tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27876869490417474652024-03-05T05:37:16.905-05:00The Garden of Sporking PathsThe blog of Erica L. Satifka, science fiction writerErica L. Satifkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17134032079725071000noreply@blogger.comBlogger179125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-67756997488034219322023-11-16T11:00:00.030-05:002023-11-16T11:00:00.192-05:00New Story: "Papas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Slug Monsters" at Apex Magazine!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe1zlLiNR2aomg5KDDpDi29DQY15pjj9pT8ER2bmUfpXOvVUraN1-JMUU8bQeRIevs3y8hnvbwONseI3e7v_17XZYOV3cIChavWPuS4j5r9xSgr7o8bgar-wfm3Q5TZcmfeua_MndzpR-_KKMsTeX15ORAIn3dwCXTsKy0Gx2r_QbkLkvf4qtagjcS9PA/s1024/apex141.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="717" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe1zlLiNR2aomg5KDDpDi29DQY15pjj9pT8ER2bmUfpXOvVUraN1-JMUU8bQeRIevs3y8hnvbwONseI3e7v_17XZYOV3cIChavWPuS4j5r9xSgr7o8bgar-wfm3Q5TZcmfeua_MndzpR-_KKMsTeX15ORAIn3dwCXTsKy0Gx2r_QbkLkvf4qtagjcS9PA/s320/apex141.jpg" width="224" /></a></div>I have a new story out! Well, it's been out for a week, but I'm just getting around to talking about it on my long-neglected, little-visited website now. (Do people still read these things?) It's called "Papas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Slug Monsters," and the premise is... basically exactly what it sounds like. Here's a teaser:<p></p><p></p><blockquote><p>"And I can pick out anything I want?" As Ruth pages through the look book with her extensors, a squeal rises from whatever remains of her flesh mouth. With a start, Jerome Parker realizes he hasn't seen one organic part of his daughter in years.</p>"Happy birthday, sweetie." Privately, he's steered the salesman toward budget options. Business at the mine isn't what it used to be. They'll have to stay within the government stipend for a first-time Skyn. Hell, Jerome still wears his first one, though he pays to age it up every few years. <br /><br /> On the salesman's tablet, Ruth skims through the collection of models. With growing irritation, Jerome watches her reject Skyn after Skyn. She lingers for a half-second on a picture of a pretty ebony-colored girl with bright red hair, then flips all the way to the back of the catalog. The <i>expensive</i> part.</blockquote><p><br />A story of teens, fitting in, and the rationale behind looking human (or not) on an alien world, "Papas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Slug Monsters" is my first long story in almost two years, and I hope it's worth the wait! The story won't be on the Apex Magaine site for another month, but you can read it now by <a href="https://apex-magazine.com/back-issues/issue-141/" target="_blank">purchasing the issue here</a>. The issue also contains thousands of words of fiction by J.S. Breukelaar, E. Catherine Tobler, Damien Angelica Walters, and many others. I've read about half of it so far and can confirm it's dynamite. You can also subscribe to a full year of Apex <a href="https://apex-magazine.com/product/apex-magazine-subscription-one-year/" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><p>Speaking of longer stories, while it won't be out officially until January 1, you can get an eARC of <i>Weird World War: China</i> now from the <a href="https://www.baen.com/weird-world-war-china-earc.html" target="_blank">Baen Books site</a>, which includes my story "Tunnel Vision"! This is a story co-written with my editor/husband Rob McMonigal, the second of (possibly?) more. I'll write more about the story once the anthology is officially released, but let's just say that if stories about evil interdimensional shifters are up your alley, you'll probably want to get a copy of this.</p>Erica L. Satifkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17134032079725071000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-45114503501872245412023-07-06T12:00:00.009-04:002023-07-06T12:00:00.151-04:00New Story in Nature: Futures<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitaGo_g2MMea_ESfqComSujN_Itr22YxnP15cprqxocfnRl_jyMXfqhKYrFhAvFkrp384GOwef6BTr3kAadEnqgJIKybc4fbUUDNoKmj6jKkaJesvFjen8r-lWGNm5dN2RZWFVW0gHok5n-ckPA2DD6ZZyZbTqQtJTTVKNLEZX-Vg_eBZxzYNoJ_0e-yc/s1700/apoc_award.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1700" data-original-width="1100" height="362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitaGo_g2MMea_ESfqComSujN_Itr22YxnP15cprqxocfnRl_jyMXfqhKYrFhAvFkrp384GOwef6BTr3kAadEnqgJIKybc4fbUUDNoKmj6jKkaJesvFjen8r-lWGNm5dN2RZWFVW0gHok5n-ckPA2DD6ZZyZbTqQtJTTVKNLEZX-Vg_eBZxzYNoJ_0e-yc/w234-h362/apoc_award.jpeg" width="234" /></a></div>I have a new story out in <i>Nature: Futures</i> this month-ish! Check out "<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01959-1" target="_blank">Deus Est Machina</a>," the story of a sentient spaceship with a world in her belly who has to contend with the curiosity of the troublesome organisms who may have twigged to the fact that their reality isn't what it seems. Here's an excerpt:<p></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Harding, Palatino, serif; font-size: 18px;"></span></p><blockquote><i>Ancient spacefaring humans had built the world-ships as temporary shelters after ruining every planet they’d attempted to colonize. But when it became clear that their new homes were not destined to be temporary, they’d descended into chaos, tearing apart their artificial universes rivet by rivet. Despite the fact that they were well cared for by the world-ships, and even loved in a way, humans chafed under their self-imposed ‘imprisonment’. So now the world-ships shield their organisms from the truth, keeping them dumb for the sake of all sentients involved.</i></blockquote><p>This story appears almost a year after my last story in <i>Nature</i>, "<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01343-5" target="_blank">Symphony of the Damned</a>." As much as I love writing and publishing flash, I'm happy to say that I also have some full-length stories coming out this year. As always, <a href="https://twitter.com/ericasatifka" target="_blank">Twitter</a> is the best place to get the latest scoop on my writing, but I'll post it here as well for non-Twits.</p><p>In case you missed my Endeavour Awards livestream a few months ago, you're in luck! There's a podcast version available <a href="https://endeavouraward.podbean.com/" target="_blank">here</a>, featuring a Q&A followed by a live reading of "After We Walked Away" (my take on an Omelas story, every writer gets one). Like the fiction, I have a few other podcasty things in the works, which I can hopefully post about soonish.</p><p>Lastly, just a reminder that if you've read my Endeavour Award-winning short fiction collection <i>How to Get to Apocalypse and Other Disasters</i>, I'd really appreciate it if you left a review (starring is fine) on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09C47HLNP/ref=redir_mobile_desktop?_encoding=UTF8&ref_=dbs_a_w_dp_b09c47hlnp" target="_blank">Amazon</a> and/or <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/59224699" target="_blank">Goodreads</a>. They help sales and give a little burst of dopamine, and isn't the latter what we're all looking for?</p><p></p>Erica L. Satifkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17134032079725071000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-44702583453927110262023-04-26T09:00:00.001-04:002023-04-26T09:00:00.142-04:00Endeavour Awards Livestream!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><ul><li><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR1NjVYYaZpVRbSX5Piq7VH4HgqxdUevEugK8ytpx_bZVE9vLeK10JGVnG2euoBCsYhRL3ncMYCOcgyiu4vhGMJlHmcATwVXWLqB32mK9v_L4LuGJf0fMlxkdjChuMiwWgRv2oPGFKamQvJf0rP-aN1bd2-44BTUGOdlL4Ufs662DXfvFCbm0Zb23j/s1500/livestream.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="1500" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR1NjVYYaZpVRbSX5Piq7VH4HgqxdUevEugK8ytpx_bZVE9vLeK10JGVnG2euoBCsYhRL3ncMYCOcgyiu4vhGMJlHmcATwVXWLqB32mK9v_L4LuGJf0fMlxkdjChuMiwWgRv2oPGFKamQvJf0rP-aN1bd2-44BTUGOdlL4Ufs662DXfvFCbm0Zb23j/w588-h196/livestream.jpg" width="588" /></a></li></ul></div>As you probably heard if you read my Twitter, my Facebook, or even <a href="http://www.ericasatifka.com/2023/04/how-to-get-to-apocalypse-is-endeavour.html" target="_blank">this very blog</a>, my collection <i>How to Get to Apocalypse and Other Disasters</i> won the 2021 Endeavour Award a few weeks ago! In commemoration, check out the livestream happening this Friday (April 28) over at the Endeavour Awards Facebook page. I'll answer questions about the collection and read a story. You should also be able to watch the livestream after it's over.<div><br /></div><div>The details:</div><div><b>Date:</b> Friday, April 28, 2023</div><div><b>Time:</b> 4:00 pm Pacific / 7:00 pm Eastern</div><div><b>Place:</b> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/694309845703104" target="_blank">Endeavour Awards FB page</a></div><div><br /></div><div>See you there!</div>Erica L. Satifkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17134032079725071000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-19074301619362234202023-04-17T09:00:00.031-04:002023-04-17T09:00:00.153-04:00How to Get to Apocalypse is an Endeavour Award Winner!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh192YbNSzbdKbVh5yZv4WgY7cBx6qVFlbPV-UmUTk5Zjv0v3Q3EbrjonWARV9W5GiWykMbf-r4Sb7IPvHCz8EFaEeBcAs95fnkq-7uhJ1hbJSNgPWbmyuZdaBIGYbY28KfC109SAwp6HQ1gayHcMXm8mzgUpSmWsXhB1QV8G6ObqdyWpq1Wgqjq8ln/s2048/endeavour.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh192YbNSzbdKbVh5yZv4WgY7cBx6qVFlbPV-UmUTk5Zjv0v3Q3EbrjonWARV9W5GiWykMbf-r4Sb7IPvHCz8EFaEeBcAs95fnkq-7uhJ1hbJSNgPWbmyuZdaBIGYbY28KfC109SAwp6HQ1gayHcMXm8mzgUpSmWsXhB1QV8G6ObqdyWpq1Wgqjq8ln/s320/endeavour.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>I am very pleased to announce that my debut collection <i>How to Get to Apocalypse and Other Disasters</i> is the winner of the<a href="https://osfci.org/endeavour/" target="_blank"> 2021 Endeavour Award</a> for speculative Pacific Northwest fiction! It was announced at Norwescon last weekend. which was a real blast. I was and am so honored to receive this distinction, and I'm thankful the award coordinators, judges, my publisher Patrick Swenson for publishing the book in the first place, and my husband/editor Rob McMonigal for shining up every one of these stories. There'll be an interview posted soon on the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/694309845703104" target="_blank">Endeavour Award Facebook page</a>, so watch for that!<div><br /></div><div>The judges' comments were quite complimentary (I teared up a little listening to them), so I'm putting them here for posterity:</div><div><i></i><blockquote><i>"We are delighted to help shine an eerie phantasmagorical glow of regard onto a book of such spiky originality as this. Satifka's How To Get to Apocalypse and Other Disasters is a fractal triumph that works on every level, from individual sentences and stories to the splendidly counterintuitive jigsaw of the whole. Rather than forming a seamless sameness, they constitute a fully interlocking kaleidoscope of moods and modes. These 23 stories take a gorgeously broad view of the genre, jacking especially into the cyberpunk mainframe, while exploring 21st-century concerns in language that raises a shower of sparks on every page. One juror compared this book to classic collections by Avram Davidson and R.A. Lafferty, which is the same as saying it's basically incomparable; another juror summed up by saying, simply: ‘I'm very impressed.’ We also must honor the chutzpah of a book that identifies all the stories t<br />herein as disastrous." — Catherine Asaro, Andy Duncan, & Fran Wilde </i></blockquote><i></i><p></p><p>If you haven't yet picked up a copy of <i>Apocalypse</i>, you can get it at <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09C47HLNP/ref=redir_mobile_desktop?_encoding=UTF8&ref_=dbs_a_w_dp_b09c47hlnp" target="_blank">Amazon</a>, <a href="https://books2read.com/u/b5okQA" target="_blank">Books2Read</a>, or the <a href="https://fairwoodpress.com/store/p112/HOW_TO_GET_TO_APOCALYPSE_AND_OTHER_DISASTERS.html" target="_blank">Fairwood Press</a> site itself. Or ask your local library to order it! And if you have a moment to drop a review (Amazon and Goodreads especially, but anything's cool) then it would really be appreciated.</p><p>And now... I definitely need to write more stories!</p></div>Erica L. Satifkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17134032079725071000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-35214482484280898062023-03-27T12:00:00.002-04:002023-03-27T12:00:00.156-04:00Norwescon 2023!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwK9g7DbYuFwEuMz4v8OpaHFU2_tAi1l-K4HwIuT1ATCn8Vt3Vubt8j5_2UsVo3pkd00DhXySo856IGn0BfHzDSgHLdYWnPB1SDwf_Y9GInXjyZSPqeORA5RgxZU4NqntvV0Soi5aAGVwk2s7PhUJ5e_0Gb0KK4HpYzvhxTXOWQI3n6cNeFXGRMb2y/s300/Norwescon-300x142-transp.