Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in oldcharliebrown's LiveJournal:

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Wednesday, July 15th, 2009
11:03 pm	A Move in the Right Direction "There's been a lot of confusion about Readercon's plans for next year, caused in part by a flier that we distributed on Sunday and in part by conflicting statements made in public and in private by people involved with the con and by various attendees. We apologize for putting out unclear, incomplete information, and would like to take this opportunity to set the record straight. Attendees, professional guests, and book dealers can expect a Readercon next year every bit as exciting as our previous twenty. Readercon 21 will be held July 8 – 11, 2010 in Burlington, Massachusetts at the Boston Marriott Burlington. Readercon 21 will have at least one guest of honor, two tracks of panels, readings, discussions, kaffeeklatches, the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award, the Rhysling Award Poetry Slan, the Shirley Jackson Award, Meet the Pro(se), and as always the Kirk Poland Memorial Bad Prose Competition. Our committee is finishing up the business of this year's convention as well as working on Readercon 21. Full details will be available soon. Diane Martin & David Shaw Con & Program Chairs for Readercon 21" I'm happy to see things are improving, and I look forward to seeing who the guest of honor is . . . (Comment on this)
10:10 am	A letter to "Dear fandom" . . . "Did you ever wonder why Worldcon is shrinking, why fandom is greying, why new people aren't joining at the same rate that the old-guard is dying out?" Click here for more. (Comment on this)
9:30 am	Contest: "Trench Foot," by Catherine J. Gardner "To celebrate the publication of my first pro-rate accepted story, I'm running a pirates and fairies competition. It was going to be a comp to celebrate my first pro-rate publication but my story in Necrotic Tissue beat this one by a few weeks—life is so hard. :) So what do you have to do to enter? Head over to Fantasy Magazine and read my story Trench Foot, leave a comment on the story page (doesn't have to be gushing, even hate will be accepted as an entry but beware, I will be asking for your address if you win), and then come back here to tell me you've entered. Now for the important part—the prizes . . . " and Further details are here. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 14th, 2009
12:34 pm	Locus, July 2009, Poll Results Best Fantasy Novel The Alchemy of Stone, Ekaterina Sedia [10th place] Best Collection Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters, John Langan [16th place] Best Short Story "A Buyer's Guide to Maps of Antarctica" by Catherynne Valente, Clarkesworld Magazine [11th place] "The Sky That Wraps the World Round, Past the Blue and Into the Black" by Jay Lake, Clarkesworld Magazine [15th place] Best Magazine Clarkesworld Magazine [9th place, moving from last year's 14th place] Fantasy Magazine [19th place] In terms of online markets making an impact, we actually saw more, with two in the novella category, and five in the short story category, out of seventy-one, representing 10%. This is actually quite an increase against last year, and can be attributed to Tor.com weighing in. It'll be interesting to see how this further plays out, this year. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
12:29 pm	Locus, July 2009, New and Notable "John Joseph Adams, ed. Federations (Prime, 05/09). Adams, a newer editor of note, now presents an anthology of 23 stories — 14 original — about galaxy-spanning societies, with contributions from Lois McMaster Bujold, Orson Scott Card, George RR Martin, Anne McCaffrey, Alastair Reynolds, Robert Silverberg, and more.  "The mix — of old and new stories, of newer and more etablished writers, and of tones and styles — is vigorous and impressive."—Rich Horton (Comment on this)
11:47 am	Magazine Death Pool: Prime death candidates for second half 2009 "One look comparing magazine ad pages of the first half of 2009 versus 2008, and the Reaper's got a brand new shopping list." Click here for more. (Comment on this)
12:09 am	Flyer: This is Your Father's Readercon . . . scratching head . . . why? (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, July 13th, 2009
7:56 pm	Readercon: Photographs Click here for more. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, July 6th, 2009
4:36 am	Myth: The Magazines Are Dying Because Now Their Only Readers Are . . . Authors! This myth rather oversimplifies matters and usually comes from . . . authors, as one reason why the only market (readers) for short story collections and magazines are authors themselves. God, I hope not, because most publishers don't publish either to attract the attention of authors . . . :p (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, July 5th, 2009
