Since I watched it on DVD, I also got a chance to watch the extras. The best part of those was the interviews with the real people on whom the characters were based. What nifty people. I would have liked to see more of them. That little extra could have gone on for another hour as far as I was concerned.

So rent or buy this one. It’s well worth your time.

According to Amazon, this book is going to be released on July 8, but I have a copy now, so I thought I’d share it. My story, “Craters,” which first appeared in Future Weapons of War has been included in the volume. I read this book every year as well, so it’s nice to be included.

The writing advice contained within still holds true, of course, but you can’t use it to sell anything to me, since I don’t edit any more. And that’s about as dated as this editorial gets.

Editorial
June, 1996

The first writer I ever met was a too-tall Truman Capote look alike who wrote poetry and taught at the local university. He spoke to my high school Creative Writing class, and all I remember about him (besides the fact that he was the first person I know to wear a cravat) were his complaints about being misunderstood by the publishing community. His talk before our class consisted of a long whine about publishing, two even longer poems, and a question-and-answer session in which no questions were asked.

The second writer I ever met had the most amazing talent: he could pick up anything — a paper clip, a ball of sand, a marble — and tell you what it weighed to the gram. He sold non-fiction to local publications, and made a good living…or so it seemed, until the police busted him for selling cocaine. He never complained about the publishing community. In fact, he never spoke about publishing at all.

The third writer I ever met was a Big Name Professional who came to speak at my college creative writing class. She had an Attitude. At her meet-the-author gathering in the faculty lounge, she refused to answer questions from us wanna-bes. “You’ll never listen anyway,” she said. “And most of you will go on to your little nine-to-five jobs, and look at this as your moment of glory. Of course, you’ll say you never made it because no one understood your art when the truth is most of you will never make it because you refuse to learn your art.”

Part of me still harbors resentment at BNP’s Attitude. As a professional myself, I justify that resentment this way: she had no idea who was in the room, and she should have been polite. (It should be noted here that I was raised in the Midwest where being polite is a virtue above all others.) But in truth, nowadays my attitude toward new writers is probably harsher than hers.

Every month, I receive about 1,000 manuscripts in the mail. These manuscripts, which I never asked to see, come in all shapes and sizes. Most are improperly done: they are written in crayon on yellow legal paper; they have spiders and other bugs tucked in their pages; or they have paperclips so old that the rust has stained the paper. Another large chunk appear fine until I start to read them: the spelling is abysmal, the punctuation non-existent, and the syntax is convoluted. The final group of the hopeless ones have learned how to handle the mechanics, but they have forgotten to tell a story. I don’t care to read about Joe Everyman waking up, shutting off his alarm and stumbling to the bathroom. It simply isn’t interesting.

So when I approach those manuscripts, my attitude resembles that of a classical music critic at a garage band rehearsal: I know I’m going to hate this experience unless something miraculous happens.

Imagine, if you will, trying to entertain a woman in an empty room. She has her arms crossed, her nose plugged, and a frown on her unlovely face. She has already made it clear that she doesn’t like your inexperience, your pushiness, or your friends. And you have to not only entertain her, you have to entertain her so well that she’ll pay you for the experience.

That’s me, folks.

Meet the editor.

I am the sourpuss neighbor, the old maid school marm, the nasty librarian whom you must convince to pull her hair out of a bun, throw away the glasses and dance the night away. I am a writer’s greatest nightmare.

Or a writer’s best friend.

Because once I am entertained, I will dance the night away. And the next, and the next. I love a good story, and I love a good writer even more. Once you’ve gotten past that grumpy woman guarding the door, you’ll find a friend who always makes certain you know the back way into the party.

Why am I telling you this now, after we’ve become such good friends? You didn’t want to see my dark side, to know that I’ve got an Attitude that puts BNP’s to shame. But you need to know right now, this instant, before you turn the page.

Because, as you’ve probably noticed, none of the names in this issue (with the exception of mine and the columnists) are familiar. Every story here was written by a new writer.

And every one of those writers has crossed that barrier. Every one has entertained the grumpy woman in the empty room, and made her dance with joy.

Every one.

I tell you this now so that you will understand why I believe this to be one of the strongest issues we’ve done all year. Most writers get in the back door. What that means is not that they get special favors, or that they know the secret handshake, or they know which kind of chocolate the editor prefers (dark with caramel). What it means is that when they come in, I’m already dancing. I know I like their work. I know they’ll entertain me. I know we’ll have a good time.

