SABRINA VOURVOULIAS, AUTHOR - Interview

I met Sabrina Vourvoulias through the weekly Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Chat (#sffwrtcht) on Twitter a bit more than a year ago. We clicked right away, sharing a sense of humor and a near-fatal dislike of outlining (which eventually led, with several other folks, to the formation of The League of Extraordinary Pantsers). We finally met in person at last year’s Readercon, just about the time the uncorrected proofs of her novel INK were available. We’ll be meeting up at Readercon again this July, and from the conversation below, it looks like there will be reading, writing, and … dancing??

INK is a novel set in the near future, in an America where immigrants (South/Central American in particular), whether they are legal citizens or not, are being “inked” as a method of population control and tracking. The novel follows a diverse set of characters as their lives are undone and remade, politically, socially, scientifically and magically, by these events.

ANTHONY:  Sabrina, thanks for taking some time to chat. INK has been out for several months now. How has the reaction been?

SABRINA: It has been so positive. The vast majority of readers who’ve left comments on Amazon, Goodreads and Librarything have had lovely things to say, and I’ve been absolutely blown away by some of the attention it has garnered. That a review of it would appear in the Los Angeles Review of Books, for example, when I’m a first time novelist from a small press … I’m very, very gratified.

ANTHONY: What was the initial impetus for INK?

SABRINA: I had been interviewing and hearing stories from undocumented immigrants for a number of years when I ran across a small newspaper article tucked into the back pages of a Spanish-language newspaper. It was about an undocumented immigrant who worked with a landscaping company in the suburbs of New York who had been “given a ride” by a couple of guys on the way home from work one day. Except instead of taking him home they took him over the border with Connecticut and dumped him there without money, cell phone or any identification and warned him to stay out of their state. According to the article he wasn’t the first undocumented immigrant to experience this kind of “border dumping.” It was horrifying and fascinating enough to kick my imagination into overtime.

What if it was over an international border? I thought. And how bad would the tensions that already exist between immigrant and non-immigrant have to become to make it likely, or viable?

The other manifestations of the dystopia came about the same way — I looked at what has already has been happening, or has happened in the past, and nudged it over the edge.

ANTHONY: INK is set in the near-future, which makes it frightenginly real despite the magical elements that appear. How realistic, or perhaps I should ask how possible/probable, do think the socio-political events of the novel are?

SABRINA: Possible, but I hope not probable. On the other hand, some of what I describe is only one or two steps removed from what has been (or is being) proposed in some omnibus immigration bills in some states. And other things — the forcible sterilizations, for example, were part of U.S. programs in Puerto Rico and Peru as recently as the 1970s.

ANTHONY: Although INK is essentially near-future dystopian fiction, it’s also very much in the realm of magical realism. What’s your definition of magical realism, and how does it differ from, say, “urban fantasy?”

SABRINA: One of the foundational Latin American writers of magical realism called the genre lo real maravilloso,  the marvelous reality, and so it is. For me it is about creating a world that reads true to our own and imbuing it with a type of magic that isn’t a learned system but something much more organic. Some manifestations of the magic in INK are culturally grounded, others are elemental, and still others are devotional or vocational.

Magic realism similar to urban fantasy, though without quite so many tropes. I always think of UF as requiring the setting to be as much a protagonist as the characters. Because I needed my characters to move — by choice or by force — to different locations, and because the feeling of being uprooted had to be a big part of things, I couldn’t afford to make either Hastings or Smithville as important as they would have had to be if INK were urban fantasy.

ANTHONY: The magic in INK works on a very personal/character-centric level. I wanted to ask about that choice. How did you decide which characters would have/recognize their personal magic, and why doesn’t magic seem to be more wide-spread in this world?

Character is what interests me most. I start and end everything with character.

Magic is tied intrinsically to “noticing” in my book. So Del’s magic is all about noticing what others wouldn’t in his woods. That “seeing what others don’t” becomes a dialogue and a knowing. All of the magicks in the book follow this same pattern, even Mari’s. So I created situations in which it is clear that while some people see, others don’t. Maybe they don’t want to. Or they see but deny.

Obviously, this applies as much to justice as it does to magic. In fact, the two have been tied together often in fiction, though more frequently in the sense of retribution being exacted magically (an aspect which doesn’t interest me in the least).

Meche, Mari, Del, Abbie, Chato, Chema and Remi all have magic of some kind in INK, and I have to say I’m glad it’s not more characters than that!

ANTHONY: There is a lot of Guatamalan folklore woven into the book. What, if any, liberties did you take in incorporating that folklore into the world of the novel?

SABRINA: The nahuales are a living belief — though probably not as widespread as it was at one time. The stories about them I remember are more like anecdotes. There was this girl named Margarita who was maybe four or five years older than me who told me that one of her relatives, whose nahual was a raccoon, woke up one morning with the injuries his nahual had incurred the night before. This always impressed me. I hate magic that is all-powerful and unassailable because it’s fundamentally boring. The really intriguing stuff always lives in the flaws.

I took liberties: imagining what it might be like to have a nahual, and what it might be like to be one, and then playing with the symbiosis.

ANTHONY: Thinking about the book months after reading it, it occurs to me that what I remember the most is the relationships. I feel like you took the macro (societal upheaval) and worked it at the micro (character) level, which made it all the more effective. The relationships also seem to be largely triangular: Del/Cassie/Meche, Abie/John/Tono … even the Finn/Mari relationship is essentially a triangle, with the third point alternately being the newspaper, the government and eventually the baby.  Was this geometric pattern a conscious decision and if so how did it affect the plot development?

SABRINA: Well, yes. Everything I write is really focused on our interactions and connection to each other individually or as groups and communities. Everything else is secondary.

Hah! I hadn’t even noticed the triangles. But it is interesting… I like threes. You put three elements in an arrangement on your mantel, or in the composition of a painting, and suddenly it becomes more aesthetically pleasing and more dynamic. It creates a lovely sort of tension, but at the same time there is a stability to it. It doesn’t teeter.

Look, romantic triangles are the stuff of a million books and even more lives. But none of the ones in my book are “Oh, the spark is gone, I’m bored of you” or “I just can’t decide between the werewolf and the vampire” type of triangles. The Del/Meche/Cassie one is on some level a triangle formed by the tensions between belief and disbelief. Or, on a more mundane level, lives sealed off from the cares of the world and those busted open by them.

Abbie/Toño/John are a triangle formed by socio-economic class and racial/ethnic expectations. But it’s funny, because that triangle could also be Abbie/Toño/Neto, in which case it is a triangle fraught with the tension of remembered versus actual.

In the last instance, I think you’ve got the triangulator (!) of Mari’s and Finn’s relationship wrong. It isn’t Finn’s job or their son that forms that third angle, but something much stranger: home. Mari’s really is the immigrant’s story over and over: have a home, leave a home, make a new home. Step and repeat.