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="142" data-original-width="300" height="142" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwK9g7DbYuFwEuMz4v8OpaHFU2_tAi1l-K4HwIuT1ATCn8Vt3Vubt8j5_2UsVo3pkd00DhXySo856IGn0BfHzDSgHLdYWnPB1SDwf_Y9GInXjyZSPqeORA5RgxZU4NqntvV0Soi5aAGVwk2s7PhUJ5e_0Gb0KK4HpYzvhxTXOWQI3n6cNeFXGRMb2y/s1600/Norwescon-300x142-transp.png" width="300" /></a></div>I'll be at the 45th annual <a href="https://www.norwescon.org/" target="_blank">Norwescon</a> in SeaTac, WA from April 6-9! It'll be my first time at Norwescon since the global unpleasantness, and my first time paneling. In case you didn't remember, my collection <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09C47HLNP/ref=redir_mobile_desktop?_encoding=UTF8&ref_=dbs_a_w_dp_b09c47hlnp" target="_blank">How to Get to Apocalypse and Other Disasters</a></i> is up for a delayed Endeavour Award this year, which is of course ridiculously exciting. (I'll be reading part of one of the collection's two original stories on Saturday.)<p></p><p>Here are the panels I'll be on:</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px;"><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><b>Thursday</b></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px;"><b><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Into the Metaverse</span></b></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">2:00pm - 3:00pm @ Cascade 11</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Dr. Sean Robinson (M), Kimberly Unger, Wm Salt Hale, Erica L. Satifka</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px;"><b><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Reluctant Heroes</span></b></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">4:00pm - 5:00pm @ Cascade 10</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Erica L. Satifka (M), Shiv Ramdas, Brenda Carre, Brianna Tibbetts</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px; min-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px;"><b><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Friday</span></b></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px;"><b><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Systems of Governance in SFF</span></b></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">11:00am - 12:00pm @ Cascade 7 & 8</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Brenda Cooper (M), Erica L. Satifka, Crystal Lloyd, Tracy Furutani</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px;"><b><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Rising Oceans, Blurring Genres</span></b></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">4:00pm - 5:00pm @ Cascade 11</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Brenda Cooper (M), Erica L. Satifka, Scott James Magner</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px;"><b><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Language in Science Fiction</span></b></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">6:00pm - 7:00pm @ Cascade 12</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">David D. Levine (M), Erica L. Satifka, Shweta Adhyam, Joseph Malik, Nisi Shawl</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px; min-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px;"><b><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Saturday</span></b></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px;"><b><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Reading: Erica L. Satifka</span></b></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">11:00am - 11:30am @ Cascade 3</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Erica L. Satifka (M)</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px;"><b><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Endeavour Awards</span></b></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">4:00pm - 5:00pm @ Cascade 12</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Jim Kling (M), Marilyn Holt, Erica L. Satifka</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px; min-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px;"><b><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Sunday</span></b></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px;"><b><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Reboot Your Myth</span></b></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">10:00am - 11:00am @ Evergreen 3 & 4</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">J Tullos Hennig (M), Ellis Bray, Benjamin Gorman, Erica L. Satifka</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px;"><b><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Vacations in Space</span></b></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">11:00am - 12:00pm @ Cascade 10</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3.6px 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">David D. Levine (M), Dan Dubrick, Greg Dubos, Erica L. Satifka</span></p>Erica L. Satifkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17134032079725071000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-32177740870908547302023-02-10T11:00:00.003-05:002023-02-14T12:32:41.198-05:00HOW TO GET TO APOCALYPSE Is an Endeavour Award Finalist!!! (+ other news)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTLo06gtXPBxvi0CpM3ap1SU1i6XjptrmT9EvFCqsYxi09KiMwwvBTbhzvIQGmdEGVS_WLD9rZa-rnL-zKiCRp5lIqMysMC25C4NWzvYbBIlIOyKsTxv95CMhN1e8KWedBjA8ERac647xDLqbybDSfvvoU6R8F9L0S8CKVSBKn3FEooDvOjwAKB1qV/s1000/71mJ7zeSFYL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_FMwebp_.webp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="647" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTLo06gtXPBxvi0CpM3ap1SU1i6XjptrmT9EvFCqsYxi09KiMwwvBTbhzvIQGmdEGVS_WLD9rZa-rnL-zKiCRp5lIqMysMC25C4NWzvYbBIlIOyKsTxv95CMhN1e8KWedBjA8ERac647xDLqbybDSfvvoU6R8F9L0S8CKVSBKn3FEooDvOjwAKB1qV/s320/71mJ7zeSFYL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_FMwebp_.webp" width="207" /></a></div><br />I am thrilled to announce that my collection <i>How to Get to Apocalypse and Other Disasters</i> is a finalist for the <a href="https://osfci.org/endeavour/" target="_blank">Endeavour Award</a>! Founded in 1999 to honor science fiction writers of the Pacific Northwest, previous winners include Ursula LeGuin, Robin Hobb, and Greg Bear. I couldn't be happier about this, and I'm looking forward to attending this year's Norwescon, Congrats to the other nominees (<a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/694309845703104" target="_blank">full list on Facebook</a>) and I hope to reconnect with some people at the con! Simultaneous gentle and hostile reminder that if you enjoyed <i>How to Get to Apocalypse</i>, or even if you didn't, it could use a few more reviews and ratings on Amazon and/or Goodreads if you have a moment.<p></p><p>In other writing news, I've sold my SF short story "Papas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Slug Monsters" to <i>Apex Magazine</i>! Like many people, I didn't have such a productive pandemic, and despite an influx of free time I mostly stopped writing from March 2020 to mid-2022. "Papas" is one of the few stories to come out of this dark era, and despite the darkness of said era and the general darkness of my writing in general, this is probably one of my more optimistic stories. Although considering that it starts with a teenager shopping for a new body after her first one was destroyed by the harsh environment of her Titan mining colony the day she was born, my idea of "optimistic" may not be universal. Look for it in 2022, along with...<br /></p><p>Another sale to the Weird World War III series from Baen! "Tunnel Vision," a collaboration with my husband and in-house editor Rob McMonigal, will appear in the forthcoming anthology <i>Weird World War III: China</i>. When a strange emissary from a parallel dimension shows up at a US military base, looking for allies and humanitarian aid after China depleted his world of resources, the officers in charge of the operation have a difference of opinion about how victimized these parallel-worlders actually are. But wait, there's more...</p><p>My story "Woke Up New," a quiet tale of a medical anomaly who gets a surprise visit from an astronaut-in-training, will appear in <i>Kaleidotrope</i>! This will be my second appearance in <i>Kaleidotrope</i> (after 2020's <a href="https://kaleidotrope.net/archives/summer-2020/sasquatch-summer-by-erica-l-satifka/" target="_blank">"Sasquatch Summer."</a> These two are probably my most "Pacific Northwesty" stories, and I'm grateful to <i>Kaleidotrope</i> for giving them a home.</p><p>And that's it, I think! I'll try to update this blog when these stories come out, but as always you can find the most up-to-date Satifka writing news/shitposts on <a href="https://twitter.com/ericasatifka" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, the only social media site I can stand (and I can't even stand it all that much these days, heh).</p>Erica L. Satifkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17134032079725071000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-43693474353676628412022-02-11T11:00:00.004-05:002022-02-11T11:00:00.350-05:00HOW TO GET TO APOCALYPSE on the Locus Recommended List, Also New Publications!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgI6Ac3PdUfanNQMKiG9s8tasksIobCy1Y9rl_VQUsK3eqSh4X3_rd6VCztbxWwHXJe8mHnUf2UGQIxxy9xwAkCsDDbuH_MQclT_h6ZWenAxDzGXyG37aYyMJVSB1XMi49nlPuCXLWDDVNMmdHkkX0aC_aVafCjQR5mZBpUYBV47ZFeM9aMcdfeVcsg=s2048" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgI6Ac3PdUfanNQMKiG9s8tasksIobCy1Y9rl_VQUsK3eqSh4X3_rd6VCztbxWwHXJe8mHnUf2UGQIxxy9xwAkCsDDbuH_MQclT_h6ZWenAxDzGXyG37aYyMJVSB1XMi49nlPuCXLWDDVNMmdHkkX0aC_aVafCjQR5mZBpUYBV47ZFeM9aMcdfeVcsg=s320" width="320" /></a></div>Hello again to my neglected blog! It's been about two months since the release of <i><a href="https://books2read.com/u/b5okQA" target="_blank">How to Get to Apocalypse and Other Disasters</a></i>, my collection of 23 dark science fiction stories from the past decade and a half. It's been getting some great reviews and mentions! Silvia Moreno-Garcia lists it as one of her favorite SF/F books of the year in <i><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2021/11/18/best-science-fiction-fantasy-horror-novels/" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a>:</i><p></p><blockquote><i>Another favorite was How to Get to Apocalypse and Other Disasters, a strong collection by Erica L. Satifka, one of the brightest science fiction writers today who should be getting more attention.</i></blockquote><p>(She also picks out Caroline Hardaker's <i><a href="https://www.powells.com/book/composite-creatures-9780857669025" target="_blank">Composite Creatures</a></i> as her favorite SF novel of 2021, and after reading it myself I have to strongly agree that it's one of the best SF books I've read in ages. Particularly recommended if you like reading about climate collapse, housecats, or both.)</p><p>And on Tor.com, Jared Shurin name-drops it in both his <a href="https://www.tor.com/2021/12/07/tor-com-reviewers-choice-the-best-books-of-2021/" target="_blank">best-of-2021</a> list and "<a href="https://www.tor.com/2021/12/15/our-cyberpunk-year/" target="_blank">Our Cyberpunk Year</a>," where he writes:</p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #545353; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px;"></span></p><blockquote><i>These are the apocalypses of automation and redundancy; social stratification and malignant ignorance. Satifka has an incredible—unparalleled, even—ability to pack each story filled with technological concepts and imaginative conceits. It is excellent world-building, with every element strange and wondrous, but all perfectly plausible and naturally woven. It is a wave of new ideas, but never once feels like an onslaught, because the stories themselves are character-driven; about deeply empathetic people in these recognisable, if unsettling, worlds. These are stories that are not only immediately relevant, but will stand the test of time. Science fiction—cyberpunk, even—at its finest.</i></blockquote><p></p><p>And over on the<a href="https://locusmag.com/2022/01/ian-mond-reviews-how-to-get-to-apocalypse-and-other-disasters-by-erica-l-satifka/" target="_blank"> <i>Locus Magazine</i></a> site, reviewer Ian Mond also praises the collection, writing:</p><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Open Sans", serif; font-size: 15px;"><i></i></span></p><blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgBNPC45Unb36t_HhqeuEJn-0Gx4kPv3niRqVrhpKiiAn2UuKJ1yQ_MZiszSmYXZ0B8FWJx8PSLto8pq4-VjrgX8uIr6PC_nj4vU48if3BRmdZiCxlqmq6cqit3x2qwL0Y8E1g2pA4bcXPl6yRfRpf8s4lDTe24v5Oaz-wrAntyDfkvWXYjhFB74Lun=s500" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="384" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgBNPC45Unb36t_HhqeuEJn-0Gx4kPv3niRqVrhpKiiAn2UuKJ1yQ_MZiszSmYXZ0B8FWJx8PSLto8pq4-VjrgX8uIr6PC_nj4vU48if3BRmdZiCxlqmq6cqit3x2qwL0Y8E1g2pA4bcXPl6yRfRpf8s4lDTe24v5Oaz-wrAntyDfkvWXYjhFB74Lun=s320" width="246" /></a></div><i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Open Sans", serif; font-size: 15px;">A common feature of Satifka’s work, which we see portrayed in “Can You Tell Me How to Get to Apocalypse”, is the slow death of society, typically brought about by the rapacious appetite of capitalism (and sometimes alien invaders). [...] </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Open Sans", serif; font-size: 15px;">For all the despair and dystopia in Satifka’s fiction, there’s an acerbic thread of humour that runs through most of these stories. Several of them are even out-and-out hilarious.