Categories
BrazenHead design fiction

year-end sum up

Gregorian year 2012 was, on a number of personal levels, profoundly horrible, demoralizing, debilititating. But those are the exact personal levels I believe it unseemly to talk about in public, so you, Dear Reader, are spared endless litanies of woe and humiliation. Be reassured, however, that Misses Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë, and I, remain housed, warm (not as warm as I’d prefer, granted), and fed as one year turns over to the next, during which matters might improve.

Miss Jane Austen (l) and Miss Charlotte Brontë (r)

On other levels, 2012 was pretty damned spectacular.

I published seven original stories:

  1. “Tattooed Love Boys,” an 11,000-word novelette, at GigaNotoSaurus.org in March.
  2. “Liam and His Dads,” the third, 6,000-word Liam story, in Icarus: The Magazine of Gay Speculative Fiction #12, the Spring issue.
  3. “Wheat, Barley, Lettuce, Fennel, Salt for Sorrow, Blood for Joy,” a 12,000-word novelette, in Boys of Summer, an anthology of young-adult stories from editor Steve Berman and publisher Bold Strokes Books, in May.
  4. “Ban’s Dream of the Sea,” a 6,200-word short story, in The Touch of the Sea, an anthology of new marine fantasies from editor Steve Berman and publisher Lethe Press, also in May.
  5. “Haider and His Dog,” a 5,700-word short story, sequel to the earlier “Firooz and His Brother” (in the sense that both are self-contained excerpts from a never-to-be-finished novel), in my collection You Will Meet a Stranger Far from Home (Lethe Press, July).
  6. “Then We Went There,” a 5,400-word short story—my first purpose-written short story in some fifteen years, finally printed in You Will Meet a Stranger Far from Home.
  7. “Two Dead Men,” a 5,900-word short story, in Icarus #14, the Fall issue.

I had a 2011-published story reprinted:

I resold two of the above-listed 2012 stories for reprint in 2013:

  1. “Tattooed Love Boys” to Wilde Stories 2013 (Lethe Press, July).
  2. “Wheat, Barley, Lettuce, Fennel, Salt for Sorrow, Blood for Joy” to Best Gay Stories 2013 (Lethe Press, August).

I published a book.

I completed seven new stories—an annual record. Up until a few hours ago, I really thought it might be eight, but that last one will have to count for 2013.

  1. “Seb and Duncan and the Sirens,” an 11,000-word novelette set on a contemporary Greek island, completed in March. Tentatively sold to Icarus but not yet scheduled. Likely to be serialized across two issues.
  2. “The Other Bridge,” 5,600 words, written in March. Rejected by eight markets so far but hope remains.
  3. “Two Dead Men,” 5,900 words, written in May. Published, as noted above, in Icarus #14.
  4. “The Oily Man,” 10,000 words, completed in August. Sold to and scheduled to appear in the anthology Handsome Devil: Tales of Sin and Seduction, edited by Steve Berman and due from Prime Books in February 2014.
  5. “The Hyena’s Blessing,” 6,000 words, written in October. Sold to and scheduled to appear in the anthology Zombies: Shambling through the Ages, edited by Steve Berman and due from Prime Books in August 2013.
  6. “You Deserve,” 6,000 words, written in October–November. Sold to and scheduled to appear in the anthology Bad Seeds: Evil Progeny, edited by Steve Berman and due from Prime Books in July 2013.
  7. A 2,800-word short story written and sold in November, which will appear in 2013 under an inside-joke pen name. I am forbidden to reveal more.

I sold an older story, 7,300 words, originally drafted in August 2010.

  • “A Man Not of Canaan,” a tale of Lovecraftian elder gods and BDSM set in the Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean, will appear at GigaNotoSaurus.org in the spring—April or May, I’m told.

I sold a much, much older full-length novel, originally drafted in the early 1990s (!).

In response to an early reader’s critique, I sternly revised but did not substantially shorten my gargantuan novel The Unexpected Thing. That revised MS received another thoughtful critique from a different reader but I haven’t got ’round to addressing his points yet. Fall had already fallen and I learned during the three years of composition that I can only work on The Unexpected Thing in late spring and through the summer.

I invented a brand-new secondary world in which gods and other preternatural entities take an interest. It doesn’t have a name because its inhabitants just call it the world. For convenience, I refer to it as the world of the subcontinent, a significant geographical, cultural, and political feature. Of 2012’s seven completed stories, three are tales from the subcontinent: “The Other Bridge,” “Two Dead Men,” and “The Oily Man.” Three incomplete stories that I hope to finish in 2013 are likewise subcontinental tales: “The Tale of the Ive-ojan-akhar’s Death,” “A Joke of the Kandadal,” and “The Lake Is Not the World” (all titles subject to change). A seventh tale, originally envisioned as a novelette, seems to want to be a novel: The Cat in the Moon.