So, what do you sacrifice when you stake a claim, put down roots, say no to yet another border crossing? For Mari the choice to not cross finally into Canada exacts a huge cost. And yet, when you see her with her son and the other character’s children later, you know she’s ultimately found a literal home (and a figurative one in her stories).

ANTHONY: You’ve said the main characters of INK are not based on real people, but your personal experiences growing up in Guatemala influenced the tone of the book and some of the choices the characters make, right?

SABRINA: Indeed. Growing up under a repressive government makes you wary and suspicious. It took me a long time to learn to trust — and I’m still painfully aware of those moments when our government takes away civil liberties, or tries to institute policy that controls the flow of information in the name of curbing piracy on the web, for example. All of that feeling — paranoia, wariness, mistrust — underpins the dystopic society I’ve created in INK.

The state of emergency, the civil patrols, the guns on the street and the siege-mentality and routine in the novel — all of that comes from my experiences living in a country at war with itself.

But there is much that is positive in this book that is informed by my life in Guatemala and my life here, as well. My understanding of community and the ways groups of people stand up to much greater powers, for one. The way networks of support are built for another.

But it is not only my experience that informs INK. It is the lives of the undocumented immigrants I know. And the people I know who live in towns like Smithville. And practically every young reporter at the small newsrooms I’ve worked in.

What informs a novel — or a life — is a menjurje, as we say in Central America. A mess of ingredients all macerated together until they cohere into something else: bitter medicine, enlivening draught, a soup that sustains.

ANTHONY: Since we’re both members of the League of Extraordinary Pantsers, I have to ask what the process for writing INK was like, and how (if at all) it differed from your other fiction.

SABRINA: I write a lot on a weekly basis — newspaper op-eds, columns, blogs — and yet I am such a slow fiction writer. I was more obsessive about my novel than I usually am with my short stories, but that’s really the only qualitative difference in how I write. In both forms I start with characters and perhaps only an inkling of what I’ll be putting them through. But as the characters reveal themselves (sometimes in quite astonishing ways) their trajectory through the novel or story changes too. So I don’t write to hit markers. Truthfully, I’m a slow writer because I enjoy the process of writing too much to want to zip through it. And the regimentation of X number of hours a day or Y number of words per week makes me want to run howling into the night.

You know I dance when I write, don’t you? I’m an utter writing hedonist — has somebody claimed that term yet? — if not, it’s mine. 

ANTHONY: I love that about you. Haha. “Now is the time in writing when we dance!” We should have a “Dance-While-You-Write-A-Thon” at the next Readercon! Your other fiction is largely short stories. Are they the same sort of science fiction / magical realism mix, or do you veer into other genres?

SABRINA:  I write everything. No genre is safe. And given my temperament, nothing is sacrosanct.

ANTHONY: What do you have coming up in the near (or not-so) future?

SABRINA: My story “Ember” appears in the Crossed Genres anthology Menial: Skilled Labor in Science Fiction which was just released in January. One of my short stories, “Collateral Memory” will be appearing in Strange Horizons in either June or July (don’t know yet), and my story “Paper Trail” will be appearing in a long-delayed issue of Greatest Uncommon Denominator magazine. A poem will be appearing in an upcoming issue of Bull Spec magazine, and a couple of short stories have been requested for anticipated anthologies.

But mostly I’m working on a collection of interconnected stories about monsters that cross the borders with us when we immigrate to a new country. It might turn into a novel … or not. Undoubtedly it’ll have lots of voices because I get bored with just one point of view. Typical Gemini.

ANTHONY: I’m looking forward to that set of stories. Now my usual closing question: What is your favorite book, and what would you say to someone who hasn’t read it to convince them that they should?

SABRINA: That’s a cruel question, I have to say. One favorite? One? Well, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of my all time favorites. It’s a generational saga rife with magic, history, social commentary and incredibly vivid imagery.

And it has a fantastic first line: “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” Tell me, how can anyone resist a book that opens like that?

You can follow Sabrina on Twitter as @followthelede. INK has its’ own website. And of course you can find updates on Sabrina’s writing and other great stuff on her blog.

CHRISTINA LENWAY, SINGER - Interview

Most of the time, I arrange my interviews by contacting an author or band through Twitter. Sometimes, through Twitter and the interview process, I make a new friend. Occasionally, I get to use this forum to promote life-long friends and advertise the creative work they are doing. This week’s interview is one of those.

After I graduated from high school and had a particularly bad first semester of college at SUNY New Paltz, I took five years off from education. I held down a full-time desk job, I worked with an acting coach in NYC (Peter Sklar, by name), and I started directing plays at Mahopac High School. During those years, I became friends with Chrissy Sica. Then we ended up at Elmira College together. Chrissy was in the plays I directed, and then we were in plays and the education program at Elmira together. I always knew she had a wonderful singing voice. As things go, we lost track of each other for a few years. We’re back in touch, and Chrissy, now Christina Lenway, has just released a cd of religious/spiritual music that highlights her voice.  So we chatted via email about how the cd came to be.

ANTHONY: You recently recorded a cd of Christian music. What can listeners expect? How did you go about choosing the songs for the cd? Do any have particularly strong personal connections for you?

CHRISTINA:  I recorded classic church hymns and a few Christian contemporary pieces.  I picked hymns and songs that spoke to me, whether they were personally fulfilling or they touched someone important to me.  Each one reminds me of someone, or of a particular time in my life, so yes, each one does have a personal connection for me, particularly the last one, which is quite secular.  It is The Story from Brandi Carlisle.  I considered it my anthem for years, as I think many people who know the song do.

ANTHONY: The first thing that struck me when I listened to the cd is how simple and straightforward the recording is: solo voice and piano. Did you make a conscious choice to keep things scaled down versus bringing other musicians in or using software to create backing vocals?

CHRISTINA: Wow…you’ve asked a question that opens up a much larger dialog about conscious choice.  I really had no inkling to record anything, nor would I ever have guessed that IF I recorded it would be religious in nature.  I had been singing at my local parish for a few years, received some accolades and invitations to sing at weddings and even funerals, but honestly didn’t think I had the chops.  One summer day, I sat in the church when my friend, Doug, walked up to me and handed me a piece of paper with the phone number of a local recording studio on it.  He had been after me to do something for years with my “gift” as he called it, and in some ways, I took that as a sign.  I told my friend that I wouldn’t know where to start and he held up the book I had used for all of those weddings and funerals and said, “Start here.”  The next day I called up the recording studio, thinking that this would be nothing more than a great distraction and within a month, it was done.  But I remember the day after we recorded it; the engineer called to say that he had a demo done, it was unedited, but if I wanted to listen to it, he had a copy.  I rushed over, popped it into the cd player in my car and cried, tears that came from a place I didn’t even recognize.  The voice I heard was beautiful; how could it be mine?  So, I had little intention to do anything with it initially, and barely went back to edit it, concerned that I would not be able to ever sound as good.  In fact, Gary Wehrkamp, the owner of New Horizons Recording Studio in Stroudsburg, PA, at one point offered backing vocals and other instruments, but then we we decided to keep it pure.  I wanted it to be a remembrance of where I was at that point.  Piano and vocals, that’s all I needed.

