First Reviews.

Eric J. Guignard, the editor of the forthcoming After Death, sent me a link to a review in Publishers Weekly.

I'm thrilled to have had my story, I Was The Walrus, as one of those mentioned by name in a positive review.

"This anthology addresses one of the most basic questions of human existence: what happens when we die? The answers come in the form of 34 stories that explore diverse notions of ghosts (Edward M. Erdelac’s “Sea of Dreams”) and demons (William Meikle’s “Be Quiet at the Back”), trapped souls (Steve Cameron’s “I Was the Walrus”), mishaps in resurrection (Lisa Morton’s “The Resurrection Policy”), and unbearable eternities (David Tallerman’s “Prisoner of Peace”). The newly deceased protagonists may be confused, angry, resigned, or unaware that they are dead, so even those vignettes with more exposition than plot convey a sense of personal discovery (if perhaps of the hopeless kind). Though the majority of the pieces come from the darker side of the genre, a solid minority are playful, clever, or full of wonder. This makes for good variety but a bit of emotional whiplash, somewhat mitigated by Guignard’s clever introductions and Audra Phillips’s portraitlike illustrations. This strong and well-themed anthology is sure to make readers contemplative even while it creates nightmares."

Happy To Be Rejected.

Can you get excited about a rejection? I did. It was a personal rejection from one of the 'big-three' pro markets, direct from the editor-in-chief.

I've had rejections from this market before - the standard form rejections, but this time it had a few comments about the writing and the request to see more of my writing.  Of course this doesn't mean my work will sell there anytime soon, but it does mean that for the first time my story made it past the readers. And there was enough there for the Grand Poobah to comment on before rejecting it. I see that as a victory.

On top of that I sold another story. It's a story I love, a story that had a few 'almost but not quites' from markets I want to break into. A quick rejig and it was off again to another market. And I still have two stories on hold elsewhere - and yes, (fingers crossed) I have hopes for at least one of those to be picked up.

My contributor copy of Epilogue arrived this week, and it's beautiful. It's shiny and new and I love it. My preciousssss. I've just turned the final page, and I must say it's a fantastic read. Congrats to my co-contributors. You can't really go too far wrong with a TOC that has the following names alongside my own: Thoraiya Dyer, Lyn Battersby, Joanne Anderton, Dirk Flinthart, Stephanie Gunn, Kaia Landelius, Dave Luckett, David McDonald, Jason Nahrung, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Elizabeth Tan. As Molly used to say, do yourself a favour and all that.

I'm also thrilled to have received a 5 star review for my Epilogue story, Fireflies.

Fireflies - Steve Cameron - Five stars.

Beautiful and emotive. A lovely journey that was set up well, and followed through wonderfully. I would love to see more in this world.

Yay!

Snapshot 2012 is well underway, and I was interviewed for that a week or so ago. I'll post a link here when my interview appears. In the meantime checkout the previous post and get reading. Fascinating viewpoints from Australia's SpecFic community.

And I bought my own domain name. Did you notice stevecameron.com.au? And then there's Continuum 8 next weekend. A splendid time is guaranteed for all.

Does it get a whole lot better than this?