US author: David D Levine<\/p>\n
UK author: Tim Lebbon<\/p>\n
AU author: Joanne Anderton<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Congratulations David, Tim and Joanne! I can’t wait to read all about it. I wonder in particular if your experiences will differ country to country…<\/p>\n
![\"David](\"http:\/\/www.zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/David-D.-Levine-with-turbine-by-Janna-Silverstein-Sep-2012-cropped-600x900.jpg\")
<\/a>David D Levine<\/p><\/div>\n
Let’s start with David D Levine<\/a>. Hello, David. Firstly, some stats. Please could you tell us:<\/p>\n The title of your collection: Space Magic<\/em><\/p>\n Its release date: 25 January 2013<\/p>\n Published through: Book View Caf\u00e9<\/p>\n One-sentence description: This Endeavour Award-winning collection pulls together 15 critically acclaimed science fiction and fantasy stories that take readers from a technicolor cartoon realm to an ancient China that never was, and from an America gone wrong to the very ends of the universe.<\/p>\n Great! Now let\u2019s get stuck in\u2026<\/p>\n 1. Congratulations! It\u2019s quite an honour to be asked to put together a short story collection. How did the opportunity arise for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n After selling about 25 short stories, I thought it was time for a collection. I asked a friend who was a small-press publisher if she\u2019d be interested, she requested a proposal with a certain word count, I selected the stories and sent them in, and she bought it!<\/p>\n 2. How many reprints and how many originals will be included in your collection, and do you have a favourite story?<\/strong><\/p>\n 14 reprints and one original, \u201cFalling Off the Unicorn.\u201d My favorite of them all is \u201cThe Tale of the Golden Eagle,\u201d the only story I\u2019ve ever written that made me<\/em> cry.<\/p>\n 3. Do you have an overall theme or message for the collection?<\/strong><\/p>\n I selected these stories to show off my range: fantasy and science fiction, comedy and drama, and a variety of voices. The name Space Magic<\/em> hints that it\u2019s a mix of SF and Fantasy (and is also a tip of the hat to The Jetsons<\/em>).<\/p>\n 4. To give us an idea of how long this collection has been in the making: which of the stories did you write first, and in which year did you write that story\u2019s first draft?<\/strong><\/p>\n The oldest story in the book is Nucleon<\/em>, which I wrote in January of 2000. Despite the fact that I wrote it before I went to Clarion West, it won the James White Award and is one of my most reprinted stories. It will soon be translated into Hungarian!<\/p>\n 5. You\u2019ve been writing short stories for a long time now. How many years into your writing career did you write that first collection-worthy story?<\/strong><\/p>\n Depends on how you define \u201cwriting career.\u201d I was a prolific writer in high school and college, but then I took 15 years off because my day job was technical writing and writing fiction was too much like work. I started writing fiction again, after a career change, in 1998, and wrote Nucleon<\/em> two years later.<\/p>\n 6. There are lots of writers out there who would love to publish a short story collection. Do you have any advice for them about (a) the writing of their stories, and (b) publishing them?<\/strong><\/p>\n The best advice I can give about writing short (or long!) fiction is to be true to yourself. Don\u2019t try to write what you think other people will want to read, write what you<\/em> want to read! Then seek out a publisher who has published something similar.<\/p>\n “Space Magic” by David D Levine<\/p><\/div>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n 7. What do you anticipate will be or has been the hardest part of getting your collection ready for release? What will be\/has been the easiest part of the process?<\/strong><\/p>\n Formatting the collection from Word files into EPUB and MOBI was surprisingly easy (I used Scrivener) but producing the 15 separate short story files was much more work than I\u2019d anticipated. Dealing with all the ebook stores, especially Apple, has also been terribly time-consuming. And publicity is very hard for me!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 8. Which short story writer do you admire most and why? How have they influenced your own short story writing?<\/strong><\/p>\n For years, my favorite writer was Larry Niven, who combined clear prose, interesting plots based on physics and astronomy, and fascinating aliens. I\u2019m also a big fan of writers such as Poul Anderson, Fritz Leiber, and George R. R. Martin, who flitted back and forth between SF and Fantasy.<\/p>\n 9. What promotional activities do you have planned for your collection?<\/strong><\/p>\n It will be promoted via the Book View Caf\u00e9 website and blog, by the members of the Book View Caf\u00e9 collective individually, and I\u2019ve been doing a number of blog interviews like this one. I\u2019ve also made a promotional video for the upcoming anthology The Mad Scientist\u2019s Guide to World Domination<\/em>, which I hope to piggyback on for some Space Magic<\/em> sales: \u201cLetter to the Editor<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n 10. What\u2019s next? Please tell us about your next writing project.<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m working on a novel set in an alternate English Regency with airship travel to Mars and Venus. Arabella, born on Mars, was recently hauled back to Earth by her mother and finds England stifling. When she learns her evil cousin plans to travel to Mars, kill her brother, and inherit the family fortune, she disguises herself as a boy and joins the crew of a fast merchant ship in hopes of stopping him. But pirates, mutiny, and rebellion intervene. Will she reach her brother in time?<\/p>\n Wow \u2013 sounds amazing. Good luck for that, and thank you for joining us here today!<\/p>\n What about you, dear reader? Do you have a short story collection you’d like to publish and, if so, what interested you most about David’s answers? Let me know in the comments below. Next time, we’ll ask the same questions of our UK author Tim Lebbon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have decided to ask three short story writers \u2013 one in the UK, one in the US and one in Australia \u2013 what it’s like to publish a short story collection. If you’re a short story writer, as I am, I’m sure you’d love to publish a collection of\u2026<\/p>\n<\/a>