ANTHONY: The second thing that struck me is that your voice is as clear and emotional as it was in high school and college. You’ve been busy being a teacher, wife and mother … what have you done to maintain your voice over the years, and what specifically did you do to prepare for recording?

CHRISTINA: Another question that takes on a life of its own.  I did NOT maintain my vocals at all.  In fact, all of this came to a head this past summer.  I had my vocal cords scoped to see if there were polyps or lesions, because I was having some difficulty and even minor pain.  I saw a vocal therapist for a few weeks, and ended up at a chiropractor, who determined my vocal cords were impeded by subluxated vertabrae.  I have learned a lot about how and where I carry stress, namely in my neck and shoulders and how that was causing the strain and tension in my vocal cords.  Now I use meditation and relaxation strategies, take voice lessons to get back in shape, and am sure to warm up before I sing anything, and keep the pipes hydrated.

ANTHONY: How long did it take to record the cd, and who did you work with to produce it?

CHRISTINA: I was fortunate to have a wonderful friend, Lindsey, who agreed to accompany me on the piano.  She is the music director at the church that I sing at, so the hymns were familiar and comfortable for both of us.  Most were done on the first take, and as I said before, I was very worried that I wouldn’t be able to re-create the sound, so we didn’t go back and re-record them again and again and again.  We recorded it all in less than 5 hours and edited it for a little bit.  I recorded at New Horizons Music Studio in Stroudsburg, PA under the direction of owner Gary Wehrkamp; he and his wife Ginger run a professional studio. Within a month, the recording process was complete, and DiscMakers produced copies. I did not have the vision for me that others had; I intended to send it to close friends and family only.  Instead I made a few extra copies and give it freely to whomever would like one.  When asked how much they cost, I simply ask the recipient to donate to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, and for no other reason than this:  they do amazing things and I have 3 healthy children.

ANTHONY: Do you perform anywhere locally?

CHRISTINA: I don’t have any regular gigs, if that’s what you mean.  I monopolized the 8:00AM mass for awhile, but that hardly constitutes a performance.  I have been contracted to sing at Stroudsmoor Country Inn in April, and am looking into some other opportunities, including open mic nights at some local restaurants, and maybe even a tour of some friends’ churches in the Mid-West this summer.  The possibilities are endless!

ANTHONY: Indeed they are! Now that you’ve recorded one cd, any plans to do another?

CHRISTINA: Heck yeah!  When I stood up to that microphone, headphones on my ears, it was like a whole new world opened up for me, one I always knew I belonged in.  I have spent the last month or so writing songs…lyrics, music, the whole thing.  I am collaborating with some friends to add strings and percussion to it, and perhaps record this summer or fall.  I don’t want to rush it, as I did the last cd, and especially since this one is all my own, I want to get each cadence, each bridge, each piece just the way I want it.  It may take longer than I’d like, but I am quickly learning, all good things usually do.

ANTHONY: I’ll be looking forward to that. When it’s ready, we’ll have to chat again! Now for my usual closing question: What is your favorite book, and what would you say to someone who hasn’t read it to convince them that they should?

CHRISTINA: To steal a quote from Jorge Louis Borges, “I have always imagined that paradise will be some sort of library.”  With this in mind, choosing one that stands out is difficult, but perhaps one that has stood the test of time will do.  I have read and re-read The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran for about 20 years now, and the wisdom contained within it is timeless, organic, and beautiful.  A rare treasure.  Is it fair to mention a close second?  The Alchemist by Paolo Coehlo or anything by Jodi Piccoult, Gilead by Marilynne Robinson…geez, I could go on and on.

Anyone interested in a copy of Christina’s cd can email her at at lenway.christina@gmail.com.  You can also find her on Facebook.

DONNIE REYNOLDS, AUTHOR - Interview

Donnie Reynolds is the director of LAKESIDE, the documentary about a year in the life of author Jay Lake and his family as he continues to fight stage iv metastatic colon cancer. LAKESIDE is being crowd-funded through a Kickstarter campaign which, with 20 days left, has reached the initial goal but we are hoping will reach the stretch goal that will allow for a world premiere of the documentary at Lone Star Con this year in San Antonio.  Donnie is, as you’ll see, as passionate about telling Jay’s story, and telling it clearly and honestly, as I am about letting people know how they can help Jay through this struggle.

ANTHONY: Hi, Donnie. Thanks for taking a few moments out of what I know is a hectic shooting and travel schedule to chat. Probably the most important question I can ask is: Why this documentary, and why now?

DONNIE: Jay Lake has one of the most interesting life stories I’ve ever heard.  After his successful treatment for stage iv metastatic colon cancer in 2011, it seemed like a good time to tell it.  The timing worked out well for me and Jay.  After his cancer returned several months into filming, that answered for us the “why now?”.

ANTHONY: How did you initially connect with Jay and learn his story?

DONNIE: My wife actually introduced us at a writers workshop in Austin, Texas.  We were living in south Florida at the time and were considering Austin as our next home.  I am a huge fan of Jay’s ROCKET SCIENCE and have been enjoying his novels and short stories ever since.

When my wife decided to attend a writers workshop in Austin where Jay was teaching, I knew I had to go.  Jay had previously lived in Austin and he showed me some of the cool places around town as I asked him about his life story over the course of the long weekend.  Months after that weekend, we ended up buying a house in the same Hyde Park neighborhood he had lived in years earlier with Susan and Bronwyn.

ANTHONY: You’ve been filming Jay and his family intermittently for a year now, right?  What’s the process like, and how do you capture honest footage without being intrusive? How do you avoid having the camera affect the outcome, so to speak?

DONNIE: We shot our first frames in April 2012.  The process has benefitted from willing participants.  Everyone we’ve filmed was initially nervous or even dubious about what we were doing and their role in it.  But that soon passed.  The family has grown accustomed to cameras rolling, and even start to consider film needs (I almost cried with joy when Jay’s step-mother, Jody, asked about “continuity” after changing clothes) like lighting and audio.  The family has starting quoting my catchphrase “I’ll fix it in post.”

ANTHONY: The journey has been, I know, emotionally exhausting for all involved. Has there been any point where you, Jay or his family have thought “no, this is too difficult, we can’t finish this?” Any point where Jay’s privacy has been more important than “getting good footage?”

 DONNIE: As far as quitting, the Lakes never considered it.  If anything, their resolve strengthened as things for Jay have gotten worse.  It is me as director and camera operator who has had difficulty not throwing in the towel.  Remember, when we started filming Jay was in great shape, and I have interviews with each of his family members (other than his brother, Michael, who is on the other coast) happily declaring how great it was that the pre-cancer Jay was re-emerging.