1:51 pm	Myth Busting: Quality and Quantity of Submissions, vs Print and Online I keep hearing the same old hoary statements that two of the reasons print editors refuse to accept online submissions is that that 1) it's going to mean every Tom, Dick, and Harry will submit a story, with the click of a button, and be deluged with thousands of submissions and 2) that the quality of paper submissions are somehow higher than online, because of the time and expense authors take in prepping said stories. I call bullshit. And I call it bullshit because I've done both, with transitioning Fantasy Magazine from print to online. (And I've seen the slush for Weird Tales for several years). I was a bit apprehensive, at first, but I actually found the following to be true: 1) the number of submissions, statistically, did not go higher, and 2) the quality of the submissions actually got better. Yes, you heard that right. Consider this: for the print edition of FM we would get paper manuscripts from inmates, from little children, from whackjobs, in various formats and layouts and god-knows-what-else, and it was pretty bad stuff. The chance that I would find two great gems in that great slushpile was pretty slim. And it just ate up time to go to the post office, get the envelopes, open them, respond to them, mail them back, it was just a big waste of item and energy. However, with the online submissions I'm far more likely to find four to six, or more sometimes, every month. And possibly one of the reasons why the quality might be higher is that the magazine is out there, online, for authors to read, which helps them to determine if their fiction is right for this venue. On top of that a lot of writing workshops are very much attuned to what's going online, and are more inclined to submit. Quite a lot of the online submissions I know for a fact have workshop credentials. The idea that authors mailing out paper submissions somehow are better "invested" than authors submitting from online is just nonsense. (11 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, July 3rd, 2009
8:30 am	A Public Apology to Gordon van Gelder & F&SF Gordon: I owe you an apology. I should have thought twice before publicly posting my half-formed thoughts about your workshop editorial, and I apologise for my part in in blowing the matter out of proportion. In retrospect, it was pretty ungracious to jump the gun in slamming an initiative reaching out to new writers, when I've spent so long arguing that F&SF needs to do just that. I'm still not used to the fact that I'm a professional whose on-the-fly musings are taken seriously by genre reporters. I should know better by now; I'm sorry. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
11:48 am	The F&SF Editorial Click here, at the F&SF Forum   (5 Comments |Comment on this)
9:04 am	Realms 2, edited by Nick Mamatas and Sean Wallace (1 Comment |Comment on this)
9:00 am	Readercon and Swag and Come by the table, and get free-free-free swag!   (5 Comments |Comment on this)
8:07 am	Readercon and Panels The Future of Magazines, Part 2 (Online) 11:30 AM: K. Tempest Bradford, Neil Clarke, Robert Killheffer, Mary Robinette Kowal, Matthew Kressel, Sean Wallace (Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
11:06 pm	Novy MIRror Episode # 4: Interview with Cat Rambo (Comment on this)
4:18 pm	From the pages of the Aug / Sept 2009 F&SF . . . "However, the big news Van Gelder springs on us is that F&SF is starting a writing workshop with Gardner Dozois (former editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction), which will supply some of F&SF’s stories in the future. I’m too poor (and already involved with other workshops) to pay up for a workshop that charges, but this might be a good backdoor way to get into the ‘zine."—Paula Stiles (14 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, June 26th, 2009
8:56 am	Design: The Early Works of Philip K. Dick, Volume 1: The Variable Man Out in August, though I may have copies in late July. We'll see. (Comment on this)
8:52 am	Second Printing: The Alchemy of Stone, Ekaterina Sedia I'll have some advance copies at Readercon, for sale. Feast your eyes! (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, June 25th, 2009
12:47 pm	Honorable Mentions, from The Year's Best Science Fiction Fantasy Magazine Honorable Mentions "Turnipseed" by Erik Amundsen "On the Finding of Photographs of My Former Loves" by Peter M. Ball "The Cinnamon Cavalier" by Richard Bowes "Nora" by Becca De La Rosa "The Annie Oakley Show" by Ari Goelman "Geddarien" by Rose Lemberg "The Small Door" by Holly Phillips "Pahwakhe" by Gord Sellar "Marrying the Sun" by Rachel Swirsky "The Black-Iron Drum" by Von Carr This is a nice surpise, as last year we got only six, and considering that we don't run much science fiction. Congratulations, everyone! Clarkesworld Magazine Honorable Mentions "Teeth" by Stephen Dedman "After Moreau" by Jeffrey Ford "Clockwork Chickadee" by Mary Robinette Kowal  "Blue Ink" by Yoon Ha Lee "The River Boy" by Tim Pratt "When the Gentlemen Go By" by Margaret Ronald "A Buyer's Guide to Maps of Antartica" by Catherynne Valente "Can You See Me Now?" by Eric Witchey Reprinted: "The Sky that Wraps the World Round, Past the Blue and Into the Black" by Jay Lake We had a few more hms last time, against this year, but this time we cracked the ceiling, and a story was reprinted. I'll take that :p (3 Comments |Comment on this)