It’s the newcomers who have to prove themselves.

There are occasional anthologies of new writers and there is a very good contest run by Writers of the Future, also for new writers. (New writers, by the contest’s definition, are those who have not published a novel, and who have published less than four short stories. We use that definition here.) These are good ways for writers to “break in.” But they are flawed in one fundamental way: the new writers are competing against other new writers. To be the best in that group is sometimes to be brilliant (Robert Reed and Dave Wolverton got their starts there as the best of the new) but it is sometimes to be merely better than the others (which is to say the only entertaining one in the bunch). At F&SF, the new writers must compete against Ray Bradbury, Gene Wolfe, and Kate Wilhelm for space in the magazine. The new writer’s stories must be as good as an entertaining story by someone whose name is already familiar. And, if the truth be told, sometimes the new writer’s story must be better.

We’re taking a risk here to do an issue of the magazine with only new writer stories. And I wish I could say the risk was entirely mine. This all happened because Matthew Wells sent us a story called “The Aushwitz Circus” which I liked enough to buy. Our publisher, Ed Ferman, liked it enough to assign Kent Bash the cover. Kent’s cover — well, Kent’s cover speaks for itself. Kent showed the cover to our film critic Harlan Ellison, who called Ed and said it would be a crime to put names over this piece of art. Ed agreed and, realizing that I have bought a lot of new writers, suggested the new writer issue to me.

I wish I had thought of it first.

But I’m the guard at the door. If you don’t like a story in this issue, blame me. I’m the one who let the author into the party. But I suspect you’ll like these stories. A lot.

I do.

As for those writers, I mentioned up front, here’s where they stand nearly twenty years later: The Truman Capote look-alike has yet to publish outside of vanity presses. The non-fiction writer, after a long probation (he was sentenced before the War on Drugs), really started to write non-fiction for a living, and discovered it was more lucrative than his previous profession. The Big Name Professional has an even bigger name now, thanks to several literary awards and two bestsellers. I still think she has an Attitude, but I know now that her Attitude is one of the reasons she’s successful. She has seen hundreds of “writers” come and go. Most never listen and most never publish.

It takes a lot of guts, a lot of hard work, and a lot of persistence to sell a story.

It takes even more to make a career.

The folks whose name you see on these pages are real writers.

Let’s hope we’ll be following their careers for years to come.

Copyright 1996 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Apparently it’s short story week. Another short story just appeared in Future Americas edited by John Helfers and Martin H. Greenberg. It’s a futuristic cop story called “The Power of Human Reason,” and it was a lot of fun to write.

One of my favorite publications, the year’s best mystery & crime, edited by Ed Gorman and Marty Greenberg, has just come out, and this time, I’m lucky enough to have a story in it. “Substitutions” is a fantasy story with mystery elements, or a mystery story with fantasy elements. In any case, the main character works for Death. This series occasionally uses sf/f/h stories with crime or mystery elements, which is one of the reasons I love it. I’ll be reading this edition soon.

I also read a lot of books that passed the time, but just didn’t excite me. So here’s what I did enjoy in May:

Barth, John, “Toga Party,” Best American Short Stories, edited by Stephen King, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008. Talk about judging a writer by his reputation. I’d always heard that Barth was lit’rary—which to me often means snobby and unappealing. His books look dry as toast as well. Needless to say, I’d never picked one up. I don’t read for intellectual pleasure or to impress my friends with my profound choices. I read for sheer enjoyment.

But I read the year’s bests every year to find new authors, and to look at trends. I also love short fiction, and every year, the BASS has some gems. Not as many as Best American Mysteries or the sf/f collections, but enough to keep me reading.

Imagine my surprise when I realized Barth was one of this year’s gems. Imagine how my surprise grew when I realized (from reading his bio) that I’d never given a story or novel of his a chance before.

“Toga Party” is set in an East Coast suburb, at a neighborhood party. The Toga Party, which comes from the movie Animal House, was a big deal when I was in college (yes, when Animal House came out—we even had a guy in my dorm who could take a mouthful of potatoes, like Bluto, and slap his cheeks, spraying them everywhere—popping a zit, as Bluto would say. And yes, in those days, that was impressive). So I was familiar with the concept of the party, which Barth got exactly right.

