Tag: writing

Random Rejection: OMNI Magazine

~ James Viscosi ~ 6 Comments

This week I reached into my folder and pulled out a rejection from OMNI magazine:

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The Early Years: Good Story

~ James Viscosi ~ 7 Comments

Ummmm …. no. No it’s not.

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Random Rejection: Design Image Group, “The Exclusive”

~ James Viscosi ~ 7 Comments

I haven’t done a random rejection in a while, so here’s one from 1998 from the Design Image Group.  DIG was active in book publishing in the mid-to-late 1990s and I tried a number of times to get something going with them, coming closest with “The Exclusive”, a vampire story that I originally posted here back in 2007.  I did eventually get it published in a webzine (I was an early webzine contributor), where it won a reader’s choice award for the issue.  But still, it would have been nice to see it in DIG’s anthology, which was released in December 1998 as Kiss of Death.

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Scene-Of-The-Month: May 2009

~ James Viscosi ~ 6 Comments

The poll results are in, and this month it’s a blowout — 81% for an excerpt from Dragon Stones.  It looks like my advice to “vote early, vote often” was really taken to heart by readers in April!  So, without further ado, here is a randomly-selected scene from Dragon Stones:

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Auction for Soldiers’ Angels

~ James Viscosi ~ 4 Comments

Anyone who has been reading here for a while has no doubt seen comments from Kristen Tsetsi, a fellow small-press/self-published author.  You may also remember my short review of her terrific Operation Iraqi Freedom novel Homefront last year.  Now Kristen is preparing an eBay auction to benefit Soldiers’ Angels.  From the Soldier’s Angels website:

Soldiers’ Angels is a volunteer-led 501(c)(3) non-profit organization providing aid and comfort to the men and women of the United States Army, Marines, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, and their families.

I’ve given one copy each of all four of my published books (just the novels, not the anthologies) to the auction, which also includes a number of other books (including vintage books such as a 1953 copy of The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway), photographs and other artwork, jewelry, and more. Rather than reiterate everything that Kristen will be listing, I would encourage you to visit her blog and view the variety of items that people have donated to the auction.  It’s for a good cause, and Kristen always has something there worth reading.

Scene-Of-The-Month Poll: May 2009

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The results are in and the readers’ choice for the April scene of the month, A Flock of Crows is Called a Murder, has now been published. If you would like to vote for your selection for the May scene of the month, you can start doing so now!

Random Rejection: Mindmares

~ James Viscosi ~ 10 Comments

This week’s random rejection comes to us from the small press magazine Mindmares.  The story in question, “Feeder”, is about how much May loves her sweet little birds, and the lengths to which she goes to provide them with yummy suet.  Given that this story comes out of my splatterpunk days, you can sort of imagine how she goes about it.

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The Early Years: Jack-O’-Lantern

~ James Viscosi ~ 4 Comments

A while back my parents sent me a big package full of old school papers and such, whence I got the, um, amazing space battle drawing that I posted a few weeks ago. Reaching into this package today, I discovered this small exercise in giant block-letter printing, in which the moon has what may be an overly familiar relationship with a pumpkin:

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New Feature: Scene-Of-The-Month

~ James Viscosi ~ 7 Comments

This is a feature that my wife suggested a while ago:  Putting up a few random paragraphs from my books once a month or so.  She also suggested putting up a poll so readers can choose which book they want to see excerpted.  My wife is so smart!  Here’s the poll:

The books are tagged (broadly) by genre:  “F” for Fantasy, “H” for Horror, and “DF” for Dark Fantasy (essentially fantasy with a strong horror element, or horror with a strong fantasy element).  At the end of the month, I will choose a scene at random from the book with the most votes and put it into a post.  I won’t choose scenes that give away major plot twists, but other than that, pretty much anything will go.

I’ve decided to start with the prologue from my nowhere-near-finished werewolf novel (unimaginative working title:  The Wolf).  It’s a very short scene, but I like it.

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The “Honest Scrap” Award

~ James Viscosi ~ 15 Comments

Last week, A Blog in the Rough tagged Dennis and me for the “Honest Scrap” meme, in which you have to list ten honest things about yourself, along with the exhortation “and make it interesting”.  Gosh, ten honest interesting things about me?  I’m not sure I can manage that, but let’s find out.  I’m pretty sure that by the time you’re done reading this list, you’ll consider me an even bigger geek than you do already.

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