Clarkesworld Anthology 2012 (32 page)

However, every rejection carried priceless writing advice from Darrell. I kept on writing, and I kept on reading, and I followed Darrell’s great work through the intervening years. Throughout the 90s his stories of Sekenre the Sorcerer set a new bar for Sword and Sorcery fiction and Dark Fantasy in general. After 15 years of attempting to write a story worth of publishing in
WT
, 15 years of polishing my craft, striving to apply the principles of good writing I continued to learn from Darrell (as well as the many other writers I studied — from Dunsany to Silverberg to Lee to Ellison, etc.), I finally did it. Darrell bought my first pro story, “The Persecution of Artifice the Quill,” and published it in
Weird Tales #340
, one of the last issues he and Scithers edited. This was a major breakthrough for me, and it inspired a dozen other tales that soon followed.

After corresponding with Darrell for nearly two decades, I finally got the chance to meet him and his wife in person at the 2006 WorldCon (where he introduced me to the great Harlan Ellison — I was tongue-tied). Since then I’ve made it a priority to meet up with Darrell at the World Fantasy Convention every year. It was Darrell who told me a few years ago that the next phase of my career should be writing novels. As in so many other cases, he was right. This is only one example of the tons of great advice he’s given me over the years. I’m known far and wide for singing the praises of Darrell’s fiction, which deserves far more attention than it gets. His
Mask of the Sorcerer
novel is a great place to start reading if you haven’t experienced his work, as are
any
of his short story collections. He is without a doubt one of the world’s greatest living fantasists.

Are teaching and writing similar?

Well, both require an intense passion for what you’re doing. Teaching is a calling, not a job. It’s the same with writing. Writers write because they
have
to write. The same may be true for teachers. Certainly nobody gets into teaching for the money. And while most writers would love to be financially successful, it’s not a prime motivation to start writing. If you want a lot of money you get into accounting, finance, or some other profession that provides those kinds of rewards. In some ways you have to be a very impractical person to be a writer…there are any number of things you could do that are easier and more materially rewarding. The same is true of teaching. I tried the corporate route and was delighted to leave it behind in favor of teaching young people to read, write, and think. One thing that happens when you teach literature is that the lessons you learn from teaching a great story, novel, or poem tend to creep back into your writing. Appreciating, analyzing, and enjoying great works of literature is something that all writers should do, and teaching those works as part of my daily living can often be very inspiring.

What are some of the things your students have taught you about writing?

They’ve taught me to be patient, which is a crucial lesson for a writer (as well as a teacher). Publishing moves at a glacial pace. Sometimes the writing itself also moves incredibly slowly. You can’t rush it. And you can’t rush kids to learn… you can lead them, but they have to follow you willingly. They’ve also taught me time and again that the best stories are those that connect to readers on a basic human level. Readers (of any age) respond to characters that seem real and believable to them. So I try to create characters that readers can relate to, even when they are characters you love to hate.

What’s next for you?

Right now I’m working on the Third Book of the Shaper,
Seven Sorcerers
. It’s going to be
massive
. The second book,
Seven Kings
, is nearly finished; once again the great Richard Anderson has done an amazing cover. I’ve also got the
PRIMORDIA
hardcover graphic novel coming from Archaia this month (with amazing artwork by Roel Wielinga) and a great “weird history” story called “The Gnomes of Carrick County” appearing in the new issue of
Space & Time
magazine.

Any parting words of advice, wisdom, or mischief?

I just want to thank the amazing Orbit Books team for bringing
Seven Princes
and The Books of the Shaper to fantasy fans all across the globe. Orbit is truly a class act and it’s humbling to be a part of their terrific lineup.

About the Author

Jeremy L. C. Jones is a freelance writer, editor, and teacher. He is the Staff Interviewer for
Clarkesworld Magazine
and a frequent contributor to
Kobold Quarterly
and
Booklifenow.com.
He teaches at Wofford College and Montessori Academy in Spartanburg, SC. He is also the director of Shared Worlds, a creative writing and world-building camp for teenagers that he and Jeff VanderMeer designed in 2006. Jones lives in Upstate South Carolina with his wife, daughter, and flying poodle.