Other, non-subcontinental stories in progress that I intend, dammit, to complete in 2013, include (in no particular order):

  • That eighth 2012 story I didn’t quite manage. If taken by the editor it’s aimed at it will have to appear under a pen-name so I’ll say no more about it.
  • “Liam and the Changelings,” the long-delayed fourth (of an eventual seven) Liam story.
  • “The Water Palace,” set in contemporary İstanbul and involving a peri and the ancient Byzantine cisterns.
  • “The Discovery of Vinhático,” a ghost story that takes place on an imaginary island in the Atlantic, an autonomous region of the Portuguese Republic. I’ve been trying to get this one to work since 2010.

As editor, in 2012 I witnessed the continued ascent into the empyrean of BrazenHead’s first release, Eat Your Heart Out by Dayna Ingram (December 2011), and published the second—Green Thumb by Tom Cardamone (June)—and third—The Grigori by Joshua Skye (November). Fallout from my own personal disasters may have sabotaged my hopes for BrazenHead #4—I need to talk to that very poorly treated author soon.

As designer, I put together a whole lot of books. I can’t quite figure out how to count them—a few printed in 2012 were designed the year before, while I currently have in my files, I think, nine designed in the last few months but not scheduled to appear, in one case, until July.

As weary blogger, at nearly 3.oo AM EST, 1 January 2013, I’ve finished my New Year’s split of Catalan cava and this entry.

 

Categories
design fantasy fiction Lethe Press short stories spec fic You Will Meet a Stranger…

to print, to print

Although not officially on sale until the 14th, You Will Meet a Stranger Far from Home has gone to press. Primarily so that publisher Steve Berman can schlep printed copies north from New Jersey next week for display on the Lethe Press table at Readercon in Burlington, Mass. (Sell many copies to discerning con-goers, little book!) And drop a few off with the author in Rhode Island along the way.

Just under the wire to appear on the flyleaf, capricious and brilliant author of Lambda Literary Award-winning Diana Comet and Other Improbable Stories Sandra McDonald offered up a gobsmacking blurb:

These ten stories transport us in smart, dazzling, and sometimes brutal ways into worlds that are both familiar and unfamiliar, near at hand and far over the horizon.  Alex Jeffers writes like a man with a thousand years of stories to share. Each is like a prism held up to the sun, refracting hard but rewarding truths unlikely to be found in any other place but these beautiful pages.

Tangentially related to You Will Meet a Stranger: At Out in Print Queer Book Reviews this morning, Jerry L. Wheeler posted a review of Steve Berman’s marine anthology The Touch of the Sea, saying extremely flattering things about my “Ban’s Dream of the Sea,” reprinted in the collection.

Also sent early to press today so Steve can promote them at Readercon, two anthologies. Wilde Stories 2012: The Year’s Best Gay Speculative Fiction, edited by Himself and with fantastic cover art by Ben Baldwin, should be generally available around 1 August.

Lauriat: A Filipino-Chinese Speculative Fiction Anthology, edited by Charles A. Tan, cover artwork/design by Maxie Wei, is scheduled to go on sale 15 August.

Categories
design fantasy fiction short stories spec fic YA

Steve Berman day at s&p.com

Every day is actually Daulton and Steve day, of course.

Unsilent partner in all SB's endeavors.

But above and beyond all that, today saw receipt of contributor copies of Steve’s new anthology of stories for gay teens (and teens at heart, and gays at heart), Boys of Summer, available any week now—or RIGHT NOW direct from the publisher.

My contribution is “Wheat, Barley, Lettuce, Fennel, Salt for Sorrow, Blood for Joy,” a long tale (even longer than the title) of a summer sailboat cruise off the Aegean coast of Turkey, in which young Luke becomes enmeshed in multiple strands of multiple variations of the Adonis story.

And also! Originally scheduled for last September, then pushed forward to this July, now rushed into print because why not: The Touch of the Sea, a seaweed garland of fantastical tales of men and the life-giving and -taking ocean. Should be available in print in a week or so, in e-formats not much later.

Besides the cover and interior design (which all the other writers seem to like, yay), my contribution is “Ban’s Dream of the Sea,” a story of a mysteriously ancient city in the sea, its uncanny original inhabitants, and the interlopers from across the ocean who have claimed it as their colonial capital.