For me, it has been difficult sticking a camera in the faces of people distressed over dire news and events.  The emotional burden of telling such an important story is, at times, nearly overwhelming.  There have been two moments over the last year that I seriously wondered if I could continue.  That’s where a strong wife comes in.  Without her support, I don’t know that I could have continued.  Filming the day Jay got the news that his cancer had returned so aggressively was incredibly painful as I stood in the background filming– unable, through my own tears, to tell if anything was in focus.  I could write a book and make a documentary about that single day.  And that great, devastating footage could only be obtained by a documentary filmmaker.

As far as family privacy, the film is benefitting from the incredible trust the family has with us.  We have hours and hours of footage that we will never release outside of the Lake family.  I think it’s important to record life as it happens, but this is not an expose or reality tv show in which we have any desire to show bad, compromising, or humiliating footage of anyone.  I have complete control and I am not that kind of filmmaker.   We have footage that we intend to use that shows flaws and failings in people, we’re not going to wash over that aspect in this film, but we are not interested in hurting people.  So, we shoot everything we can and trust our ethics and morals to keep us honest.

ANTHONY: Do you feel that so-called “Reality TV” has tarnished the good name of the “documentary” field? How would you respond to those conflate the two when they are in fact so very different?

DONNIE: I think “Reality TV” has largely been debunked for what it really is.  I do not think it has really tarnished documentary films as a genre, though it has unfortunately influenced many filmmakers.  The big positive influence reality TV has had on the public is that it has introduced audiences to non-fiction story telling.  When reality television  became an insidious genre is when it started to borrow fiction techniques, specifically “raise the stakes.”  This was was all predicted by Paddy Chayefsky in his Oscar-winning film NETWORK.  Chayefsky died of cancer in 1981 and your question is awfully “meta” for me.

ANTHONY: In the LAKESIDE Kickstarter video, you talk a bit about the equipment you’re using to film Jay’s life as cleanly and unobtrusively as possible. Can you tell us a bit more about the cameras you’re using, and also what you’re using to edit footage and put the whole thing together?

DONNIE: We have to use a variety of cameras to film this as we have.  Our prime camera is the Sony PMW-F3.  This is the same camera that the film SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED was filmed with.  The glass consists of three prime lenses (35mm, 50mm, 85mm) and one zoom (18-252mm).

Our second camera drops dramatically down to the Sony NEX-7 with Sony glass.  It is a wonderful, small, mirrorless camera in the same basic class as DSLRs used by many independent filmmakers.  The video image is quite good but it suffers from two fatal flaws as a main camera: it overheats within minutes; and the sound is not great despite the brilliant Sony hardware.

Our other two cameras (not including occasional iPhone video) are a cheap, off brand hd camcorder (I think we paid about $250 for it) and the GoPro Hero 3 Black Edition.  These cameras provide us with shots we could not obtain otherwise.

Coincidentally, each of these cameras (including an iPhone 5) contributed footage to our first trailer.

We have two main audio devices: the F3 itself (beautiful uncompressed audio) and a ZOOM H4n.  We employ two Sennheiser wireless lavs that are extraordinary and flawless.

We are editing on multiple Macs.  That choice was made so we could use Final Cut.  We are using the latest version (FCPX) and, after a learning curve, we love it.

We have 2 LED light boxes for use when we need them.

ANTHONY: With 24 days left in the campaign, the Kickstarter for LAKESIDE has already exceeded your initial goal of $18,600. You added a $40,000 stretch goal, which I think is entirely reachable with the time you have remaining. Tell us about that stretch goal, please.

DONNIE: Our initial goal provides us with two important opportunities: the ability to continue amassing an incredible amount of raw footage in Portland; and the basics of what we need in post-production (especially sound editing).  But that does not give us everything we want to be able to do with this film.  There are many important aspects to telling the full story of Jay Lake and we would love to film as much of the genome sequencing (that may save his life) as possible.  We also want to include a short technical segment that will require some graphics and animation to explain the medical “stuff.”  Before that, we would like to bring in a specialty sound lab to salvage the audio from some early video diaries we had Jay make while we were back in Austin.  It is great footage of Jay alone with his thoughts, but the first few days of this filming had many technical flaws that we didn’t know about until Jay was able to upload the footage to us.  It has since been corrected, but those first three sessions are almost unusable form an audio perspective.  We also have the problem of scoring the film.  If possible, we would like an original score ( I would love to hear “Bronwyn’s Theme” the way I’m hearing it in my head during editing).  The power of a good score is hard to explain, but think of Jaws or Star Wars without the music!

We will use every dollar to fulfill those desires.  Above that, if we reach the stretch goal, we would like to rent a theater during WorldCon in San Antonio and have an advanced screening of the film for Jay and his daughter.  To be uncomfortably frank: Jay may not survive to see the theatrical release of this film.  We couldn’t think of a better first showing of the film than with Jay and his friends and fans in attendance.  The organizers of LoneStarCon 3 (hosts of WorldCon this year) have already given us a panel slot to discuss the film and we would love to proceed that with a special screening and Q&A session with me and Jay.

I was initially not comfortable putting up a stretch goal when we had put so much effort into the new budget.  But then, after the counsel from film and Kickstarter vets, I decided it was worth asking for even more help.  I spoke with Jay before pulling the trigger.  He was touched and very supportive of publishing a stretch goal.

(new backers have slowed down since meeting our initial goal, so I’m not sure if we’ll make the stretch goal)

ANTHONY: We’ve talked a bit online about how hard it is to edit a year of Jay’s life down into documentary format. What are your plans for all of the extra footage you’ll have, especially regarding his hopefully-upcoming Whole Genome Sequencing procedure?

DONNIE: This film started as and continues to be about a year in the life of Jay Lake.  That basic narrative has not changed.  However, when life happens, we must each act accordingly.  It would be a dereliction of duty to film this story in real time and ignore the very real educational aspects that following a cancer patient through treatment can have for others struggling through the same issues– either directly as a patient or as one of the collateral victims of cancer.

The story also continues to evolve.  The whole genome sequencing is something else we could not have anticipated last Spring.  With extra funding, we’d like to shoot footage and interviews covering that (interviews and shooting in California).

We have many stories we could tell as a result of this process and while we discuss it from time to time, we are spending all of our focus on THIS film.  We have already announced on our Kickstarter that we will include an extended version and a “making of” DVD to backers at the $60 level or higher.  We suspect there will be plenty of footage for additional, educational videos but, for now, we are focused on telling Jay’s whole story.

We are already sweating what to leave in and what has to be cut.  But cutting is a good problem.  If we didn’t face that problem, it would mean we did not have hours and hours of great footage.  We could make a mini-series out of this!

