As noted previously here, Ann and I are doing a public reading and presentation at Trinity Prep School in Orlando this Thursday night, starting at 7p.m. In addition to the classroom visits and workshop we’re doing with the students as part of their Visiting Writer series.

The event will be held in the Kelly Kranze Room, 5700 Trinity Prep Lane, Winter Park, Florida. For directions, visit the Trinity prep website. There’s also more information here, at the page for the visit. Books will be available for sale and signing.

The students have been reading “The Situation” in both story and comics form, so it’ll be interesting to get their take on the differences, etc.

I’m on record as being ambivalent about promoting one’s works for awards. I’m somewhat less ambivalent when the books in question are not my own novels but anthologies or nonfiction books where many other people are involved and deserve recognition. Between The Steampunk Bible, The Weird, and The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities, more than 600 writers and artists are represented and had something to do with the creation of the books. It’s a little hard not to champion books where they’re more like arks full of other people’s Awesome.

Which is another way of saying, the Locus Recommended List and Survey is now up on Locus Online, and if you like any of the books my wife Ann and I were involved in, please do vote for them. The top five in each category will be finalists for the Locus Award. BUT ALSO please remember that no matter how hard any organization tries, it is impossible to list every worthy work. For example, Laird Barron mentions two worthy collections not on the recommended list.

The write-in slots, therefore, are incredibly important. If you loved something not on the recommended list, please please write in the selection.

As for us, here’s where we are eligible, with all but the Steampunk Bible already on the recommended list. We also edited ODD?, but there’s really no chance of it being a finalist, and my nonfiction collection Monstrous Creatures has been overshadowed by the Big Three listed below.

—Best Editor: Ann & Jeff VanderMeer

In addition to Lambshead and The Weird listed below, Ann and I also edited ODD?, Ann edited Weird Tales, and Ann and I edited http://www.weirdfictionreview.com, which was founded November 1 of 2011 and ran 90 pieces of fiction and nonfiction between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31 of last year. We also started Cheeky Frawg books and published several titles through that imprint. (We have come close to finalist lists in the past, but people voting for one of us separately has fractured the vote three ways.)

—Best Anthology:

The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories (edited by me and Ann) – Over 750,000 words of Weird fiction covering a century, with 116 stories, 7 new translations, and several stories that have not been reprinted in over 30 or 40 years. Over 20 nationalities are represented and the writers include Joyce Carol Oates, Kafka, Angela Carter, Michael Chabon, Ray Bradbury, Shirley Jackson, Jamaica Kincaid, and…well, here’s the list of stories/contributors. It’s the largest single-volume collection of weird literature ever published as far as we know, and received great reviews from The Guardian, Times Literary Supplement, and many more.

The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities (edited by me and Ann) – An original antho that functions as a treasury of the best of established and up-and-coming fantasy writers, including Michael Moorcock, Lev Grossman, Alan Moore, Naomi Novik, Charles Yu, China Mieville, and Holly Black. The total number of fiction contributors is more than 80, while there are also over 60 original illustrations, including work Mike Mignola, Greg Broadmore, and Jan Svankmajer. Two stories have already made year’s best anthos and the book is on the preliminary ballot for the Bram Stoker. Several individual stories from the antho are, in our opinion, among the best of the year. Here’s more information and also here.

–Best Art Book:

The Steampunk Bible (with S.J. Chambers) – A sumptuous full-color coffee table book of Steampunk art, fashion, machines, and more. Everyone from Jake von Slatt to…well, you name it. Over 200 images. Chances are you’ve at least flipped through this one. If you liked it, consider it for best art book as a write-in candidate. Here’s more information.

Regardless of what you vote for, vote your passion and help make the finalist list as diverse and interesting as possible. Thanks!

(I should note that Nebula voting ends soon, and Hugo voting ends in five weeks. I am going to do one post about Hugo voting and the case for nominating my wife, Ann, in a week or two.)

Locus Online just posted my best-of-2011 choices. I hate doing these lists on the one hand—it’s harder and harder for me to say “this book over this book”–but on the other hand I keep having read widely enough to be of use in creating one.

So, check it out. I hope you find it of use. And if you don’t, I encourage you to make your own list. Cheers.

(The first two anthologies)

Steampunk Revolution, edited by Hugo Award winner Ann VanderMeer (co-editor of both Steampunk and Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded) to be published in the Fall 2012 by Tachyon Publications, announces an open reading period.

Steampunk Revolution features a renegade collective of writers and artists—including steampunk legends as well as hot, new talents—who are rebooting the steam-driven past and powering it into the future with originality, wit, and adventure. Going far beyond corsets and goggles, Steampunk Revolution is not just a ride in your great-great granddad’s zeppelin—now it’s a much wilder ride.

Looking for reprints only (standard reprint rates apply). Willing to look at all kinds of Steampunk fiction, but mainly interested in work that pushes the boundaries, that truly is a revolution to the genre. Prefer works under 10,000 words.

