“Hunting Season” at Microhorror.com

My story “Hunting Season” is now available at Microhorror.com.

When it comes to bloodsport, turnaround is fair play.

Talking flash in San Antonio

I’m giving a talk Thursday, June 4, in front of the San Antonio Writers Guild on writing and selling flash fiction.

What’s flash fiction? The short answer is that it’s about a third to half of what I write. The longer answer is that it’s fiction of extreme brevity, usually under 1,000 words.

The flash form’s been around a long time, but it’s enjoying a resurgence as more fiction magazines go online and feature shorter pieces. I’ll talk about how to write effective flash fiction, where to sell it and flash’s relevance to sf/f/h writers.

The guild meeting takes place at 7:30 p.m. at Bethany Congregational Church, 500 Pilgrim Drive in San Antonio. It’s free and open to members and non-members of the Writers Guild. Click here for more info.

Necrotic Tissue picks up “The Circus”

My short story “The Circus” has been sitting on my hard drive longer than anything else I’ve written. It’s undergone two major rewrites, been rejected by horror mags as too light and fantasy mags as too dark. Last fall, it was accepted by a magazine that went belly up before it could publish the story.

So, after more than a year of shopping around “The Circus,” I’m happy to report Necrotic Tissue will feature the story in its January 2010 issue. It will be my second publication in Necrotic Tissue, and the editors have always been a pleasure to deal with. They respond in a timely manner, they’re friendly and in addition to paying you for your work, they give ya a free t-shirt. I’ll wear it with pride.

Bill Maher’s “Religulous” is no revelation

I was so ready to let Bill Maher hit a pop fly with this one. I mean, I certainly can’t disagree with his thesis that the world is simply too small and overarmed to have religious nuts making all our decisions.

Maher’s funny at times, certainly a quick wit, but by the time the hour mark of the film rolled around I was ready to stop being lectured. He comes across as self-centered (I learned way more about his religious upbringing than I ever wanted to know), hectoring and certainly one who knows how to pick on easy targets and let the folks with the editing gear make them look even goofier.

Indeed, almost all his interview subjects seem to be complete boobs. There’s the pimped-out African American evangelical minister, the guy who plays Jesus at a religious theme park and the inarticulate radical Muslim rapper. Seldom does he sit down with respected theologians or, say, someone who works for a religion-based relief organization and puts his/her faith to good work. Also disturbing is that almost all his vitriol is directed against Christians and Muslims while Jews (with the exception of a completely bonkers Holocaust-denying Rabbi), Hindus and myriad other religions apparently get a clean bill of health when it comes to matters of religious extremism.

It’s easy for a smart guy like Maher to run intellectual circles around fundie nutcases. It would have shown infinitely more balls if he’d actually risked having an argument with a believer that’s his intellectual equal. Or if he’d have used a less-heavy narrative hand and let audiences make up their own minds. Those probably would have delivered far fewer cheap laughs but delivered a worthwhile documentary.