And…and…this evening I’ll be attempting to add more sentences and paragraphs to a new story intended for another Steve Berman anthology about which I’m not yet permitted to speak.

Categories
design fantasy fiction short stories spec fic The Unexpected Thing

housecleaning

A good deal later, I have finally brought the designs portfolio up to date. Also reordered it in reverse-chronological order so you don’t have to scroll way down to see what’s new.

What’s new? Eleven books designed, laid out, and sent to press over the fall, winter, and into early spring. (There were twelve, actually, but one of ’em will remain unrepresented here for reasons private to the publisher and myself.) So go take a look at: Fog by Jeff Mann, The House of Wolves by Robert B. McDiarmid, Tales from the Den, edited by R. Jackson, Jewish Gentle and Other Stories of Gay-Jewish Living by Daniel M. Jaffe, Eat Your Heart Out by Dayna Ingram (the first BrazenHead novella), The Master of Seacliff by Max Pierce, Heiresses of Russ 2011, edited by JoSelle Vanderhooft & Steve Berman, Purgatory by Jeff Mann, Point of Hopes by Melissa Scott & Lisa A. Barnett (which I wrote up here, if you missed it), The Dirty Boys’ Club: The Soap Opera Murders by Simon Sheppard, and Beyond Binary, edited by Brit Mandelo.

Ten others are in my files at various stages of production—the majority fully laid out but not yet in print, including two sequels to Point of Hopes, my own You Will Meet a Stranger Far from Home, Steve Berman’s annual round up of the best gay speculative fiction, Wilde Stories 2012, and the second BrazenHead novella, Green Thumb by Tom Cardamone (whose surname I invariably mistype as Cardamom). So there’s those to look forward to. Maybe I’ll even get them posted timely.


What else is new? In March I managed (two weeks past self-imposed deadline) to complete an 11,000-word story begun nearly a year previously, “Seb and Duncan and the Sirens.” What it says on the tin. And then, in the face of an irresistable challenge, wrote from scratch “The Other Bridge,” a 5,600-word story of post-colonial brittleness. Which one reader has told me is among the best I’ve ever produced. My judgment is reserved.

April promises to be devoted largely to intensive revision of The Unexpected Thing. Joy.

Categories
design fantasy fiction Lethe Press recommendation spec fic work in progress You Will Meet a Stranger…

return to Astreiant

Nicolas Rathe and Philip Eslingen are back! And I am really very extremely pleased to be involved in their renascence.

Point of Hopes, the novel in which Rathe, Eslingen, and the great city of Astreiant were introduced, was the second collaboration of science-fiction novelist Melissa Scott and her partner, Lisa A. Barnett, following by several years and solo Scott novels The Armor of Light, their dazzling alt-history fantasy of an Elizabethan era in which neither Sir Philip Sidney nor Christopher Marlowe died untimely but allied to defeat a magical threat to the kingdom.

First published by Tor in 1995, Point of Hopes is rather a different animal, a pure secondary-world fantasy of a peculiarly solid, matter-of-fact sort. This is a world that feels, as Booklist’s review of the first edition put it, “lived in.” It’s a world lit by two suns—the familiar day-time primary and the smaller, more distant winter-sun—in which astrology, alchemy, necromancy, and other magical disciplines are demonstrably science, every great household employs a wizard (or magist, in the novel’s terminology), and nobody would risk making a major decision without first consulting her horoscope.

And yet it’s the farthest place from the idealized, romantic, sorcerous Age of Heroes of Tolkien and his innumerable followers. Middle Earth is a lovely place to visit but it’s not anywhere you, as a reasonable human person with human needs and desires, could live. The city of Astreiant, the nation of Chenedolle of which Astreiant is capital, Chenedolle’s immediate neighbors and distant trading partners, all possess the qualities of actual places with working economies, histories, technologies. (My guess—probably wrong—is that Astreiant’s models were the wealthy mercantile cities of the Burgundian Low Countries in the early Renaissance.) Life would be hard in Astreiant for a refugee from twenty-first-century USA but not especially harder than in Elizabethan London and conceivable in a way that acclimation to daily life in Minas Tirith or the Shire, it seems to me, is not. Indeed, for women and queer people, Astreiant has multiple advantages over our own time in that, without any fuss at all, Scott and Barnett have imagined societies in which gender equality is the norm and minority sexualities no big deal.