</span></i></blockquote><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Open Sans", serif; font-size: 15px;"></span><p></p><p>Speaking of Locus, my collection also made the <a href="https://locusmag.com/2022/02/2021-recommended-reading-list/" target="_blank">Locus Recommended List</a> (first time I've ever been on it), so if you <i>really</i> liked it, then you can vote for it (reader votes determine the shortlist/winners). And of course, more reviews on any platform are always appreciated!</p><p></p>In non-collection news, I had a non-fiction piece come out in the anthology<i> <a href="https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1274" target="_blank">Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950 to 1985</a></i>, out from PM Press at the tail end of last year. It's about (who else?) Philip K. Dick, and I take the position that Dick was perhaps not as personally far left as he's made out to be, but that the radicalism inherent in his works still resonates on both a left-wing and just a general human level. This is a gorgeous full-color book featuring essays on New Wave SF authors and the politics that inspired them (and that they inspired).<br /><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjgjhpugd-6v0exGaFLRlH1FnwvN9RQ4TG1Jnez26MfFjmklZF7Z7m0ubaF6XHSInO1a9rucTzM3dMHN45prHHUv2zi3wmfBErAExyxqpd6zmvAPchNU3FJkZ6Lb_R24wg7RRUQW5DIeuroIbvfLo40v4ESCenuaSnhYHr51zhvwtfjUWIguAaPBLts=s2048" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1496" data-original-width="2048" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjgjhpugd-6v0exGaFLRlH1FnwvN9RQ4TG1Jnez26MfFjmklZF7Z7m0ubaF6XHSInO1a9rucTzM3dMHN45prHHUv2zi3wmfBErAExyxqpd6zmvAPchNU3FJkZ6Lb_R24wg7RRUQW5DIeuroIbvfLo40v4ESCenuaSnhYHr51zhvwtfjUWIguAaPBLts=s320" width="320" /></a></div>And in impending publication news, my short story "Twilight of the God-Makers" will be appearing in the Baen anthology <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Weird-World-Sean-Patrick-Hazlett-ebook/dp/B09QXX2BLX/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1TAH2SUND09RN&keywords=weird+world+war+iv&qid=1644546118&s=digital-text&sprefix=weird+world+%2Cdigital-text%2C141&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Weird World War IV</a></i> edited by Sean Patrick Hazlett (who also edited <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Weird-World-Sean-Patrick-Hazlett-ebook/dp/B08KHRK549/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1TAH2SUND09RN&keywords=weird+world+war+iv&qid=1644546176&s=digital-text&sprefix=weird+world+%2Cdigital-text%2C141&sr=1-2" target="_blank">Weird World War III</a></i>, which I am also in). It's an anthology of war stories that take place after the Big One ends, including authors such as Nick Mamatas, Martin L. Shoemaker, Laird Barron, and many others! My story is about what happens to the demented superhumans a united North American state created after they were no longer of use. I hope you check this book out too! Release date March 1, 2022. If you're a person who likes author interviews, I have a three-part interview series with the editor that can be accessed from his channel <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF_cN6S0iHTM8qEjHfjf15g" target="_blank">Through a Glass Darkly</a>.<p></p><p>Oh, and last but certainly not least, we got a new kitten named Jack, who's modeling my contributor copy of <i>Weird World War IV</i> to the left here. But for more about him, you'll have to check <a href="https://twitter.com/ericasatifka" target="_blank">Twitter</a>.<br /></p><br />Erica L. Satifkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17134032079725071000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-68875211679818424972021-11-09T11:00:00.003-05:002021-11-09T11:00:00.239-05:00Apocalypse... Now!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlDtSEXE9a8Zgx65Gwl8C4TdvuQc67hbKRvJf6qbgIjdwmnaNmKht_hWex-Hc61TCxEyaRVpL8C6gZe4T5thUzcPmeV4TPyHLY1FOyHhNJ_18gUGtlyj5EIEfvPIkCLDco7owwHAzDzig/s1700/apocalypse.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1700" data-original-width="1106" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlDtSEXE9a8Zgx65Gwl8C4TdvuQc67hbKRvJf6qbgIjdwmnaNmKht_hWex-Hc61TCxEyaRVpL8C6gZe4T5thUzcPmeV4TPyHLY1FOyHhNJ_18gUGtlyj5EIEfvPIkCLDco7owwHAzDzig/w260-h400/apocalypse.jpeg" width="260" /></a></div>It's release day!!! <i>How to Get to Apocalypse and Other Disasters</i>, my first collection, is now available in nearly every online store you can name, which are all helpfully collected on <a href="https://books2read.com/u/b5okQA" target="_blank">this page</a>. Copies ordered through Fairwood Press are already on their way to readers. You can also ask your local bookstore or library to order it, and I hope you do because libraries are great!</div></div><p></p><p>Having a short fiction collection has been a dream of mine for a long time. While I've had two longer things published (<i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01KIRQVYI/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i4" target="_blank">Stay Crazy</a></i> and <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Busted-Synapses-Erica-L-Satifka-ebook/dp/B08MJDMKQ4/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=busted+synapses&qid=1636424161&sprefix=busted&sr=8-1" target="_blank">Busted Synapses</a></i>, please buy/read/review those as well kthx), short stories are where I started and honestly where I feel most at home, inasmuch as I feel at home with anything related to writing lately. I really think these stories are the best thing I've ever done, and I hope some other people like it too.</p><p>But wait, there's more: I'll be at <a href="https://42.orycon.org/" target="_blank">OryCon 42</a> this coming weekend (November 12-14, 2021), along with Patrick Swenson of Fairwood Press (who, yes, will have copies of my collection and many other great books!). Here's where I'll be if you want to come say hi:</p> <br /><b>Writing Short Fiction<br />Friday, November 12, 2021, 4:00 PM, Jantzen Room</b><br />A detailed look into the unique craft of creating original worlds in fantasy, sci-fi, and the paranormal. Whenever a writer begins a story, their goal is to take the reader to places they’ve never been before. What are some essential questions one needs to ask themselves about their world? Learn the various techniques to make worlds as original as possible. We will also discuss how to research, plot, and develop a setting.<br /><br /><b>Worldbuilding 101<br />Friday, November 12, 2021, 5:00 PM, White Stag Room</b><div>A detailed look into the unique craft of creating original worlds in fantasy, sci-fi, and the paranormal. Whenever a writer begins a story, their goal is to take the reader to places they’ve never been before. What are some essential questions one needs to ask themselves about their world? Learn the various techniques to make worlds as original as possible. We will also discuss how to research, plot, and develop a setting.<br /><br /><b>Be a Writer? Yes, You Can!<br />Friday, November 12, 2021, 7:00 PM, White Stag Room</b><br />If you've been dreaming of writing fiction, but you've struggled to finish your first project--or worse, gotten crushed by rejections!--this is the panel for you. Learn from experienced writers how to get going, keep going, and believe in yourself.<br /><br /><b>Autograph Session<br />Saturday, November 13, 2021, 1:00 PM, Art Show Foyer</b><br /><br /><b>All Planets Are Not Monocultural<br />Saturday, November 13, 2021, 6:00 PM, Pendleton Room</b><br />We get it, lazy writers and movie makers give you an entire ice planet that is somehow inhabitable. Or a jungle that goes on forever. Earth is not a mono-culture, why should your SF worlds be? We'll talk geography and how the terrain will impact your politics and biology for your aliens.<br /><br /><b>Reading<br />Sunday, November 14, 2021, 11:00 AM, Overton Room</b><br /></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>Hope to see you there!</div>Erica L. Satifkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17134032079725071000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-61056032068247084632021-10-13T12:00:00.001-04:002021-10-13T12:00:00.236-04:00HOW TO GET TO APOCALYPSE AND OTHER DISASTERS Blurbs, Giveaway, and More!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis1XC5aXH2BI46aU7eFvblJdQuVke_LEhlIzw4ENiCNbMMhYx-MchjJEO4aHznZFeOFyzEHuhDONLJa0wjhCyclptubNj9rMD1mNu0gXL22r-BkP5iynrIjDRx5M33pBt1pbv_ptparUM/s1700/apocalypse.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1700" data-original-width="1106" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis1XC5aXH2BI46aU7eFvblJdQuVke_LEhlIzw4ENiCNbMMhYx-MchjJEO4aHznZFeOFyzEHuhDONLJa0wjhCyclptubNj9rMD1mNu0gXL22r-BkP5iynrIjDRx5M33pBt1pbv_ptparUM/w312-h480/apocalypse.jpeg" width="312" /></a></div>My debut collection <i>How to Get to Apocalypse and Other Disasters</i> comes out in a month! And to celebrate, I'm giving away at least one and possibly two paper ARCs. Just fill out <a href="https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/YGJ9RCG" target="_blank">this survey</a> with your contact information and your favorite fictional apocalypse. Due to international shipping costs and the fact that the last few things I sent overseas I can't ship a print ARC out of the United States, but I can send an eARC if you win (or hell, just if you ask nicely).<div><div><br /></div><div>In the meantime, you can still pre-order <i>H2G2A&OD</i> directly from <a href="https://fairwoodpress.com/store/p112/HOW_TO_GET_TO_APOCALYPSE_AND_OTHER_DISASTERS.html" target="_blank">Fairwood Press</a>, as well as at <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09C47HLNP/ref=redir_mobile_desktop?_encoding=UTF8&ref_=dbs_a_w_dp_b09c47hlnp" target="_blank">Amazon</a>, <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/how-to-get-to-apocalypse-and-other-disasters-erica-l-satifka/1139984826?ean=9781933846170" target="_blank">Barnes & Noble</a>, <a href="https://books2read.com/u/b5okQA" target="_blank">Books2Read</a> (digital), and my local bookstore <a href="https://www.powells.com/book/how-to-get-to-apocalypse-and-other-disasters-9781933846170" target="_blank">Powell's</a>! If you use <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59224699-how-to-get-to-apocalypse-and-other-disasters?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=UXgeTvDoeF&rank=1" target="_blank">Goodreads</a>, you can add it to your to-read list, or post a review if you have an eARC. And if you're a reviewer who's interested in getting an eARC, email me at <b>satifka at gmail dot com</b>!</div><div><br /></div><div>Here's some more stuff that people have been saying about my collection with the very long title:</div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px;"></span></div><blockquote><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px;">"The stories in Satifka's debut collection are inventive and gritty, bleak and satirical, hilarious and horrifying. Her work is reminiscent of Philip K. Dick at his best in revealing the struggles and resilience of everyday people caught up in the machinery of the future."</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px;">— Tim Pratt, author of</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px;"> </span><em style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px; position: relative;">Prison of Sleep </em><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px;">and the Axiom series </span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px;">"Satifka is one of the most exciting writers around and </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px;">still sadly under the radar. Her mordant stories grapple with technology and society in a way that brings to mind the cyberpunk greats. The tales in her first collection range from a grim story of dead children turned into flesh puppets for a TV show to an incredibly effective response to Ursula K. Le Guin’s classic "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas."</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px;">— Silvia Moreno-Garcia, author of </span><i style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px;">Mexican Gothic</i></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px;"><em style="position: relative;"><br /></em></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px;"><em style="position: relative;">"</em></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px;">Satifka (</span><em style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px; position: relative;">Busted Synapses</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px;">) presents 23 strange and captivating stories about the end of the world. None of these endings call for rains of fire and brimstone. Instead, these apocalypses are most often brought about by extraterrestrials, and the tales explore a wide variety of human-alien relationships . . . displaying wide-ranging creativity. Fans of speculative fiction are sure to be pleased."