Playground of a Lesser God Just in time for Halloween, I’m pleased to offer my short story, Playground of a Lesser God, online for free! Alone in her abandoned neighborhood on Halloween night, 10-year-old Elena is surrounded by ghost memories of her past. On the ruined playground where she used to go with her little sister, she solves a puzzle, uncovers a unique invention and is given the gift of hope for her future—but not before experiencing the scariest night of her life.S

About the title of this anthology: For more than 1,000 years, Santiago de Compostela (Compostela means “field of stars”) has attracted pilgrims to walk to the cathedral that holds St. James the apostle’s relics. The stories in this anthology in their own way tell the tale of futuristic travelers who journey into the dark outer (or inner) reaches of space, searching for their own connections to the past, present and future relics of their time. Get it now, Kindle users! Compos

All these months of an invisible writing website doesn’t mean that I haven’t been writing however. I have been working hard and steadily on a fantasy novel. My goal for a finished first draft is the end of June. And, at long last, Tesseracts Twenty will be out in ebook format soon and in print in the fall. It promises to be a fantastic anthology and will include my story, “No Others Like Us.” It is good to be back. #anthology #NancySMWaldman #fiction #Writing #fantasy

Fantasy Scroll Magazine—my second story with this magazine. Charles Payseur wrote in his blog, Quick Sip Reviews: This story marks the most serious the issue gets (as far as original fiction is concerned) and the whole issue is organized to earn this moment of solemnity and yearning. It’s a post-apocalyptic story and one of the few really science fiction stories of the issue, too, that looks at the way that people kill and the responsibility they hold to killing and yet the w

My story, “Hu.man and Best,” is set in far-future Africa. After being passed over for promotion, Kanali Zohra Betts, is on a sentimental journey to southern Africa, which, decades before, was ceded to the Androidal Cognitive Entities (ACE) as part of a peace treaty between AIs and humans. There Betts discovers “Hu.man,” and suddenly finds herself embroiled in what could become an international incident, if she doesn’t handle it, the ACE, and her new commanding officer with fi

…left unsown for a period, in order to restore fertility… Because of REASONS, I haven’t been writing for weeks. I did some revisions and a couple of new subs in April, but that resulted in: not much. I currently have only one short story (a reprint) and one novel on submission and—due to selling seven stories in a little over a year!—not enough other stories ready for market. This feels: bad, poor, unproductive, scary. What if it never ends? What if I never get re-seeded? (O

Here’s the Press Release: For Immediate Release (Calgary, Alberta) EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing invites you to join us in congratulating the following authors selected for inclusion in Compostela (Tesseracts Twenty) edited by James Alan Gardner and Spider Robinson. About Compostela (Tesseracts Twenty) Compostela (Tesseracts Twenty) is an anthology of hard and soft science fiction stories that best represent a futuristic view of the sciences and how humanity mig

Thrilled to be included in this line-up! #anthology #sciencefiction #book #sale #BundoranPress #LazarusRisen #authors #NancySMWaldman #fiction #publication #Writing #shortstories

Third Person Press–the indie publishing house run by Sherry D. Ramsey, Julie A. Serroul and me–is now open for novel submissions from Atlantic Canadian writers. Click over to read our submission requirements and guidelines. We hope to keep receiving submissions on an on-going basis. However, if we get inundated, we will close until we catch up. Before submitting, please check the TPP website to make sure we’re still open. Overview Writers from Atlantic Canada The first 3 chap

#anthology #sciencefiction #collection #speculativefiction #Campbelleligible #JohnWCampbellAward #fiction #Writing #fantasy

Happy 2016 by TornTethers Here’s an update from my last post about having a story sent on to the judges of the Friends of the Merril Short Story Contest. Mine didn’t win but I’m still feeling so pleased to have been on the long-list. Congratulations to the winners! And thank you to Charlotte Ashley for all her work. From the Friends of the Merril website: The results have been tallied, and we are proud to announce the winners of the 5th Annual Friends of the Merril Short Stor

Trophy by snaku6763 Late last month I decided to break my own rule about not entering literary contests in order to sub to a good cause. I sent a story to The Friends of the Merril Contest. Last night I got the great news that my story has been sent on to final judging. There are twelve of us in this happy bunch and we should hear of the winner and two runners-up by the end of the month. Here’s some information about this organization: The Friends of the Merril Collection is

“Hu.man and Best” is set in far-future Africa, decades after a war between humans and AI. A vacationing military officer, flying across the vast, uninhabited wilderness, is presented with an unfamiliar set of challenges when she finds a human girl alone in a place where no humans should be. Last week, the publishers released the cover art and table of contents. I’m so pleased to be in the midst of this line-up of great writers: #anthology #sciencefiction #TableofContents #Met

First of all: Yay! I remembered how to construct a rudimentary html table. Some things we never forget: how to ride a bike, how to make a table on the Internet… YEARSubmittedAcceptedPersonal RejectionsForm Rejections 20139102 2014191513 20154141025 It’s nice to see evidence of the progress I’ve made in the last three years as a writer. I only started keeping records online using The Submission Grinder after coming home from VP in October 2013. Before that, I had a WordPerfect

leaps and bounds 2015 was my best writing year BY FAR. *leaps and bounds* That the year was also extremely challenging on a personal level is just the way it so often happens, isn’t it? There’s a reason we remember Dickens’ best of times/worst of times quote. But if you have to go through hard times, I can recommend having some professional successes to ease the way. I started 2015 with a goal to sub as many stories as often as I could. I ended up with over twice as many as 2

I am so pleased to announce that my short story “Sound of Chartreuse” has been published by Perihelion Science Fiction Magazine. Set on a planet far away and in the distant future, it’s about antagonistic half sisters: one a musician who’s invented a new kind of instrument and the other, our main character, a synesthete who has a perceptual connection between emotion and colour. It’s an odd one but very close to my heart. #sciencefiction #synesthesia #music #shortstory #Perih

The other day while we were taking our evening walk, he told me about a “stupid mistake” (is there any other kind?) he’d made. Then he quoted the man who taught him carpentry, saying, “The sign of a good carpenter is the ability to cover up your mistakes and make them work.” This is a concept I’m familiar with. In art, we do this. You make a mistake in an oil painting, it’s no problem, just repaint it. That’s trickier in watercolor, but perfection is elusive at best, so you f

Yes, there was a wedding in the middle of June which took me away for a week, but other than that, I’ve been home—even more than usual. And yes, I’ve needed to spend a lot of time working on the lay-out and typesetting of the Grey Area manuscript. That is now, I’m happy to report, at the proofreading stage. Almost ready! Release in late October! And yes, there’s the Grey Area Inidegogo campaign, now just finishing its first week. Visit us here and pick out one of our perks to

My indie publishing house, Third Person Press, decided to put together a ghost story anthology because we get more ghost story submissions than any other kind, too many for our other anthologies where we like to have a nice mix of genre sub-types. The resultant book, Grey Area, will be released in late October, just in time for Halloween. 😉 I had never written a ghost story before and in writing one for this collection, I finally clued into why people like them. They give a

As for the book itself, I’m still not sure about my title, “Plasticity.” I like it and it fits the subject matter, but it probably sells nothing. Perhaps that’s something to worry about three years from now when I’m still whipping the story into shape. Or…maybe it could be the title of the series. Hah. I know what that is. It’s my Delusions of Grandeur, which rise to the surface when I’ve just completed a first draft…of anything! Here’s my pitch: A young scientist reluctantly