Submissions accepted between February 1, 2012, and March 1, 2012. Any English-language story previously published in the past decade on a website or print publication is eligible for consideration. Willing to look at all kinds of Steampunk fiction, but mainly interested in work that pushes the boundaries, that is truly a revolution to the genre.

Submissions up to 10,000 words should be sent in a Word or RTF document to steampunkrevolution at hotmail.com. Please cut-and-paste the first three paragraphs into the body of your email and include prior publication information, but no need to include any biographical information about yourself. If you prefer, use snail mail by sending your work to POB 38190, Tallahassee, FL 32315. Snail mail submissions should be marked on the outside of the envelope as for Steampunk Revolution consideration. No SASE is required if you prefer email response. All Submissions will be responded to no later than March 31; please do not query about a submission prior to that date.

Payment will be on publication, at standard reprint rates of one to two cents per word, against a share of any royalties from the North American and any foreign editions, as well as one contributor copy.

(art from the cover of the limited edition of my novel shriek)

Silvia Moreno-Garcia and her co-editor Orrin Grey are still reading for their Fungi anthology, details here. As she noted in a post recently, they’d like to see more settings outside of the U.S. and more submissions from women and international writers. So get those stories in! (Looks like reprints are welcome from the guidelines, in addition to originals.)

I’m planning on doing my best to get a mushroom story in, possibly even an Ambergris story.

Thanks to Whitney Matheson at Pop Candy and Brad Moon at GeekDad/Wired for giving The Situation web comic some love.

The entire 63 pages are now up at Tor.com (the link now starts you at part 3), and I’m kinda thrilled about it. A lot of hard work on the part of the artist and the editor (Liz Gorinsky). I just love all of the images of Mord. It’s also kind of cool that the posting of the web comic coincides with Trinity Prep School students reading the short story it’s based on before our visit there in February—they get to see the comics version, too.

If Mord seems familiar from more than just “The Situation”, it’s because he also appears in much altered form in “The Third Bear,” which is reprinted along with “The Situation” story in my collection The Third Bearfrom Tachyon. Consider picking it up, as it’s earned out its advance and is still selling steadily and providing me with a little extra money, which always helps our less commercial projects.

I should note that Mord makes an appearance, along with Wick, in the novel I’m working on entitled “Borne”–same milieu as “The Situation”–and also many doppelganger appearances in “The Journals of Doctor Mormeck,” which I serialized part of right here at Ecstatic Days.

On Monday, I’ll post excerpts of “The Situation” side-by-side with part of the comics script and the relevant parts of the comic itself, to show the transformation.

Uri Kurlianchik is raising money for his story cycle about the “holy land,” using IndieGoGo. Looks to be an interesting project. Go check it out and donate!

Part 1 of the web comic version of my story The Situation, with art by Eric Orchard, is now up on Tor.com! Go read it, and come back tomorrow and Friday for the concluding chapters.

A special thank you to editor Liz Gorinsky, who evidenced amazing patience and kindness while we worked on this thing.

You can read the story the comic is based on at GeekDad.

The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories is now available a a North American ebook from all major retailers, including Amazon.com. The North American print version comes out in May. The publisher is Tor, and our editor there is Liz Gorinsky. The anthology, which is almost 1,200 pages and includes over 750,000 words of weird fiction, including a couple of short novels, is already being taught at several universities. Here’s some of the UK praise for the antho….

‘The definitive collection of weird fiction… its success lies in its ability to lend coherence to a great number of stories that are so remarkably different and yet share the same theme’?–?Times Literary Supplement

‘Studded with literary gems, it’s a hefty, diligently assembled survey of a genre that manages to be at once unsettling, disorientating and bracing in its variety.’ – James Lovegrove, Financial Times

‘It’s a tremendous experience to go through its 1,126 pages… there are so many delights in this that any reader will find something truly memorable’ – Scotland on Sunday

‘Readers eager to explore a world beyond the ordinary need look no further’ – Time Out

‘An anthology of writing so powerful it will leave your reality utterly shredded…Give yourself to the weird! Open the pages of the new gospel of The Weird.’ – Guardian.co.uk

Our new site/magazine Weirdfictionreview.com is made possible by the research we did for The Weird, and you can find this antho-related content there, in addition to over 90 other posts about weird fiction, including lots of stories, essays, and interviews.

Uncanny paragraphs from The Weird

A Century of First Lines from the stories in The Weird

The Weird table of contents, also reproduced below the cut. Please note that for the North American e-book only the Buzzatti stories has been dropped and J. Robert Lennon’s “Portal” (2010) added.

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If you head on over to our Weirdfictionreview.com, you’ll find the first official publication of the new John Curran Davis translation of Polish genius Bruno Schulz’s “The Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass,” as well as a wonderful, fascinating interview with the translator about Schulz. We’re also running an intro to Schulz’s life and work, and my own short editorial on the “unfilmability” of Schulz. We will continue to bring you “firsts” at WFR.com, just as we did when we brought you Jean Ray fiction and several of the other pieces we’ve run. Go check it out.

This morning we’re also running a feature on Julio Cortazar…not too shabby…