Amazing Stories: Poetry Review - Offspring of the Moon by John W. Sexton

Hello! And happy holidays to you all! We're heading to Montana to spend the Christmas and New Year's holidays with my brother and his family and my mom, who moved out there this summer (from Wisconsin). There'll be much fun to be had: Tree decorating, Santa Claus visit, Owling (a special request from Dante because of a book "Owl Moon" by Jane Yolen, which we read recently), sledding, quaffing and gorging and much faullenzing (lazy making). I'm looking forward to it.

I have a new blog post (after a brief hiatus due to illness - bad head cold and couldn't record anything!) up tomorrow on my new day in the schedule. You can read my posts every other Wednesday from now on (unless, of course, I get sick or am traveling/performing too much, etc.).

This time I had the great pleasure of reviewing Irish poet, John W. Sexton's most recent collection Offspring of the Moon for Amazing Stories Mag. Here's a snippit:

I’ve read Irish poet John Sexton’s work often online and in Star*Line, so when I read that he had published a (new) collection I asked if I could het one for review purposes. His Publisher very graciously sent me a copy from Ireland (remember that I’m in France, so it’s not such a stretch). I’m so glad I got to read this collection in the dead-tree edition. It’s a beautiful little volume of 57 mostly short length poems. The cover art by Ludmila Korol, called “Moon Wind” is stunningly perfect and beautiful on the paperback cover. The original is oil on canvas and is certainly even more vibrant in that medium. The volume is a perfect bound paperback printed on smooth cream-colored paper which is very easy on the eyes and a pleasure to hold in your hand. However, if you are in a part of the world that make procuring a hard copy of this collection difficult it is available on Amazon. Sexton has published widely online and in print and I’ve always enjoyed his work. He has written many Haiku sequences and hybrid forms, which are wonderfully evocative. Offspring of the Moon contains many poems which were originally published in print journals and anthologies and they defy categorization.

To read the rest, and listen to my readings of 6 of the poems found within, please go here.

If you have missed any of my previous posts at Amazing Stories you can find a list of them on my author page.

Enjoy!

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Amazing Stories: Poetry Review - Transmissions to the Mystic Nebula

You can now read my latest speculative poetry review on Amazing Stories. It's a review of Christopher Vera's self-published collection "Transmissions to the Mystic Nebula". You may remember Chris was the mentor on my one and only poetic creation and it was published on his website Mystic Nebula. But this time it's about him and his wonderful, moving, intense collection of poetry. Here's a snippet:
 

Transmissions to the Mystic Nebula is a collection of intensely intimate poetry which map a life, somewhat (auto)biographical. Whether it’s the life of the poet himself or a fictional poet doesn’t makes no difference – you are pulled into an examination of events in a person’s life that are momentous and significant.

The collection is organized in a framework of communications with the “Mystic Nebula” by the/a (fictional) poet. This Science Fictional “story” is laid out at the beginning in a “Researchers Note” and the poems are punctuated by beautiful art depicting a Nebula and other space images with status reports regarding the “transmission”. The effect is...

Ah yes, well, you'll have to go to the post to read the rest! 

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Poetry: Scream Day, by William Markly O'Neal on Tales to Terrify

This weekend is big in all things Poetry with DivaDiane!

First, we have a poem I recited for the podcast Tales to Terrify. "Scream Day", by William Markly O’Neal, in which I scream and scream and scream and say some other words as well. It took me a long time to get this poem recorded well. My mic couldn't take the screaming and I'm not really a screamer, I'm a singer, after all. But I got a new mic - a Blue Snowball and it's great! I turned down the input volume and screamed away. I hope you enjoy it. You can go to the Tales to Terrify website and stream it there or download it or listen through iTunes.

Second, there's a new article of mine coming out tomorrow on Amazing Stories Magazine. Normally, it would've come out today, but we were having some issues with my access to the WordPress site and I wasn't able to upload everything myself, so it fell to publisher, Steve Davidson and he is a very busy guy. Anyway, keep an eye out for it then, the posts go up at about 11am or pop back over here tomorrow for the direct link and a little bit of exclusive info about it here!

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Flash Mobbing - Random Act of Culture in Paris, France

The Paris Choral Society, which is directed by Zach Ullery, who also directs the choir of the American Cathedral, will be performing The Messiah, by G.F. Handel Friday and Saturday, 22nd and 23rd of November at 20:00 (8pm) and 18:00 (6pm) respectively. As a means to advertise the performance and the choir, a Flash Mob event was organized.

In case you are one of those rare blog readers who doesn't know what a Flash Mob is, another name for it is "Random Act of Culture" (click the link to find out more) and they are a more or less seemingly spontaneous dance or musical offering in a public place unannounced to the people milling about or passing through. It usually happens at a train station, a public (outdoor) square or a Mall. Go here to watch a fantastic one on YouTube. And in fact, they are a YouTube phenomenon. There are many of them to watch. Enjoy!

I had the privilege to participate in one organized by the Paris Choral Society at the new Beaugrenelle Mall near my home in the 15th arondissement. We sang the Hallelujah Chorus from the Messiah by Handel and while the PCS is a pretty big choir, they asked members of the American Cathedral choir to join them and singers to bring other singer friends. The singers were arranged on balconies around a gallery. There was a piano on lowest level, where the accompanist and Zach were. When I arrived the mall was busy, but not packed. But it got fuller and fuller as the appointed hour neared and there was barely any space to stand at the balcony (which was the only way to see Zach). As it turned out, I couldn't see Zach no matter where I stood, and as there was hardly any room to move, I just gave up and tried to keep an eye on singers' mouths who could see him. And the piano was impossible to hear! Oh well. I think it turned out well though, if the preliminary videos is anything to go on.

I will post the video when it's available!

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Amazing Stories: Speculative Poetry Round-up October/November 2013

My latest blog post on amazing stories mag has gone live! As the title of this post indicates, it's all about the genre poetry you can read all over the web. It ranges from FanZines to professional journals, from the weird to science fiction and everything in between. Here's a snippet:

Hi there, genre poetry lovers! Here we are and it’s already November. In lieu of a review or interview this week, I’d like to present you with another round-up of the speculative poetry I’ve found online in the past month or so. It’s not all super current, meaning that you could’ve read some of this poetry months or even years ago, but I just found it, or was reminded of it, so maybe you haven’t seen it before either?