Refreshingly furthermore, although Chenedolle and other nations naturally possess entrenched aristocracies, nearly all the principal characters in Point of Hopes are ordinary people—not quite middle class, largely because an Astreianter middle class hasn’t quite evolved yet. Ladies and lords are, as they would be for you and me, distant glamorous figures who make you self-conscious about your second-best coat and unpolished manners when the course of events brings you into contact with them. Neither Rathe nor Eslingen are hidden heirs to any kingdom nor potential heroes of the humble-hobbit-turned-Savior!-of-the-World! variety. They do their jobs as best they can, worry about money and laundry like you and me, live their mostly ordinary lives without expectation of being extraordinary. Which, of course, makes them all too extraordinary in fantasy-land.

Nico Rathe is a pointsman, member of a kind of city guard or police force that’s grown up in the various districts (points) of Astreiant, charged with maintaining public order and investigating crimes. Only a century or so since the institution’s establishment, pointsmen are still regarded with suspicion by the city people whose business they’re likely to interfere in and the nobility, fearful of erosion of their privileges. Meanwhile, Philip Eslingen, a mercenary from Chenedolle’s traditional enemy, current ally, the League (a loose confederation of independent city states, apparently), is paid off at the end of the campaign season and looking for work to keep him through a winter in Astreiant, where foreigners are less trusted than pointsmen.

The plot of Point of Hopes involves the mysterious disappearance of scores of Astreiant’s children and an alchemical conspiracy in support of one candidate for Chenedolle’s childless queen’s throne. It’s an excellent, clockwork plot, and grand fun to watch it working out, red herrings, detective work, adventurous rescues, and all. But for this reader the real joy of the book was the picture of a fully realized, working secondary world—and the pleasure of making Rathe’s and Eslingen’s acquaintance, for they are lovely, solid, imperfect men.

Point of Hopes was followed by Point of Dreams (also Tor, 2001), set largely in Astreiant’s theatre district. I haven’t reread it as recently as Hopes—this will be remedied soon!—but as I recall the plot was smaller scale though no less satisfying and the new corners of Astreiant fascinating to explore. The big surprise was discovering Rathe and Eslingen to be acknowledged lovers now, not so many months after the end of Hopes when they were merely good friends and accidental partners in adventure who had (subtly, subtly) admitted an attraction between them. At any rate, I enjoyed Dreams a great deal and resigned myself to waiting another six years for the next Point.

Very sadly, that was not to be. Barnett was diagnosed with cancer in 2003 and after a long, hard fight died in 2006. Tor ceased releasing a new Scott novel just about every year. As best I could determine (admittedly I didn’t try that hard), Scott fell completely silent—understandably!

Then, ’round about the time I became inextricably entangled in the webs of Steve Berman’s Lethe Press, Steve announced he would be reissuing Scott’s Lambda Literary Award-winning science fiction novel Shadow Man, although he didn’t ask me to design it. Nevertheless, I perked up, very happy to see that fine, extremely peculiar book rescued from out-of-print oblivion.

Two and a bit years later, after negotiations I don’t pretend to know anything about, huzzah!, Lethe is also rescuing Nico Rathe, Philip Eslingen, and Astreiant.

Spectacular cover art by Ben Baldwin; cover layout and interior design by me. I uploaded files for the dead-tree edition to the printer earlier today; that and various e-book formats should go on sale within a few weeks.

But that’s not all! Steve confessed feeling a dreadful disappointment, when Point of Dreams was first released, about not getting to witness the beginning of Rathe’s and Eslingen’s non-working relationship, skipped over in the interval between Hopes and Dreams. And so Melissa Scott took herself back to Astreiant, bittersweetly solo, to write Point of Knives, a savory novella which, in the interstices of another tricky case for Adjunct Point Rathe and his ex-mercenary sidekick, shows exactly that. And, incidentally, Rathe’s transfer/promotion from Point of Hopes to Point of Dreams, something that was rather glossed over in the second full-length novel.

Another spectacular piece by Ben Baldwin.

Point of Knives is scheduled for release this summer, followed in the autumn by Lethe’s new edition of Point of Hopes. Rumor has it we can expect the fourth Book of Astreiant, Fairs’ Point, next year. I’m pretty damned impatient, let me tell you.


On a self-involvedly personal note, the other day I received You Will Meet a Stranger Far from Home’s second blurb. Christopher Barzak, author of the widely acclaimed novels One for Sorrow and The Love We Share Without Knowing, writes:

Step onto this flying carpet and prepare to be carried away to exotic times and places, where Alex Jeffers has set up camp to tell his tales to both those already familiar with his wonderful wonder stories and to those strangers who happen to be passing by.