ANTHONY: That being said, have you considered actually approaching a cable outlet to create a mini-series version after the initial movie release? 

DONNIE: It’s been a growing thought as we capture more and more good footage.  Our priority and our focus continues to be on making the best film we can.  That being said, however, there is a lot of storytelling we can do with this material.  After this film is cut, we’ll take an honest look at it.  I wouldn’t be surprised if we have more than a dozen hours of great stuff we can’t squeeze into a single film.  And then twice that amount of merely “good” footage.  This has been a very eventful year in Jay’s life.

ANTHONY: Even though it feels a little off-topic with this interview, I’m going to ask my usual closing question because I think Jay would appreciate it (and perhaps be disappointed if I didn’t ask it!): What is your favorite book, and what would you say to someone who has never read to convince them that they should?

DONNIE: Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said by Phillip K. Dick.  I think it is overlooked by readers.  It is dated, but that’s one of the things I love about it.  I enjoy the movies made from his stories, but this book is a fun and exciting read.  It deals with, in an interesting way, a type of identity theft. How cyberpunk!  I think it has that classic age of sci fi flavor but speaks to issues that we face today with our online lives.

Making a 5,000 mile round trip every month has allowed me to enjoy several unabridged audio books and podcasts.  We actually purchased the film rights to Keffey Kerhli’s GHOST OF A GIRL WHO NEVER LIVED after hearing it on Escape Pod driving north from Austin.  Filming on that is slipping because of our attention to Lakeside, but we hope to shoot it this fall.

Other top listening votes for 3 days in a car recently:

READY PLAYER 1 by Ernest Cline

FUZZY NATION by John Scalzi

REAMDE by Neal Stephenson

ANTHONY: Thank you, Donnie. I hope that as the film progresses through post-production and on to release that you’ll stop by to keep us updated.

You can find out more about LAKESIDE and get production updates by “Liking” Waterloo’s page on Facebook, by visiting the Waterloo Website, and by following @LakesideMovie on Twitter. You can also show support by viewing, “Liking” and sharing the movie’s IMDb Page, and show financial support by donating to the movie’s Kickstarter campaign.

The money from the Kickstarter goes to fund the movie’s production and post-production work. If you want to help Jay Lake directly, there is a crowd-funding project where the money, as it comes in, goes directly to Jay’s Whole Genome Sequencing costs, and then to help Jay defray costs his disability insurance isn’t covering. Here’s the link for the Acts of Whimsy Fundraiser.

CHASING SATELLITES BEYOND THE SUN - Interview

For those wondering, YES, the usual interviews will be resuming soon. I’ve got one in queue waiting on me to send some follow-up questions, and I sent another 2 sets of questions out today. They’re coming, promise!

But first, some personal news I need to share:

So as usual for a Wednesday, #sffwrtcht started at 9pm tonight on Twitter. #sffwrtcht is a weekly thing, with a rotating series of science fiction, fantasy and horror authors as guests. This week’s guest was my friend Damien Walters Grintalis, whose novel INK, about a tattoo job gone wrong in a horrific way, just came out. Damien tuckerized me into her story “Scarred” for Fireside magazine last year, too. A few minutes into the chat stream, moderator and friend Bryan Thomas Schmidt shoots me a private message on Facebook. “Damien and I both have big announcements to make at the end of chat, so stick around.” Because he knows I sometimes get distracted by 19 other things going on and forget to check back to the chat.  I figured he was going to announce he’d pitched another anthology idea, or something like that.

Near the end of chat, he slips this in: “I’d like to announce that #sffwrtcht regulars @talekyn & @jaleta_clegg have sold stories to #BeyondTheSun anthology.”

Well, THAT took me by surprise.

I knew Bryan liked my story “Chasing Satellites” enough to ask me to do a rewrite and hone it before the final submission deadline rather than reject it outright. But I honestly thought, with the deadline just passed, that it would be a week or so before he made any final decisions.

This is my first semi-pro sale, at the four-cents-a-word rate Bryan quoted when he funded the book through Kickstarter in the fall. Bryan gave me my first book anthology unpaid sale in 2012, with “A Battle For Parantwer” in SPACE BATTLES. Before “Chasing Satellites,” every story I’ve published has been recompensed with copies of the book or magazine.  A semi-pro sale apparently isn’t enough to earn me credits towards membership in the Science Fiction Writers Association, but it is a large step in the right direction, and of course a HUGE boost to my writer’s ego.

A number of you reading this donated to Brian’s Kickstarter for BEYOND THE SUN because you knew if the project was funded and IF my story was accepted (and there was never any guarantee it would be), it would mean a lot to me on a personal level. I explained why in this post. And so now that my story has been accepted … I cannot thank those of you who backed the project enough. If the project hadn’t funded, all of this would be moot.

BEYOND THE SUN will be out from Fairwood Press in mid-July 2013.  I’ll be appearing beside my hero Robert Silverberg, as well as greats like Mike Resnick, Nancy Kress, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Jennifer Brozek, Jason Sanford, Autumn Rachel Dryden, and my friends Jaleta Clegg and Maurice Broaddus, in a book edited by my friend and mentor Bryan Thomas Schmidt. I’m honored to be alongside all of them…

…. but dude, I’m gonna be in a book with ROBERT FREAKIN’ SILVERBERG.

Oh, and I owe a shout-out to singer-songwriter Thomas Fiss, as well. I promised him I’d write a short story based on the title track of his latest EP, and this is it! Thanks for the inspiration, Thomas!

FUNDRAISERS FOR JAY LAKE

I’ve written multiple times before about how influential jaylake  has been in the short time I’ve known him: on my writing, on my sense of self, on my sense of the world outside of myself. Jay’s an inspiration, and not solely because of his on-going struggle with stage 4 metastatic cancer.

Right now, there are two fundraisers/crowd-sourcing efforts going on involving Jay, that I’d like to share with you.

The first is the Kickstarter project for the documentary LAKESIDE, which started filming in 2012 with the intent of documenting a year in Jay’s professional and personal life, including how surgeries and chemotherapy affected both. The producers had no idea that mid-filming, Jay would receive another cancer diagnosis, with three tumors appearing in his already resected liver, and further complications since then. I’ve contributed to the Kickstarter already, and it has hit full funding, but the producers still have more filming and post-production work to do, and now hope to follow Jay through to the end (be it happy or sad) of this latest series of surgeries and chemo treatments.  I’ll have an interview coming up on my website with the lead producer/director as soon as we can finalize it. In the meantime, please visit the LAKESIDE Kickstarter page and donate. The money doesn’t (cannot, for legal reasons apparently) go directly to Jay, but it can help make sure Jay’s story is told in the detail it deserves.

