Michael Canfield Old Blog

New novelette out.

My one-and-only Sword & Sorcery tale "Citadel Ninety-Nine" has the cover in Theaker's Quarterly Fiction #30. It is now available as a free pdf dowload, (and in various other formats, some free and others for a nominal fee). 

Zombies: Guidelines to Upcoming Anthologies

Here are excerpts from the writer's guidelines of various Zombie-Themed POD anthologies that will be appearing soon:

Our Union Dead:

Genres: Civil War, Alt-History, Horror, Romance, Regency. This is a zombie-themed War Between the States anthology with a difference. I only want to see stories about zombies who are fighting for the North. I WILL look at stories that have some zombies in Confederate gray, but be forewarned, if you choose to submit such a story you will have a very high bar to clear. Payment: 1/16 to 1/8 cent per word. Length: 1500 to 150,000 words. (Works longer than that may be considered only for our online anthology supplement page at the reduced rate of of 1/64 to 1/32 cent per word.) Be bold, be brave, innovate! Why not set your particular tale during, say, a Civil War reenactment? Or even a Civil War computer game -- but a computer game that suddenly gets very very real.)

Above all be historically accurate. I don't want to see any more submissions with zombies carrying Revolutionary War flintlocks, World War II German grease-guns, or stories featuring any variety of horse bridle in only limited use prior to 1864. It's called research, people. Do your job. Besides, at this time, we are overstocked on stories containing anachronistic horse bridles. 

Email subs only, to editoriusemiritus[at]thebloodofourfourfatherspress.com. No reprints. Simultaneous submissions will be deleted at once unread. If you do send a simultaneous submission, and I find out about it, you will be banned from submitting to any Blood of Our Four Fathers theme anthology for a period of one year, or the release of our next sixty theme anthologies, whichever comes first. People, there are consequences to behavior in this business.

ResurErection: New GeniTALEias.

Sure you're dead, but you're not DEAD right?  This anthology is seeking stories, poems, and Penthouse-style true letters exploring the profound effects of the zombapocalypse on sexual organs. Does a zombie penis become erect?  Does a zombie vagina lubricate? Word length: Microfiction: 0 - 200 words. Full-length fiction: 225 -1200 words. Stories between those lengths will be defined as either  microfic or macrofic at the sole discretion of the editor.

Payment: ONE (1) story will be selected for the Travis Q. Zither Award of $25. This award is to honor the work of writer and literarateur Travis Q. Zither for his achievements within the zombie erotica sub-genre, and also to get the anthology listed as a paying market on various websites. Payment for the other chosen stories will be Exposure AND 10% off contributor copies (limit of fifteen per contributor). Reprints, while considered, are strongly discouraged and will not be eligible for the Zither Award. Fair warning: Stories written by women or that feature female characters in any way resembling real human beings are always a tough sell with me. When in doubt, query.

Anticipated print run: 125 copies. Send submissions to travisqzither[at]travisqzither.com

PG-13. No gratuitous profanity. No rape, incest, or pedophilia except when essential to the plot. Have some class, people. Simultaneous submissions will be deleted unread. Estimated response time: 62 to 65 months.

Zombie: Dark Utopias
(UPDATE #15)
Utopias: the places that are not -- or so it is defined in the nomenclatura of Sire Thomas Morehouse of Great Britannia. But what if an utopia could exist -- and then got taken over by zombies!
(For more information in Sire Thomas Morecoke rent the first two seasons of Showtime's "The Tudors." It's called an education, people!)
Be bold, be edgy. We're starting to notice a lot of new zombie books, novels, anthologies, collections, movies, DVD's, and BluRays appearing on the horizonistical landscape, as it were. It is no longer enough to write your Utopian zombie parable as if you were the only writer in the universal pantheon.

THIS IS NOT YOUR FATHER'S UTOPIAN ZOMBIE ANTHOLOGY, PEOPLE!
Genres: sf/f/ss (both slipstream and sword & sorcery) alt history, alt future history, western, mystery (no cozies -- and-- fair warning-- cat-based whodunits are usually a tough sell with us). Urban fantasy, suburban fantasy, neo-weird, nouveau-weird, weird, and not-weird, all encouraged. No horror. No introspection: send that poop to The New Yorker or someplace, we just want to be entertained, you stupid navel-gazer. And no vampires, they are so played out.