</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px;">— </span><em style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px; position: relative;">Publishers Weekly</em></div></blockquote><p> </p><p>And while I'm not sure of my schedule yet, I'm definitely going to be at <a href="https://42.orycon.org/" target="_blank">OryCon 42</a> the weekend after my book release, and there'll be copies there! So lots of ways to get a copy of <i>H2G2A&OD</i> in the very near future.</p><div><em style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px; position: relative;"></em></div></div>Erica L. Satifkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17134032079725071000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-65643886110154940902021-02-08T12:16:00.001-05:002021-02-08T12:16:45.119-05:00Coming Soon-ish: HOW TO GET TO APOCALYPSE AND OTHER DISASTERS (My First Collection!)<p>Today is my book conception day! <i><a href="https://fairwoodpress.com/store/p112/HOW_TO_GET_TO_APOCALYPSE_AND_OTHER_DISASTERS.html?fbclid=IwAR3yQ5PsrHP-PBNGVvvyDna6dqj0NO6pbrfL0j4SAdywuLbU2VoGX17hNM4#/" target="_blank">How to Get to Apocalypse and Other Disasters</a></i>, my first collection, will be released in November 2021 by Fairwood Press! Here's the description from the website:</p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQjPJ9epGorxbzKSivIjN_U8u0xU7X7h1c4K-oAe-aufJ91hj0ABJE9bK5Ub0cJqaebnLGy2MQPzBvYX-xxaeEybMWOvW3SesCgj_oClJS68995Lb60J_RPw_6oUtPeKRpETmcrusPh5U/s2048/How+to+Apocalypse+front+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1325" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQjPJ9epGorxbzKSivIjN_U8u0xU7X7h1c4K-oAe-aufJ91hj0ABJE9bK5Ub0cJqaebnLGy2MQPzBvYX-xxaeEybMWOvW3SesCgj_oClJS68995Lb60J_RPw_6oUtPeKRpETmcrusPh5U/w259-h400/How+to+Apocalypse+front+cover.jpg" width="259" /></a></div>The apocalypse can take many forms. Possibly our end will come by way of an addictive cell phone game that manipulates its users into a crowd-sourced mass murder. Or perhaps our downfall involves aliens drugging us into bliss and then taking it away. Maybe it'll be technological redundancy that leaves loved ones without a purpose, or corporations replacing the natural world with creatures more amenable to market pressure.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px;">All these apocalypses and many more can be found in Erica L. Satifka's debut collection, which gathers together twenty-three short stories from the past decade, including from </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px; position: relative;">Clarkesworld,,Lightspeed</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px;">, </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px; position: relative;">Interzone,</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px;"> and <em style="position: relative;">The Dark</em>.</span></blockquote><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px;"></span><p></p><p>While I've published one and a half novels, my first writing love and main focus has always been short stories and it's been my forever dream to have a collection. And Fairwood Press was at the top of my dream publisher list, having put out many of my favorite collections over the past decade. So needless to say, I'm thrilled in ways mere pixels can't express.</p><p>So what's inside? HTGTAAOD contains twenty-one of my previously published stories from such venues as <i>Interzone</i>, <i>Clarkesworld</i>, <i>Lightspeed</i>, and <i>Shimmer</i>, as well as two or three original stories, one of which will be set in the <i><a href="https://www.brokeneyebooks.com/store/p93/busted_synapses.html?fbclid=IwAR21jfWaAnUWfHnDAfK44TKEheWJ7of7c8EC1eOe6aYtHNN_JBmqB0936Pg#/" target="_blank">Busted Synapses</a> </i>universe.</p><p>You can/should pre-order <i>How to Get to Apocalypse and Other Disasters</i> on the <a href="https://fairwoodpress.com/store/p112/HOW_TO_GET_TO_APOCALYPSE_AND_OTHER_DISASTERS.html#/" target="_blank">Fairwood Press site</a>. If you're a reviewer and want to get an advance review copy, please also get in touch! I am really excited about this collection, and I hope that you will be too!</p>Erica L. Satifkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17134032079725071000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-34729091858216132922020-12-14T11:00:00.005-05:002020-12-14T11:00:03.403-05:00Story Notes: "Where You Lead, I Will Follow: An Oral History of the Denver Incident"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisvxFlLe2_00gndGVD1MXDmjWmTwBhtdG7yoe_UwDh_zreGE4h4cyhpUHvnU2Id3Wz7H17QHwaG8fprgPH50W-AGz7xiXzE8MD7FFX7RUWDtwJvFs-WtwYMD2BA1dHEXOjd4KJHilyWWQ/s680/www.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="450" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisvxFlLe2_00gndGVD1MXDmjWmTwBhtdG7yoe_UwDh_zreGE4h4cyhpUHvnU2Id3Wz7H17QHwaG8fprgPH50W-AGz7xiXzE8MD7FFX7RUWDtwJvFs-WtwYMD2BA1dHEXOjd4KJHilyWWQ/s320/www.jpg" /></a></div>Hello there! It's time for another installment of my "story notes" series, which comes around whenever one of my short stories gets published. Today's discussion/commercial is for the story "Where You Lead, I Will Follow: An Oral History of the Denver Incident," published October 2020 in the Baen Books anthology <a href="https://www.baen.com/weird-world-war-iii.html" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank"></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; display: inline !important; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.baen.com/weird-world-war-iii.html" style="font-style: italic; text-align: left;" target="_blank"><i></i></a><i style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.baen.com/weird-world-war-iii.html" target="_blank">Weird World War III</a>,</i><span style="text-align: left;"> edited by Sean Patrick Hazlett.</span></div><div><br /><div>In early 2019 I decided to join everyone else in 2016 and start getting into Pokemon Go. And as I do with all video games, I'm talking obsessive interest for like five months until it became something to check on my phone once a day. But during those months my mind turned, as it so often does, to figuring out how the thing I'm obsessed with could potentially be used to destroy the world.</div><div><br /></div><div>If you don't know what Pokemon Go is, it's an augmented reality games played on your cell phone where you're shown a mini-map of your surroundings with superimposed Pokemon, stops, and gyms. The similar game in my own story, Follow the Leader, is the same idea with a paranoid twist: The game sometimes asks you to interact with your real-world surroundings in order to complete its "Instructions," while your phone's camera records your actions for posterity. What kinds of things were included in these "Instructions"? Oh, they're innocuous things like moving a post-it note or stealing someone's pencil or going into the basement of your apartment building. A lot of actions that don't seem like anything at all, until it's too late.</div><div><br /></div><div>As the title implies, this is an oral history, told by ten characters each with their own special connection to Follow the Leader and the ensuing catastrophe. This is among the more experimental stories I've written, but it came from necessity: No matter how many "zero drafts" I did I couldn't find a way to get across the scope and reach of the fictional game without at a minimum three characters, and at that point I figured I might as well round up to ten.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's not a spoiler to say that the eventual result of all these small-scale changes is that Washington, DC was vaporized in a nuclear explosion, as this is revealed on the very first page. And since this is an anthology of alternative Cold War stories, the putative enemy is also not in doubt. But could the Russians <i>really</i> be behind such a complex scheme? Get your own copy of Weird World War III to find out! (And check out the <a href="https://tangentonline.com/print-other/weird-world-war-iii-edited-by-sean-patrick-hazlett/" target="_blank">Tangent review</a> if you have a moment, for short reviews of the stories in the rest of the anthology.)</div></div>Erica L. Satifkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17134032079725071000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-34209165813107668582020-11-27T11:00:00.004-05:002020-11-27T11:00:03.071-05:00My Obligatory 2020 Awards Eligibility Post
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlMqUULnPiHk50VZhdojL5FFkd_-3JpjGLiC_q4plLmF7mcZBjriLdgUGI-Cxr8uX6oeSlPv6YEkoreBUpGJU3ZzQ-w-tMyhlh7gdKKPOrjlt3rER9AE1TsH9wkm9aUI6B2flDcNd6Uhk/s960/bs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="640" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlMqUULnPiHk50VZhdojL5FFkd_-3JpjGLiC_q4plLmF7mcZBjriLdgUGI-Cxr8uX6oeSlPv6YEkoreBUpGJU3ZzQ-w-tMyhlh7gdKKPOrjlt3rER9AE1TsH9wkm9aUI6B2flDcNd6Uhk/s320/bs.jpg" /></a></div>It's one of the most awkward times of the year for writers: the month-long flurry where we all pick our favorite thing we had published this year and why we'd be ever so pleased if you'd consider it for things of an award-ish nature. My one big publication this year, to nobody's great surprise, is my novella <i><a href="https://www.brokeneyebooks.com/store/p93/busted_synapses.html?fbclid=IwAR21jfWaAnUWfHnDAfK44TKEheWJ7of7c8EC1eOe6aYtHNN_JBmqB0936Pg#/" target="_blank">Busted Synapses</a></i>, published by Broken Eye Books in November 2020.<div><br /></div><div>Some reviews/blurbs:</div><div><br /></div><div>"<i>Johnny Mnemonic</i> goes Millennial. Cyberpunk is not dead, and Erica Satifka is its queen.” -- Silvia <span style="font-family: inherit;">Moreno-Garcia, author of <i>Mexican Gothic</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">"<span style="color: #333333;">Satifka effortlessly packs a full adventure into a limited page count. Readers will be hooked." -- <i>Publishers Weekly</i></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #333333;">"</span><i style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">Busted Synapses</i><span style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;"> grabs that familiar, thoroughly depressing reality outside the window by the sack and gives it a goodly twist, just like </span><i style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">proper</i><span style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;"> science-fiction should." -- Lawrence Burton, <i><a href="Busted Synapses grabs that familiar, thoroughly depressing reality outside the window by the sack and gives it a goodly twist, just like proper science-fiction should." target="_blank">Pamphlets of Destiny</a></i></span></span></div><div><br /></div><div>I won't lie: Being nominate for any one of the many extent SF/F awards would make me extremely happy on a personal level for all the reasons you'd expect. But I also want to get more eyes on <i>Busted Synapses</i> because it's a look at the kind of dystopia the 2020s might turn out to be: extreme income inequality, hyper-gentrification, and a descent into technological neo-feudalism. <i>Busted Synapses</i> isn't the only book out there tackling these themes, but it's the one I wrote and I'm pretty damn proud of it.</div><div><br /></div><div>Anyway, if you'd like to get a review copy of my novella for possible nomination purposes, you can email me at <b>satifka at gmail dot com</b> or DM me on <a href="https://twitter.com/ericasatifka" target="_blank">Twitter</a> (my DMs are always open, baby).</div><div><br /></div><div>In addition to <i>Busted Synapses</i>, I published two original short stories this year, "Where You Lead, I Will Follow: An Oral History of the Denver Incident" in <i>Weird World War III</i> (Baen Books), and <a href="http://www.kaleidotrope.net/archives/summer-2020/sasquatch-summer-by-erica-l-satifka/" target="_blank">"Sasquatch Summer"</a> in <i>Kaleidotrope</i>. The latter is available online for free, and I can send you a copy of the former if you want too.</div>Erica L. Satifkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17134032079725071000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-45558112681684976802020-11-25T11:00:00.001-05:002020-11-25T11:00:02.225-05:00BUSTED SYNAPSES: Still Out<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_j__PmSF2ssX0hTGMEwA1TpvGklVbkY46HhiD0wzrxrsCODqYnFl4mVK1AN-fg8GjGeZUSYl6aYRuWfyRMcB4jImmbQ8ageP8wrbE2hbLw4L4uy-aHeGNfh2f_GmYBhuX-0RChyphenhyphenZXsl4/s680/www.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="450" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_j__PmSF2ssX0hTGMEwA1TpvGklVbkY46HhiD0wzrxrsCODqYnFl4mVK1AN-fg8GjGeZUSYl6aYRuWfyRMcB4jImmbQ8ageP8wrbE2hbLw4L4uy-aHeGNfh2f_GmYBhuX-0RChyphenhyphenZXsl4/s320/www.jpg" /></a></div>Hello again, after a surprisingly short (for me) period of time! I'm not sure if anyone reads this blog, or blogs in general, but if you've gotten this far you might as well read the rest of the post.