Page 46 of posts by: montsamu

Rich Horton summarizes Bull Spec, year one.

Posted on 2011-02-02 at 17:47 by montsamu

In his LiveJournal The Elephant Forgets, Rich Horton summarizes the first year of Bull Spec and gives a statistical roundup along a pair of axes (author gender and story genre). In particular he notes Lavie Tidhar's "The Story of Listener and Yu-En" (issue #3) and Nick Mamatas' "O, Harvard Square!" (issue #4) along with mentions for Katherine Sparrow, Melissa Mead, Natania Barron, Don Norum, and Kaolin Fire. So: go read the roundup, and see what else Rich has been reading this year. (Hint: everything.)

Posted in reviews-of-bull-spec

Not quite a year later... video for the John Kessel interview.

Posted on 2011-01-28 at 16:56 by montsamu

Filmed on 25 March 2010 and printed in Bull Spec #2, the video is finally posted. Enjoy:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQzDPqiaCQM&w=480&h=390]

Posted in interviews

Looking for a few good people.

Posted on 2011-01-20 at 20:57 by montsamu

So. Thanks to Dan's excellent job of completely taking over poetry, and Melinda's amazing job of completely taking over advertising, I've had a few moments to actually think about what else needs doing around here. While that list is long, long, long, I'm ready to start the process of "filling out" the Bull Spec staff. Two right off the top which are big needs are Art Director and Digital Editions Editor. More after the jump.

What do I see an Art Director doing? Primarily: Taking a budget from me and getting

Posted in help

Bull Spec Teen Writing Contest judged by Ann VanderMeer!

Posted on 2011-01-17 at 01:12 by montsamu

"Imagine two vast armies separated by a plain. Gryphons. Dragons. Mech walkers. Knights. Wizards. Rows of muskets. Rows of laser rifles. Rows of cannons. Velociraptors. Robots. Chariots. Hovercraft. Between these armies stand two teens. Siblings. A brother and sister. They hold outstretched hands, stretching out their other hands toward the armies, willing them to stop..."

Posted in contests, shared worlds

A nice review of Bull Spec #3 in Mark Watson's Best SF.

Posted on 2011-01-11 at 15:08 by montsamu

Mark Watson recently reviewed Bull Spec #3 in Best SF and had some nice things to say, along with introducing me to some British zine terminology like "sides" rather than the pedestrian "pages", and says, "There’s a lot in the magaze to like." Thanks, Mark!

Best SF

Posted in reviews-of-bull-spec

A great article on the first year of Bull Spec in today's Independent Weekly.

Posted on 2011-01-06 at 02:28 by montsamu

The Independent Weekly's Brian Howe has a very nice article in this week's issue, which is free to pick up all over the Triangle. Somehow he turned 90 minutes of rambling, disorganized nonsense into a no-nonsense article which hits on what speculative fiction is, a year of publishing and getting to know local authors and readers, how the zine has hopefully grown, and I'm really, really thrilled with it.

So, that's it for me today. Go read the article!

Posted in reviews-of-bull-spec

Hugo pandering, part two: local focus.

Posted on 2011-01-05 at 03:27 by montsamu

In part one, I ran down the stories and writers published in Bull Spec this year which are therefore eligible for the appropriate Hugo (and Nebula!) award categories. In part three, I'll take a look at the wider world of stories and writers. But this? This is part two, where I'll try to highlight the local (and regional) novels, stories, and writers who are eligible to be nominated for the 2011 Hugo Awards.

First, the locally-written books eligible in the Best Novel category, alpha by author:

• David Drake, The

Posted in hugo-2011

Hugo nominations are now open! And now, some pandering, part one.

Posted on 2011-01-03 at 21:38 by montsamu

The nomination period for the 2011 Hugo Awards is open. Folks who either were members (attending or supporting) of Aussiecon last year, or who are members (attending or supporting, and there's still plenty of time to sign up for either!) of Renovation this year, can nominate up to five persons or works in each category. You have until Saturday, March 26th to do so.

I'm going to run three posts on this. The first will deal with stories and writers published in Bull Spec in 2010. The second will deal with

Posted in hugo-2011

Well, BULL SPEC is a quarterly. Issue #4 now available!

Posted on 2010-12-30 at 21:27 by montsamu

While print copies won't be available until the launch party at The Regulator on Wednesday, January 12th, BULL SPEC #4 is available now for orders and downloads and sample previewing in the usual places.

Again the cover is from Carrboro's Jason Strutz:

Posted in announcements

Call for happenings, October-March.

Posted on 2010-12-17 at 20:05 by montsamu

I missed far too many "Happenings" in issue 3:

• Erik Bundy, who was part of the 2010 Odyssey Writing Workshop class, had a story in September's Aiofe's Kiss, and another in October's Bards & Sages
• Richard Dansky had an article "Bring on the Bad Guy" in The Escapist
• Monica Byrne had a story "Five Letters From New Laverne" in Shimmer #12 and another story "Nine Bodies of Water" in Fantasy Magazine, and performed in the play "Redghost" (an original adaptation from a Japanese ghost story) put on by Little Green Pig

Posted in happenings