Only he set it among a community of older adults. So the togas didn’t drape shapely forms, like they did when I was in college, but aging bodies. The entire story is a wonderful treatise on growing older, on death, and on living. It’s beautifully written as well, and packs a hell of an emotional punch.

Surprised me. In a good way. Now I’m off to read more of Barth’s work.

Burke, James Lee, Jesus Out To Sea, Simon and Schuster, 2007. I almost didn’t buy this book. I’d read half of the short stories somewhere else—one or two in the Year’s Best Mystery, “Jesus Out To Sea,” and “The Night Johnny Ace Died,” in Esquire. The thing was, I remembered all the stories I’d read. I didn’t think the slim volume would be worth the $14 cover price.

Boy, was I wrong. First of all, the stories I hadn’t read, like “Texas City, 1947,” and “The Burning of the Flag,” were spectacular. Even better were the stories I’d already read. I had no idea that “Why Bugsy Siegel Was a Friend of Mine,” involved the same characters as “The Burning of the Flag.” I’d liked “Bugsy Siegel” without knowing that; I loved it once I knew.

And the title story, “Jesus Out To Sea,” is just plain heartbreaking, no matter how many times you read it.

I was going to single out the stories I liked, but I liked each and every one of them, as well as the collection as a whole. It’s marvelous. Burke is one of our very best writers.

Clark, Rod, “Voice Over: The Beast of Asje Road,” Rosebud, Spring, 2008. It’s been my privilege to have known J. Roderick Clark for nearly thirty years. We used to work together at WORT radio in Madison, on the old Wednesday night news crew. Rod would write a commentary on a manual typewriter, and read it live on-air an hour later. Even after 25 years, I still remember most of those commentaries (and sometimes quote them). Eventually, both Rod and I turned away from the news business and went into publishing. Rod has published Rosebud magazine for 41 issues now—and they’re always fiesty, interesting, and filled with excellent fiction.

Of course, I read his column, “Voice Over,” before reading the rest of the magazine. And this month’s VO is just plain charming. Even though I have trouble envisioning my now domesticated friend walking his dog every evening, at least he walks through the wilds of Wisconsin and imagines werewolves. Now that’s the Rod I know. Beautifully written and memorable, the essay is from the Rod I know as well. Order a copy and enjoy.

Cowdrey, Albert E., “Twilight States,” The Year’s best Fantasy and Horror 2006, edited by Ellen Datlow and Kelly Link & Gavin Grant, St. Martin’s Griffin, 2007. I bought Albert Cowdrey’s first short stories at F&SF when he returned to writing after a thirty year absence. I adore his work, and this story is no exception. It’s rich and detailed and the characters are beautifully drawn. Worth reading.

Epstein, Joseph, “My Brother Eli,” The Best American Short Stories, edited by Stephen King, Houghton Mifflin, 2008. I’ve been thinking about this story ever since I read it. It’s about the impact a writer has on his family, not just the writer in the story, but any writer. I’m not sure I agree with Epstein’s conclusions. I’m not sure I disagree with them either. But they sure caught me. The story was riveting and the characters memorable. And I’m still debating his theme–with myself, of course.

George, Elizabeth, Careless in Red, HarperCollins, 2008. I love Elizabeth George’s mystery novels. I’d forgotten, however, that George is one of the few writers who slows you down as a reader. Her writing demands word-to-word attention. Not only are the characters wonderful, the setting superb, and the plot interesting, but the writing itself is excellent.

Midway through this long (621 pages) novel, I had the thought that the novel was a small book. By this, I did not mean that the book was short or tiny; I meant that the subject matter didn’t seem grand enough for a bestselling novel. I didn’t mind; I figured a long-time bestseller like George could get away with that.

But in the last 100 pages, she upended my assumptions and made me realize that this tiny murder—the death of a boy rock climbing—was much, much larger than the single event. Heartbreaking, amazing. Elizabeth George wrote another marvelous book.

Jones, Chris, “The Things That Carried Him: The True Story of a Soldier’s Last Trip Home,” Esquire, May, 2008. Esquire and one or two other publications seem to be the only ones in America that realize 1) There’s a war going on; 2) America is fighting in it; and 3) the troops are citizens, with real lives, real families, and real pain. This particular article talks about something the Bush administration doesn’t want us to think about—the soldiers who’ve died.

