"A Darker Cycle" in Nihilist Sci Fi, Issue 1

Hey! Sold my Week 5 Clarion West short story to the lovely folk(s?) over at Nihilist Sci Fi in their first issue, for five dollars used American currency!

I'm just happy it's found a home, cause this has been one of my most problematic stories. (When I saw the market, Nihilist Sci Fi, come up, I immediately thought of this story. This story is nihilist as shit!) Two professional novelists have torn it asunder. And yet, it's still one of my favorites. It's from an old conversation I had with a friend, oh, say, 7 years ago. Would a peaceful society make war on itself in order to test whether or not peace is superior to war?

My background is in anthropology, the Franz De Waal branch, which recognizes peacemaking and reconciliation are more common than aggression, and that cooperative peaceful societies (species) tend to out-produce war-like ones (mind you, this doesn't mean the war-like ones won't destroy the peaceful ones, thus in the end out-producing the otherwise more productive society). But what if we did have total war? Always? What if that was our laudable goal? What if we were Klingons? Personally, I don't think Klingons would make it into space. And yes, we are really having a Star Trek conversation right now. 

Civilization is, at least in part, built on cooperation, with slavery being forced 'cooperation'. We might be able to slave ourselves into space, but could we war ourselves into space? If you had paradise and perhaps even a means to rebuild your civilization if it turns out that war leads to ultimate destruction (because you're in a posthuman post-scarcity god-like civilization) might you be seduced into war just to make sure peace was the right choice all along? Add to that a bit of historical amnesia and a dash of boredom, and voila!

Originally, this story was of two posthumans in a trench, reciting poems to each other, who the capture an enemy they don't really know what to do with. Halfway through I remembered just how bad I am at poetry.

I workshopped this with Charles Stross. Charlie is a bit of an idol of mine, I'm not ashamed to say. I loved Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise and was blown away by his short story collection Wireless. He ripped my story a new one. Everything he said was absolutely on point. What remained after his public flogging I swept up and pieced together. Later, I workshopped this with another group and got accused of being a closet torturer. That also wasn't the most pleasant experience. "A Darker Cycle" has an opening that makes people bounce. But if you write provocative things you best be prepared for what you provoke.

Clarion West 2011 Publications

Here's a little line up of fiction put out by my Clarion West 2011 classmates, written up by the lovely belly dancing Jenni Moody over at her blog Dancing the Story Fantastic. Check out some of these tasty treats!

"Houses" in Lightspeed Magazine Issue 18

"Houses" is out now in Lightspeed Magazine Issue 18. My first professional sale and it's a Clarion West story! Yum! The whole November 2011 Issue 18 is fantastic. It's pretty awesome to appear next to China Mieville and John Crowley. Pick up a copy here. 

I came to the Clarion West Writer's Workshop with a number of ideas, half-stories, little gems of inspiration, some of which I distilled into stories I submitted to the Workshop, but "Houses" was not one of them. One morning I woke up on my horrible little plastic mattress bunk bed (we dormed in this enormous sorority house and we all all got our own rooms, but we had to sleep on these bunk beds with these mattresses that seemed to be designed to easily hose off vomit from sorority sisters who'd done too many keg stands) and the first line just popped in my head (which I later deleted, as per Terry Bisson’s rules [he's right, by the way]): “After the humans left, the houses got bored.” I had all these ideas after that, about the society these houses and machines we humans left behind created, our toys playing house, so to speak, eventually waking up and realizing that they didn't have to our lead, our psychology, our biology. But, I didn't know how to handle such a thing, it could easily turn into a sprawling work that couldn't be contained in a short story.

Clarion West 2011

There is no way to download 6 weeks of learning, studying, networking, socializing, writing, critiquing, arguing, pontificating, strategizing, thinking, and game playing in any other way than experiencing 6 weeks of game playing, thinking, strategizing, pontificating, arguing, critiquing, writing, socializing, networking, studying, and learning. If you are thinking you want to write, then I couldn't encourage you enough to try Clarion West. It was the hardest most intense exhaustive thing I've ever done, and I loved every minute of it. It was amazing to be around 17 other students, 6 professionals, 2 supporters/organizers/professionals (Les and Neile rocked my world!), and countless supporters all PASSIONATE and devoted to not just Science Fiction or Fantasy, but to writing, to the lifestyle, to the community. Thank you so much: Leslie Howle and Neile Graham, Paul Park, Nancy Kress (my hero!), Margo Lanagan (you taught me more than you know), L. Timmel Duchamp, Minster Faust, Charles Stross, Greg and Astrid Bear, Erik Bear, Nisi Shawl, Mary Robinette Kowal, Eileen Gunn, Ellen Datlow, Marci, Mark Teppo, Vonda McIntyre, Brenda Cooper, Nicola Griffith, Kelly Eskridge, and all my fellow writers this year:

Alisa Alering

Alex Bear

John Coyne

Corinne Duyvis

Erik David Even

Sarah Hirsch

Catherine Krahe

Jei D. Marcade

Jennifer Moody

Jack Nicholls

David Rees-Thomas

Maria Romasco-Moore

Jeremy Sim

Anne Toole

Nicholas Tramdack

Steve Wilson

Alberto Yáñez

Keep and eye on those names. You'll be seeing a lot of them soon.

All I know, is that I'm hungry. I want this life, I'm ready for the challenges, and I'm going for it.

Clarionauts!

Whoa! My classmate/workshopmate/fellow creator of wonder Jennifer Moody has launched her own Kickstarter project: Writing & Living at Clarion West 2011.

She's come up with a great project: writing a non-fiction 'zine of the 2011 Summer up in Seattle at Clarion West. Her 'zines look pretty spiffy, and I can't wait to see more of her work. Check out her video here:

Is that a squirrel or a chipmunk?

-Mark

I got in! Clarion West!

hey all. well, i got in. to Clarion West Writers Workshop, a six week intensive writers workshop for people trying to get into the Fantasy, Science, and Speculative Fiction industry, studying under Hugo and Nebula Award winning best selling authors of genre bending fiction.

i'm pretty pumped about this, and about my classmates, some of whose work i've perused: very impressive stuff.

so, in order to make this happen (it's not a cheap workshop) i'm trying to offset some of the travel and workshop costs by self-publishing the best work that comes out of this workshop. here:



this is essentially a win-win cause I get your support, and you get a book!

at any rate, even if you can't support, that's okay, you can check out, read, and comment on my work as it's published up on this site.

thanks all!