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.

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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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Poetry Planet: 2012 Rhysling Award Showcase

After much delay, the next installment of Poetry Planet has hit the ether (now on StarShipSofa 256)! The annual Rhysling Award Showcase features the poetry of the award winners in both the Long and the short categories plus the 2nd and 3rd placing poems as well. I must apologize profusely at this stage because the 2nd place long poem failed to make it into the final audio file and by the time I noticed it was too late to fix it. Sorry! But as a bonus, you get it here (see below)

You'll hear:

• 3rd Place Long: Mary A. Turzillo, "The Legend of the Emperor's new Spacesuit (a Tale of Concensus Reality)" 

Mary A. Turzillo's novel An Old-Fashioned Martian Girl and Nebula Award- winning novelette "Mars Is no Place for Children" are recommended reading on the International Space Station. She has been nominated for the Rhysling, the British Science Fiction Association Award ("Eat or Be Eaten, a Love Story"), and the Pushcart (Your Cat & Other Space Aliens, vanZeno). Her latest book is Lovers & Killers, Dark Regions 2012.

• 3rd Place Short: Lyn C. A. Gardener, “In Translation”

Lyn C. A. Gardner grew up beside Keuka Lake in upstate New York, but her family has since gathered in coastal Virginia. With master's degrees in English literature and library science, she’s been the editor for a private maritime museum and currently serves as catalog librarian for a public library. She also loved her work as projectionist for AMC Theatres. In addition to writing, art, and photography, She enjoys fencing, swimming in lakes, biking around the neighborhood, skating (ice & sidewalk skates). She loves owls, cats, trees, snow, the stars, the color blue, and playing folk guitar and harpsichord. Most of all, She loves spending time with her family. Her first book, a poetry collection called Dreaming of Days in Astophel, is available from Sam's Dot Publishing.

• 2nd Place Long: G. O. Clark and Kendall Evans, “The 25-Cent Rocket: One-Quarter of the Way to the Stars” This poem failed to make it onto the final audio file. My apologies to Gary and Kendall! I've posted it to my MySpace space for now, until the next Poetry Planet runs. To listen go here.

Kendall Evans is the author of more than 250 poems and about 50 short stories published in various sf, fantasy and horror publications. He recently completed a book length sf dramatic poem, a ring cycle in four parts, The Rings of Ganymede.
G.O Clark’s poetry has appeared on Poetry Planet previously. G. O. Clark's writing has been published in Asimov's Science Fiction, StrangeHorizons, A Sea Of Alone: Poems For Alfred Hitchcock, Tales Of The Talisman, among others. He's the author of nine poetry collections, most recent, "White Shift" in 2012, and a fiction collection, "The Saucer Under My Bed and Other Stories", 2011. He’s retired and lives in Davis, CA.

• 2nd Place Short: Erik Amundsen, "The Lend"

Erik Amundsen was removed from display, as he was considered zoologically improbable and/or terrifying to small children. He has been sighted in Weird Tales, Fantasy Magazine, Not One of Us and Jabberwocky but his natural habitat is central Connecticut. Taken broadly, Erik Amundsen has had an interesting life; he's been a baker, an itinerant schoolteacher, worked for two governments and gotten in bar fights overseas. He now lives at the foot of a cemetery in central Connecticut where he writes nasty little stories and poems that shuffle around in the night when he's not looking. Or at least he hopes it's them; something's got to be making those noises and it's not the furnace. He maintains a blog on LiveJournal under the code-name cucumberseed.

• 1st Place Long: Megan Arkenberg, "The Curator Speaks in the Department of Dead Languages" 

Megan Arkenberg is a student in Wisconsin. This was her first Rhysling nomination and her first award for speculative poetry. In addition to poetry, she writes short fiction; her work has recently appeared in Asimov’s, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Lightspeed. She procrastinates by editing the online magazines Mirror Dance, which focuses on the fantasy genre and Lacuna, for historical fiction.

• 1st Place Short: Shira Lipkin, "The Library, After"

Shira Lipkin is a writer, activist, mother, and nexus. She has managed to convince Interfictions 2, Stone Telling, ChiZine, Apex Magazine, Steam-Powered, Mythic Delirium, and other otherwise-sensible magazines and anthologies to publish her short fiction and poetry, and she has just won the 2012 Rhysling Award for short poem. She lives in Boston with her family and the requisite cats, fights crime with the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center, does six impossible things before breakfast, and would like a nap now. You can track her movements at shiralipkin.com and shadesong.livejournal.com. Please do. She likes the company.

Please click on the links to the poets' websites, blogs and the like. They appreciate the support. 

Update - after the 2011 Rhysling Award Showcase got a rerun on StarShipSofa No. 255, the 2012 version is now live on the website and iTunes - StarShipSofa No. 256
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Poetry Planet No. 2 - First Contact - LIVE!

The second edition of Poetry Planet for my favorite podcast, StarShipSofa, went live today! To listen to it and also the first episode go here.

This is a long one! 30 minutes! But it's chock full of poetry goodness! 10 poets are represented with their offerings on "First Contact". And quite a wide variety of imaginings they are! That sounded a bit like Yoda. Here's the illustrious list and links to their websites, blogs etc:

Scott Green - "First Contact"
Green Genre Poetry and
Poetry in Manchester

Mike Allen - "The Thing in the Gutter" and "On Discovery of a Habitable Planet"
Mythic Delirium

Ann K. Schwader - "The Ones Who Met Them"
Website
Yaddith Times LiveJournal

Dennis M. Lane


Marge Simon

David Kopaska-Merkel

Dreams and Nightmares magazine

Elizabeth Barrette
PenUltimate Productions Website
Wordsmith's Forge LiveJournal

Mary Turzillo


Rich Magahiz
Poem "Your Color Palette 2011"

Larry Santoro
Bluffton in the Driftless

I hope to be able to make announcements of poetry events, awards, contests and the like at the end of each show. This time we have:

The Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection

and

The Rhysling Award Candidates

Enjoy!!!

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