before. Nice book sale! Lots of aisles, many wonderful books. I had Bess the Traveling Cart with me, which I take to the Jacksonville book sale each year without problem. In Gainesville, however, an elderly volunteer lady standing in the checkout area took quite an exception to Bess, insisting that I couldn't use her, and I had to carry her (not roll her! oh noes!) out to the cash register.

Bess, Banned in Gainesville

Luckily we were leaving anyway, so it didn't matter. But I noticed Volunteer Lady wasn't worried about the myriad strollers in the aisles. I don't understand the logic of making people strain themselves carrying boxes of books so score one for Jacksonville, and tsk tsk to Gainesville.

Afterward we went to the very fun Satchel's Pizza (www.satchelspizza.com), where the salad was amazing and the pizza very yummy. The whole place is quite fun, with recycled sculptures and a 1960's minivan in the yard that you can eat in - there's two tables and chairs inside. Take a look:

(c) Satchels Pizza

One of the customers there was a woman carrying around a chicken, so I think they would have had no problem at all with Bess the Traveling Cart.

Book sale haul, btw: 12 or so books about Mark Twain, Benedictine monks, Raymond Chandler, Los Angeles and one VHS documentary.

I was in the supermarket this morning and realized that what the world needs is an online upswelling of outrage and disbelief at the grocery store practice of not having the same exact signs at both ends of the aisle. Of course there are about a thousand different things per aisle, and using two different signs helps shoppers find 8 things (4 per sign) instead of just 4, but invariably soup gets the short shrift. As a soupivore I find this very disturbing. Often times I think the soup is in aisle 4 but from one end it only says "Canned Fruit, Rice, Beans, Ethnic" and so I have to circle all the way around to figure out if I'm in the right location.

Is it a conspiracy hatched by the meat-and-dairy industry to ban minestrone? Is it because customers have ranked soup as Adult, and therefore not suitable for being on the sign? I tracked down the manager to file my complaint. He was a little busy at the time, seeing as the supermarket had lost power and was running on generators only. But as employees hurriedly emptied cold freezers and refrigerator bins he promised to look into the matter and issue a press release. I warned him what soupfail would mean once it got loose on twitter and blogs but he had already rushed off because the ice beds in the seafood section were flooding.

I hope my efforts come to fruition and that next time I'll be able to find my Amy's no-chicken chicken soup more easily.

_________________________________________________________

In other news, the reason the supermarket had no power is because this morning was full of wind! lots of wind! and unexplained loud noises but no sounds of trains, thank you, because that's a bad sound when there's a tornado watch overhead.

Here's a nice picture of myself, James Patrick Kelly, and will_ludwigsen down at ICFA in Orlando last month. Whose hair is the shortest, eh?



And here's something I picked up for my front lawn last week. Every girl in Florida needs a portcullis. It's been a real pain installing it, though.



In other news, got my subscription copy of Asimov's for June - wheeeee! Name on front cover! Pics of that surely to come.

Here's a fun 2 minute mashup of inspirational film clips:



I can name about half of them, but not all.

What's interesting is how few women are represented. tabby333 and I tried to think up clips that could have been used. Our memories fail us. Women in movies are not usually warriors, coaches or other kinds of leaders. Women in film are more often inspirational on an one-on-one basis.

But surely Sally Fields in Norma Rae could be added in. Can you think of any others?

Proving again that I am constitutionally unable to walk past a pile of books without buying one, picked up Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair at my favorite thrift store yesterday. I went to buy an answering machine and the book was a bonus. Well, okay, I went looking for the green shutters I saw last time, but they were gone. The answering machine was a fortunate find. And a bargain, at only three dollars, which is about $17 cheaper than anything on Amazon.

Watched Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, which had some nice touches (the gay band, Nick, the city backdrop) and some dubious moments (dumping your 16 year old ex-girlfriend alone in a park in the middle of the night, the severely intoxicated girl played for laughs as she wanders the streets.) Also watched Kicking and Screaming, a 1995 indie film, and liked Olivia d'Abo as the writer who dumps her whiny boyfriend to further her writing and life by moving overseas.

