The Michael Canfield Channel

Peas and Carrots

Read the first page here: Realms of Fantasy - February 2005.

Away for the Holidays.

Down to the Central  Valley for  a week.  Plan to read a couple Peter Straub paperbacks I picked  up, maybe see "The Incredibles" finally, and borrow Bill Clinton's bio from my Mom. Good holiday stuff.

Early Christmas Present

I received my contributor's copies of the February 2005 issue of Realms of Fantasy today, which contains my best story yet, "Peas and Carrots."

It is accompanied by an illustration by Peter Ferguson (and more of his work here) which captures so many elements of the story so perfectly that you will only need to read the the story to discover that you didn't need to read it at all --  just study the painting.

The issue should be on newsstands in early January. Barnes & Noble or Borders is a good place to try -- generally stocked with the gaming and trading card magazines. The cover features a painting of Michael Moorcock's Elric, but then again, if you know who Elric is, you already likely know where to find Realms of Fantasy at Borders.

Also, there's a couple errors in my bio for the issue. The photo said to be of me, is not of me. (I'm guessing it may be of Ari Burk, the man who's bio is right above mine.) Secondly, I didn't attend "Clarion University in East Lansing MI." I attended Clarion (the summer writing workshop) sponsored then (as it is no longer) and held at The University of Michigan in East Lansing. 

If you're interested in writing you could do a lot worse than quitting your job and getting into this workshop. See the post directly prior to this one, which leads to information on Clarion's fund-raising efforts as well as information on the workshop.

Clarion Midnight Fundraising Auction

In January. Clarion Midnight Auction.

A Little More from the Archives of H:AJOT

In the late 90's whilst editing Houndstooth: A Journal of Thought, I was introduced to Mr. Vigor's extraordinary wealth-building system. I hadn't space to include his theories at the time, a disgrace I am happy to rectify here, employing the vast resources of the world-wide web. (400 words.)

Download empower_the_vegetable.rtf

OR

Download empower_the_vegetable.pdf

SFWA Application

I decided to apply, and sent the materials yesterday. I noticed that several markets listing on Ralan have raised their rates to 5 cents (Cemetery Dance, Flesh and Blood) and that a couple new markets  (Shadows of Saturn and Lenox Ave) that are fairly new also pay 5 cents. I attribute this the SFWA and HWA raising pro rates to that level. So I decided they have done enough for me that I ought to join. Can't join HWA because can't really fudge enough of my pro credits to qualify as horror so I opted for SFWA. Not sure I have enough proof for them though. One of my sales is a Warner books print anthology which paid me 12 cents a word, but it came in three payments, but I only xeroxed the third check, so whatever. If they don't want me yet, I'll save the money.

Yada, Yada, Yada

I just bought and am loving the new Seinfeld DVDs, but am reminded of a piece I received in the late 90's whilst editing Houndstooth: A Journal of Thought. At a very late hour I found I hadn't the space to include Mr. D'Warhoone's insightful review in our penultimate number. Thanks to the world-wide web, which has space for just about anything, I am now able to rectify my blunder. (975 words).

Download kronos.rtf

OR

Download kronos.pdf

About the David Garnett Novella

Lady into Fox by David Garnett, 1922, from McSweeney's  Collins Library Imprint.

A beautiful edition and a wonderful story about a man who stays true to the very end.
It's Kafka with kindness.

This is the first couple paragraphs:

"Wonderful or supernatural events are not so uncommon, rather they are irregular in their incidence. Thus there may be not one marvel to speak of in a century, and then often enough comes a plentiful crop of them; monsters of all sorts swarm suddenly upon the earth, comets blaze in the sky, eclipses frighten nature, meteors fall in rain, while mermaids and sirens beguile, and sea-serpents engulf every passing ship, and terrible cataclysms beset humanity.

"But the strange events which I shall here relate came alone, unsupported, without companions into a hostile world, and for that very reason claimed little of the general attention of mankind. For the sudden changing of Mrs. Tebrick into a vixen is an established fact which we may attempt to account for as we will. Certainly it is in the explanation of the fact, and the reconciling of it with our general notions that we shall find most difficulty, and not in accepting for true a story which is so fully proved, and that not by one witness but by a dozen, all respectable, and with no possibility of collusion between them.

"But here I will confine myself to an exact narrative of the event and all that followed it. Yet I would not dissuade any of my readers from attempting an explanation of this seeming miracle because up till now none had been found which is entirely satisfactory. What adds to the difficulty to my mind is that the metamorphosis occurred when Mrs. Tebrick was a full-grown woman, and that it happen suddenly in so short a space of time. The sprouting of a tail, the gradual extension of hair all over the body the slow change of the whole anatomy by a process of growth though it would have been monstrous, would not have been so difficult to reconcile to our ordinary conceptions, particularly had it happened in a young child.

"But here we have something very different. A grown lady is changed straightaway into a fox. There is no explaining that away by any natural philosophy. The materialism of our age will not help us here ..."

According the introduction by Paul Collins, Garnett's 2nd book was called A Man in the Zoo, about a gentleman who, finding the London Zoo has no example of homo sapiens on exhibit, offers himself up. I don't know if that's in print but I'd like to check that one out too.

 

Emoticon =:} I call it The Grinch.

About the Chabon Novella

Read Michael Chabon's  "The Final Solution" yesterday.  I enjoyed it, but couldn't help wondering if some other author, say Laurie R. King, would have had the opportunity to publish a Holmes pastiche in the Paris Review as this novella originally was published.  However, this piece is true interstitial fiction in that it violates the rules of detective fiction by leaving one great mystery of the story unsolved. Unsolved by the characters, that is. I thought this was rather magical ... [huge spoiler coming]