Am I excited or what? It's barely a month since I resolved (after a bit of brow-beating) to start putting my short stories out there, looking for publishers and I've just heard that one of them has been accepted! The story is a new one, called 'Skyball', and it will appear in a spec fic e-zine called Bewildering Stories - early in the New Year, I hope.
This is the first time I have ever had a story of mine accepted for publication, so you can imagine what a monumental event this is for me.
I've published a lot of stuff in my time - science books, technical papers, even comedy (in New Scientist of all places!) but never fiction. (Actually I had a short crime story read out by Nick Eales a few years ago on his national radio show - but I can't decide if that counts.) So getting 'Skyball' accepted is a huge milestone in what I hope will be my writing career.
So thank you Marrianne for pushing me, thank you Orbit and QWC for getting me excited again, and thank you Don Webb (the editor at Bewildering Stories who didn't exactly open the gate - he made me jump it!)
Special Offers in July
10 years ago
5 comments:
Woohoooo!!
MDP
Congrats, Graham.
I hope there's plenty more sales on the way for you.
That Marianne is pushy isn't she.
Congratulations, after trying to get published for several years I'm genuinely pleased to hear of locals that do succeed like yourself and
Marianne.
How did you get an agent to take you seriously, let alone get a publisher to step up to the plate :)
Well done...
peter_cawdron@hotmail.com
Thanks, guys. Peter, I didn't use an agent and have never been able to interest one in my work. (Marianne's story is quite different and she's also been far more successful - you should pop across to her site.)
I got the ear of a publisher (Hachette Livre / Orbit) after many years of fruitless trying by entering a competition. The prize was that ten of us with unpublished novels got to sit down with a publisher, editor and other luminaries from the Australian writing scene in a resort on Bribie Island for a week last May.
It's a funny sort of business where advancement comes through means like this but I'm beginning to see that networking, persistence and serendipity are the skills one needs - or celebrity. Being able to write well is also necessary but not sufficient :-)
Hi Graham,
I suggested Peter chat to you about your sale. He is finding the industry frustrating. Perhaps you could email him and say hello, maybe share some market knwledge with him.
MDP
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