The article itself is ingenious. Written in reverse order—starting at gravesite and going to the soldier’s actual death—the article has power because it does the unexpected. I had to read it over the course of several days. But read it I did. And read it you should. Just to honor the troops—and their families.

So there.

Klosterman, Chuck, “Chuck Klosterman’s America: Anyone Seen My $4.2 Billion?” Esquire, April, 2008. Finally, an answer to the decline in CD sales in the music industry, a decline that did not lead to an increase in on-line sales (even if Napster got counted). Worth checking out, just to give you something to think about.

Mamet, David, “The Audience; or Lessons from Duck Hunting,” Bambi vs. Godzilla, Patheon, 2007. This essay which focuses on convincing the audience is as much about politics (I kid you not!) as it is about moviemaking. And worth reading for the little nuggets of wisdom that appear throughout.

Mamet, David, Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business, Pantheon, 2007. As you can tell from all the highlighted essays, I loved this book. Everyone who is contemplating a career in Hollywood needs to read it, particularly the essay “Manners in Hollywood,” which begins with the phrase, “manners do not exist in Hollywood,” and goes on from there. At least, if you read this essay (and book) before you go, you won’t be surprised by what happens to you.

Those of us who have spent time in Hollywood just nod in recognition. But even if you’re not contemplating a career (or even a toe-dip) into that gigantic pond, you’ll find great stuff in here. Not just on critics or on writing (even though there is much here—and some great advice), but also on the movies themselves. For Mamet is a movie lover and it shows.

Mamet, David, “Reverence as Opposed to Love,” Bambi vs. Godzilla, Patheon, 2007. Finally, finally! Someone who agrees with me about actors. Much as I liked Olivier in Marathon Man, I thought he was vastly overrated in everything else. And so does Mamet. He lists Tony Curtis as one of the best actors of our time, citing Some Like It Hot and so many of his other films. Not because Tony Curtis was Acting, but because he became the characters. Yes! That’s it. That’s it exactly.

Sedaris, Dave, “April & Paris,” The New Yorker, March 24, 2008. It’s not often I laugh aloud when I’m reading. When I do, I’m startled by the writer’s sheer artistry and sheer audacity. Sedaris makes me laugh more than most humor writers do, maybe because he often writes about working from home. Not that this essay is overtly about working from home. It’s about one of those little obsessions that we self-employed homeworkers get. In Sedaris’s case, he became fascinated with the spiders on his window ledge. Um. Yep. That sounds familiar. Only my experiences with these tiny obsessions are never quite as funny….

Sideways in Crime has just come out with my novella “G-Men.” The anthology (and the story) are getting stellar reviews. Both Locus short fiction reviewers placed “G-Men” on their Recommended Reading Lists for the month.

–”Of the names that may be less familiar to British readers, “G-Men” by Kristine Kathyrn Rusch, an American scribbler who somehow finds time to write SF, mystery, fantasy and romance, stands out. A ’60s-set story of J Edgar Hoover’s death that also dramatises conflict between President LBJ and his attorney-general, Robert F Kennedy, it brilliantly conjures up a sense of place.”
–Jonathon Wright, SFX

–”Kristine Kathryn Rusch has a novelette about the murder of J. Edgar Hoover during the LBJ administration that is one of the best things I’ve read by her.”
–Don D’Amassa, Critical Mass

On the one hand, his death was not a surprise. AJ had been sick for a long time. On the other hand, it’s quite a shock. It seems like I’ve known AJ all my life. When I met him, he wasn’t well, but he wasn’t horribly ill either. It just seemed that AJ would be around forever.

I met AJ in June of 1985, when I attended Clarion Writers Workshop in East Lansing, Michigan. In those days, I wasn’t a genre reader. Or at least, I didn’t know I was a genre reader. I read every book in my path. I also subscribed to fiction magazines, including F&SF. I had read AJ’s book columns, but I didn’t know he had written some of the classics in the field until April of 1985, when I got accepted to Clarion. At that point, I read everything I could find by the writers who were going to teach me. Since AJ was going to be the first instructor, I started with him.

I read Rogue Moon. I had no idea it was a classic. In fact, I had no idea that science fiction had classics. Okay, let’s be honest. I had no idea that science fiction existed. All I knew was that I liked stories with outer space in them. I liked time travel stories. I liked stories about robots.

And I loved Rogue Moon.