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How did I not know that Strange Horizons actually does a genre poetry podcast?! Anaea Lay, their poetry editor, has done a podcast of the poetry from the Indian issue, which appeared the last week of September 2013, and all of the poetry from October 2013. Poetry by Shweta Narayan, Marchell Dyon, Margarita Tenser, April Grant, and Richard Prins is featured, and you can also read everything on the Strange Horizons website.

Read the whole post here! If I missed anything put it in the comments on Amazing Stories!

Amazing Stories: Interview: Amal El-Mohtar

For this fortnight on Amazing Stories I had the pleasure of interviewing the amazing Amal El-Mohtar. She is an author, poet and publisher (Goblin Fruit Poetry Journal) who just oozes beauty of expression in everything she does. Here's a snippet of the interview:

Diane Severson Mori for Amazing Stories Magazine (ASM): Tell us a little about yourself, how you came to poetry and about /writing and about the genesis of Goblin Fruit. 

Amal El-Mohtar (AE-M): When I was about seven years old or thereabouts, I was living in Beirut and reading anything with pages. I loved the italicised bits in The Hobbit, and the language in my children's version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, so I wrote a poem to the moon full of thees and thous and rhymes like "light" and "plight." My parents encouraged me, telling me about my grandfather who was a poet imprisoned and tortured for his politics, telling me that poetry (and, I guess, rebellion) ran in my blood. My father taught me about rhythm by reciting lines from Shakespeare's sonnets with full iambic emphases. I grew up taught that poetry was something to speak aloud and be proud of, and I'm very grateful for that.

Please go to Amazing Stories for the full interview!

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Poetry Planet: 2013 Rhysling Award Showcase (Part 1)

My newest edition of Poetry Planet will has come out on StarShipSofa No. 309 today! This is another contest winner's showcase and the third year running for the Rhysling Award Showcase. You'll hear 6 of the 7 poems that placed in the top three (You'll hear the 7th next week). They are:

1st place:

Short: “The Cat Star” by Terry Garey, Lady Poetesses from Hell, ed. Bag Person Press Collective (Bag Person Press)

Long: “Into Flight” by Andrew Robert Sutton from the online magazine Silver Blade 14

Terry A.Garey's poetry has been published in many journals and anthologies, including Dodeca, Uranus, Star*Line, Asimov's, Weird Tales, The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, Raw Sacks, Paper Bag Writer, Dreams and Nightmares, Women en Large, and Burning With A Vision. She has edited poetry for Janus, Tales of the Unanticipated, and is the editor (with Eleanor Arnason) of Time Gum, and also Time Frames: an anthology of speculative poetry. She lives in Minneapolis, MN with a librarian, two cats, and more books than she can count. She is a founding member of Lady Poetesses From Hell.

Andrew Robert Sutton was born and raised in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He attended Michigan State University where he studied both telecommunications and the written word. His heart has been torn between his love of cutting-edge technologies and traditional art forms ever since. His articles on the history of technology and its impact on business have appeared in over forty publications, including newspapers, magazines, and numerous blogs. "Into Flight" is his first foray into poetry.

2nd Place:

Short: “Futurity’s Shoelaces” by Marge Simon found in the Balticon 2012 Program Book. 

Long: “String Theory” by John Philip Johnson in James Gunn’s  (online journal) Ad Astra 1.

MargeSimon's works appear in publications such as Bête Noire, Niteblade, Daily SF Magazine, Silver Blade, and Dreams & Nightmares. She edits a column for the HWA Newsletter and serves as Chair of the Board of Trustees. She has won the Strange Horizons Readers Choice Award, twice the Bram Stoker Award™, the Rhysling Award and the Dwarf Stars Award. She has published several collections including Like Birds in the Rain, Unearthly Delights, The Mad Hattery, Vampires, Zombies & Wanton Souls, and Dangerous Dreams. Her poem, "The Gods, Fallen" is up at Liquid Imagination.

John Philip Johnson has had work in, or forthcoming in, Dreams & Nightmares, Mythic Delirium, Strange Horizons, Rattle, Southern Poetry Review, and Daily Science Fiction, among other places, besides James Gunn's Ad Astra where this poem first appeared. He reviews for Star*Line and elsewhere, and just recently earned a master's degree in English, with a thesis of science fictional poetry, from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. His astro-engineering work at Raytheon is still classified, but let's just say...His poem "Stairs Appear In a Hole Outside of Town" can be read (and eventually listened to - narration by yours truly - Diane) at Rattle.

3rd Place:

Short: “Sister Philomela Heard the Voices of Angels”, by Megan Arkenberg, Strange Horizons- 8/7/12 

Long (tie):  “The Time Traveler’s Weekend” by Adele Gardner  - Liquid Imagination

Long (tie): "The Necromantic Wine” by Wade German Avatars of Wizardry, edited by Charles Lovecraft (P'rea Press)

Megan Arkenberg lives and writes in California. Her work has recently appeared in Asimov's, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, and The Best Horror of the Year, Volume 5, and has tried for best short story of 2012 in the Asimov's Readers' Award. Her poem "The Curator Speaks in the Department of Dead Languages" won the Rhysling Award for best long poem of 2012. Megan procrastinates by editing the fantasy e-zine Mirror Dance. She also has recent poetry publications in the September issue of Asimov's and the Fall issue of Star*Line.

Adele Gardner's poetry collection, Dreaming of Days in Astophel, is available from Sam's Dot Publishing. Her stories and poems have appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Legends of the Pendragon, The Doom of Camelot, Penumbra, Scheherazade's Façade, Strange Horizons, Mythic Delirium, Goblin Fruit, and New Myths, among others. In 2012, she chaired the Rhysling Awards for the Science Fiction Poetry Association. Currently cataloging librarian for a public library, she's also literary executor for her father, Delbert R. Gardner. 

I will provide biographical and link information for Wade German and her poem next week. Her fantastic poem "The Necromantic Wine" is epic in length and would have burst the seams of this week's StarShipSofa. And I'd like you all to be fresh when you hear it!



Appearing on StarShipSofa No. 310:

Wade German's poems have appeared internationally in numerous journals and anthologies, including Dark Horizons, Dreams and Nightmares, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Midnight Echo, Mythic Delirium, Nameless, Phantom Drift, Space and Time, Star*Line, Strange Sorcery and Weird Fiction Review. Barbarian is a recent poem appearing on Heroic Fantasy Quarterly.

"The Necromantic Wine" was inspired by George Sterling's "A Wine of Wizardry" and Clark Ashton Smith's "The Hashish-Eater," two poems which I have read again and again with a never ending fascination. Both are replete with bizarre, hallucinatory imagery and ideas sprung from the dark fantastic imagination. But for the most part, they are very different poems, with perhaps the exception that both convey a sense of voyaging into the unfamiliar, of questing for the unknown. It was that sense of voyage and quest that I was after when I wrote "The Necromantic Wine."