Congrats to all my Blue Heaven peeps on the Hugo ballot! Hope to see you at Worldcon, you fabulous writers you :-)

Last weekend was the annual Friends of the Jacksonville Library book sale. I missed most of it because of the cruise, but got in the last day when books were $10/bag. Took my rolling crate, which was the envy of many. The total haul: 30 books, 4 CDs and 2 VHS tapes for $25.



Somewhere in there you'll see fiction by Nora Roberts and Suzanne Brockman and others, and non-fiction about creativity, productivity, firefighters, crime in Victorian London, the Canadian-American border, philosophy, and literature.

The books are sitting on the coffee table from India that my late uncle bought when he was in the merchant marines. My dad refinished the top last year and it's beautiful. The coffee table is sitting on a bamboo rug from Home Depot. The sofa behind the coffee table was a freebie from my job when it closed last year. The cushions on the sofa are from my California brother. The yellow sun plate to the right of the books is from my mom.

Everything has a story.

The CDs are Diana Krall, Patsy Cline, and two miscellaneous soundtracks. The VHS tapes are Charlie's Angels II and The Matrix. Yes, I bought a VHS tape of The Matrix. One dollar to take the red pill. A bargain!

Back from cruise! No icebergs, no fetching young American heroes, no Irish country dancing below decks, but there was lots of great food, a fabulous gym for working off that great food, and the ship, crew and 2 of the entertainment shows were very good. Unfortunately dry land is still rocking back and forth, and I feel like Jack Sparrow staggering about.

While I was gone my story Diana Comet went live at Strange Horizons. Go read, won't you? Here are some book club questions for my devoted reading groups and for the special Oprah show devoted to my career (call me, O!):

1. When Diana refers to her "dirty parts" (part 1, paragraph 1), what exactly does she mean? When you read it, did your eyes try to see it as "dirty pants" instead?

2. Massasoit is the name of a college in Massachusetts as well as the name of a tavern in Sandra's yet-to-be-sold fantasy novel set in New England. Can the Massasoit of this story be viewed as a a city in its own right, or merely 19th century Manhattan with the serial numbers filed off?

3. Diana considers herself a champion of the underclass. Does her treatment of the Corish girls uphold this idea? Is the word "Corish" too close to Cornish, and does it make you think of hens?

4. One of the people that Diana interviews uses a pejorative term for people of color. Should she have immediately kicked him in the groin? Discuss.

5. Is James merely a damsel in distress? Is he too remarkably accepting of Diana's dirty parts? Who would play him in the movie version?

6. Shameless shilling: Wouldn't you love to fill out this form here, because there just aren't enough dirty parts in sf/f today?

It's a two parter, and part one starts right here. Enjoy!

Off we go today, sailing away! The maids have packed up all our trunks of fine clothing and rare art. My fiancee's wall safe is loaded and under guard, with a really pretty necklace inside. They say the ship is a marvel of fresh paint, brand new sheets, and dishes that have never been used before.

I just hope the casino takes nickels, the internet cafe has a good connection, and the pool boys are cute.

Yes, Mom and I are off on a Bahamas cruise today! Wish us good weather, no ship-wide plagues, and no icebergs, okay?

Delusions of Grandma by Carrie Fisher - lots of fun. I like Carrie Fisher. I want to meet Carrie one day. We were once in the same hotel function room together, but I didn't have the cajones to go say hi. Carrie, are you on Facebook?

Art of Writing: Teachings of the Chinese Masters. About 800 years ago, editor Wei Qingzhi put together a bunch of helpful tips for writers. Funny thing is, most of them still hold true today. (For instance: If you always use a ruler to draw a square and a compass to draw a circle, you will always be a slave.) (Or something like that).

On my new iPod touch, free e-books: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Heart of Darkness, Anne of the Island, Stranger Things Happen.

Reading!!