What's New in Your Corner of the World?

original cover art copyright Veris Maya

original cover art copyright Chris Howard

This Spring, I have two new projects in the production pipeline. A collection of short stories, "Stranger Worlds Than These," and an SF novel, DERELICT.

I'm very excited about them both, and I'm especially pleased to be moving forward on new things after what felt like a very long and difficult Winter.

The story collection (look for it end of April or early May) includes the SF story I contributed to our charity anthology, PEN-ULTIMATE, along with 6 others that have not been published elsewhere. Some have been included in my occasional newsletter, others are brand new. I used to think I didn't like short stories - not reading them and not writing them, but I realized that this wasn't true. My frustration with short stories is that they are hard. In some ways, they are far harder to write than novels, where the author has all kinds of wiggle room to explore and define character, setting, and conflict. With short stories, you have to punch it and hit your mark right away. There is no meandering around. Every word must count.

Short stories are much closer to poetry than they are to novels. But poetry is something I'm at home writing and once I realized this kinship, it became much easier to work with small narratives.

Another lovely thing about short stories is I can reward myself with one every night before I go to bed, with less of a risk of staying up way past my bedtime because I can't put the book down. :) I'm working my way through the Tor 5 years of story anthology this way and discovering several authors whose work is now on my TBR list.

I can't wait until I can release DERELICT (late spring or early summer, 2014) into the world! It's a story I love, with complex and diverse characters, an insane AI controlling a broken ship, and a chase through space. What's not to love? I have plans for multiple novels in this universe, so if you like space opera, stay tuned.

I'll be announcing the release dates on my newsletter, so please subscribe for the latest news and a sneak peek at one of the stories in the collection.

And I'm still working on TIME AND TITHE, the sequel to THE BETWEEN. My target date for publication is late Fall 2014.

Lots happening here at "Chez LJ". What's going on in your part of the universe?