Amazing Stories: Review - Unexplained Fevers, by Jeannine Hall Gailey

My next article on Amazing Stories has gone up. This time it's a review of a wonderful collection of poetry by Redmond, Washington, USA's Poet Laureate Jeannine Hall Gailey entitled "Unexplained Fevers".

All of the poems in this collection are in some way or another about Fairy Tale Characters. Here's a snippet:

--> This is a collection about the “heroines” of Fairy Tale, Myth and other stories of the Collective Consciousness. I put quotes around heroines because they often aren’t in Gailey’s poetry. She makes them real people, with foibles and flaws. She takes familiar characters and gives them a back story or spins the story along after the “Happily Ever After” of the original (or Disney version!) is a popular convention among poets. I’ve reviewed two such collections here on Amazing Stories ("Out of the Black Forest" by F. J. Bergmann and "Villains and Heroes" by Mary Turzillo) and you’ll see it...For the full text please go to the post at Amazing Stories Mag. There are 5 poems from the collection to listen to which I recorded and 2 others that you can follow links too. I hope you enjoy the article and the poems.

You can also hear Jeannine read from her forth-coming collection and Unexplained Fevers on the Jack Straw Podcast.

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Concert: O Maria Virgo - Kantika

I'm afraid I can't remember if I mentioned it here or not: I joined a Parisian vocal ensemble for medieval music - Kantika, directed by my friend and colleague, Kristin Hoefener. We gave a concert in Speyer on Friday night. It was part of the concert series "Via Mediaeval - Music and Spaces of the Middle Ages", which in turn is run by Stefan Morent, with whom I worked extensively about 7 or 8 years ago.

Part of the Speyer Cathedral crypt

Our program in honor of the Virgin Mary included music in 2 or 3 parts from the Codex Las Huelgas, one of the most important manuscripts of Spanish sacred music, and Gregorian Chant done in the Spanish style. It was arranged as a Mass might have been sung around the 1300. As encores 2 of our singers, Carlotta Buiatti and Sandra Bessis, who are both well-versed in arabic singing styles sang a Sephardic Lullaby and then we sang a 3 part piece by John Dunstable, which is from the new program we're preparing.

The crypt

Where we sang most of the concert

We sang in the crypt of the Speyerer Dom (Cathedral), which is enormous and the acoustics are lovely for medieval music. The reverb disappeared a bit when the crypt was filled with people but was still quite wonderful. We used the space a bit, processing in with the first piece, doing an antiphonal Gloria from opposite sides of the crypt and Marianne and I sang the Alleluia from the back.

SWR Radio recorded the program but we don't know when they'll air it. I'll post it when it goes on the air.

A nice little bonus doing this concert was seeing Stefan Morent again (he attended the concert). Unfortunately, he is no longer doing women's ensemble stuff, but sticking to men's ensembles so that he can sing along. It was also nice seeing another of the presenters (whose name I regret not having asked after, since I've long since forgotten it and now I can't find it online), who took care of Elysium when we sang in the same festival when it was called "Vokalmusik entlang der Romanischen Strasse" ("Vocal music along the Romanesque Road"). Also, Christoph Prégardien, Tenor, sang a song in the Cathedral Thursday night and stayed at the same hotel as Kantika. We saw him at breakfast on Friday and had a nice conversation. I attended a course he gave on German Lieder way back when (1996?) in Georgsmarienhütte, Germany during the "Tage Alter Musik"(Osnabrück). He pretended to remember me. Very sweet.

Amazing Stories: Poetry Round-up September 2013

I thought I'd try something new with this week's Amazing Stories blog post about Science Fiction Poetry. I found many good poems inn a quick search of the web and a couple of things I've come across through-out September and compiled them into one article for your reading pleasure.

Here's a snippet:

Strange Horizons has a long history of publishing good speculative poetry. A few poems from this weekly online magazine make it onto the Rhysling Award ballot each year. This week gifts us with a beautiful poem by Mari Ness (whose poetry has appeared on my podcast Poetry Planet): “The Loss”.

To read the full article go here!

Enjoy!

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Concert: Mozart "Credo Mass" and CPE Bach "Magnificat"

On Sunday, 22 September 2013, I sang in Dillenburg, Germany at the Catholic Church. I sing there a lot, on average once or twice a year. This time it was CPE Bach and Mozart on the program.

The Mozart is a lesser known piece but quite wonderful. The solo-quartet has bits woven throughout the mostly choral setting of the traditional ordinary mass parts. There are no arias or long completely solo lines, but the effect is gorgeous. We soloists stood among the choir (in a row together in the front however) and so our voices just emerged from the choir.

I've longed to sing the "Magnificat" by C.P.E. Bach for many years. It's a spectacular piece. Quite brutal, um, I mean high for the choir and the soloists. The choir, the Bezirkskantorei Dillenburg, was in fine form, as were the other soloists: Sybille Kamphues (Alto), Hans-Jörg Mammel (Tenor) and Wolfgang Weiss (Bass). I on the other hand was a little compromised, such that it was a bit of a struggle to get through the concert. But I hope it wasn't too noticeable... I have an appointment with a specialist next Monday, hopefully it won't be anything too difficult to fix. :-(

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Amazing Stories - More Awards! The Rhysling Award

So, did I say it was awards season? But with WorldCon in San Antonio, TX just past you'd know that. That is, if you are interested in Science Fiction in any manner. But if you aren't you probably aren't reading this! Let me know in the comments if you get to the end, despite having no love for Science Fiction! :-)

The Rhysling Award for 2013 was officially announced at WorldCon and I've posted an announcement of my own and a discussion of the two winning poems at Amazing Stories Magazine.

Here's a snippet:

...

However, the main thrust of this post is about the Rhysling Award, the Science Fiction Poetry Association's award for poetry in two length categories: short (under 40 lines) and long (40 lines and over). As per the rules only SFPA members are entitled to vote, so it's more like a Nebula Award than a popular award, but if you are interested in helping choose the best SF Poetry becoming a member is very easy and quite inexpensive, especially if you are willing to read the association's journal Star*Line as a PDF instead of in print. I urge you to check it out.

This year's winners were gleaned from a selection of 110 poems (70 short and 40 long). which could be found in 57 different print, online and audio publications. Kudos go to Star*Line, Goblin Fruit and Stone Telling with 11, 9 and 7 poems nominated respectively.

