Alastair Mayer’s T-Space Blog

Today was a good news day, although those of you who aren’t writers or aspiring writers might not think so. First I heard from Joni Labaqui of the Writers of the Future Contest, to let me know that my entry for second quarter of 2009 was a Semifinalist. While not a Finalist, one of the group of eight stories selected for final judging and selecting the three winners, semifinalist is still good and earns a written critique from writer KD Wentworth, who does the preliminary judging. There’s a list of the other semifinalists, finalists and honorable mentions on Joni’s blog. Congratulations to all!

The next bit of good news was like one of those “good news, bad news” stories. In the afternoon mail I received a personal note from Stanley Schmidt, the editor of Analog, regarding a story I’d submitted to him. He said it was well written and that he personally enjoyed it (the good news), but because of the nature of the story (a technical problem in a research lab) it might not be sufficiently engaging even to Analog readers. So, not a sale, but when the editor of one of the (if not the) highest circulation SF magazines, who has been editing it for over thirty years, says he likes your story, that’s good news. Especially if you’re, like me, still an aspiring writer.

Speaking of aspiring writers, I got back last week from the trip out to Oregon. Part of it was family vacation, part of it was to attend a workshop given by Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Katherine Rusch, both professional writers and editors. Fellow attendee Brad Torgersen blogged that it was “the most important weekend [he’d] ever spent”. I’m inclined to agree. If you’re just starting out in the writing business — and you want to go at it full time rather than as a hobby — you owe it to yourself to check out the next Kris and Dean Show. They’re offering it again in September.