The second fundraiser does go to Jay directly. Jay is nearing the end of possible treatment courses, and his doctors aren’t really sure where to go next. There is a new procedure called “whole genome sequencing.” It’s expensive, and it’s new, and it very possibly could help Jay’s doctors discover precisely where to target treatment in his already compromised and ravaged body, to give him a better shot at surviving this and living long enough to at least see his daughter graduate from high school. A group of famous, award-winning science fiction and fantasy writers have agreed to perform various Acts of Whimsy on the internet if the fundraiser hits certain goals.  This is what I love about the SF/F community I am slowly becoming a part of: the way they (“we” still feels odd to say) come together to support each other. My first taste of this was the fundraiser for Terri Windling and her family last year, and it’s happening again with Jay. Here’s the link to contribute: every penny goes to cover the procedure first, and then to helping Jay and his daughter with the expenses that Jay’s insurance doesn’t cover.

The Role Call - Guest Post

I’m spending December catching up on my own writing, attempting to meet end-of-year deadlines for open calls for various anthologies. Several of the folks I’ve been meaning to interview have offered up guest posts instead. This week, I’m happy to welcome the band THE ROLE CALL to talk about the Kickstarter for their new EP.

The Role Call

Hey guys!

We are The Role Call, a newly-formed Minneapolis-based Pop/Rock band. Back in February of 2012, local musicians Max Young, Zach Hesemann, and Joey Russ found singer Steven Zerwas and bassist Kristoff Druva through a mutual friend.  After writing and recording with producers Pat Brown (Sing It Loud) and Jordan Schmidt (All Time Low, Sing It Loud), we released our Debut Self-Titled EP on May 28th, 2012.  Writing this EP was a great time because all of us have such a wide variety of influences such as All Time Low, Coldplay, The Summer Set, and many others. Over the summer we were fortunate enough to tour and promote our album across the Midwest.  We like to pride ourselves on the high-energy live show that we put on.

We will be playing a holiday show in Minneapolis on December 27th with our friends in the band Quietdrive.  This show is at The Varsity Theater and starts at 5PM!

Recently we have been doing a lot of writing and are happy to announce that we will be recording a brand new EP in February down in Nashville, TN.  We have started a Kickstarter page for fans/friends/family to donate to in order to help raise money for the EP and to allow us to tour next summer.  Those who donate can get certain rewards such as signed CDs, Acoustic Skype Shows, and can even hang out with us in the studio! If you want to donate, you can do so by going to this link:  http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/therolecallmn/the-role-call-new-cd

For those of you who have never heard of us before, check out our single from our first EP, titled “Won’t Get Down (feat. Pat Brown)”!

ALIVIA LATIMER, actress - Interview

This week’s interview is with Alivia Latimer, a young actress just starting out her career, with a lot of great family support, in Florida.

Alivia Latimer

ANTHONY: Hi, Alivia! Thanks for taking some time to chat. How are you?

ALIVIA: Hi Anthony! I am fantastic, thank you for asking!

ANTHONY: Let’s start off with the basics: How long have you been acting professionally, and what was your first job?

ALIVIA: I began my acting career in January 2011 when I started taking an on-going acting class. But it wasn’t until December 2011 that I booked my first job; a commercial for SeaWorld!

ANTHONY: Is most of your experience on stage or on screen?

ALIVIA: All of my experience has been on screen! I actually have never been in a professional theater production.

ANTHONY: You’ve done a lot of work on YouTube and the web. Tell me how you got started making and posting videos.

ALIVIA: About two years ago, I made a YouTube video with my little brother Caden entitled “The Silly Band Stealer” — a short video about a boy who steals Silly Bandz. (LOL) I got a few requests to make more videos, so “The Silly Band Stealer” become a miniseries!

I really have a passion for filmmaking, and have posted over a dozen short videos on my YouTube channel, which is currently under construction.

ANTHONY: Has posting your short films on YouTube helped make connections with casting directors?

ALIVIA: Not yet, although it would be so cool if a popular casting director saw my videos! (Preferably a Disney casting director! Haha)

ANTHONY: Tell me about your new project, “UnCovered”. What is it about?

ALIVIA: The story follows four kids who embark on a journey to uncover the mystery that lies within an old diary they find while camping out in the woods on the darkest night of the year … October 31st, 2012.

ANTHONY: What was your writing process like while you were working on the script? Did you plot it all out ahead of time, or make it up as you went along?

ALIVIA: Since “UnCovered” is a series of multiple episodes, I pretty much just make it all up as we progress. I mean, I know what I want to happen, so I just need to get it out of my head and put it into words!

ANTHONY: Did you write the characters with specific local actors in mind, or did you cast them after you’d created the characters?

ALIVIA: Most roles were created and then cast later on to local actors with little acting experience. I wanted to give the new kids a chance. But we have a mixture of beginners and professionals in the series, which gives it a nice balance.

Alivia Latimer

ANTHONY: Who else is in the movie, and have they done any other filmed work?

ALIVIA: Our principal cast consists of Anthony Porrey, Allie Hendron, Kalil Hamdaoui, Ben Kyle, and myself. This is Ben’s first time acting and he’s doing a phenomenal job! Kalil has done a short film, and a lot of commercials/print! Allie and I actually worked together on an independent film earlier this year, and Anthony is just getting started in the business. So as I stated before, we have a nice mixture of beginners and professionals!

ANTHONY: How long did it take to film, and where?

ALIVIA: Well, we are taking it one episode at a time. One episode a month from July-December is the plan! We are filming around the Tampa area in cast members’ houses, parks, bike paths, and even in the woods!

ANTHONY: Did you make any changes to the script based on things that happened while filming? 

ALIVIA: Yes! Right before we were about to shoot, an actor cancelled on us. So I changed things up, wrote in an entire scene with dialog and the actors memorized it in like, five minutes! The scene turned out great!

ANTHONY: When and where will people be able to see “UnCovered”?

ALIVIA: The trailer is up now and you can see it at youtube.com/UnCoveredWebSeries. The first episode premiered on October 31st, 2012 on that same YouTube channel, and episode two is up as well.

ANTHONY:  Okay, now let’s talk about your acting. What other projects have you done recently? Didn’t you spend some time shooting at Disney in Orlando?

ALIVIA: Recently I have been working on tons of short and independent films, web series’, commercials, and print shoots. So you can say I’ve been BUSY! My most recent commercials are for Universal Studios Orlando and Disney World!

ANTHONY: How do you prepare for your auditions?

ALIVIA: If it’s a commercial audition, I practice facial expressions and my “happy commercial voice”! I also research any past commercials for that client and see if there is anything I can add to my performance to “wow” the casting directors. If it is a TV or Film audition, I watch Disney Channel/Disney XD sitcoms like “Lab Rats” and “A.N.T Farm” to study the actors’ comedic timing and facial expressions! I love Disney shows!

ANTHONY: The Disney shows are a lot of fun, for sure. A lot of the teens I interview are involved in charitable causes. I know you are too — what causes do you support and how can people help?

