Jean Marie's Domain

Yeah, I'm late to the awards nomination party. Surprise! But if you've still got space on your Hugo or Nebula ballots--or are looking forward to the 2015 World Fantasy Awards--have I got some suggestions for you.

First the writing. This year I had three eligible stories published. How you classify them depends on the award, so I'll give you all the relevant details. In ascending order of size, they are:

"The Wizard of Woodrow Park" published in The Clockwork Universe: Steampunk vs. Aliens (Zombies Need Brains, LLC)
Hunting for a rogue anthropologist, Aviann Special Agent Hreaak Meekram finds himself confronting a wizard.
(7,000 words)

"The Gap in the Fence" published in Athena's Daughters (Silence in the Library Publishing)
Ten-year-old Ana will do anything to save her best friend’s dog–even challenge the fairies who live beyond “The Gap in the Fence”.
(9,600 words)

"Glass Transit" in Hellfire Lounge 4: Reflections of Evil (Bold Venture Press)
Bumbling sorcerers Eddie Woodhouse and Ducky “Duke” Orr get more than they bargain for when they leap from a magical bottle into the skies over Lakehurst, New Jersey, on May 6, 1937.
(13,500 words)

And don't forget all those anthologies are eligible for Best Anthology or Best Related Work, depending on the award. But honestly, one 2014 anthology knocks them and every other potential contender out of the park: Unconventional Fantasy, a celebration of 40 years of World Fantasy Cons published by the Baltimore Washington Area Worldcon Association.

Go ahead, accuse me of favoritism. I'm one of the editors, along with Peggy Rae Sapienza, Sam Lubell and Bill Campbell. But look at the stats.

The six (yep, six!) volumes of Unconventional Fantasy comprise over 250 short stories, essays and poems by best-selling, award-winning authors and amazing new talent. We're talking writers like Neil Gaiman, Hideyuki Kikuchi, Guy Gavriel Kay, Patricia McKillip and Joyce Carol Oates. Then there's the art. In addition to the catalogue of the Virgil Finlay exhibit hosted by World Fantasy Con 2014 and the fifty-image gallery of WFC 2014 Artist Guest of Honor Les Edwards, the collection features over two hundred images of artists from around the world--artists like Alicia Austin, Kathleen Jennings, Dr. Moro and Mahendra Singh. To cap it off, there's a 100-image pictorial gallery of World Fantasy Cons past. Taken together it's over 3,200 pages of text.

The anthology was formatted in PDF, MOBI and EPUB on a souvenir thumb drive given away (yep, as free!) to all members of WFC2014. As publications go, it was a very limited edition, but thanks to the generosity of our contributors, we just might be able to offer an electronic version to 2015 Worldcon and World Fantasy Con members if the collection makes it to the final awards ballots.

And if that's not a reason to vote it on every major ballot, I don't know what is.

Happy voting!

Originally published at Jean Marie Ward. You can comment here or there.

I’m back, with a first look at Ben Fogletto’s amazing cover art for Hellfire Lounge 4: Reflections of Evil, coming in August to a bricks-and-mortar and online bookseller near you.

And if that weren’t enough, Edd Coutts has done a stunning job of capturing the moment when Eddie Woodhouse meets the Luftwaffe on the Hindenburg. Yep, “Glass Transit”, my contribution to the anthology, features Eddie and Ducky “Duke D’Or” Orr, everybody’s favorite hard luck sorcerers, on Nazi Germany’s biggest flying bomb. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

And I’ve posted pictures of RavenCon! The short version can be found in my Thursday Thirteen for Beyond the Veil. But there’s more, lots more, on my Flickr page. Enjoy!