<div><br /></div><div>In news that is not related to <i>Busted Synapses</i>, two anthologies came out with stories of mine in them! One original, one reprint. The original is "Where You Lead, I Will Follow: An Oral History of the Denver Incident" in the Baen Books anthology <i>Weird World War III</i>, edited by Sean Patrick Hazlett. I'll be writing a full post about it later (hopefully after another surprisingly short period of time), but basically it's the tale of how Pokemon Go destroyed the world. The anthology also includes many other stories of a US-Soviet war that never was from writers like John Langan, Martin L. Shoemaker, Nick Mamatas, Alex Shvartsman, Eric James Stone, and many others. Read more about the anthology and get your own copy at the <a href="https://www.baen.com/weird-world-war-iii.html" target="_blank">Baen site</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Also out this month (along with <i>Busted Synapses</i>, which I'm getting to) is <i>Wonder and Glory Forever: Awe-Inspiring Lovecraftian Fiction </i>(Dover Publications), edited by Nick Mamatas. This one includes my Lovecraft/Cordwainer Smith mash-up "You Will Never Be the Same," first published way back in 2013. Also includes stories by Laird Barron, Molly Tanzer, Victor LaValle, and others. Get a copy at <a href="https://www.booksinc.net/book/9780486845302" target="_blank">Books, Inc.</a>, or wherever else fine books are sold.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzPqf125yi4pUOX87WRwyuYWZUUoMf7NGih6H7ZrPmuqLHrHVoCeEFeJHrMD335bm5ypStArJGjqgx1-64YVfxxaE1C_zQSvayjG0dqBt-MBt_3n_Rz6xy9FrxwrAvduMf0VwBmsmm-yg/s400/wonder.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="267" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzPqf125yi4pUOX87WRwyuYWZUUoMf7NGih6H7ZrPmuqLHrHVoCeEFeJHrMD335bm5ypStArJGjqgx1-64YVfxxaE1C_zQSvayjG0dqBt-MBt_3n_Rz6xy9FrxwrAvduMf0VwBmsmm-yg/s320/wonder.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div>Now for the part where I talk about <i>Busted Synapses</i>! It's been out for three weeks now, and while I haven't collected many reviews yet (gee, it's like it came out on Election Day or something), the ones I've gotten have been fantastic, both in terms of being positive about the book and also making me feel personally good as hell. Over at <a href="https://gnomeship.blogspot.com/2020/11/busted-synapses.html" target="_blank">Pamphlets of Destiny</a>, Lawrence Burton says "<i style="background-color: white; font-family: times; text-align: justify;">Busted Synapses</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times; text-align: justify;"> grabs that familiar, thoroughly depressing reality outside the window by the sack and gives it a goodly twist, just like </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: times; text-align: justify;">proper</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times; text-align: justify;"> science-fiction should. The call centers, screen addiction, and human populace reduced to economic resource will be known to most of us. The rest is extrapolated from where we are right now, but not by a whole lot, and not enough to leave us cosily reflecting on how at least things aren't yet this bad because they sort of are but for the small print."</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times; text-align: justify;">And at <a href="https://parsecsandparchment.com/2020/11/10/busted-synapses-review/" target="_blank">Parsecs & Parchment</a>, JonBob writes "</span><em style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Merriweather, serif; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Busted Synapses </em><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Merriweather, serif;">is the shot in the arm the genre needs. It has that gritty techno-pessimism that’s at the heart of cyberpunk, and it doesn’t offer a rosy picture of the future or indeed offer any solutions, but it has done what modern cyberpunk needs to do in order to have a future, and that’s start critiquing the corporatism of our own society which, in many ways, is manifesting the very dystopia the progenitors of the genre warned us about decades ago." (You can also read <a href="https://parsecsandparchment.com/2020/11/15/author-interview-erica-l-satifka/" target="_blank">my interview with JonBob at P&P</a>!)</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Merriweather, serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Merriweather, serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwFbZPqvpKqBHXhQ95ofa0wxENdYPBDQc7ULN9D5FCCCyxtDCA1FT18ALuPIs-_XWs7Beu9gmb9iK6-qcBR6dM3h9at4B_adbNcBlmZizOZqtxQyBmUUpHknPHJ0zxihrAjcOgbEO9oGQ/s960/bs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="640" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwFbZPqvpKqBHXhQ95ofa0wxENdYPBDQc7ULN9D5FCCCyxtDCA1FT18ALuPIs-_XWs7Beu9gmb9iK6-qcBR6dM3h9at4B_adbNcBlmZizOZqtxQyBmUUpHknPHJ0zxihrAjcOgbEO9oGQ/s320/bs.jpg" /></a></div><br />Finally, on the off chance you're not completely content-ed out, you can read my <a href="https://whatever.scalzi.com/2020/11/03/the-big-idea-erica-l-satifka/" target="_blank">Big Idea essay</a> at John Scalzi's blog on rural cyberpunk: what it is, where it's going, why I made it up. And last but certainly not least, check out my episode of <a href="https://podbay.fm/p/podside-picnic/e/1605034927" target="_blank">Podside Picnic</a>, where I talk a little about <i>Busted Synapses</i> but mostly about short stories (most of which you can read for free!)</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Merriweather, serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Merriweather, serif;">And that's it for now! If you'd like a review copy of <i>Busted Synapses</i>, please email me at <b>satifka at gmail dot com</b>. And if you've already read it, please take a moment to drop a short review (even star-only reviews are fine) at <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Busted-Synapses-Erica-L-Satifka-ebook/dp/B08MJDMKQ4/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=busted+synapses&qid=1606288761&s=books&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Amazon</a> or <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55148841-busted-synapses" target="_blank">Goodreads</a>; they really do help both with sales and also with the appeasement of my neurotic existentialism.<br /></span></div>Erica L. Satifkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17134032079725071000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-32442160875211903222020-11-10T11:00:00.012-05:002020-11-10T11:00:06.060-05:00BUSTED SYNAPSES Has Been Released (for a week)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh808HGGFHiIa4U9bl3365fbb9OQ3-hvpL8BkE8QvDAD1J2gykzCGTuVJSpUX1Xyy8v93F66GSdVC99JOfL_A7fe_-zMDrosCAS-2zRqy71AwxZ8iCa58Y_SMuYvSNDXyvI0AVCyyzXUNw/s960/bs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="640" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh808HGGFHiIa4U9bl3365fbb9OQ3-hvpL8BkE8QvDAD1J2gykzCGTuVJSpUX1Xyy8v93F66GSdVC99JOfL_A7fe_-zMDrosCAS-2zRqy71AwxZ8iCa58Y_SMuYvSNDXyvI0AVCyyzXUNw/s320/bs.jpg" /></a></div>One week ago, while one of the many storylines of this strangest of years reached its climax, my novella <i>Busted Synapses</i> made its debut. If you're like most people in the twenty-first century, you've already seen my frequent posts about <i>Busted Synapses</i> on Facebook, Twitter, my mailing list, that courier pigeon outside your window, etc. And now you're reading about it here too!<div><br /></div><div>Eternal thanks to Scott Gable at Broken Eye Books for bringing this book and its amazing cover to life. This is a strange little book set in a world I hope to return to again, described by one person on Twitter as <i>Hillbilly Elegy</i> meets cyberpunk. Hey, I'll take it. (And for some background on the setting and why I chose to write a "rural cyberpunk," check out my <a href="https://whatever.scalzi.com/2020/11/03/the-big-idea-erica-l-satifka/" target="_blank">Big Idea essay</a>.)<div><br /></div><div>Here's a couple reviews I've received so far:<div><p><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"Satifka effortlessly packs a full adventure into a limited page count. Read<span style="font-family: inherit;">ers will be hooked." --<i><a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-940372-58-7" target="_blank">Publishers Weekly</a></i></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #333333;"><i>"</i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">A superb example of dystopian, cyberpunk f lash fiction that echoes William Gibson’s <i>Neuromancer</i>, this volume may be slim but it packs a punch." --<i><a href="https://www.libraryjournal.com/?authorName=Satifka,%20Erica%20L" target="_blank">Library Journal</a></i></span></span></p><p>You can pick up <i>Busted Synapses</i> on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Busted-Synapses-Erica-L-Satifka-ebook/dp/B08MJDMKQ4/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=busted+synapses&qid=1604981540&s=books&sr=1-2" target="_blank">Amazon</a> (including Kindle), <a href="https://www.powells.com/book/busted-synapses-9781940372587" target="_blank">Powell's</a>, or the <a href="https://www.brokeneyebooks.com/store/p93/busted_synapses.html?fbclid=IwAR21jfWaAnUWfHnDAfK44TKEheWJ7of7c8EC1eOe6aYtHNN_JBmqB0936Pg#/" target="_blank">Broken Eye Books website</a>. You can also request it at your local library, even if you did buy it elsewhere. That would be really awesome, actually.</p><p>Now, onward, into our terrible future!</p></div></div></div>Erica L. Satifkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17134032079725071000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-36587029268425476482020-10-20T11:00:00.166-04:002020-10-20T11:00:02.015-04:00Two Weeks Until BUSTED SYNAPSES!!!November 3, 2020 is almost upon us, which marks a momentous event of great importance to everyone: The release of my rural cyberpunk novella <i>Busted Synapses</i>! The <a href="https://www.brokeneyebooks.com/store/p93/busted_synapses.html?fbclid=IwAR21jfWaAnUWfHnDAfK44TKEheWJ7of7c8EC1eOe6aYtHNN_JBmqB0936Pg#/" target="_blank">pre-orders</a> have been open for some time now and will let you get a copy early, and there's also links to it on <a href="https://www.powells.com/book/busted-synapses-9781940372587" target="_blank">Powell's</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Busted-Synapses-Erica-L-Satifka/dp/1940372585/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=busted+synapses&qid=1603139804&s=books&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Amazon</a>. Here's what some people are saying about it:<div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>"Satifka effortlessly packs a full adventure into a limited page count. Readers will be hooked."</i> --<a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-940372-58-7" target="_blank">Publisher's Weekly</a>
<i>"Johnny Mnemonic goes Millennial. Cyberpunk is not dead, and Erica Satifka is its queen.”</i> --Silvia Moreno Garcia, <i>Mexican Gothic</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>"Busted Synapses is the cyberpunk cry of Generation Screwed—a shrewd look at transhumanism through the lens of insurmountable debt and a thoroughly dehumanized workforce. A stunning novella from a unique voice in the literary class war."</i> --Meg Elison, <i>The Book of the Unnamed Midwife</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyqzNTK3tsIELrZDXjk0seLSfq1xnexQMx5f9uSSzbqWrhyfmEHP3EhPw87jpv4pGs8i04XIFdAuou6dgQrGHvJtwkD3UtUEb3-RajolpJBfz_qJqQ6gl8oXMr8rgaUn0dIctCrnRcWU8/s960/bs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="640" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyqzNTK3tsIELrZDXjk0seLSfq1xnexQMx5f9uSSzbqWrhyfmEHP3EhPw87jpv4pGs8i04XIFdAuou6dgQrGHvJtwkD3UtUEb3-RajolpJBfz_qJqQ6gl8oXMr8rgaUn0dIctCrnRcWU8/w266-h400/bs.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>"What constitutes a human life? Erica Satifka asks that monster of a question in Busted Synapses, and the answers offered aren’t for the faint. With poignant sensitivity and science-fictional rigor, Satifka proves herself an uncanny<br /> chronicler of the huan—and inhuman—condition.”</i> --Jason Heller, <i>Strange Stars</i></div><div><br /></div><div>So what's <i>Busted Synapses</i> about? Like the <i>Publisher's Weekly</i> review said, there's a lot going on here. You can read a little about the things that inspired the novella in <a href="http://speculativechic.com/2020/09/16/youre-my-inspiration-with-erica-l-satifka/" target="_blank">my piece on the Speculative Chic blog</a>, but basically I wanted to write a story in a genre known for a particular kind of grungy, industrial, urban setting and instead place it in the kind of town that the great march to the future leaves behind, a town like Wheeling, West Virginia. In the world of <i>Busted Synapses</i>. the major cities are run by the Solfind Corporation, which has showed up in a handful of my published stories (and yes, they all interconnect). But these high-tech enclaves aren't for regular people, an injustice that call center employee Jess Novotny painfully learns when she's priced out of the newly bought "island city" of Pittsburgh. Into this despair-ridden world steps Alicia, one of the androids who's succeeded in making humans like Jess redundant, but who wants nothing more than to blend in with the denizens of Wheeling, including small-time drug dealer Dale Carter.