Reaching out to the future

After a much-delayed pronouncement, it's alive and kicking!

Go read and find out what the future holds for us!

Top Things to Do #1 and #2 for This Week

#1 Announce the roster of Diaspora Ad Astra e-anthology FINALLY:

After more than half a year, I'm finally getting my act together to announce the line-up of the Diaspora Ad Astra online anthology, edited by Professor Emil Flores and yours truly. My deepest, sincerest apologies for the long-delay on this one.

Alas, I'm man enough to say that the fault lies solely on my head for the delay on this one due to life, writing and work issues getting in the way. I mean, geez, eight months to get this out? Still, even as I proffer my mea culpas to all those involved, from Prof. Emil to the contributing writers, I also know that I should finish what I started and this means finally letting this antho come to light. Hopefully, the writers present will still allow me to present these stories to the world, even if I have to get on my knees and beg.

But enough of my whiney chatter and let's get on to the good parts. The stories in the TOC are as follows (in no particular order):

1. War Zone Angel, Professor Emil Flores
   
2. The Day the Sexbomb Dancers Invaded Our Brains, Carljoe Javier
   
3. The Malaya, Dean Francis Alfar
4. The Cost of Living, Vince Torres
5. Ina Dolor's Last Stand, Raymond P. Reyes
6. Oplan Sanction, Alex Osias
7. The Keeper, Audrey Villacorta
8. Ashes Ember, Dannah Ruth S. Ballesteros
9. Rizal, Eliza Victoria
10. Gene Rx, Katya Oliva-Llego
11. Robots and a Slice of Pizza, Raydon Reyes
12. Lucky, Raven Guerrero
13. A List of Things We Know, Isabel Yap
14. Taking Gaia, Celestine Trinidad
15. Space Enough and Time, Anne Lagamayo
    

There are three reprints here but these stories are what I think best represents some of the best Philippine SF that have been earlier published, including Carljoe Javier's generational-starship comedy The Day the Sexbomb Dancers Invaded Our Brains and Dean Alfar's far-flung horror-SF The Malaya. And of course, you can't think of Pinoy SF without including guest editor Professor Flores, which is why we have his story War Zone Angel here.

#2 Launch the Diaspora Ad Astra e-anthology by this month. Make sure I clean it up before I let it out into the wilds. Present also the alleged "cover" of the antho, once again done by Oscar Alvarez:

Evocative of both old pulp SF as well as classic Pinoy cinema, yes? I thought so too. All it needs now is the late great movie icon Fernando Poe, Jr. wandering around the dusty landscape in a spacesuit and a ray gun.

Anyway, I hope you people can stick around the final act. We're almost done here.

Komikon Virgin

Well, I do admit it was my first time: I was attending the 6th iBlog Summit at the University of the Philippines on Saturday and I thought of passing by to check out the Komikon at the nearby U.P. Bahay ng Alumni.

Serendipity aside, I sometimes had a chance of passing by previous incarnations of Komikon but never got around to doing it. But this time, my office colleagues and I had lunch at Chocolate Kiss on the 2nd floor of the building and I thought I might as well drop by.

And what a sight there was to see there, with indie and self-published 'zines and comics on display on creators' tables all over the place. There was Bayan Knights, Gerry Alanguilan's Elmer (which I finally bought a copy on convention discount), Budgette Tan's Trese, Manix Abrera's 12 (with ads proclaiming his next kikomachine output), Laban: A Love Story, Kubori Kikiam, Philippine Adventure & Romance Stories,...

There were also anime series on DVD being sold, as well as cosplay clothes, collectible toys, graphic novels and-- of course-- lots of mainstream comics from DC, Marvel, etc. The PinoyWriMo were also there, hand-selling their e-novels to passersby.

What was interesting for me was the can-do spirit of the comic book creators at the event, of how they've managed to put in their love for the form and the storytelling medium to come upw these works using their own time, money and effort.

The other interesting thing that happened to me at the event was that, while dining at Chocolate Kiss, Gerry Alanguilan sat down at the next table and I went fanboy on him to get my copy of Elmer signed, which he gamely did.

Would I wish more creators were like this, eh?

WE ARE NOW LIVE!