I will be producing an edition of Poetry Planet for StarShipSofa showcasing the Rhysling Award winning and placing poems, much like I've done in the past 2 years. I hope you'll listen! It's always a wonderful way to get fresh insight and deepen your understanding of a poem. But I'm not biased at all.

Terry A. Garey's winning short poem, "The Cat Star", published in the anthology Lady Poetesses from Hell (Bag Person Press) won by ....

Go to Amazing Stories for the whole article! Enjoy!

And if you don't normally read Science Fiction I'd like to encourage you to read this blog post by Nina Munteanu about "When Science Fiction IS Science Fiction". She does a great job of illustrating what it is about SF that I love and what motivates me to read it. Let me know what you think!

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Poetry Planet No. 10 - Elgin and Dwarf Stars Awards Showcase

Poetry Planet is back!

After 8 months, it's embarrassing to say, I've finally produced another Poetry Planet. This is the 10th one. You may (or may not) be wondering what happened to No. 9. Well, way back with the Time Travel episodes, I did something ridiculous and numbered that split episode Nos. 5a and 5b. And then went on with No. 6 etc. However, there have, in fact, been 10 episodes, so I'm going to remedy that now!

This 10th edition of Poetry Planet is dedicated to the recently announced winners and placers of both the new Elgin Award and the Dwarf Stars Award in Science Fiction Poetry awarded by the Science Fiction Poetry Association.

You'll find it on StarShipSofa.com in episode No. 303 at about the 01:17.0 marker. As usual, you can listen to it on the site itself, or download it on iTunes or your usual podcatcher.

Linkety linkage:

You'll hear a poem from each of the best chapbook length collections (Elgin Award):

• 3. Come Late to the Love of Birds, Sandra Kasturi, 
• 2. The House of Forever, Samantha Henderson and 
• 1. (Winner) Out of the Black Forest, F. J. Bergmann 

And a poem from each of the full-length collections (Elgin Award)

• 3. The Edible Zoo, David C. Kopaska-Merkel, 
• 2. Notes from the Shadow City, Bruce Boston and Gary William Crawford and 
• 1. (Winner) Lovers & Killers, Mary Turzillo 

The top 3 Dwarf Stars Award poems

3. "Sarcophagus", (inkscrawl 3) N.E. Taylor,
2. "The Hidden", from Lovers & Killers, Mary Turzillo and
1. (Winner) "Basho after Cinderella (iii)", (Rattle 38), Deborah P. Kolodji

Please follow the links to their websites and/or books and check them out!

I had the pleasure of reviewing each of the collections, which placed in the Elgin Award on Amazing Stories. If you would like to check out those reviews please go to my author page.

Enjoy!!

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Amazing Stories - Awards! Science Fiction Poetry Awards!

It's been a very long time since I blogged here. Well, it's been a very long time since I did much of anything such as blogging or podcasting. I've been away on an extended vacation. We spent the summer in my home town, living with Mom in the house I grew up in, which I probably won't ever see the inside of again. :-(

But I don't mean to be maudlin. I have great news for you! It's award season for the Science Fiction community. This weekend (Aug. 29 - Sept. 1) is WorldCon, or LoneStarCon 3, which is the world Science Fiction convention occurring this year in San Antonio, Texas. The Hugo Awards are the main thing at this convention, but I'm not going to go into that. Mostly because they don't give an award in SF Poetry. The Science Fiction Poetry Association has established their own set of awards due to that lack and the lack of a Nebula Award in poetry. So, as a matter of fact, the SFPA is announcing the winners of the Rhysling Award and presenting the awards to the winners of the Dwarf Stars Award and the first annual Elgin Award. I've blogged about the latter two awards over on Amazing Stories. Please go here to read all about it. I warn you though, you'll be led down a rabbit hole...

Here's a snippet:

After an extended summer break I’ve returned with lots of exciting news and a whole bunch of wonderful books, which I’ll be reviewing for you in the coming months. It’s award season!!! With WorldCon this weekend, that may seem obvious, but the Hugo Award is for everything but poetry. So, the Science Fiction Poetry Association (SFPA) has created a few awards to fill the gap.

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I'm a poet. I didn't know it....

...until today that is!

I'm am now an officially published poet! You can go read the lovely thing, titled "Orbit" here.

(Edit: Unfortunately, the website where this poem was published no longer exists. So I'll post it here.)

This is my (so far) one and only completed poem. Maybe I'll write more. Now that I've started - why not?

One of my acquaintances from the Science Fiction Poetry Association, Chris Vera, is someone whose sentiments closely match mine. We see each other's updates on FaceBook. Chris saw my post about my mother selling the house she's lived in for 40 years. The house that my brother and I grew up in. He said, "You should write a poem about that" (or some such). I said, "I don't write poetry". He said, "Try!". So I did. Chris has been very encouraging in the process and helpful in his guidance, but not intrusive. I asked a few other people to read it and give their critique, which was also a good thing.

I hope you like it.

Home is that place that has gravitational pull.
Small and running in circles
From Living Room through Dining Room
To Kitchen and on again the orbit began.
There are lumps to prove the bumpy initiation.
The house, my Home, was a constant -
The point from which my outward spiral originated.
With lift-off came revolutions
around town and then country
even traversing the water
could not sever or break
the tether proving robust.
The pull of Home omnipresent
And requiring the occasional return
Of the prodigal daughter.
Too many turns to call any other place Home.
With Mother letting go of the house.
Where will Home be now?
There is a heaviness of loss
Jumbled with a lightness
Of being cut loose -
Is this new trajectory a sudden straight line?
Where will it lead?
Will a new focal point come into view?
Will its gravity be strong enough?
I find an axis to revolve around and
As I spiral in again –
What am I orbiting?
I settle into its gravitational pull
And revolve around
Myself, my own Home.

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Amazing Stories: Review - Come Late to the Love of Birds

My most recent review of SF poetry is up on Amazing Stories! You can find it here. This time I take an in depth look at a beautiful collection of poetry by Sandra Kasturi - "Come Late to the Love of Birds".

Here's a preview:

I first became aware of Kasturi when I joined the SFPA and began receiving her posts via the groups Yahoo email list. I have seen several of the poems contained in the collection up for review today in various places on the web. Recently, they hosted a Shitty Poetry column as part of April’s National Poetry Month.

