March ended with a huge boost for me--for some of Aphelion's writers as
well. Steam-Powered
Dream Engines has been published by Rogue Planet Press/Horrified
Press on March 28th. Edited by Sergio Palumbo and Gavin Chappell,
featuring
short stories by myself, Robin Lipinski, Michele Dutcher, John David
Rose, Sergio Palumbo and the late Ernesto Canepa, and many
other writers, with cover art by John David Rose, and interior
illustrations by comics designers Davide "Atog" Marescotti and
his wife Sara Della Casa. It is, as the title suggests, an
anthology of steampunk stories--adventures in the grand style, as it
were.
ISBN: 9780244375102
Copyright: Rogue Planet Press (Standard Copyright License)
Edition" 1st
Publisher: Rogue Planet Press
Published: March 27, 2018
Language: English
Pages: 210
Binding: Perfect-bound Paperback
Interior Illustrations: Ink Black & White
Weight: 0.82 lbs.
Dimensions (inches): 5.83 wide x 8.26 tall
Product ID: 23578323
Price: $12.99
This has been a really exciting time all the while this book has been
in production. I'm very happy for everyone involved that it has finally
reached its release date. Now, from what I can tell, there isn't an
e-book version yet, but that is probably in the works as well, I would
venture to guess. When the publisher and editors have that ready to go,
I'm sure they will be eager to unleash it on the world as well. For
now, I'm looking forward to having a copy on my bookshelves so that I
can read everyone's stories.
Now that Spring has sprung in the Northern hemisphere, the convention
season is well and truly upon us. Up next on my personal schedule is
LibertyCon in Chattanooga Tennessee during the June/July crossover
weekend. I would invite everyone reading this to attend, but the con is
sold out--they have reached their membership limit and located a new
hotel for this year. I hate to say goodbye to the venerable Chattanooga
Choo Choo Hotel, but their management have decided to scale down their
number of hotel rooms in order to become an apartment complex. And such
is life--it was a wonderful hotel and I loved staying there, but they
no longer have enough rooms as a hotel for LibertyCon to remain being
based there. This year's new hotel will most likely not be
the one used in 2019, but as I understand it, there are brand new
convention-centric hotels in Chattanooga which are almost nearing their
final phases of construction. The Con Committee will no doubt make the
best choice they can from among the new venues best suited for
Liberty's fantastic mix of literary con and family reunion, but for tax
reasons plus the desire to keep the intimate vibe going, the con
memberships will continue to be capped at 700-750 attendees. But the
thing about conventions in Chattanooga is that most of the nearby
LibertyCon regulars attend them all. It's a big family of dedicated
fans and Pros, and they love nothing better than an excuse to take over
a hotel and have fun for a long weekend! Now, if you really want to
have a chance to catch up with me at Liberty one day, I recommend you
bookmark their webpage and leap at the registration link once it opens
for a future year.
LibertyCon.Org
is the link, and it is pretty easy to navigate. After all they have
been at this for three decades now, and have gotten pretty good at it!
And as I reported last month, I have recently been asked to become the
Literary
Track Director for Atlanta's
own alternate histoy convention, AnachroCon. AnachroCon started off as
a
steampunk convention, but has evolved into embracing all sorts of
alternate history genres. My duties will involve putting together
discussion panels with various writers and so forth as panelists,
setting the schedule of those panels, making sure that the con's tech
staff know about any special needs a panel may have, keeping track of
how well attended the panels are, and general problem solving for the
Literary Guests. I will not have any special powers to decide who gets
what perks, however. That's up to the senior con staff. AnachroCon's
website is up and running with various apps where one can apply for
guest status here: AnachroCon.
If you visit the site, you'll see that there are apps to apply as a
panelist as well as a guest. Lyn and I have attended the first seven
years of the con. February 15th-17th of 2019 will be the 10th
anniversary. It has always been a lot of fun to attend. There are
panels on every subject in the genre, a Tea Party, demonstrations of
many wide-ranging subjects, fantastic costumes, pro writers, Makers,
and all manner of amazing hapenings. Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson
have attended in the past, as well as alternate universe cosplayers of
all sorts. The con staff are looking for a hotel at the moment, so
that information isn't available yet. But if you are an alternate
history writer or fan, look up their website and check into applying
for Guest status, or get a regular membership as an attending
pro or as a fan of the genre.
And please be sure to let me know if you're a pro or an up and coming
writer in the genre and you plan to attend, because I am still
filling places for speakers on discussion panels. I'd love to see you
there!
In other news, I'd like to thank everyone on our Forums for leaping
into the breach and keeping the monthly Flash Fiction competitions
going while I have been out of the loop. Each of the writers are doing
exceptional work in one of the more difficult formats to write within.
And Forums member Jim Statton has come up with some excellent
challenges for the writers. I am grateful beyond words for him to have
taken this upon himself while I have been distracted by personal
matters, offline. Thank you, Jim. You're doing better than I did, even
when I had the time to spare to devote to it. I would ask as a personal
favor that you continue. Writing flash stories teaches a lot about how
to edit a story down to its most important elements in order to stay
within the word limit of the format. I urge all our writers to give the
flash contests a try. And all our readers to join the Forums and cast a
vote for the stories you enjoyed reading the most.
All right, it's about time I shut up and let y'all get to reading the
second issue of Aphelion of 2018! Enjoy!
Dan
BOILERPLATE:
This is a little something I made early last year. It's a little
advert for Aphelion. I wrote the music and added a slide show of past
cover art. It's short, and showcases a lot of the changes we've made
over the past two decades. Feel free to share it around.
Feel free to share this on Facebook, G+, blog posts, and other
webpages. But only with the permission of the page or group owners! Be
polite and considerate, always. You'll have to look up the embed code
for the ad on You Tube, sorry about that, but the code won't display
correctly here. But the Share Code for Facebook and G+ is:
https://youtu.be/23qfziyt9Jo
If you do the Facebook thing, feel free to join us
on the Aphelion page there. The link is Aphelion
Webzine.
As an aside, the Editorial Mafia and I have found Facebook to be very
useful. Given our different
locations and schedules, it's come in handy as a way to discuss
production details of new issues. Sometimes there are several of us
using Facebook at the same time, so it's almost like the old chat room
days back in the 1990s.
My first collection of Mare Inebrium spaceport bar short
stories was
published in February of 2015 by Dark Oak Press. It is available in
both Kindle
an Nook e-book formats, paperback, and hardback. The above mentioned
steampunk anthology is another project I have been proud to be a part
of, too. I also have three
albums of instrumental music out through the Create Space
self-publishing website. If you like, you can click on the photo or the
link below to
find all the info you would need to purchase my book in your preferred
format, or an e-book of Flash of Aphelion, buy a CD of my music, or
listen to tracks off of the albums on my Bandcamp website. Enjoy!
I'm also happy to announce that unless the world ends soon, I
should
be able to retire from the factory in 4 and a fraction more years. I
ran the numbers
through a spreadsheet that I wrote up to calculate exactly when I could
afford to walk out of that factory for the final time. Barring
unforeseen disasters--or last-minute adjustments, my final day of
gainful employment should be February 7th of 2023. After that, I'll be
a pensioner, on a fixed income, and my hated alarm clock will only ever
be needed for special occasions forever afterwards. I'm literally
counting down the days. 1267 workdays left as of Friday March 30th of
2018! Yes, I actually have a
calculator written to do the countdown for me, LOL! It's true that the
first year of my retirement will require some careful budgeting, but
during the second year all of my retirement funding will kick in and
things will become much easier.