Submissions should be in standard ms. format. Let me explain what this means: submissions should not be in non-standard ms. format. I know a lot of other markets accept submissions in non-standard formats, but you should know that this market and only this market accepts submissions only in the standard format, and you should consider that before you submit a manuscript to us in non-standard format.

Let's talk a little about our submissions process. We employ the industry-normative structure of fourteen rounds of readings. In the first round we will determine whether your manuscript conforms to standard manuscript format. The second round will consist of a different set of readers who will consider whether the first set of readers were correct in their assessment of the manuscript's format. After all, we want to be fair about this.

After the second round, if it is determined a manuscript does NOT meet the requirements of passing the first two rounds, the manuscript will be returned to its author for reformatting. (Or, in the case of a female-sounding byline, discarded.) Once the author has reformatted his manuscript correctly and resubmitted it, the manuscript will go to round three (assuming it can this time pass rounds one and two.)

Round three with determine whether or not your name is Neil Gaiman. If so, your manuscript will skip rounds four through six, AND round twelve. (Note: After the original version of these guidelines appeared, we received several manuscripts with bylines such as: "by Yeah-Like-Neil-Gaiman's-Gonna-Send-A-Story-To-Your-Lame-A**." Look people, we are working with a very tight window here, I don't appreciate what is so obviously NOT Neil Gaiman's real byline appearing in the slush.

Updated response time: I know that we originally estimated our response time as between "Anon and St Alban's Day, 2008" but due to the extraordinary volume of manuscripts we have received (six) none of which have cleared the seventh round of the submission process yet, we are behind. I feel I myself bear some of the responsibility for this, as I have not yet had time to decide what goes on in round seven, or in any of the other rounds not specifically described here. When I do that, I will post updated guidelines. You are potential writers and purchasers of contributor copies -- you deserve to know. And I will defend to the death my right to say that. Current response time is approximately four months from whatever-your-watch-says-right-this-moment to never. Please do not query before that time.

Payment: Advance: $0 against a standard royalty contract: 0.04% on a 75/25 split paid quarterly beginning -- ah, why kid yourself? -- there's no such thing as a royalty.

Does this count as microfic? I changed a name.

I once used Word to write a letter to a man called William Kenny Jr. Now, each time I type "will," Word thinks I want to type his name. Why does Word want to include Mr. Will Kenny? I will not submit. I will not include Will Kenny when I write. I will not write his name. Not again.

Free Read: eSkeptic for Thursday, December 8th, 2005

The weekly newsletter of the The Skeptics Society, has published  A Very Short Essay on Doubt (composed of very famous quotes) compiled by yrs trly, which I'm counting as my first (and possibly only) nonfiction publication.The issue's main feature is a nice little write-up by Brian Ragle on some of the religious rights' fears over Harry Potter. They are fighting the good fight over there, doing what they can to slow up our slide into the next dark age. Speaking of which, Hawaii's favorite son, Don Ho, had to leave the United States to get the best health care available because of our government's ban on stem cell research.

Don Ho Recovering From Stem Cell Procedure.

[snip]

Ho, 75, known for his signature tune "Tiny Bubbles," underwent a new treatment that has not been approved in the United States. It involves multiplying stem cells taken from his blood and injecting them into his heart in hopes of strengthening the organ, according to Ed Brown, a close friend.

Tags: Religion Skepticism Current Affairs Critical Thinking

Free Read: Super-Villains

My story "Super-Villains" is now unlocked at Son & Foe.com

Tags:  Writing Comics Superhero

Peas and Carrots by Michael Canfield

SWFA members can now read my story "Peas and Carrots" (Realms of Fantasy Feb 2005) for free in the members area of the site. LINK

SFWA Members' Fiction Online: C

I've added links to all my available online fiction to SFWA's directory.
Link: SFWA Members' Fiction Online: C.

New Story Online

A Flavor of Quark is now up on Lenox Avenue. I haven't seen the table of content yet, as I write this Monday night, but they've had great stories in every issue I've seen. I'm very proud to have something of mine appear in the venue.

Peas and Carrots

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

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