Come Late to the Love of Birds is a sizable collection – 41 poems gathered into 4 sections (well, one is an additional sort of prologue and another an epilogue): “Hieroglyphs of Wind”, “Cannibals of Love”, “False Fossils” and “The Sorcerer at the Door”. Most of these poems can’t be considered SF Poetry, but most of them do have a sort of fantastical element, so that one could safely say it has a speculative nature. And in fact, it had been nominated for the first annual Elgin Award, which is a new award to be bestowed upon the best poetry collection (in chapbook and full-length categories) published in a given year (in this case 2012). It will be awarded at the same time as the Rhysling Award and the Dwarf Stars Award – at WorldCon in Texas this fall. But I digress – Kasturi dedicates the book to 3 people, Ray Bradbury, Neil Armstrong and Erik Stewart (who I’m assuming is a person close to the author) who all flew in their own fashion, and several of the poems are dedicated to various influential SF writers, which, at the very least, demonstrates Kasturi’s pedigree.

Keep reading!


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Singing: American Cathedral Choir

Way back in June, when we found out we would be moving to Paris, I wrote to the Choir Director at the American Cathedral here, because it had occurred to me that I could sing with a top-notch choir again on a regular basis. At that time, I thought we would be in Paris in September already. Ha! We finally showed up in Paris at the end of November and didn't even make it to a church service until late January.

I know a member of the choir, Bill Ickes, who had also encouraged me to join the choir and he wasn't there the first two times we attended services, but the next time he was and he introduced me to the choir director, Zachary Ullery. By that time, it was already close to Easter and so we agreed that I would be in touch after Easter so he could hear me. It took me a little longer to get in touch because I was super busy preparing to sing Mozart's Requiem in Dillenburg and I was traveling every weekend in April.

Finally, 2 Sundays ago (May 2013) we were at church and so Bill reintroduced me to Zach. He didn't appear to remember me, but we made arrangements to meet prior to the choir's regular rehearsal in 2 week's time. That was last Thursday. I appeared at the appointed hour, wondering how to get inside the church. Luckily, some construction workers and people who looked like they belonged to the church staff or similar came out and let me inside. Zach took me through some vocaleses and had me sight-read a few things, including Anglican Chant. Oh no! I hadn't done Anglican Chant since my days at Christ the King in Frankfurt and while I know how it works, I was never very masterful at sight-reading it. Well, it went pretty well despite that, and so did the other sight-reading he had me do. I was relatively pleased, because for me, it's a matter of practice, and I've been woefully out of practice sight-reading in the last few years.

He invited me to join the rehearsal by way of continuing the audition. I met the other
members during the break (complete with red wine, baguette, cheese and sausage!) and they were excited to hear I'd likely be around for a couple of years. I guess some people show up and are only staying in Paris for a few months.

I must have passed the test because Zach said I could join them on Sunday (Pentecost). We sang Tallis' "If ye Love Me", Gibbons' "Song 44" and Grayston Ives' "Listen Sweet Dove". Lovely music. My two closest Mom-friends, Francesca and Elisabetta, came and sat with Magnus while Dante went to Sunday School. The choir sits in the (unsuprisingly uncomfortable) choir stalls at the front of the nave and we get all gussied up in cassocks and surpluses!

All in all it was a lovely experience and I will enjoy singing with them on a regular basis. Next week is a big celebration instating the new Dean and Rector, Lucinda Laird and in two weeks the choir sings Evensong! Yippee! I love Evensong.

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Amazing Stories: Reviews: Inhuman / Edible Zoo

With that uninspired title (That was the working title of the post and I simply forgot to come up with something more interesting), I've published my next set of reviews for Amazing Stories. This time - Zombies and exotic animal fare.

I've reviewed collections by two Science Fiction Poetry Association members: Inhuman: Haiku from the Zombie Apocalypse, by Joshua Gage and The Edible Zoo, by David C. Kopaska-Merkel. The latter is a collection of poetry for children, silly in the manner of Dr. Seuss.

Here's a teaser:

OK, imagine yourself witnessing the dawn of a zombie apocalypse, then as the Living Dead begin to outnumber the Living Living and then as the surviving uninfected band together (or not, as the case may be). What kind of horrors would you see? Joshua Gage, a poet specializing in the short short forms, has plentiful suggestions as well as a few looks through the eyes of a zombie.

This slim volume is broken into four sections, or acts and really does tell a dramatic story. It contains only haiku, of which Gage is a master (not that I’m much of an expert but It Is Said). Gage edited the 2011 and 2012 Dwarf Stars Anthology produced by the Science Fiction Poetry Association and showcases the best poetry under 10 lines. I talked a little bit about haiku/scifaiku in my last post when I reviewed Cthulhu Haiku and Other Mythos Madness. To be honest, I was slightly distracted by all the poetry that was NOT haiku in that collection, but in this one there are no such distractions and you really get a sense of what haiku is and can do, even with the mono-theme of ZOMBIES.

 Please head over to the Amazing Stories website (here) for the full review! I hope you enjoy!

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Amazing Stories: Review: Cthulhu Haiku and Other Mythos Madness

 My latest review of a volume of Speculative Poetry went up today (three cheers for timeliness!)! It's of a volume of poetry, mostly haiku and other short poetry and fiction based on H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. It came out several months ago, but I always said I would do a proper review (such as I'm capable of) one day.

Here's a teaser:

I mentioned Cthulhu Haiku and Other Mythos Madness, edited by Lester Smith (popcorn press) in a previous post, promising to review in full here in the future. The future has arrived.

First let me give you a little history. Cthulhu Haiku was a Kickstarter project, the first that I backed as a matter of fact. It was mentioned on SF Signal in their Crowdfunding Roundup column. The publisher, Popcorn Press is in Wisconsin and I like to support things from my home State. The theme also immediately made me think of one of my favorite poets alive, Ann K. Schwader, who is a celebrated Lovecraftian poet (see her collection of weird poetry Twisted in Dream), so I wrote her an email to make sure she was aware of the project. She wrote back thanking me for the heads-up (she hadn’t been aware, after all) and that she’d submitted a couple of weird poems and they’d been accepted for the volume! That was that, I jumped in and backed the project. In addition to “Cthulhu Haiku and Other Mythos Madness” I also received e-book copies of the 3 previous volumes in the “series” (a Halloween publication): “Hungry Dead”, 2010; “Vampyr Verse”, 2011; and “Halloween Haiku”, 2011. PLUS a wonderful full color ebook of “The Very Hungry Cthulhupillar” by Ben Mund and Signal Fire Press. It is not intended for young children!