"Demons of the New Year: Horror from the Philippines", an e-anthology by Karl de Mesa and myself is now ready for viewing.



We're still having some issues with how one story looks on the site (looks at adam crossly) but the patch you'll see on the site is only temporary until our designer comes back from fighting the good fight in the name of Google against China.

Until then, enjoy the frights!

Ground Rules (No House Parties!)

I've set up the guidelines page for Estranghero Press, which can be found here.

This is what I've posted...

Some guidelines on Estranghero Press:

1. The release of the Estranghero Press offerings is scheduled quarterly-- or as close as possible to release four online anthologies or collections a year. As such, the call-outs will be done two to three months before the actual release (i.e. publication) of the anthologies. Send in your works within the set reading period by then.

2. The anthologies or collections will handled by a guest editor for the particular release. However, the overall series editor will be yours truly.

3. The stories of future online anthologies or collections will depend on the themes proposed in the call-outs. These themes will depend on the discussions with the guest editor. However, Estranghero Press is open to suggestions on possible themes, topics, subject matters, etc.

4. The anthologies or collections will primarily be short stories of speculative fiction in nature. However, Estranghero Press is open to collections of non-fiction or critical essays on other possible themes and topics.

5. Given that Estranghero Press is striving to become a platform for Filipino speculative fiction on the Internet, we will be limiting our solicitation of works from Filipinosm whether living in the Philippines, outside the country, or of Filipino blood.

Unfortunately, though we would want to publish material from non-Filipinos, we want to concentrate first in giving a voice to Filipino writers online. One day, we would want to come up with publications that is open to all speculative fiction writers regardless of nationality. But not right now.

6. Estranghero Press is a paying market, i.e. PhP500 per published piece. Given that this is done all out of the editorial pocket without much regard to advertising at the moment, the payment is all we can afford. But we'll get around to fixing the bloody business plan and hopefully we can raise the rates.

(This is also one reason we are limiting my submissions from local writers because- aside from we can't match the pay of international publications-- we can at least the local writers in person until we get around to fixing up the Paypal account.)

Further guidelines to follow once we come up with more...

Hmm... any questions or clarifications?

Which reminds me: don't forget, the deadline for the Demons of the New Year online antho is this Friday, January 15! Finish those stories and send 'em to me as soon as you can, okay?

A Well-met Stranger

It's been a busy month, what with Christmas in the air and holiday parties all around. But I've managed to scrounge up some time to finally fix up the estrangheropress website.

Everything is still in their boxes and the floors are still dusty and unpolished-- but we're getting the place fixed up. Expect a number of blog posts here to be migrated over there (especially pertinent details from the last anthology, The Farthest Shore.)

Check out the new look here and bookmark it for future updates, yes?

Which reminds me, the deadline for the upcoming online anthology, Demons of the New Year, is less than a month away. I hope the writers have already started writing their stories.

Hey! You've got enough time during the Christmas break, right?

Boy, Have I Got Something to Tell You...

... paolo chikiamco is Michael Jackson's lovechild!*

Er, okay, maybe not. But it's just as fun: pao's set up a go-to website for all things Philippine Speculative Fiction at rocketkapre. Aside from being a website, it's also a publishing outfit with Rocket Kapre Books digital imprint. Ain't that cool?**

What's even wonderful is that pao is doing this for the solid love in his heart for local spec fic (or as they say, for the lurve). Ya gotta give the man some cred, having quit his high-paying, soul-searing job as a lawyer. Rather scary thing, ennit, going all-in as they say in Texas Hold-Em Poker.

More to the point, he's committed to doing this, i.e. he's talked the talked and now he's walking the walk. We should all be glad that people from the spec fic community (from dean, to kyu, to charles and now pao) are willing to commit themselves to these things. In a Manny Pacquiao voice, "We should too, you know."

So let's back pao and support Philippine spec fic by checking out his site! Better yet, make your love known in visits, clicks, links and money!***

* Well, with a cartoon like that, you have to wonder. *wink*

**Yes, that's two digital publishing firms out locally with me and pao. Talk about great minds thinking alike. kyu, you should come and join us online, you know.

