Tag: #ShortStoryWriting

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Starship Librarians reviewed in the Ottawa Review of Books

Starship Librarians, edited by JR Campbell and Shannon Allen, recently received a glowing review in the Ottawa Review of Books.
Overall, the reviewer, Robert Runte, an awesome guy who I first met when he was working as an editor for 5 Rivers Publishing had this to say about the review:

Overall, Starship Librarians is a first-rate collection with some standout stories. I’m willing to bet at least some of these turn up again in ‘best-of-year’ collections. Kudos to editors Allan and Campbell. I hope we can look forward to more themed anthologies from them.

Mr. Runte was kind enough to go through the stories and provide comments on most of them. It’s always awesome when someone takes the time to get into that level of detail. Here is what he had to say about my story, “The Revolution will Not Be Fertilized”:

In contrast, “The Revolution Will Not Be Fertilized”, follows a group of guerilla gardeners led by a rebel librarian. I dreaded reading this one! First, it’s written in the second person, which rarely works. Second, it’s by horror writer, J. W. Schnarr. Schnarr is one of the gentlest people I’ve ever met, but his writing . . … Years after first discovering his stories, I’m still trying to excise a couple of the nightmares he’s given me. So, throughout this story, I found myself reluctant to turn the next page as things got progressively darker. But . . . it’s wonderful! Inspired. A rare example of the perfect use of second person, and a truly unique take on resistance to dystopia.

You really couldn’t ask for a better review, could you?

Please read the full review here.

You can pick up a copy of Starship Librarians on Amazon!

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From silence to stories.

So I have spent the past couple years very quietly. This year is looking to be the opposite of that. I currently have four short stories out for consideration, written since the beginning of December, and two of whom have made second round consideration. Another one is out for some feedback. That’s not much, but it is something. What it IS is this idea in my head that short story theorycraft is finally starting to make sense to me. Almost 50 years old, better late than never.

I love Dungeons and Dragons and I’ve been playing it since I was a kid. The first time I played was with my mother and her friends, I was all of eight years old. I played through 1st and 2nd editions in Jr. High and High School. And then 3rd edition came out and I was all in on that. I still think 3.5e is the best version of this game. Problem is trying to find players who want to go back to an old edition.

I recently wrapped up a 2-year Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign I was running, and my party is on a break. Wanting to capture some of the adventures I wrote to thicken the plot soup of Rime, I’ve been rebuilding them as generic adventures. I own a ton of Dyson Logos commercial maps, and between that and my friend Erin (The talented E.M. MacCallum, check out her books!) I have started building them into something serviceable. I know AI art is not a popular thing right now, but I’ve been using MidJourney to create images for the adventures.

I don’t expect to sell more than a handful of copies of these things (if any), so dishing out a grand or more for a handful of pieces and waiting months on them being completed is outside the scope of this experiment. I’ll post about them when I stick ’em up on DMs Guild.

I plan on writing a lot more this year. I wrote almost nothing last year, but I was neck deep in some personal drama. Not an excuse. Well, actually, that’s exactly what it is. It was an excuse to focus on nothing and do even less.

That’s all over with. Bring it, 2025. I’m ready for you.