Now, I have read precious little of H.P. Lovecraft’s actual fiction. I’ve probably read more Lovecraftian poetry and fiction by other people than by the man himself. The problem with doing it this way, is that most of it assumes that you’ve read Lovecraft widely and know to whom and what the various terms apply. Not having done that might leave you a little puzzled, with plenty flying over your head unaware of the significance....
To read more please head over to Amazing Stories here.

Enjoy! And listen to the audio all the way to the end. The last poem, by David C. Kopaska-Merkel is a stitch!

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Concert: Mozart - Requiem and J.S. Bach - Easter Oratorio in Dillenburg

I flew back to Germany this past weekend to sing in one of my old haunts - Dillenburg. My relationship as a singer with this church is largely due to my experience in singing the music of Hildegard von Bingen. I was contacted by Joachim Dreher, the church musician of the Catholic Church - Herz-Jesu-Kirche, through a recommendation (thanks Edmund!). He wanted to perform a program of music by Hildegard with a newly formed women's Schola-choir and he wanted a soloist. This was in 1998, the 900th anniversary of Hildegard's birth. I spent much of that year on tour doing Hildegard's liturgical drama "Ordo Virtutum" with the ensemble for medieval music Sequentia, so I was primed. I let Joachim know that I also did other styles and he promptly hired me to do Pergolesi's Stabat Mater. That was the beginning of a long series of projects we did together, which broke down when I moved to London with Magnus. I guess back then we all considered London too far away to return to Dillenburg for concerts!

When Joachim decided to reprise the Hildegard concert in 2011, he got in touch to ask if I could do it too. That was the famous concert I appeared in Dillenburg to do a whole year early! See my blog entry "If I only had a brain!" for the full story. Anyway, that project opened up the lines of communication between Joachim and I again and after a 5 year hiatus I began performing in Dillenburg again. I jumped in for a soprano who'd canceled a few months before a performance of a Bach Mass pastiche and when I heard Joachim saying he was entertaining doing a big Mozart project I jumped to tell him that I adore singing Mozart and have been told I have the perfect voice and style for it.

In 2012, just after we discovered that we'd be moving to Paris before the end of the year, Joachim contacted me about singing in 2 concerts in 2013. It took me about 2 seconds to consider if I could afford to travel back to Dillenburg to sing Mozart's Requiem and Bach's Easter Oratorio. It's a valid question, since travel costs are not assumed by the church. Those would come out of my paycheck, I'm afraid. Traveling can be quite inexpensive within Europe if you book well in advance. No problem there.

Enough history! So I'm in Frankfurt spending the night there with my dear friend Pamela and her family and I discover early before leaving for Dillenburg that I've left my concert dress shoes in Paris. Ugh. A few phone calls later I realize I'm going to have to duck out after rehearsal to buy a pair, unless someone in Dillenburg can come up with a pair to borrow that fit!

Rehearsal was weird. I was weird. I guess I was too preoccupied with the shoe question to concentrate and I fail to sing the first 2 phrase bit that I sing in the Requiem correctly even once. Arrrgh! And I call myself a professional. Double Arrrrrrgh!

I rushed off to the only shoe store in central Dillenburg before they closed for the weekend at 1pm. I was there by 12:25 and by 12:35 I had a pair of not exactly inexpensive, new, super comfy black, leather wedge concert shoes. Great for winter/cold weather concerts, since my other shoes are more suited to summery weather. Yippee!

The afternoon rehearsal went much better, thank goodness! I enjoyed spending some time talking with Sybille Kampheus, the alto soloist in our downtime, which was considerable.

I spent the night with one of the women singing in the choir who sang with the Hildegard Schola throughout the years and who has always been very dear. She treated me like a queen and I enjoyed sleeping through the night with a certain small person joining me and proceeding to keep me awake.

After a brief "dress rehearsal" was the concert. True to the nature of the occasional concert-goer, the church was filled to the brim! Nice to sing for a large audience, but people! Be a little more adventurous! There's a lot of beautiful music to hear live!!!

This concert was stellar from top to bottom. The usual Bezirkskantorei (area church choir) was augmented by the school choir of one of the local high schools. The orchestra, "L'arpa festante", on period instruments was of the highest quality. Natural trumpets, trombones of various sizes, timpani and even bassett horns! It was a delight to sing with them and the other soloist (Sybille Kampheus, Hans-Jörg Mammel and Paul Theis) as well. Very high quality. Joachim had put a lot of research into which version of the Requiem he wanted to perform and came up with a hybrid mixture of mostly the Levin extrapolation with a bit of Süßmayr and Druce and his own arrangement of the Amen. It was bombastic!

The orchestra played a piece by contemporary composer Arvo Pärt - "Cantus in Memoriam of Benjamin Britten", which was quite lovely and atmospheric. And wonder of wonders, Hans-Jörg Mammel played contra-bass for it! I had no idea. He's very well known as a tenor soloist, but as a bassist? - Not so much.

Bach's Easter Oratorio was no slouch either. After a brief discussion I was allowed to sing the early version text of my aria, since nothing, absolutely zero else was different. I don't know what got into Bach to change the text in such a way in a later version as to make it nearly impossible to sing the B section with out suffocating. The earlier version text has difficult vowels, but at least there is more space to breathe than between two 16th notes!

It was great fun all in all and I think the school choir enjoyed themselves as well. Especially when they could relax and do the last choral piece of the Easter Oratorio as an encore. It brought tears to my eyes. Really.

I'm looking forward to the next concert in Dillenburg - in September with a program of Mozart's Credomesse (a repeat for me) and CPE Bach's Magnificat (a first for me).

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Amazing Stories: Lovers, Killers, Red Riding Hood and Cinderella

Hello everyone!

I've been very lax with keeping you up to date on my activities. It seems, when I get busy, that I get so busy I don't have time to write blog posts! And this is what the last few weeks have been like! I think I'll write separate posts over the next few days, just to keep you on your toes!

First, I'll inform those of you who don't follow my FaceBook or Twitter posts of a new blog article on Amazing Stories Magazine. I apologize for having simply forgotten to write here about it. It's much easier to write something brief for FaceBook or Twitter in a timely manner, but infinitely inferior for posterity's sake!