***Whew, my throat's all raw from all that shouting and shilling. Maybe I should get paid for this. Hmm...

Excuse Me, Your Cred is Showing

A dialogue between a cat and a dog:

banzai cat: did you hear that adam is resigning as reviewer from philippine free press?

Achtung Dog: Yep. He's the main reason why I buy the magazine nowadays. Most of the time I feel like I'm reading someone taking a shit but he's got a lot of good points.

banzai cat: well, he did explain why he's quitting. I still can't believe the literary editor actually said he doesn't believe in discourse. totally surprising from someone in a position like that.

Achtung Dog: That ain't right. So what will they talk about? The weather? Why writers write again blahblahblah?

banzai cat: personally, i think chingbee cruz got it right in her post, that if free press editors had a problem with what their writers were saying, they should have done something before they went to press. having been on the receiving end, i know how heavy the load is when it's your name that's bearing the 'editor' tag. It's not about possible censorship, it's about editorial responsibility.

Achtung Dog: Nah. I think they're just covering their ass with the fallout they're getting. You know, put out a disclaimer like this isn't our shit. Probably didn't expect it. I think it's whole "sino ka ba" mentality all over again. If you don't have the cred, don't say anything and not even then. We don't like hurt feelings. It's like if someone farts in the room, no one will say anything.

banzai cat: what's ironic is that it's an official statement: free press doesn't like discourse unless it's an intellectual exercise. it says so in the magazine that the editor's response is their official stand.

Achtung Dog: Yeah that's some scary shit.

For your further reading pleasure, I present to you as evidence the articles: #1, #2, #3 and #4. One of the editorial response is here which someone reacts here. Read the comments in chingbee's post for pros and antis. kyu scans the last editorial response here for public consumption.

What do you people think? Is stuff like Adam's articles worth being talked about, much more printed?

An Exercise in Subliminal Messaging

Oh look! Dancing chimpanzees!




in other news, kyu has just announced the upcoming release of the horror edition of the digest of philippine genre stories which was guest-edited by yvette tan. it has my story, plus charles tan, dominique cimafranca, sean uy, raymond falgui and alex paman. check it out, yes?



Now back to our regular *silent* broadcasting...

Curious Cats Want to Know...

... what they're planning at publishing firm Tor's new website.

I saw editor Patrick Nielsen-Hayden's post on the new Tor look, including giving out free e-books and art covers every week. Now, am not much for reading electronically but am going ga-ga over the covers from each of their artists they've been posting.

The IPhone sized-ones are actually perfect for my Nokia as wallpapers such that I have a collection of pictures already. (Am currently using a Jon Foster cover.) Alas, I wasn't able to get the same-sized pictures of the art of John Jude Palencar and Donato-- two of my favorite cover artists-- so am hoping that they'll come out with those again.

Of course it helps that Tor's been coming out with really great books that I really get into. Price-wise, I'm more liable to get the mass market paperback of books but Tor's been coming out with pretty trade paperbacks such that I can't resist spending a fortune on them. Ah well...

So if you want some free books and artwork while waiting for what they've got at Tor, go check them out.

Curious Cat Question

Given that kristin's piece in Clarkesworld magazine is now out, and we all remember dean's own story in Strange Horizons that was later published in the Datlow-Windling Year's Best of Fantasy and Horror...

... does anyone else know any local writer's piece that was published in a paying international (read: non-local) market? I seem to remember nikki also having a story published somewhere like Prime's Fantasy magazine. Can anyone jog my memory or did I just imagine this?

Interesting enough, I'm usually wary of reading stuff on/ sending submissions to e-zines, being old-fashioned as I am ("paper is good enough for me grandpappy and it's good enough for me!"). However, I've seen quite a number of these e-zines grow from strength to strength that I stand corrected on this matter-- heck, Clarkesworld magazine is having a 'best of the year' published in print format.

Just wondering how the submitting forces are doing in the international market...

Update: Thanks to kyu and charles, they reminded me that, yes, nikki will also have a story published in Fantasy magazine scheduled for Winter 2007/2008 (which is, what? December? January?). Though am wondering how this will jive with Prime's plan to move to a weekly online format by November.

Likewise, kyu also has a story coming out in the e-zine Town Drunk by November. Congrats man! (Does it fulfill my requirements? Yes, it does. kyu! Libre naman!)