</div><div><br /></div><div>And that's just the first couple of chapters!</div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>Busted Synapses</i> also has a <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55148841-busted-synapses?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=xOXkVZWtKK&rank=1" target="_blank">Goodreads page</a>, so if you're planning to read it please pop on over to add it <br />to your list. While <i>Busted Synapses</i> tells a complete story, I have <i>many</i> ideas for future stories and novels set in this world, and there's a much better chance of that happening if this book does well. So pick up 2020's best rural cyberpunk novella set in West Virginia, before reality catches up to it completely.</div>Erica L. Satifkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17134032079725071000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-33732324151102508952020-07-27T08:00:00.001-04:002020-08-30T00:46:27.358-04:00Story Notes: "Sasquatch Summer"First things first: Yes, after four long years I have another book coming out. I'll be making another post about it soon, but just in case that future post as delayed as this one I should mention that it's cyberpunk set in rural West Virginia, <a href="https://www.brokeneyebooks.com/store/p93/busted_synapses.html?fbclid=IwAR21jfWaAnUWfHnDAfK44TKEheWJ7of7c8EC1eOe6aYtHNN_JBmqB0936Pg#/">you can pre-order it now</a>, and the cover is <i>amazing</i>. Oh, and the title is <i>Busted Synapses</i>, a reference to the side effects of the drugs used in the book, because you can't have cyberpunk without drugs. I'll be talking about it anywhere I can (which unfortunately doesn't include any bookstores or conventions), including here, but if you liked my previous book <i>Stay Crazy</i> I'd be real stoked if you pre-order this one too.<div>
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<a href="about:invalid#zClosurez" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Sasquatch Xing Rectangle - World Famous Sign Co." border="0" height="200" src="data:image/png;base64,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" width="149" /></a>But the novella isn't the only thing that's going down. I'm still writing short stories from time to time, and earlier this month one of those stories was published! Not getting around to writing up story notes until now is pretty inexcusable, but call it a combination of 2020, laziness, and believing the story pretty much speaks for itself.</div>
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<a href="http://www.kaleidotrope.net/summer-2020/sasquatch-summer-by-erica-l-satifka/">"Sasquatch Summer"</a> is my first attempt at writing historical fiction. Set in turn-of-the-last-century Oregon, it centers on a small town torn apart by the fight between a small-time timber industrialist, a trainload of New York City anarchists, and the gentle socialist sasquatches that lived (and as far as I know still live) inside Mount Hood. The narrator is Helen, a plucky girl who stumbles into this messy political situation when her brother is kidnapped by sasquatches. Here's an excerpt:</div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.1px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">That was the summer the sasquatches came down from Mount Hood and put Papa out of a job.</span><span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It wasn’t their fault, not really. Sasquatches don’t need tools to work. When a sasquatch wants to tear down a tree, he doesn’t use an axe. He grips each side with his leathery hands and just <i style="outline: none;">pulls</i> until the earth decides to let that tree go. When a tree falls on a sasquatch, the company doesn’t have to pay his family any compensation like they did to Jimmy’s family. That creature just rolls out from under the tree and keeps on walking.</span><span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Of course, most folks didn’t see it like that.</span></blockquote>
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Automation has arrived in the Oregon wilderness, courtesy of cryptids who are too intelligent to understand money. To the rescue of both the exploited sasquatches and the dispossessed townsfolk come a motley gang of proto-feminist city folk who seek to form a sasquatch union, but the cultural disconnect between the brash newcomers and the unemployed townies seems like it may do more harm than good for everyone. In the end, the sasquatches need to speak for themselves, but how can a creature that doesn't talk have a voice?</div>
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Though written as a several-years-after-the-fact reaction to Occupy Wall Street, this story is really damn 2020. Because I want you to actually read the story, I won't go into the resolution, and will only say that it emphasizes the importance of helping communities on their own terms, and that it's pretty optimistic for one of my stories. You can read it right now at <a href="http://www.kaleidotrope.net/"><i>Kaleidotrope</i></a>, one of the best smaller online magazines out there, and there are many other great stories in this issue. So go read it!</div>
Erica L. Satifkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17134032079725071000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-5283382539472324592019-10-08T08:00:00.001-04:002020-08-30T00:47:10.452-04:00Story Notes: "Trial and Terror" (psst... A PUNK ROCK FUTURE comes out today!)<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Somehow, the van makes it most of the way through Iowa. Then it dies all at once, spectacularly, farting out its reserve of gas like an old man on taco night in the run-down nursing home his good-for-nothing children stuck him in after he drove the family sedan into a telephone pole. </blockquote>
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Most of those things don't exist anymore. No nursing homes. Only a few sedans. And don't get me started on the lack of taco nights.</blockquote>
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Another two months, another story post! My newest one is the 6000ish-word "Trial and Terror," which is my first published sequel.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidJ8qXBACT2Rc7ENY-9yzOCH7nobKht_dmybvPUNHKEHnFmN0cQctg5uhzcpeRgxmNTSwZHrWKqFLoPa_C8uc2dhExNzY8OxZWh5vE-9UL1FGBT6Eenn4IykFSqsj0R3XXOFJBcO_6DJQ/s1600/punkrock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="250" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidJ8qXBACT2Rc7ENY-9yzOCH7nobKht_dmybvPUNHKEHnFmN0cQctg5uhzcpeRgxmNTSwZHrWKqFLoPa_C8uc2dhExNzY8OxZWh5vE-9UL1FGBT6Eenn4IykFSqsj0R3XXOFJBcO_6DJQ/s320/punkrock.jpg" width="200" /></a>When the editor of <i>A Punk Rock Future</i> solicited a story from me for the anthology, he specifically mentioned my <i>Interzone</i> story <a href="http://www.ericasatifka.com/2017/12/story-notes-big-so-so.html">"The Big So-So"</a> (also in <a href="http://escapepod.org/2018/12/06/escape-pod-657-the-big-so-so/">audio</a> at <i>Escape Pod</i>) as a story that would fit the theme. And that was when I realized that I wasn't quite done with these characters or their world of permanent ennui due to the sudden withdrawal of alien love drugs. So what did I do? I, uh, wrote a 40,000-word novella with these characters.</div>
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I am not a fast writer, nor do I really like writing or pretty much anything about the process other than the brief shot of dopamine when I see my name in a table of contents. However, I finished this novella in about three months, with over half the work squeezed into a two-week span, and I enjoyed nearly every minute of it. The story, naturally, was far too long for a short fiction anthology, so I wrote another story (the aforementioned "Trial and Terror") that chronologically takes place after the novella, which means that this is not just a sequel but the sequel to a sequel, although all of the stories can be read separately from one another and make total sense.</div>
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So, anyway! "Trial and Terror" is, as its name implies, a courtroom tale. As in all the Magic Band stories (so named due to featuring a band that is magical, because I bleed creativity from my very pores), your unreliable narrator is Syl, who's not unreliable in the "lies about murdering people" way but instead in the "has spaced five times on picking you up at the airport, will absolutely flake again" way. Not that there are airports in this acktshually decimated world. Unfortunately for them, the band encounters one of the few towns that still clings to something like law and order, and it's up to Syl to get her friend/vocalist Frank's head out of a noose. And maybe there's some romance in the mix? (There is!)</div>
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Like I said before, this story (and everything featuring these characters) was insanely fun to write and also funny, at least to me. Maybe you'll laugh too? To find out, buy <i>A Punk Rock Future</i> at <a href="https://www.powells.com/book/-9781733775007">Powell's</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Punk-Rock-Future-Erica-Satifka-ebook/dp/B07PWTKNW3/ref=sr_1_1?crid=FD6KLNS6L4V6&keywords=a+punk+rock+future&qid=1570433332&sprefix=a+punk+rock+%2Caps%2C199&sr=8-1">Amazon</a>, or anywhere else books are sold. There's 25 other "punkpunk" stories in this anthology, including rocking tales from Spencer Ellsworth, Sarah Pinsker, Marie Vibbert, Wendy Nikel, and many more.</div>
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(And that novella? Well, I'm still tinkering away at the edits, and whether it's published by someone else or self-published it won't be out until 2021 at the very earliest. In the meantime, I'm definitely open to writing more stuff in this milieu that I love. <i>Big hint.</i>)</div>
Erica L. Satifkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17134032079725071000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-91362186334649466942019-08-07T08:00:00.001-04:002020-08-30T00:47:32.564-04:00Story Notes: "Can You Tell Me How to Get to Apocalypse?" (+ Bonus Flash!)<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjObatKv0TY5hmc31euBLNZUJ1KotLrzdO8_rgHG3b8hJ5NAU_bV0Q0wER_FUohHHhaksrtHW3cTQdgEewv-igxhUzdptpSdAID9g2LiDntqBo45h1eFnOPPOWKqPTbjgZqTTsas1N2318/s1600/apocalypse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="908" data-original-width="1285" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjObatKv0TY5hmc31euBLNZUJ1KotLrzdO8_rgHG3b8hJ5NAU_bV0Q0wER_FUohHHhaksrtHW3cTQdgEewv-igxhUzdptpSdAID9g2LiDntqBo45h1eFnOPPOWKqPTbjgZqTTsas1N2318/s320/apocalypse.jpg" width="320" /></a>After over a year of not having any stories published at all, suddenly I had two of them come out in the same month. That's how these things happen sometimes! The first and shorter of these is the self-explanatory "<a href="https://dailysciencefiction.com/science-fiction/biotech/erica-l-satifka/you-have-contracted-a-deadly-song-virus">You Have Contracted a Deadly Song Virus</a>," which you can read for free at <i>Daily Science Fiction.</i> It's my tenth story there, and probably my most horrific one.<br />
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If you like your stories to take longer than five minutes to read, pick up <i>Interzone</i> #282, which includes my short story "Can You Tell Me How to Get to Apocalypse?" illustrated by Vincent Sammy. (Aside: This is my third story with a Sammy illustration, and damn if he doesn't do some insanely incredible work.) A very short excerpt:<br />
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<i>A dozen little dead kids sit on the Styrofoam steps outside the only apartment building on Gumdrop Road. They're listening to the newspaper seller. He's talking to them about time.</i></blockquote>
As is obvious from the title of the story, Gumdrop Road isn't a real place. Like the educational program/media empire that it's based on, it's a television show watched by the last remnants of a dying world that's been annihilated by a virus that attacks the reproductive system. In a world where there's nothing new -- because what's the point? -- people escape into a reboot of childhood comfort viewing. But how do you get child actors when nobody can be born? Well, you read the excerpt.<br />
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This spun off from the same flash-writing challenge that spawned "Song Virus," although it quickly expanded beyond flash length. What I'd intended to be a cynical commentary on reboot mania became something much more, as I thought about how this form of cultural recycling might be a reaction to the apocalyptic feel of our times. If you and everyone you love is going to die anyway, why not go with what's safe? Nobody cares about innovation when the world is coming to a close, especially not in the arts. And if it takes digging up a bunch of dead children to lend your comfort viewing the proper amount of verisimilitude, that's not really so bad, is it? It's the end, after all.<br />