My most recent reviews for ASM went up on 12 April 2013:

"Lovers, Killers, Red Riding Hood and Cinderella"

Hello folks! And welcome to my little spot on the interwebs. Thanks for joining me! April is National Poetry Month (in the USA). I wish it weren’t always in April. This is a very busy time of year for me as a singer (I usually sing concerts before and/or after Easter) and for my family. We travel at Easter, usually to another country (this time Italy) and now that my son is in pre-school we also have the usual school activities associated with Easter/Spring. ANYhoo, I’m off on a tangent. I merely wanted to say that I don’t have the time I’d like to dedicate to even more poetry. But here we are. I wanted to give you reviews of 3 collections, but time and space have limited me to two. But oh, these are fit to blow your mind! Mary Turzillo’s Stoker Award nominated “Lovers and Killers” and F. J. Bergmann’s chapbook “Out of the Black Forest”. Here we have two collections, which include many poems that derive a basis in Greek mythology, modern sciences and fairy tales. I woud dare say that one collection leans toward the scientific and the other towards the fantastic.

* * *

Mary Turzillo is a writer and poet whose work has repeatedly crossed my radar over the past year. Her poem “The Legend of the Emperor’s Space Suit (A Tale of Consensus Reality)” took third place in the long poem category of the 2012 Rhysling Awards. I podcasted it and the other 5 winning and placing poems. (You can listen to it here.) I’ve read much of her poetry that she’s had published this past year online and in print. She published a collection of reprints and original poetry in the volume Lovers and Killers. In addition to its being on the final ballot for the Bram Stoker Award for excellence in a poetry collection, one of the poems within (as well as two published “Galatea” – read here- and “Going Viral” – Star*Line) “Tohoku Tsunami” has been nominated for the 2013 Rhysling Award. Listen to Tohoku Tsunami below. Her novellet “Mars is No Place for Children” won a Nebula Award and it and her novel An Old-Fashioned Martian Girl are both recommended reading on the Internalional Space Station. As a side note: she is married to another of my favorite SF poets, Geoffrey A. Landis. The brilliance comes as a pair!

To read more (i.e. the actual reviews please head over to Amazing Stories Mag


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Amazing Stories - Interview with Bruce Boston Part 2

The second half of my interview with Bruce Boston is published today. Here's a teaser...

In the last installment I began an interview with Bruce Boston, the first Grandmaster of Science Fiction Poetry as granted by the SFPA in 1999. I introduced him and he told us a bit about his life as a successful poet. We talked about his most recent publications – Anthropomorphisms and Notes from the Shadow City (a collaboration with Gary William Crawford). If you missed the first part, you can catch up here!

Diane Severson for Amazing Stories Magazine (ASM): You have two new collections forthcoming in the next year, both from Dark Renaissance Books: Dark Roads, Selected Long Poems, 1971 – 2012, due out in a few months, and Tales of the Mutant Rain Forest, a collaborative project with Robert Frazier, due in late 2013 or early 2014.

Dark Roads, contains, well, the title says it all. Long poems, if we take the Rhysling Award categories as our basis, are those fifty lines or longer? The poems you sent me as a preview are all well beyond fifty lines. I think they are all over a hundred lines even. Are these longer poems different from short poems in some qualitative way, or just quantitatively? Why did you decide to make these long poems when you were writing them? Or did it just happen? Why did you choose to collect them in one volume? Have they all been published in previous collections or are they scattered around the SF magazines and the Internet?

Bruce Boston (BB): Yes, I used the categories of the Rhysling Awards as the standard for defining length. I believe the shortest poem in the collection is just over fifty lines and the longest is over five hundred lines.

* * *

To read more please go to Amazing Stories: Interview with Bruce Boston Part 2

For your listening pleasure I've also included readings of two poems, one each from his forthcoming publications. Enjoy!

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Amazing Stories: Interviews galore!

This Friday your cup runneth over in all things interview.

First, my own next blog posting on Amazing Stories is the first of a two-part interview with Bruce Boston. Boston is a house-hold name among SF poets, but outside that circle and the horror writer's circle possibly unknown. Here's an excerpt from the article:

Bruce Boston. Among speculative poets and those who read it, he’s a well-known name. But just in case YOU are not familiar with him, here’s a brief biography of the Man (gleaned from his own website):

Since this is an interview I’ll let him speak for himself – Tell us a little about yourself, your history.

I was born of Catholic and Jewish heritage in Chicago in 1943, and grew up in Southern California in an era of rock and roll, the Cold War, and the Space Race. From
1961-2001, I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, attending and graduating from the University of California, Berkeley, while active in the psychedelia and political protests of the 1960s.

I've worked in a variety of occupations, including computer programmer, college professor, technical writer, book designer, movie projectionist, gardener, and furniture
mover. I now live in Ocala, Florida, once known as The City of Trees, with my wife, writer-artist Marge Simon and the ghosts of two cats.

Boston’s fiction and poetry have appeared in hundreds of magazines – in both print, online and audio. I, myself, was first introduced to his poetry through StarShipSofa.com, for which I recorded a number of them. He’s won too many awards to list here, but suffice it to say he has won the important ones record numbers of times. He became the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s first Grand Master in 1999. He has published over 50 books and chapbooks, many of them available as ebooks. In addition to writing he is also a visual artist, having produced cover and internal art for his own books and for others. He is book editor for Dark Regions Press and speculative fiction and poetry editor for Pedestal Magazine. If you would like more detailed information on his life, publications and appearances, including links to more interviews, head on over to his website. He does an admirable job of keeping it up to date.

I hope your interest has been piqued! Please go and read the actual interview part of the interview at Amazing Stories Mag: Interview: Bruce Boston .

The second interview is of me, myself and I! I'm the second blogger from Amazing Stories to be interviewed. I was supposed to be the first, but someone else got his act together sooner. So, here we are. Fran Friel, one of the staff bloggers for ASM has been given the task of interviewing all of the other staff bloggers for your reading pleasure. She, herself, is an award winning horror writer and one of the nicest people I've had the pleasure to meet through Amazing Stories. You can read all about me here.

Amazing Stories: Me and My Sofa

Today, an extra article by yours truly will run on Amazing Stories. It's a piece Steve Davidson asked me to write about my history and connection with the podcast magazine StarShipSofa.

A teaser:

Ah yes, me and my Sofa. I feel confident calling it my Sofa. With a capital S because the sofa I’m referring to, StarShipSofa, is a podcast magazine. And I can call it mine because it’s a collaborative effort. It belongs to everyone else who works on it too. Yes, it was Tony C. Smith and Ciaran O’Connor’s brain-child and is kept up and running now by Tony and a small tea...

Read More »

Enjoy!

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An amazing revival: Classic sci-fi magazine makes its way to web | Concord Monitor

This is a nice, concise report on what the magazine is all about.

