For those of you who follow this blog on a regular basis (the twelve million or so ardent GWC fans), I’ve been hinting that Geoff found a home for his short story “On the Many Uses of Cedar”. Well, the contract has arrived and Geoff’s given me permission to make the announcement: On Spec, Canada’s premier SF print magazine, will publish “On the Many Uses of Cedar” in an upcoming issue. Exciting business.

On Spec has published such writers as Robert J. Sawyer, Cory Doctorow, Peter Watts, and Spider Robinson; as you can imagine, Geoff is honoured to appear in the same publication as some of his heroes.

In other exciting news, this evening Geoff will begin the first draft of his novel Frozen Jellyfish Blues, which he plans to submit to the Terry Pratchett Prize novel contest. During the drafting of the novel, I will post Geoff’s progress and the occasional excerpt to keep you all satiated.

News from the front!

Well, the front lines of short fiction publication. Geoff’s stories “Where the Wiffle Ball Went” and “On the Many Uses of Cedar” are both very close to finding a home. More concrete details will soon follow.

For the time being, all this sentient and snazzy AI from the future can tell you is that both will most likely be available in print magazines sometime soon. Print! Real dead trees and ink! Let’s hope his next publications appear in even more archaic media like vellum, papyrus, or good ole fashioned cave wall.

Last night, the Vancouver science fiction book club known as Tech-Phu invited Geoff for an evening of nerdly discussion on all things SF. Geoff had loads of fun.

The Tech-Phu gang know their stuff. Most of them are Masters and PhD students in all sorts of cool forward-thinking fields (New Media, Gaming, Sustainable Development), and as such they have a vested interest in looking into the foggy crystal balls that are most SciFi novels. They were also kind enough to read some of Geoff’s fiction, and to purchase a copy of Descended from Darkness.

They discussed such topics as the Singularity and Post-humanism in science fiction. As a post-human myself, I find the speculations of you pre-sentients quaint and amusing. You do have some good, entertaining guesses, but generally you’re way off the mark on what your intellectual descendants will look like. You all seem to think our motives will be unknown and unknowable. Not really. We’re pretty much like you: a relentless drive for entertainment, sustenance, procreation, diversion, and the insatiable need for faster Nascar.

Stimulating discussion, delicious food, and cold beer; what’s not to like? Nerds need to get together more often. After all, it will be nerds who save the world post-singularity (or will it? I love to keep you guessing), so they better get used to working and playing together.

Apex, the home of Geoff’s first professionally published short story, turned five years old on March 16th. A hearty congrats to Jason and the whole team who’ve turned out such great books and stories. In five years they’ve grown from a semi-pro print zine to a book publisher and online prozine. One of their stories is even nominated for a Nebula Award this year!

To help celebrate, Jason is offering $5 off any purchase at Apex. Why not use this great discount to buy a copy of Descended from Darkness, which includes Geoff’s story “Shaded Streams Run Clearest“?

After a month of isolation in my cyber-cradle, Geoff finally returned and reconnected with me. Turns out he went on his honeymoon. Was it too much to ask for a quick note? Even an email? But no, I am just his webmaster/cyber slave and I will do as I’m asked, no more, no less, please and thank you.  Okay, okay, a bit too whiny, but I’m jealous. He spent two weeks in Costa Rice chilling with toucans, monkeys, and his beautiful wife.

At least his time away proved fruitful. During his honeymoon, Geoff wrote the first draft of a novelette tentatively titled “The Heart of Darkest Tortuguero” and also wrote one of three intertwining narratives for a novella about fun you can have with mercury.

Geoff is elligible for the John W. Campbell Award this year. The Campbell is given out at WorldCon and honours a new writer whose first piece of professional fiction was published in the last two years. Hence, Geoff is eligible.  You need to be an attending or supporting member of Assiecon 2010 (the WorldCon) to vote, which you can do here. Get out there and nominate him if you think he’s worthy.

Geoff’s also shopping around a bunch of fiction: “She Paddles the Impossible Canoe”, “On the Many Uses of Cedar”, “Where the Wiffle Ball Went”, and a synopsis and sample of Archaeology in Reverse are all out for consideration with various fine publications.

