In Which I Feel All the Feels

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Silence is always the hardest part, but like all things it ends eventually.  This morning the SFWA announced the final ballot for the Nebula Awards and my short story “Robot” is on it.  I received a call a few days ago from Kate Baker informing me of the nomination (which was complicated because my phone is broken. I can hear people; they cannot hear me which makes conversations… difficult) and have spent every moment since then bouncing up and down desperately wanting to tell ALL the people.   Continue reading →

The Next Big Thing

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The lovely Brooke Wonders tagged me in a meme that’s been circulating around the lit blogs.  The idea is to interview yourself about your current (novel or other long length) project.  Alas, I do not have such a project in the works.  But what kind of person would I be if I let such a tiny little detail such as that slow me down! Continue reading →

Bodard Notes: In Light of Recent Events I have Reconsidered the Wisdom of Your Space Elevator

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Over at Shimmer you can order a copy of Issue 16 which features stories by K.M. Szpara, Charlie Bookout, Greg Leunig, Dennis Y. Ginoza, Christie Yant, Cate Gardner, William Jablonsky, Rebecca Emanuelsen, A.C. Wise, Laura Hinkle, Nicole M. Taylor, M. Bennardo, as well as my story: In Light of Recent Events I have Reconsidered the Wisdom of Your Space Elevator.  I don’t know if that’s the longest title ever published by Shimmer, but it’s certainly the longest in this issue as well as the only one that takes up two lines in the Table of Contents. Continue reading →

I Can’t Vote for Hugos, but if I Could…

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My blog may not be very loud, so ultimately this is pointless, but I’ll say it anyway.

For best fan writer I think you should consider two particular individuals.

Bogi Takács: She runs a review site, www.prezzey.net, which pays particular attention to under-represented groups in the SF/F community.  She’s thoughtful, eloquent, and smarter than I am.

Requires Hate: I’ll admit it, Requires Hate scares me a little.  Part of that is because I’m terrified of what’s going to come through on her twitter account (she likes to post quotes of what awful thing she’s reading at the time), and partly because her posts remind me of all the idiotic things I’ve said and done in the past (homophobic, transphobic and racist thoughts/reactions/statements).  But she also makes me a better reader, and more aware of things I would’ve missed before.  She’s thoughtful, eloquent, smarter, and more foul-mouthed than I am.  And as Nick Mamatas points out, think of the speech she would give! Continue reading →

Bodard Notes: Variations on Bluebeard and Dalton’s Law Along the Event Horizon

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ETA: Story is up!

I think Ken Liu and Aliette de Bodard might have thought I was joking when I said I was going to start calling my story notes Bodard Notes in Aliette’s honor (since I’m stealing the practice from her) but I wasn’t.  Also, there’s a strong possibility this post will go live before the story is actually published on Clarkesworld, but since the story is a bit odd, I felt it was important to ensure that it went up early enough that anyone who read the story would have somewhere to go for an explanation of sorts.  So I suggest you not read this entry until you’ve actually read the story in question.

And if this doesn’t explain the story to your satisfaction, I’m sorry.  I get that a lot. Continue reading →

What a Difference A Year Makes

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This time last year I was anxiously checking, rechecking, re-rechecking and otherwise obsessively stalking the Clarkesworld submissions queue.  After 11 rejections under their new database system, it was the first time I’d been held.  And after many weeks, it was the first time I received an acceptance.

And today, I received my third.

“Variations on Bluebeard and Dalton’s Law Along the Event Horizon” is forthcoming in the January issue and I couldn’t be happier.  It’s a rather strange story and I feared that if Clarkesworld passed on it, I would have a hard time finding a home for it elsewhere.

If someone had told me last Christmas that not only would I have one story in Clarkesworld, but three in the span of twelve months, I would’ve laughed.  Or cried.  Or jumped off a bridge and tried to fly because that’s what you do in dreams.

Nuet Creations Completed Project #1

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My short story “In Light of Recent Events I have Reconsidered the Wisdom of Your Space Elevator” which, strangely, does not have the longest title among my published or forthcoming works, is set to appear in Shimmer Magazine Issue 16.  As a teaser for the story, my brother whipped up some illustrations for the beginning of the story which I then  animated (sortof).  He also created a pseudo-score for the piece via guitar.  I’ve uploaded the finished project on Youtube which hopefully, if I can figure out the internets well enough, will be embedded here:

Impromptu Bat Signal…

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Dear Female Alex,

If any of the following words are phrases are familiar to you, please email me (helenabell AT gmail DOT com).

  1. Dayliethe Malt
  2. Avidgamers
  3. Nyx
  4. ushiakki
  5. Samantha Chu
  6. Samantha Zhu (Kris wasn’t entirely sure what your last name was/is but those were her best guesses)

If you are the Female Alex, but don’t feel like contacting me, that’s fine too. Just wanted to say hi.

Hi. :)

Sincerely,

Hel / Malamyn / Elserandh / Other screen names I’ve lost track of…