An amazing revival: Classic sci-fi magazine makes its way to web | Concord Monitor

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Amazing Stories Blog: Various and Sundry Science Fiction Poetry

Hello everybody,

With this post I'm just going to point you toward my most recent article which went up on Amazing Stories on Friday. Yes, I'm very bad at this. I'm 3 days late posting here. But perhaps (hopefully?) you already knew about it?  I will have a new article go up at Amazing Stories every two weeks, so in case I forget, you can check it out every other Friday.

Here's a bit of a teaser:

Welcome back! I have a bit of a hodge-podge for you today. The interview with Bruce Boston has been postponed for two weeks – life got in the way for both me and Bruce. But I promise you won’t be disappointed. Bruce Boston is a thoughtful... Read More »

Remember, you can always comment on the article here, but if you want to say something about it there, you must register. There's nothing to it, but it is a requirement.

Enjoy! And I'll be back soon with some news that ISN'T about Amazing Stories. I promise.

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House of Forever Review

My second post over at Amazing Stories Magazine has been published - a review of The House of Forever, by Samantha Henderson.

Here's a teaser:

This volume of collected poetry comes to us from Raven Electrick Ink and is edited by publisher/poet Karen A. Romanko.

Her bio, lifted from her website: Samantha Henderson lives in Covina, California by way of England, Johannesburg, Illinois, and Oregon. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in Strange Horizons, Realms of Fantasy, Weird Tales, various podcasts and Year’s Best collections. She’s the author of two tie-in books from Wizards of the Coast, Heaven’s Bones (Ravenloft) and Dawnbringer (Forgotten Realms). “In the Astronaut Asylum,” a collaborative poem with Kendall Evans was the winner of the 2010 Rhysling Award for long-form poetry.

To read the full review please head over here...

You can also hear my reading of "When They Woke" from the collection.

Enjoy!


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First Article on Amazing Stories live!

As indicated in the title, I just wanted to let you know that my first article/post for Amazing Stories was published today. It's very cryptically entitled "Science Fiction Poetry". For SF poets, this is probably a post you can skip, but I'd love it if you went over to Amazing Stories and checked it out. It's meant to entice people to join me in discovering new SF poetry (I'll be reviewing collections and anthologies and maybe poetry magazines), read about what the SF Poets have to say about themselves and their poetry (I'll be doing regular interviews, beginning with Bruce Boston) and delve into the world of SF Poetry in general. Join me! And while you're at it check out the rest of the site, which is chock full of articles on nearly every aspect of Science Fiction and SF Fandom you can think of.

I'm a little nervous, because I'm not really a writer. I never took any writing classes and my style is definitely not polished. There are a lot of writer types on Amazing Stories writing really interesting stuff very well. I hope I don't put anyone off! But I've decided to take the plunge. The editor seems to think that everything's fine... :-)

Amazing Stories Launch!!!

I haven't been around much lately, even though I theoretically have more time for things like blogging. However, much has conspired against me lately: International move; Christmas/New Years; grave illness in the family requiring a trip home to the USA; and last but not least, my own battle with the flu on top of bronchitis. Ugh.

But there are pressing matters! Things happening that you don't want to miss out on! Things that won't wait for me to get my act completely together. So, here is the most pressing of pressing matters:

Amazing Stories, the online Fanzine I mentioned before Christmas, which has been in a BETA testing phase has gone officially live!!! My first post is scheduled for Friday, Jan. 25, 2013 entitled "Science Fiction Poetry" (original, huh?). It's basically meant to be an enticement and invitation to join me in my exploration of SF Poetry. Please go check it out and comment on the post, make a request, wave or whatever.  I'd love to greet you there. Here is the official blurb:

Amazing Stories, the world's first science fiction magazine, is now open to the public.

Social Magazine Website Offers Nearly Sixty Writers and Social Networking For Fans!

Experimenter Publishing Company
Hillsboro, NH
January 19, 2013

AMAZING STORIES are just one click away!TM

The Experimenter Publishing Company is pleased to announce the  reintroduction of the world's most recognizable science fiction magazine – AMAZING STORIES!

Following the completion of a successful Beta Test begun on January 2nd, 2013, Amazing Stories is now open to the public.  Fans of science fiction, fantasy, and horror are invited to join and encouraged to participate in helping to bring back a cherished icon of the field.

For the past several weeks nearly sixty fans, authors, artists, editors and bloggers have been producing articles on your favorite subjects – the literature of SF/F/H, its presentations in media such as television, film, poetry, literature, games, comics and much more.

All contents of Amazing Stories are free to the general public. 

Membership is also free – and entitles members to participate in the discussion, share information and engage in many other familiar social networking activities.

Membership also represents a stake in helping Amazing Stories return to publication.  The more members the site acquires, the faster Amazing Stories can become a paying market for short fiction.

Every genre fan now has a chance to help support the creation of a new market for the stories, artwork and articles they all love so much.

To visit the site and obtain your free membership, go to AMAZING STORIES, and don't forget to invite your friends too!

-more-




This reincarnation of Amazing Stories could not have happened without the generous support of Woodall Design LLC and the members of the Amazing Stories Blog Team:

Cenobyte, Karen G. Anderson, Mike Brotherton, Ricky L. Brown,

Michael A. Burstein, Catherine Coker, Johne Cook, Paul Cook, Gary Dalkin,

Jane Frank, Adria K. Fraser,  Jim Freund, Fran Friel, Adam Gaffen,

Chris Garcia, Chris Gerwel, Tommy Hancock, Liz Henderson, Samantha Henry,

M.D. Jackson, Monique Jacob, Geoffrey James, J. Jay Jones, Daniel M. Kimmel,

Peggy Kolm, Justin Landon, Andrew Liptak, Bob Lock, Melissa Lowery,

Barry Malzberg, C. E. Martin, Farrell J. McGovern, Steve Miller, Matt Mitrovich,

Aidan Moher, Kevin Murray, Ken Neth, Astrid Nielsch, D. Nicklin-Dunbar,

James Palmer, John Purcell, James Rogers, Felicity Savage, Diane Severson,

Steve H. Silver, J. Simpson, Douglas Smith, Lesley Smith, Bill Spangler,

Duane Spurlock, Michael J. Sullivan, G. W. Thomas, Erin Underwood,

Stephan Van Velzen, Cynthia Ward, Michael Webb, Keith West, John M. Whalen,

Karlo Yeager, Leah A. Zeldes


For more information about Amazing Stories, please contact the publisher at


Experimenter@AmazingStoriesMag.com