Women and Aliens Month

Women and Aliens Month is officially live at the Drabblecast! This is my second year gathering up a great lineup of alien stories written by women authors. Our first story “Amid the Words of War” is by recent Nebula nominee Cat Rambo. This is one of those stories that drew me in from the first line, and had me hooked by the end of the first paragraph…the kind of story beginning that has you grinning with anticipation because you just know it’s going to be good. And this one did not disappoint. Here’s a little sneak:

Every few day-cycles, it receives hate-scented lace in anonymous packages. It opens the bland plastic envelope to pull one out, holding the delicate fragment between two forelimbs. Contemplating it before folding it again to put away in a drawer. Four drawers filled so far; the fifth is halfway there.

“Traitor,” say some of the smells, rotting fruit and acid. “Betrayer. Turncoat. One who eats their own young.” Others are simply soaked in emotion: hate and anger, and underneath the odor of fear. It lets the thoughts, the smells, the tastes fill it, set its own thoughts in motion. Then it goes downstairs and sits with the other whores, who make room uneasily for it.

Hope you enjoy! Let the festivities begin!

Raman Noodles

Photo by David Pursehouse, Creative Commons

Or rather, Raman for my noodle! So the selection process for THE novel I’m reading this year was brutal. There was a lot of pressure, since there’s so little time to squeeze in the little pleasures in life, and I didn’t want to waste my time on a mediocre book. So I decided to go with a classic, “Rendezvous with Rama” and I made it past page 50 and am digging it so far. (See how the noodles are shaped like Rama? Get it?)

In other news, my yearly pet project at The Drabblecast, Women and Aliens Month, is upon us! We’ve got some good selections coming up starting next week, so be sure to check out the feed and spread the weird. I mean word. Also going on is the People’s Choice Award, so if you’re a listener, you can nominate your favorites here! We’ve had some phenomenal cover art this year as well, and you can nominate those too.

Grinding Away

Getting back into writing and submitting short stories is one of the bazillion things I’m trying to accomplish this year. My first story for the year just got sent away for “Bikes in Space.” I ran it through my crit group last week, and after some revisions and tweaking, I’m really pleased with it. Since I wrote the story for a particular market, I didn’t have to deal with the void left by Duotrope going to a paid service. I have to admit, I was sort of dreading the process of finding new markets to submit to and tracking submissions manually. Talk about a grind. But lo and behold! The void is no more!

The Grinder is here from the people at Diabolical Plots! It offers many of the features Duotrope does, but it’s free. Plus if you’ve downloaded your submissions spreadsheet from Duotrope, you can import it directly into the grinder. It worked perfectly for me. Now, I’ve liked these people ever since they declared one of my shorts as “the best story I’ve ever read” but now I like them even more for helping out the masses of writers who can’t justify shelling out $50 a year for whatever reason.

I found the system well-organized and  easy to use, and I’m the kind of person who doesn’t do well with change. (I was using Windows 2000 up until 2011.) So check it out, kick the tires, and give it a spin. The Grinder is still in Beta, so I’m sure there are more great improvements to come!