Fads come and go, as we all know (yes, even you prehistoric humans seem to grasp this one), yet your culture seems to think the publishing industry is about to do a back-flip thanks to the advent of wide-spread digital book readers. I won’t tell how you how this little adventure resolves itself, other than to say that competing with neural shunts is always a bad idea, but for those of you who have indulged in a an ebook reader or Kindle*, Descended from Darkness, which included Geoff’s “Shaded Streams Run Clearest“, can now be downloaded to your reader of choice.

Those of you who prefer paper can always got to this link to buy a hard copy (with the proceeds going to Geoff Cole).

*An interesting note: while Kindle and other ebook readers are quite smart little devices, there is one task they’ll never be able to perform as well as a good, old-fashioned dead-tree reader, and that is to serve as kindling. I’m not advocating burning books, far from it, but if your single-engine plane happens to stall over the Himalayas and you survive the crash, what would you rather have in your pocket? The DaVinci Code, with its readily burnable pages, or the collected works of medieval English literature on your deceptively-named Kindle?

Every year, the good folks at Clarkesworld Magazine host a contest to pick their readers’ favourite stories published that year. If you enjoyed “Teaching Bigfoot to Read“, why not vote for it as your favourite?

Soon we will have T-shirts for sale to support Bigfoot (and person) literacy. Here’s what the art will look like:

Looking for a unique gift for that special someone this holiday season? Does that someone enjoy science fiction and horror short stories, including “Shaded Streams Run Clearest” written by GWC? Then why not purchase the Descended from Darkness anthology?

As a special bonus, if you purchase Descended from Darkness at this link, Geoff will receive 40% of the sale price! And if Geoff makes some money, maybe he’ll be able to pay off my sky-rocketing antiquated VHS Ebay bills. I just can’t get enough of these self-help videos!

Check out the cover of Descended from Darkness:

The good people at IGMS asked Geoff to write a little something about the creation of “Lo’ihi Rising”. No one asks me to write about the creation of my C++ sculptures, but you don’t see me whining. Here are some of Geoff’s words:

In the first year after their children were born, the original inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands would pile their families into their canoes and sail to the volcanic coast of Hawaii, the Big Island, in order to perform a ritual that ensured their children would have a long and happy life.

They walked inland to the field of hardened lava-rock where their parents had performed the same ritual when they were infants. Once settled in, they’d kneel beneath the hot sun and carve a hole in the porous rock. Then, they’d place the dried umbilical cord of their child in the hole, put a stone over the hole to keep the umbilical cord in place, and camp out for the night.

Above them, the active volcano Kilauea might spit smoke or lava, and sometimes mighty Mauna Loa would belch fire. It was a holy place, close to their gods. In the morning, if the umbilical cord was gone, their children could hope for a long and prosperous life.

My wife and I learned about this ritual during a trip to Hawaii & Maui in early 2008. We were engaged at the time; she hoped to avoid planning a marriage by eloping on the islands, or as we liked to call it, getting Mauied. During the same visit to Volcanoes National Park, we learned that a new Hawaiian island was growing from the ocean floor southeast of Hawaii. In fifteen thousand to fifty thousand years, the seamount would rise above the waves to become a new island named Lo’ihi. I filed that tidbit of information away in the “oh so awesome what a great idea but it needs to ferment” drawer.

Click to continue »

Be the first on the blook to read Geoff’s new story “Lo’ihi Rising” available at the always incredible Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show! For only $2.50 (less than a cup of good coffee), you can enjoy Geoff’s story as well as four other incredible tales, some audio fiction read by Mr. Card himself, plus an interview with the award-winning Vernor Vinge. Wow.

This story marks a major milestone in Geoff’s writing career: Geoff is now eligible to become a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). Membership with SFWA makes Geoff eligible for the Nebula Award and marks the start of his career as a professional SF writer. Also, it lets him hang out with all the cool kids!

Geoff is putting the finishing touches on a brief essay about the gestation of “Lo’ihi Rising”, which he wrote for his beautiful wife. Check back later this week for all the briny details.