ALIVIA: I am a huge supporter of Jaylen’s Challenge Foundation, which is a non-profit anti-bullying organization. I am very passionate about the subject of bullying and do all I can to help out my friend Jaylen! He is a very special 12 year old boy with a big heart. If you would like to learn more about JCF and how you can help, read Jaylen’s touching story at jaylenschallenge.org   Bullying No Way!!!

ANTHONY: And my usual closing question: What is your favorite book, and what would you say to someone who hasn’t read it to convince them that they should?

ALIVIA: I will admit I am not much of a reader, (unless it’s a script) but I have read this particular two part series called “iQ”. It’s about three kids that become involved with the FBI, CIA, and Homeland Security. It’s really intriguing if you like the mystery/ government/terrorism genre. Seriously, it’s so intense that once you read the first chapter, you cannot put the book down. I loved the series so much, I sent an email to the author asking if he would write a third book…and this is coming from someone who doesn’t read! LOL. So go check out “iQ” at your local library!

ANTHONY: Thanks again, Alivia!

ALIVIA: Anytime! Thanks so much for having me!

You can catch up on Alivia’s series unCovered on the Youtube channel and by visiting the series’ Facebook page. You can also learn more about Alivia by checking out her IMDb page, and you can follow her on Twitter as @alivialatimer.

Frankenstormsnoreastercanepocalyptigeddon

I tweeted earlier today “So which is it? #frankenstorm or #snoreastercane? Or maybe “frankenstormsnoreastercaneapocalpytigeddon?” And then my friend and coworker Regan pointed out how well that fit with “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” and a parody was born. Note: I will not be recording this — but if someone else wants to, just give us proper credit!

Frankenstormsnoreastercaneapocalyptigeddon.

Could this be the perfect storm that everyone is fretting

Or will it be a big ol’ bust that we’ll all be regretting?

Frankenstormsnoreastercaneapocalyptigeddon

Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle aye

Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle aye

Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle aye

Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle aye

Because we were afraid of storms
Disasters by the score,
Forecasters gave our fears a form
and kept us feeling sore
And then one day we heard a word
to sum up all our woes,
The biggest word you ever heard
and this is how it goes… Oh!

Frankenstormsnoreastercaneapocalyptigeddon.

Could this be the perfect storm that everyone is fretting

Or will it be a big ol’ bust that we’ll all be regretting?

Frankenstormsnoreastercaneapocalyptigeddon

Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle aye

Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle aye

Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle aye

Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle aye

I travel all around the world
And everywhere I go
I dress for weather of all types
For earthquake and tornado.
When forecasters try to pass
the time of day with me
I say my special word and then
they ask me out to tea. Oh!

Frankenstormsnoreastercaneapocalyptigeddon.

Could this be the perfect storm that everyone is fretting

Or will it be a big ol’ bust that we’ll all be regretting?

Frankenstormsnoreastercaneapocalyptigeddon

(Spoken): Of course you can say it backwards, which is

“gedd-apocalypti-cane-snoreaster-storm-nekfran”

But that’s going a bit far, don’t you think?

So when the forecast has got you down
There’s no need to dismay
Just summon up this word and
Laugh at every word they say.
Let’s just hope they’ve got it wrong

And Sandy will blow past
Cause when they get it right on us
We’ve never moved so fast. Oh!

Frankenstormsnoreastercaneapocalyptigeddon.

Could this be the perfect storm that everyone is fretting

Or will it be a big ol’ bust that we’ll all be regretting?

Frankenstormsnoreastercaneapocalyptigeddon

ALMOST HERO, Boy Band - Interview

I met Chris Beloud, Brandon Mion, Andrew Rogers and Daniel Aguirre, also known as Almost Hero, when they joined Hollywood Ending and The After Party for the “Boys of Summer” Tour, and I’ve now had the pleasure of seeing them play three times (tour dates in Nutley NJ, Poughkeepsie NY and Las Vegas NV). Not only are they tight as a band, they are four genuinely nice guys.  I brought my niece Renee to the Poughkeepsie show, her first concert, and Brandon (who had no clue who I was at that point) immediately introduced himself to Renee, gave her an Almost Hero bracelet and a postcard, had the rest of the band sign it, and even gave her a drumstick after the show. The band didn’t have to be nice, they just were.  So of course, I had to arrange an interview, which the guys completed after the second leg of the BOTS Tour.

ANTHONY: Hi guys! Thanks for taking the time to chat. How’s everyone doing?

ALMOST HERO: Everything is going better than planned! We are all very pleased by the outcome of touring.

ANTHONY: I only recently started listening to your music, thanks to meeting you on the Boys of Summer Tour. So tell me a little about the band’s history — how long have you been together and how did the group get started?

ALMOST HERO: We have been a 4 piece band for 3 years, but the name Almost Hero has been around for 4 years, Chris started Almost Hero as a solo project when he was 15, but decided he wanted a full band to play his originally written songs. Andrew and him have been friends since the ages of (Chris) 7 and (Andrew) 4, and started producing demos together. Chris transferred high schools for his junior and senior year where he met Brandon and Daniel on the soccer team. Brandon was a talented drummer with 12 years of experience, and Danny became the Merch guy due lack of instrumental ability. A few months pass by and the band is still without a bassist and Danny mentions he wants to learn bass. Chris jumped on the opportunity and sat down and started teaching him the roots. He learned super quick and was practicing with the band within 2 weeks. Danny was the final member completing the four piece band.

ANTHONY: What was the inspiration for the band’s name?

ALMOST HERO: The idea that anyone average person can be a hero without having your name in lights. Ambition and courage comes natural to human beings it is just up to the individual to find it within them.

ANTHONY: What’s your songwriting process like? Who brings what to the table creatively?

ALMOST HERO: Chris writes the Base of the lyrics and musical melodies, then sits down with Andrew to come up with hooks and structure. Brandon and Daniel edit the song, whether lyrics should be changed or parts should be changed. In the end it is a very efficient system.

Almost Hero

ANTHONY: “Still Young” is out now, available on itunes, and the lyric video is on Youtube. How much fun was it filming the video?

ALMOST HERO: Filming the Video was 100% fun and easy, it was done in Andrew’s living room and we had a lot of time to finish it so we we’re enjoying the non-stressful environment.

ANTHONY: You’ve written more than one song. How soon until you release an album?

ALMOST HERO: You can expect at least 2-3 more singles before we decide to do an Album or EP, It is really up to where we are at when it comes that time.

ANTHONY: Are you working with any other songwriters or producers?

ALMOST HERO: We have worked with one “Songwriter/Producer” by the name of Linus Dotson. He recorded and co-wrote Still Young with Almost Hero.

ANTHONY: How did you get involved with the Boys of Summer tour, and what’s been everyone’s favorite part of touring?