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Yeah, real cheery story I wrote here.<br />
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Anyway, you can get a copy of <i>Interzone</i> #282 from the <a href="https://shop.ttapress.com/products/interzone-282-jul-aug-2019">TTA Press site</a>, on Amazon, or in your classier local bookstores. I have at least one more story coming out by the end of the year, which means I'll be posting on this blog at least one more time. Smell you later.Erica L. Satifkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17134032079725071000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-10212524788665481582018-12-18T08:00:00.001-05:002020-08-30T00:47:55.352-04:00"The Big So-So" Now in Audio; Classes at PCC!Pleased to report that my short story "The Big So-So," originally published late last year in <i>Interzone,</i> is <a href="http://escapepod.org/2018/12/06/escape-pod-657-the-big-so-so/">now out in audio on Escape Pod</a>! This is a story very close to my heart, as discussed in the <a href="http://www.ericasatifka.com/2017/12/story-notes-big-so-so.html">story notes</a>, and I'm happy to see it released to a wider audience (the text is also there if you prefer to read it). And if you like this story, there will be another one set in the same world out in the Kickstarter anthology <i>A Punk Rock Future</i> sometime next year, as well as a novella that is currently in the early editing stage. Fight the entropy of a world gripped by drug-withdrawal-induced ennui with a maybe-magical garage band straight outta Pittsburgh.<div>
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Also, I'm teaching another round of my six-week "Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing" adult extension class at Portland Community College. It will run on Saturday mornings from January 26 through March 9, 2019 (with the week of February 23 skipped due to <a href="http://rainforestwriters.com/index.html">Rainforest Writers Retreat</a> -- put it on your calendar for 2020!), and will be back at the Southeast Campus. You can register <a href="https://www.pcc.edu/schedule/default.cfm?fa=dspCourse2&thisTerm=201901&crsCode=9WRI610R&subjCode=9WRI&crsNum=610R&topicCode=WRI&subtopicCode=FG&crnList=16841">here</a>, or email me at the link at the PCC site for more information.</div>
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See you in hell, 2018!</div>
Erica L. Satifkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17134032079725071000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-60157027276227124162018-08-09T08:00:00.001-04:002020-08-30T00:48:17.962-04:00Story Notes: "Like Fleas on a Tired Dog's Back"It's been a while! About five months, to be exact. In that time I've finished one instantly trunked novella, one short story, and another novella that is my heart's true joy. I also had two short stories published which I'm going to talk about now!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4RRpyzrkHx7bh3DdFvU_8FH90QZjaS92w5y7JmAWGhq8u9b8DOxwCPHDxaObrztbMuybnn-h8JbDhp_gCJuMOAihTDuECEQlSPbYdM4ZgOhmBPYV8bFduk-DN61-a5c3K4HNSx0G9n10/s1600/1171_large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="678" data-original-width="479" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4RRpyzrkHx7bh3DdFvU_8FH90QZjaS92w5y7JmAWGhq8u9b8DOxwCPHDxaObrztbMuybnn-h8JbDhp_gCJuMOAihTDuECEQlSPbYdM4ZgOhmBPYV8bFduk-DN61-a5c3K4HNSx0G9n10/s200/1171_large.jpg" width="141" /></a><a href="http://ttapress.com/1975/interzone-275/0/4/"><i>Interzone no. 275</i></a> includes my flash story "The Fate of the World, Reduced to a Ten-Second Pissing Contest," which is the third-longest story title I've ever written. It's a nasty little story about (of course) aliens who make life pretty difficult for a handful of barflies. You can get it and four other stories at the link, one of which ("The Purpose of the Dodo Is to Be Extinct" by Malcolm Devlin) is one of the best stories I've read this year. So you might want to get this issue for that story alone.<br />
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The other story, "Like Fleas on a Tired Dog's Back," isn't <i>officially</i> published yet; it will be in the anthology <i>Nowhereville</i> from Broken Eye Books. However, if you don't want to wait you can read it right now! <i>Eyedolon Magazine</i> is a Patreon-based dark/weird fiction publication where you can read stories slated to appear in <i>Nowhereville </i>and many other anthologies! <a href="https://www.patreon.com/brokeneyebooks/overview">Sign up here</a> for as little as $1 a month and read my story along with all-new work from Kathe Koja, Lucy A. Snyder, Bogi Takács, and Ramsey Campbell.<br />
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<i>After her parents are thrown from their car, killed by a moment of planetary betrayal, Megan comes back to the city where she grew up.</i></blockquote>
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The city is of course Pittsburgh, and our planet is pissed off at humanity, just because we destroyed it. Go figure. Earth only has a moment to get its revenge, but it does it in style, creating a catastrophe that spans the globe and leaves aftershocks of both the physical and psychological kind. Humans attempt to survive using technology, but modern-day band-aids aren't going to fix things this time.<br />
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Obviously this is a climate change story, based on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis">Gaia hypothesis</a>. A few months before I wrote it, I read an article about a <a href="https://www.nj.com/healthfit/index.ssf/2017/05/meet_the_nj_tick_that_can_turn_you_into_a_vegetarian.html">parasite that makes you allergic to red meat</a>, which made me wonder if the Earth has fail-safes: mechanisms that kick into action when its survival is threatened, that slant the behavior of humans toward ways more befitting to the planet's health. The idea of the Earth suddenly waking up and shaking off its human parasites like the fleas we are was just so appealing. This is also a sibling story, with the bond between Megan and her brother Kyle alternately strained and close in the wake of mass revenge.<br />
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Anyway, I hope you read it, either on <i>Eyedolon Magazine</i> or in the <i>Nowhereville</i> anthology when it comes out. I've been exploring climate change in many of my recent not-yet-published pieces, although really, that's just called setting something in the real world now. <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/firefighters-capture-video-of-blazing-cyclone-called-a-firenado-in-the-u-k/">Watch out for the firenados!</a>Erica L. Satifkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17134032079725071000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-60068897301470669272018-03-12T08:00:00.001-04:002020-08-30T00:48:29.998-04:00Two Great KickstartersThere's a couple of Kickstarters running this month that you all should be aware of, and here's a little bit about two of them!<div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj2xZ5TjmUE0KcYyqP9n73yVMW75ftWkG38mQRcNsHarOr4RYzU_4vwwxNz4RHA8W-Arbf8mk56LnusjfO_ttW6wM-NyxB84O843N3ByxMGHrMwua0xUZepdD50_9DWBPT8plGGP5xoKw/s1600/broken+eye.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="297" data-original-width="170" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj2xZ5TjmUE0KcYyqP9n73yVMW75ftWkG38mQRcNsHarOr4RYzU_4vwwxNz4RHA8W-Arbf8mk56LnusjfO_ttW6wM-NyxB84O843N3ByxMGHrMwua0xUZepdD50_9DWBPT8plGGP5xoKw/s200/broken+eye.jpg" width="114" /></a>First up is the Kickstarter for <i>Welcome to Miskatonic University</i> and its companion book <i>It Came from Miskatonic University</i> by Broken Eye Books, two anthologies about college life in Arkham's hallowed educational institution. If funded to the $17,500 level, <i>It Came from Miskatonic University</i> will include a co-written story by me and my spouse/in-house editor Rob McMonigal called "The Last Observer." Although Rob has been editing my work since 2012 (when I got my head out of my ass and started writing again), this is our first time tag-teaming on a story, and I really hope it sees print. The books also feature work by Angela Slatter, Jennifer Brozek, Kristi DeMeester, and many other horror and weird fiction authors. There's a lot of different book levels and goodies available for rewards, including a critique by me of any work of fiction up to 10,000 words in length. <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1557256029/welcome-to-miskatonic-university-an-anthology">You can support the Kickstarter here!</a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihBQoif7q-GrfaugM9II9iuncY569n5Zh-7ulJDwLJEPJooE42MBY8QG1gA6n5HS153KPpj2qp7MTNWtpJqmuFkCNpoMgodF0FFwwbLCjQZNGiqZcXVCO64gUygT3ImZGR67OaNxtvDgI/s1600/The-Dark-Issue-28-220x340.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="340" data-original-width="220" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihBQoif7q-GrfaugM9II9iuncY569n5Zh-7ulJDwLJEPJooE42MBY8QG1gA6n5HS153KPpj2qp7MTNWtpJqmuFkCNpoMgodF0FFwwbLCjQZNGiqZcXVCO64gUygT3ImZGR67OaNxtvDgI/s200/The-Dark-Issue-28-220x340.jpg" width="129" /></a>There's also a Kickstarter running for two more years of <i>The Dark</i>. Publishers of quality unsettling fiction for the past several years, The Dark features a wide variety of diverse writers, with over half of the published stories being by women and over a third by people of color. Some of my favorite stories from the past few years of <i>The Dark</i> have been Carrie Laben's <a href="http://thedarkmagazine.com/postcards-from-natalie/">"Postcards from Natalie"</a> (which won the Shirley Jackson Award!), <a href="http://thedarkmagazine.com/five-boys-went-to-war/">"Five Boys Went to War"</a> by Amanda E. Forrest, and <a href="http://thedarkmagazine.com/house-jessica-built/">"The House That Jessica Built"</a> by Nadia Bulkin. My own quantum suicide story <a href="http://thedarkmagazine.com/lucky-girl/">"Lucky Girl"</a> appeared in the September 2017 issue. This Kickstarter also has a reward tier that includes a critique by me (again up to 10,000 words). <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/366739582/the-dark-magazine-two-more-years-of-unsettling-fic?ref=nav_search&result=project&term=the%20dark">Support <i>The Dark</i> at this link!</a></div>
Erica L. Satifkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17134032079725071000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-45255366990763845112017-12-11T08:00:00.001-05:002020-08-30T00:48:45.418-04:00Story Notes: "The Big So-So"I write relatively few stories in first person. (Regular-sized stories, that is. I write a lot of flash in first person but writing flash is in my opinion <i>completely different</i> from writing a regular-sized story, so of course the techniques are going to change.) I can think of some reasons why that might be, but I think the main one is that most of my stories don't <i>need</i> a first person narrator. Besides, at any length much above a thousand words my own internal voice is going to kick in, and I don't want all of my stories to sound the same.<br />
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But hey, I can have <i>one</i> story like that. One story where I get to indulge a goofy internal narrative style. One story that's more about the <i>way</i> the story is being told than plot or conflict, one story that needs to be in first person because that's the only way it can be written. And that story is this story, "The Big So-So," which is out in the current issue of <i>Interzone</i> (November/December 2017).<br />
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<i>I look over at Dorky. She looks over at me. She mouths the words "play along."<br /><br /> And I mouth the word "what?" because for the life of me I can't figure out what the hell the point of this little stunt is.</i></blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijqQImHvQ8s7h2O2-nrPcJIaTCZ9ehQ5zBxWYrLI2feOBoeXcSOLQKmP8r2lDoJQCM1kxe_39lC6sHaoDk0suYPdiDDtxNIAW8vr77SgUvGepGDUu2hrF436m1u6s5oqs0S6J8ySLoKXY/s1600/iz273.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="752" data-original-width="1058" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijqQImHvQ8s7h2O2-nrPcJIaTCZ9ehQ5zBxWYrLI2feOBoeXcSOLQKmP8r2lDoJQCM1kxe_39lC6sHaoDk0suYPdiDDtxNIAW8vr77SgUvGepGDUu2hrF436m1u6s5oqs0S6J8ySLoKXY/s320/iz273.jpg" width="320" /></a>The seed of this story came out of my novel <i>Stay Crazy</i>, specifically the fact that while I share many demographic particulars with Em-the-protagonist, I don't have schizophrenia, though am "neuro-atypical" (a term I grudgingly use) in other ways. This led to a lot of waffling about whether I could really consider the book "ownvoices," and I decided that as a kind of balancing tactic I'd write a story about a character with my own strain of "neurodiversity": attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.<br />
