Video Interview with Kim Stanley Robinson (SofaCon2 - StarShipSofa)

I had the intense pleasure of being allowed to interview master Science Fiction Author and Hugo and Nebula Award winner Kim Stanley Robinson for StarShipSofa's SofaCon2. We talk about his next book Aurora (or as much about it as he feels he can say), about his writing space, the book of poetry and another fiction anthology he edited, about education in the US and he answers several questions from fans. I was hopped up on pain-killers having just had oral surgery and I am considerably addled, but he was very kind, intensely interesting and eloquent!

Interview with Kim Stanley Robinson at SofaCon2

Interview with SF poet Steve Sneyd (Amazing Stories Mag)

There is a nowadays little known master of SF poetry living in the UK named Steve Sneyd.

He's (still) well-known among British SF poets, and also American SF poets who've been around awhile, but I, for one, had never heard of him until last year, when I was researching a Poetry Round Up on British SF Poetry. I have nominated him for the honor of Grandmaster of SF Poetry awarded by the SFPA (voting through June 15, 2015) and I sincerely hope he wins. It's important to remember poets like him. 

He is pretty much completely offline and only writes handwritten letters or anything for that matter, including his SF Poetry newsletter DataDump. I interviewed him by snail mail and transcribed his hand-written responses:

Interview with SF Poet Steve Sneyd

Interview Part 2 and Reviews in print

Today the 2nd part of my interview with Elizabeth Barrette came out on Amazing Stories: "Interview with Elizabeth Barrette Part 2" . Here's a snippet from the beginning:

Thank you for joining me as we continue our conversation with Elizabeth Barrette, Poet and Wordsmith. If you missed part one, you can find it here.

Today, Elizabeth tells us more about her activities in Crowdfunding her poetry, the poets who have been influential in her own writing, recommendations for further poetry reading and the usefulness of publishing your poetry on clay tablets.

Sound intriguing? Go read the rest of it! Thank you.

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In other news, I've officially begun my reviewing career with the SFPA's journal Star*Line. In it, I review a collection horror poetry by the poetry editor of Raw Dog Screaming Press, Stephanie Wytovich. It will be printed in truncated form in the print magazine, but you can read it in full on the SFPA website: Mourning Jewelry, by Stephanie Wytovich. You'll have to scroll down, the posts are in alphabetical order by title.

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Narrations and Interviews

It's an eventful day, y'all!

I just found out that my second professional narration is up on Audible! For those who don't know, Audible.com is the major provider of audio books.

Size Matters is an Erotic Fantasy set in Chris Lester's Urban Fantasy world Metamor City written by Nobilis Reed. I've listened to a lot of the Metamor City podcast and it's a fascinating listen. I've done several narrations for Nobilis Reed. He's a good and patient employer. So it was a yes-yes opportunity. Nobilis didn't tell me until after he'd finished production on it that he was submitting it to Audible. I couldn't be more thrilled. This means that I have a bit of an in as I set myself up as an Audiobook Exchange Narrator. The audiobook costs $6.95 or £4.99 (on Audible.co.uk). 

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The next big thing for today is that my most recent article on Amazing Stories has come out. I interviewed Elizabeth Barrette and it will appear in 2 parts. Today in Part 1 you'll hear 2 full poems plus Elizabeth and I talk about her myriad writing activities, her inspiration and process as a poet. She has some advice for new poets on attitude, publishing and submitting as well. Enjoy! 

Interview - Elizabeth Barrette, Poet and Wordsmith

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Narration Fixation #2 - Poetry (+playlist)

I was recently interviewed on a video podcast dedicated to narration, specifically (in this episode, and because I was the guest) on pod-casting poetry. It was fun. I didn't hem and haw too much... I recite Ann K. Schwader's Rhysling Award winning poem "To Theia" about two-thirds of the way through.



Enjoy!

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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.

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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.

Interview = Fame!

I'm overdue to post about various recent events, but I would like to briefly mention, while it's fresh and new, that it's official - I am now famous - I have been interviewed! A friend, colleague and former fellow student in Bremen, Astrid Nielsch, writes a monthly Newsletter in which she regularly interviews people she knows who do cool things. And imagine - she thinks I do cool things! She herself does extremely cool things of an incredibly varied nature - Harper, web-designer, artist, photographer, gardener, etc. Her Newsletter is always interesting to read, even if it's not about me. ;-)

Here's the interview:

Asni Multimedia Art & Design Newsletter

Actually, it just occurred to me that this is the second interview that's been published about me. The first one wasn't available on the web though, that one was ostensibly about my mother and as an off-shoot of that, me. It was for the alumni of the high school my mother went to in Armstrong, Iowa. I don't imagine that it was very widespread, but still. I shouldn't discount it. But this! This is now out there in the ether for the world to read if it should so choose!