And I am within spitting distance of completing a draft of “Seb and Duncan and the Sirens,” a longish story begun over a year ago, set aside several times, but now (foolishly) promised to Somebody (he knows who he is) by month’s end.

Categories
BrazenHead design fiction Lethe Press short stories spec fic

two things

A nice review of Dayna Ingram’s Eat Your Heart Out, the first release from BrazenHead (exceptional novellas of queer speculative fiction), posted two days ago on the Edge Media network:

Despite sounding like clichéd fanfiction written by a horny devotee, “Eat Your Heart Out” is tender yet ruthlessly gruesome.

Front cover design for Wilde Stories 2012, forthcoming in June from Lethe Press and including my short story “The Arab’s Prayer.” Concept: Steve Berman. Artwork: Ben Baldwin. Layout/typography: Alex Jeffers.

Categories
BrazenHead design fiction short stories The Abode of Bliss The New People

sundries

A few things going on.

Seem to be in the process of making BrazenHead’s first acquisition, a little book the choice of which may surprise some people who know me. It surprises me. More dirt when the contract is issued/signed.

Trying to complete a short story for an anthology whose editor has graciously extended the deadline for me. But I don’t know, possibly I’ve forgotten how to write short stories. Ergh.

Possible sale of a different, older story, but only have verbal commitment at this point so don’t like to post details.

Latest design project, a reissue by Bear Bones Books of Jeff Mann’s 2006 Lambda Literary Award-winning (for Gay Erotica) A History of Barbed Wire, went from determining page margins to production in an unprecedented three days. One of those days involved a fourteen-hour stint with Adobe InDesign that I should, for my health, have broken up over two or three days. I’m too exhausted to prepare screenshots for the designs page. Print edition should be available via the usual on-line booksellers within the week, e-books when the e-bookmeister can get to it.

The New People / Elegant Threat, an M-Brane SF Double by Jeffers & Bell, is out there, waiting for you to buy it. If you already have, Thanks! I’d love to know what you think.

The Abode of Bliss: ten stories for Adam by Jeffers will go to press in two weeks or so. Official publication date 1 August 2011. You should pre-order it.

Jane and Charlotte will celebrate a (courtesy) birthday this coming Thursday, along with the French Republic. They will be ten. Also my birthday. I will be mumblety-four.

 

Misses Jane Austen (front) & Charlotte Brontë (rear)
Categories
design

newish designs

Hmmm. I notice I haven’t updated the designs page since March. And yet I have not been idle on that front in the intervening months. So here are five:

Several others are more or less done (Coast to Coast by François L’Erotique; my own The Abode of Bliss; Wilde Stories 2011, edited by Steve Berman; From Macho to Mariposa, edited by Charles Rice-González & Charlie Vázquez), but I shall wait to post them until they go to press.

Categories
design fiction The Abode of Bliss

site housekeeping update

I have added an entry for The Abode of Bliss on the books page as well as giving it its own page. My efficient WordPress guru added a thumbnail ikon in the visual-navigation column on the left of the front page.

Additionally, a few new books have been added to the designs pages since the last time I had anything to say about them: Blame It on the Raging Hormones by Nathan Goh; The March by Walter Holland; Prodigal: Variations by Ed Madden; and Mere Mortals by Erastes. Coming soon: When the de la Cruz Family Danced by Donna Miscolta (awaiting a high-res version of the cover design); Slant by Timothy Wang (awaiting author approval and final design adjustments); Promises, Promises (a scandalous and delicious romp of a lesbian fairy tale) by L-J Baker (awaiting cover illustration); Coast to Coast by François L’Érotique (awaiting interior illustrations); a new edition of Wakefield Poole’s Dirty Poole, updated to tie in with the forthcoming movie about the legendary director of Boys in the Sand (awaiting interior photos and cover image).

Categories
design Lethe Press short stories

design news & reading recco

Jesse Bullington, author of The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart and The Enterprise of Death, has written a perceptive and complimentary review of Livia Llewellyn’s Engines of Desire for on-line ’zine Innsmouth Free Press. I’m particularly chuffed that Jesse begins his review with a shout-out to the fantastic imagery of cover photographer Katharina Fösel and to my interior design. Engines is about my favorite of the books I’ve produced in the last six months—vicious, haunting, erotic,  beautifully written—even though I’m not ordinarily a fan of horror stories. I urge you to buy it yourself or petition your local public library to add it to the collection.