ALMOST HERO: We became friends with Hollywood Ending’s manager, Richard Reines, and he invited us to the Allstar Weekend “Life as We Know It” Music video shoot where we met Hollywood Ending and immediately hit it off as friends. Within 2 days Richard emailed us regarding interest in bringing us on tour with them. We jumped on the opportunity and within 3 months we were playing in Pittsburgh with Hollywood ending and The After Party.

ANTHONY: The keytar is not an instrument usually associated with performers your age. Andrew, how long have you been playing it and what does it give you (either in the studio or live) that a regular keyboard doesn’t?

ALMOST HERO: Andrew has been playing the keytar for almost 2 years and it gives a keyboardist the physical freedom to walk around on stage. It looks really cool and gets a lot of compliments. Studio wise it’s just an ordinary midi controller, there are no actual sounds built into the key tar, but with the right Midi Transmitter you can make the keytar trigger the sounds of any instrument!

ANTHONY: Now that the second leg of the Boys of Summer Tour is over, what’s next for Almost Hero?

ALMOST HERO: Expect more California shows and touring, more photo shoots and cover videos, and new singles to be released in the future!

ANTHONY: And my usual closing question, for each of you: What is your favorite book, and what would you say to someone who hasn’t read it to convince them that they should?

ALMOST HERO: We all would have to agree with any of the Dr. Seuss books, because they are very entertaining and educational. We would tell someone who hasn’t read it, that wait.. who hasn’t read Dr. Seuss?? haha

ANTHONY: That’s funny – when I interviewed Hollywood Ending, Dan’s answer to this question was “Hop On Pop.” Clearly, you all were destined to be tour mates! Thanks again, guys!

ALMOST HERO will be guests on the Beyond The Spotlight radio show on Global Voice Radio on Saturday November 3rd, at 3pm Pacific / 6pm Eastern. BTS is hosted by frequent Rambling On guest Sam Lant and singer/actress Lauren Dair Owens. Tune in on the 3rd, watch the Twitcam Livestream from the studio, and call in with your questions for Almost Hero! Or you can tweet your questions in advance to @BeyondSpotlight on Twitter with the hashtag #askbts

You can check out Almost Hero on Facebook; on their Youtube channels; and you can follow the band collectively or individually on Twitter: @AlmostHero @ChrisBeloudAH @BrandonMionAH @AndrewRogersAH and @DanielAguirreAH

Here’s their newest video, a cover of Taylor Swift’s “Red.” You can tell I wasn’t at this video shoot — Brandon’s singing. Every time I’m at a show, Brandon’s mic has problems.

BEYOND THE SUN - Fundraiser

The answer is: To Open The Sky.

The question: What was the first book about colonizing outer space you remember reading?

Robert Silverberg’s To Open The Sky is not anywhere near as well-known as space colonization novels by Ray Bradbury ( The Martian Chronicles, the second colonization book I ever read), Arthur C. Clarke, Gene Wolfe, and countless others. It’s also not as well-known as other Silverberg works (The Chronicles of Majipoor, for example) and in fact is long out of print.  Regardless of all of that, it holds a special place in my heart. I reread it every few years and feel the excitement I felt the first time I read it, as I realize what religious founder Noel Vorst’s long-term master plan is, played out over a century or more, for getting humanity beyond our own system and out to the stars. We never get to see the actual colonies that are founded, but Silverberg’s future Earth and colonial Mars and Venus tell us enough.

I’m not the only science fiction fan fascinated with the concept of humanity’s colonization of other planets.  Bryan Thomas Schmidt is inspired and fascinated by colonization stories, even moreso than I am. With the essential end of NASA’s space shuttle program and the slow beginning of the commercial space program (with SpaceX’s Dragon rocket launching just this week), Bryan sees a need now more than ever for readers to look to the stars and regain the excitement that sf of the ’40s and ’50s, and the real events of the ’60s to the present, gave us.

So Bryan, a writer and editor of science fiction (his own first sf novel, The Worker Prince, was an Honorable Mention on the Barnes and Noble Notable SF List and he recently edited Space Battles for Flying Pen Press), has decided to put together an anthology of mostly-new colonization stories. The book will be called Beyond The Sun. Bryan’s invited twenty-something authors to submit stories to be considered for approximately sixteen slots in the book, joining four headliners: Mike Resnick. Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Nancy Kress. And …. Robert Silverberg.

Now, the Silverberg story will be one of the book’s few reprints but it’s a story I’ve never seen before. This is one of the two main reasons I want to see Beyond The Sun published, to readily access a Robert Silverberg story about space colonization that isn’t part of the universe he gave me in To Open The Sky, but which will be vibrant and exciting nonetheless.

But the book won’t be published if Bryan can’t raise the funds to pay the authors (the headliners and the mid-list and the newbies he’s invited).  He’s got just a few hours over 5 days to hit the funding goal of $5,000, and with Kickstarter (unlike IndieGoGo), it’s all or nothing. If we get to the deadline and Bryan’s not at $5,000 … no Beyond The Sun. Which is a shame considering how passionate Bryan is about this project, and considering how wonderful the contents are bound to be regardless of which sixteen authors get chosen to join the headliners.

And here’s the other reason I want to see this project fully funded, and it’s a very selfish one: I’m one of the twenty or so authors Bryan invited to submit a story for consideration. If Beyond The Sun gets funded, and Bryan chooses my story to be included … my colonization story would be in the same book with Robert Silverberg, one of the men who excited my own interest in SF more than thirty years ago. And that is just too cool an opportunity to pass up.

So that’s why I’ve backed the BTS Kickstarter at the highest level I can afford — not for the perks I’ll get for pledging at that level, but to increase the chances that the book will see print. It’s a book I’ll want to read whether I’m in it or not (and there’s no guarantee I will be, until I finish the story and Bryan accepts it).

Why should you back it?  Well, if you love good science fiction, especially good sf about colonization, consider it like pre-ordering a book through BN or Amazon, without the risk. If you pledge and the book doesn’t get fully-funded, you’re not out a cent. If you pledge and it does get funded, you’re guaranteed a first printing of a great anthology, and you’ll get whatever other perks are attached to your pledge level (which include things like personalized, autographed copies; having yourself Tuckerized into a story; or a critique by a well-known sf editor, among others).

Why else should you back it? Because (especially if you’re a friend of mine, sf fan or not) you’ll possibly be helping me achieve a dream: being included in the same anthology with Robert Silverberg.

So click the link, watch Bryan’s video explaining why this book is so important to him, read the bios of the headliners. If you choose to back, there are some story excerpts on the Updates page and links to where you can find other excerpts. And even if you can’t back the project financially … please spread the word. Hit the “Like” button and the Tweet button. Get the word out there. We’ve got 5 days to raise over $3,000 dollars. More has been raised in short time periods on Kickstarter, with the right word of mouth.

And thank you in advance to all of you who do help Bryan make his dream, his book, a reality, and thus possibly help mine as well.

BEYOND THE SUN KICKSTARTER PAGE