I expected its author to be a slender, blond-headed man who spoke in a cultured East Coast accent and who intimidated the hell out of me. I turned out to be right about the intimidation. As nice as he was, AJ was a formidable man.

I later discovered I was right about the slender, blond man who had written Rogue Moon. When he wrote the book in the late 1950s, AJ had been quite the looker. But the man who walked into my Clarion class on that night in June was heavyset, breathing so heavily we all thought he was going to have a heart attack right there, and he was angry. Michigan State, where Clarion was held in them there days, was remodeling the graduate dorms where Clarion was usually housed. We were in a freshman dorm with no phone service, crappy rooms, and a lounge instead of a meeting room.

He was used to the amenities. We weren’t. So we didn’t understand why he was so upset. He battled the administration that whole week as well as got us on our feet as young writers. He laid the ground rules, he told stories, and he enchanted us. By the end of the week, we were all Budrys fans.

He came back in the middle with his lovely wife Edna, and cooked us all a spaghetti dinner. By then, we were jaded students who knew everything. He just smiled and went back to Chicago for another two weeks. He returned for the final weekend, and critiqued stories alongside Damon Knight and Kate Wilhelm, teaching us by example that the professional writers (and editors and reviewers, which they all were) did not agree on what made a great story, although they all agreed on what made a bad story.

I figured that was all AJ would do to influence my life. We were sent away from Clarion to start our professional writing careers. I already had a professional writing career, but it was in non-fiction. Clarion made me decide that fiction writers could actually earn some money, and I was going to try.

I was in the process of trying the following April when AJ called me. He invited me to an experimental workshop in Taos, New Mexico, sponsored by Writers of the Future. I was not a winner of Writers of the Future. I never even made the finals. In my entire beginning writer career (even after this workshop), the best I did was an honorable mention.

Yet AJ was clear: he wanted me to be one of the 12 because, he said, I had a bright future. Little did we know how much he would influence that.

I managed to scrap together $1000 for plane flight, hotel, and food. That money should have gone to my divorce and the very expensive attorney I had just hired. Instead, it covered expenses (Writers of the Future covered the cost of the workshop).

I showed up in Albuquerque, spent a few days with my Clarion classmate, Sally Gwylan, and got another phone call from AJ. He said he’d arranged for another student to give me and Martha Soukup (yet another Clarion classmate) a ride to Taos.

The driver, along with two more writers, Lori Ann White and Jon Gustafson, showed up that Sunday morning. And cynical me, the woman who thought love at first sight was something made up for the movies, fell in love the moment the driver got out of the car.

That was Dean Wesley Smith. We’ve been together ever since.

AJ used to joke that he told Dean to pick me up–and Dean did. AJ encouraged the relationship when a lot of people were warning us away from each other. I don’t know if he saw what a combination we’d be or if he was just a romantic. But Dean and I owe him everything.

After Taos, we were on the guest list for many WoTF events. We went to the U.N. as speakers for a WoTF event; we got flown to LA several times for events. I went all over the country because AJ believed in us. Oddly the only piece I ever sold to WoTF was a non-fiction article I wrote in collaboration with Dean for one of the volumes. I was a guest instructor in Malibu one year. Me, AJ, and Orson Scott Card. They were the ones in charge; I was the gopher. I think this was 1988. And even though I heard AJ’s stories yet again, I learned a lot from them.

To me, he was a mentor, a teacher, and a great writer.

And then he became one of my writers. I think that was the strangest part of our relationship. I became editor of F&SF and inherited Algis Budrys, the respected book reviewer. He asked for editorial feedback, but there wasn’t much I could give him. He already knew so much more about writing/reviewing/fiction than I could imagine at that point.

We also worked together at Pulphouse. And when he took over Tomorrow Magazine, he resigned as F&SF’s book reviewer. I think letting him do that was the biggest mistake I made as an editor. I missed him, but more importantly, the readers missed him. And while F&SF has great columnists, no one has ever been able to replace him.

He put his imprint on the field in so many ways–as a writer of classics, as a teacher, as an editor, and as a reviewer. He encouraged young writers. I think most of the influential writers in the field, as well as the influential editors, from 1970 or so on to about the year 2000, had AJ as a teacher or a mentor or a friend. Some pushed against him. Some embraced him.

But he influenced all of us.

Hard to believe he’s gone.