I’m happy to announce that my short story “Truth is Like the Sun” will appear in a future issue of Lightspeed Magazine. The story is told in a modern epistolary (letter) format and concerns a trans Persian-Thai rock star who performs a musical set from orbit and literally breaks the internet. No news yet on when the story will be released.
The Dreaded Empty Signing Queue
Some of you may remember my essay from a couple of years back called “Overcoming Self-Doubt as a Writer,” which was published on the SFWA blog. That essay will be included a new book called The Writer’s Book of Doubt, edited by Aidan Doyle. I think it’s a great idea. Artists of all shapes and sizes struggle with self-doubt and depression, and a handbook on how to overcome the worst of those humps would be super-useful. But the book will only see the light of day if it makes its Kickstarter funding goal. Can you help out?
Maniac, a new series on Netflix starring Emma Stone & Jonah Hill.
The last time I was on Jim Freund’s Hour of the Wolf radio program, I had no idea he was going to put it up on Facebook Live, and so, well, I didn’t shave or put on a nice shirt. Viewers saw me, like a wild animal, in my natural state. This time, when I was on Jim’s program this past Wednesday, I made sure to clean myself up.
Jim and I talked about TV shows, the state of the genre, and about 1h21m into the show, I read “The Marsh of Camarina,” my story about AI and job replacement that appeared in the anthology Shades Within Us. You can see the most recent Facebook Live recording here.
My Geeks Guide to the Galaxy discussion, just released, was thankfully audio only. So listeners will have no idea if I am waxing philosophical about the Netflix show Maniac in my underwear. It’s up to you to decide.
Seriously, though, I had a lot of fun discussing that show with Chandler Klang Smith, Rajan Khanna & host David Barr Kirtley. You can check out the show here.
More to come soon, after I finish the damn novel.
And this one about how we all place ourselves into “filter bubbles.” Many people in one scientific study “were surprised to learn just how cocooned inside far-right or far-left bubbles they were.”
Last week I participated in SFWA’s #ThePanel YouTube live videocast, Episode 4 – “Cli-fi” and Solarpunk, with panelists Sam J. Miller, Dr. Laurel J. Standley, J.K. Ullrich, and moderated by Diane Morrison. As readers of this blog and followers of my social media feeds know, I feel strongly about environmental causes and averting the worst predictions of climate change. I do this by bringing attention to our common fatalism. What I mean is that we are so often used to pessimistic thinking about the future — that climate change is inevitable — that we don’t work to bring about potential solutions. In my (recent) fiction and on social media, I work to counter this pessimistic force. I am not a head-in-the-sand Polyanna. I don’t believe that a positive future is the only outcome. But I believe that with hard, concerted effort, we can mitigate the worst predictions of climate change and perhaps even bring about an abundant future for humanity.
In this panel, I and my co-panelists speak about the reasons we each write and are concerned about climate change, and some ways our fiction may address the issue. It was a really interesting panel, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Also, this weekend I’ll be attending the Milford Readers and Writers Festival in Milford, PA, where I’ll be doing a reading, a signing, and a panel alongside Chandler Klang Smith, Karen Heuler, and Mercurio D. Rivera. Plus I have new fancy schmancy full-color cosmic business cards to show off. If you are in the area, I hope you can come by!
Hello! So, after a brief hiatus where my wife and I traveled around the Southwestern U.S. visiting the National Parks, I’ve been back at the keyboard since the beginning of September. Since then I’ve revised and sent out a short story, and have been revising the YA novel.
I’ll be attending a few conferences & writing festivals in the next several months, so if you happen to be at one of these, please come say hi. I don’t bite (often).
My conference schedule:
Hope to see you soon!
Photo by Christine Kressel
Matthew Kressel is a three-time Nebula Award finalist, a World Fantasy Award finalist, and a Eugie Award Finalist. He has written dozens of short stories, a few novels, and is the co-host of the Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series in Manhattan. He is also the creator of the Moksha submissions system.
The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2018, edited by Rich Horton, contains my story “Love Engine Optimization” about data privacy, seduction, and pathological narcissism.
Get a copy here.
The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 3 contains my story “The Last Novelist (or a Dead Lizard in the Yard)”, which was a finalist for the Nebula Award and is currently a Eugie Award finalist.
The Moksha Submissions System – A fully featured manuscript submissions system for publishers.
Fantastic Fiction at KGB – A monthly Manhattan-based reading series.
“As the Meeker and the All-Seeing Eye wandered the galaxy harvesting dead stars, they liked to talk.”
Download a free ebook of the 2014 Nebula Award Finalist short story.
2017 Nebula Award finalist. 2018 Eugie Foster Memorial Award finalist.
Read “The Last Novelist” at Tor.com.
“This is a story of longing and of looking back. Of decline—in health, in life. And of finding something at the end of life that is unexpected but wonderful….It’s an inspiring and elegant story and a great read!”
—Charles Payseur, Quick Sip Reviews