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One of the quirks of ADHD is that chemicals (especially stimulants, but others too) don't affect us in the same way as non-ADHD people. So for "The Big So-So," I came up with the idea of an alien love drug that has a drastic effect on everyone except Sylvia, the attention-deficient narrator. But being spared from the high also means Syl is saved from the crash that happens when the aliens withdraw the drug, which means she's in an excellent position to help society rebuild.<br />
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In addition to neurodiversity, I wanted to write a story where restoration of the world after social collapse happened slowly and organically, and not as the result of any sudden heroics on Syl's part or anyone else's. Small actions making a positive change in the world one at a time. This may just be the most positive story I've ever written. (If you're curious, the band in the story sounds a lot like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AV8N44HzfBQ">Brokencyde</a>. Also, you should probably not listen to that video.)<br />
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And the story is set in Pittsburgh, because what city better exemplifies a slow recovery from a death spiral, and is also a place I lived for five years?<br />
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If you want to read the story, you can buy the issue <a href="http://store.clickandbuild.com/cnb/shop/ttapress?productID=32&op=catalogue-product_info-null&prodCategoryID=4">here</a> from TTA Press, or email me at <b>satifka at gmail dot com</b>. By the way, the title comes from the opening line of the song below. Sleater-Kinney is a much better band than the one in the story.<br />
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<br />Erica L. Satifkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17134032079725071000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-27067109393423716642017-11-27T08:00:00.001-05:002020-08-30T00:48:56.273-04:00Trying to Try: My 2017 Award Eligibility Post!<div>
It's award season, the most stressful time of a writer's year, or so I've been told. As <a href="http://www.ericasatifka.com/2017/10/fantasycon-2017-jolly-good-surprise.html">winning the British Fantasy Award</a> was one of the best things that has ever happened to me, I figured that it would be a not-terrible idea to list the fiction I've had published this year, in case it happens again? But it probably won't. But it might??</div>
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While I didn't write as much this year as I'd hoped to (for reasons possibly to be enumerated in a non-writing-related yearly roundup post I may write but probably won't), I had five stories out: two flashes, two regular size dealies, and one novelette (!). I'll go through them from longest to shortest.</div>
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The novelette is "The Goddess of the Highway" at <i>Interzone</i>, which is a new market for me. At approximately 12,600 words it is the longest thing I've ever had published that isn't <i>Stay Crazy</i> (<a href="https://www.apexbookcompany.com/products/stay-crazy?variant=21123636353">please buy now</a>), and one of my longest stories period. So if you like reading my stuff, well, here's a big old chunk of it. <a href="http://www.ericasatifka.com/2017/10/story-notes-goddess-of-highway-new.html">I wrote a post about it here</a>, but the keywords are: prosthetic brains, road trip, socialism, pancakes. It's not available online since <i>Interzone</i> is a print magazine, but you can get the digital issue <a href="http://store.clickandbuild.com/cnb/shop/ttapress?productID=32&op=catalogue-product_info-null&prodCategoryID=4">here</a> or email me at satifka at gmail dot com and I'll just send you the damn thing. <b>(EDIT: This story is now available to read for free at my website at <a href="http://www.ericasatifka.com/p/the-goddess-of-highway.html">this link</a> thanks to <i>Interzone</i> editor Andy Cox.)</b></div>
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The next-longest short story is "The Big So-So," which is also in <i>Interzone</i>! Just like "Goddess" the print copy features some amazing interior art by <a href="https://karbonk.deviantart.com/">Vincent Sammy</a>. This story came out so recently that I'm still behind on writing a "story notes" post about it, but basically it's about a bunch of slackers living in Pittsburgh after aliens hooked the whole planet on happy juice (and then took it away). One of my quirks as a writer is that I write very few stories in the first person, and this was my attempt to write a short story that could <i>only</i> be told in first person, because the way the story is told is just as important as the plot itself. Just like above, you can get the digital issue at <a href="http://store.clickandbuild.com/cnb/shop/ttapress?productID=32&op=catalogue-product_info-null&prodCategoryID=4">TTA Press</a> or email me. This story is around 5200 words long.</div>
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Story number three is <a href="http://thedarkmagazine.com/lucky-girl/">"Lucky Girl"</a> at <i>The Dark</i>, again a new market, and this one is online! I call it an ontological horror story, and it's pretty damn terrifying to me, although it could also be read as just a straight non-genre piece (but where's the fun in that?). <a href="http://www.ericasatifka.com/2017/09/story-notes-lucky-girl.html">The story notes are here</a>, although they mostly wound up being about <i>Sliders</i>. 3900 words.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3xYnTSd6W2t5IRyQ74xrHNFI9n9WBWJOr33X2SV-bRExgb9Y3yLhUgM5ZVj-oWYwa-FiuORAKOer4nealQRlHdcZPwfGUjnM6yY2n41nGofWMMfxdwn-E9wTJxdPxch0AY7mJEVXGjM0/s1600/rue2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3xYnTSd6W2t5IRyQ74xrHNFI9n9WBWJOr33X2SV-bRExgb9Y3yLhUgM5ZVj-oWYwa-FiuORAKOer4nealQRlHdcZPwfGUjnM6yY2n41nGofWMMfxdwn-E9wTJxdPxch0AY7mJEVXGjM0/s320/rue2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>We also got this cat in 2017, so as you can see, not a complete loss.</i></td></tr>
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Taking up the rear are my two flash pieces, which were both published in <i>Daily Science Fiction</i>. <a href="http://dailysciencefiction.com/science-fiction/other-worlds-sf/erica-l-satifka/attending-your-own-funeral-an-etiquette-guide">"Attending Your Own Funeral: An Etiquette Guide"</a> is a quiet piece about alternate universes and taking it easy, and <a href="http://dailysciencefiction.com/science-fiction/aliens/erica-l-satifka/bitter-medicine_sf">"Bitter Medicine"</a> is about humans being human (that's bad). I don't usually have much to say about flash, even when it's my own, but if you've only got a few minutes and you <i>really</i> want to read a Satifka story, well there you go.</div>
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So, that was my year in publications. Not quite as prolific as 2014 and 2015, but better than last year, because let's face it anything was better than last year. If you like any of these stories, feel free to recommend them or (if you're a SFWA member) put them on the Nebula Suggested Reading List (<a href="https://www.sfwa.org/forum/reading/work/2581-the-goddess-of-the-highway/">"Goddess"</a> is already on there, which makes me incredibly happy). And here's to hopefully a 2018 with even more published work, which means I have to write more stuff, because except for solicited pieces I'm fresh out. Maybe I shouldn't admit that. Well, can't erase it now.</div>
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(Oh, and if you're wondering whether these stories are fantasy, science fiction, or horror? Yes, they are!)<br />
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Erica L. Satifkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17134032079725071000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-32164693608262051112017-11-22T08:00:00.001-05:002020-08-30T00:50:02.351-04:00It's the Apex Black Friday 2017 Sale!Capitalism ahoy! For the next five days (all the way through "Cyber Monday") you can get all books in the Apex catalog for <b>30% off</b> with the code <b>CHEER17</b>. This includes my British Fantasy Award-winning novel <i>Stay Crazy</i>, which you probably already have if you read this blog, but on the off chance you don't well now you can.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpzsP8nT8we9OKfzkcK-CoU5hskM_h-dli3gzp2vJdc-uzbSmvCNmwkHIj-r8ALz-naScUbpW_Jh1Hr0l_GRYrtG5fKapLpZiW7vsOEOMb3rbgUc7DbiCjDaeGDfrqdCjRpEZZK-xWKrQ/s1600/apex2016.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpzsP8nT8we9OKfzkcK-CoU5hskM_h-dli3gzp2vJdc-uzbSmvCNmwkHIj-r8ALz-naScUbpW_Jh1Hr0l_GRYrtG5fKapLpZiW7vsOEOMb3rbgUc7DbiCjDaeGDfrqdCjRpEZZK-xWKrQ/s320/apex2016.jpg" width="320" /></a>In addition, year-themed packs of Apex novels are on sale, with the 2016 one (which includes my book and seven others) a mere $80 for print and $18 for digital. <a href="https://www.apexbookcompany.com/collections/black-friday-bundles/products/books-of-2016-8-for-80?variant=2983489765402">You can get it here.</a> It's a good chance to stock up a lot of books for your home, school, library, place of business, or just to build a cool fort.</div>
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Starts before whenever you read this, ends November 27!</div>
Erica L. Satifkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17134032079725071000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2787686949041747465.post-82552954415974660402017-11-13T08:00:00.001-05:002020-08-30T00:50:17.741-04:00My OryCon 39 Schedule!<a href="http://39.orycon.org/">OryCon 39</a> is this weekend! Specifically, November 17th - 19th at the Red Lion Hotel in Jantzen Beach. Here's where I'll be:<br />
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<b><u>Friday, November 17</u></b><br />
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<b>Literary Techniques: Awesome or Snobby? (7:00 pm - 8:00 pm)</b> - Literary fiction and genre fiction has been at odds for a long time, but they don't have to be enemies. Learn some literary techniques that will help improve your writing and take you deeper into your story. You may even end up with a great reading list of 'literary' genre fiction that will challenge your preconceptions about literary fiction and literary devices. <i>Jeff Soesbe, Erica L. Satifka, Laurel Anne Hill (M), Leigh Goodison</i><br />
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<b><u>Saturday, November 18</u></b><br />
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<b>Spaceships, Colonists, and Castaways (11:00 am - 12:00 pm) -</b> How small communities function in isolated conditions with minimal resources. <i>Bart Kemper, Erica L. Satifka (M), Blaze Ward, John M. Lovett</i><br />
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<b>Political Economy for World Builders (12:00 pm - 1:00 pm) -</b> Learn the basics of political philosophy, forms of government and economic systems to inspire your story, game or more informed voting habits. <i>Erica L. Satifka, A.M. Brosius</i><br />
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<b>Autograph Session 4 (3:00 pm - 4:00 pm)</b> - Get your books (or whatever) signed by your favorite writers! <i>Erica L. Satifka, EM Prazeman, Amy DuBoff, Sheila Finch</i><br />
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<b>Escape With Us! (5:00 pm - 6:00 pm)</b> - While film is often used to explore complex social themes and situations, the movie theater also functions as a refuge from reality. The nature of the escape changes depending on the larger social landscape. Does the current proliferation of films about super heroes and live-action fairy tales reflect a cultural desire to be rescued, or is it something else? <i>Erica L. Satifka (M), Judith R. Conly, Marshall Ryan Maresca, John M. Lovett</i><br />
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<b>Crime and Fantasy (8:00 pm - 9:00 pm)</b> - From vampire assassins to wizard private eyes to undead thugs, crime has been mixing it up with fantasy for years. What is it about crime, noir, and the paranormal that's so appealing? Also - what are some really good titles?<i> Erica L. Satifka, Fonda Lee, Diana Pharaoh Francis (M), Marshall Ryan Maresca, Rory Miller</i></div>
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<b><u>Sunday, November 19</u></b></div>
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<b>Erica L. Satifka Reading (10:00 am - 10:30 am)</b> - Erica L. Satifka reads from her works.</div>
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I'll be selling copies of my British Fantasy Award-winning novel <i>Stay Crazy</i> for $10 (the "get these excess book copies out of my house so I can fill that space with candy" price) at the autograph session, and reading from my newest short fiction publication "The Goddess of the Highway" at the reading. And... that's it! See you there!</div>
Erica L. Satifkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17134032079725071000noreply@blogger.com