And Now for a Few Short Words from our Editor

Neil Clarke

It wouldn’t be appropriate to end this issue without sending congratulations to E. Lily Yu and Catherynne M. Valente for their respective Nebula Award nominations for Best Short Story and Best Novella. We’re quite pleased to see “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees” and “Silently and Very Fast” on the ballot. Good luck! We’ll be rooting for both of you!

A word of advice to our book collector friends: the signed limited edition of “Silently and Very Fast” that was published by WSFA Press is nearly out of print. You might want to grab one while you can.

In other good news, thanks to the continued growth of our Kindle and Weightless Books e-subscriptions, we will be rolling out some more non-fiction features over the next few months. The first of these is scheduled to debut in our April issue. If you’d like to see
Clarkesworld
continue to grow, please help us spread the word about our subscription options. Details can be found at http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/subscribe/.

Thanks, as always, for your continued support!

About the Author

Neil Clarke is the publisher of
Clarkesworld Magazine
and owner of Wyrm Publishing. He currently lives in NJ with his wife and two children.

Clarkesworld Magazine

Issue 67

Table of Contents

Fragmentation, or Ten Thousand Goodbyes

by Tom Crosshill

Draftyhouse

by Erik Amundsen

The Womb Factory

by Peter M. Ferenczi

The Latest Apocalypse: Popular Music and the End of the World

by Brian Francis Slattery

Passing Through Each Other: A Round-Table Discussion of Speculative Fiction and Academia

by Jeremy L. C. Jones

Suitably Strange: A Round-Table Discussion of World-Building

by Jeremy L. C. Jones

Another Word: Reading as Performance

by Daniel Abraham

Place to Ponder

Art by Steve Goad

© Clarkesworld Magazine, 2012
www.clarkesworldmagazine.com

Fragmentation, or Ten Thousand Goodbyes

Tom Crosshill

Every day, Mom says goodbye to me for the last time.

I need to go to the office or meet Lisa at the airport or pop out for some milk. I’m lacing my shoes in the hallway when I hear the tap-tap-tap of her heels. I freeze for a moment, then rise to meet her.

Mom stands in the door, elegant in a simple dress. No matter the silvery hair. No matter how her skin, once a smooth dark brown, wrinkles over her bones. You’d never guess she has lived a century. She has no titanium knees, no vat-grown veins, no concession to modernity inside her.

If only her mind were as strong.

“Mom.” I smile at her.

“Rico.” She smiles too, uncertainly. “Must you go?”

“Just for a minute.”

Her breath catches. She reaches for me with one trembling hand. Halts when I wince. Her fingers linger mid-air, gnarled and stained with ink.

She’s been drawing in her upstairs studio. She’s been drawing with the door locked, her work a secret to the world and her agent and me.

I haven’t pried. What might I find, if I opened her sketchbook — scribbles, blotches, scrawls? Proof that her time is up?

Ashamed of the thought, I take Mom’s hand — bony and warm and strong. “I’ll be right back.”

She steps close and presses her face into my chest. Her shoulders tremble. I feel her tears soaking through my shirt.

“Lo siento, Rico,” she whispers.

Every time Mom says goodbye to someone, it’s for the last time. She thinks — no, she knows — that she’ll never see them again. Not the mailman. Not her best friend Abby. Not me.

It’s no tumor, no disease — we’ve run all the tests. Her reasoning is strong as ever. She can tell you how the milkshakes tasted in Miramar, before Fidel came down from the mountains and she left on the Peter Pan airlift. But deep within her mind, something has begun to fail.

And I can’t fix it.

So I pat her back and murmur reassurances in her ear, and try not to think what she’s feeling. Try not to imagine how I would feel, if I knew that I’d never see her again in my life.

This happens every day.

Still I delay what I must do.

“Just build the habitat. You’ll feel better.”

Lisa packs shirt after lopsided shirt into her green Samsonite. After three decades of marriage, the sight is comforting. Lisa’s only happy when in motion. Even her business suit has a space age streamlined look, the collar chic-asymmetric.

“It seems too. . . permanent,” I say. “Like I’m giving up on her.”

“It’s hard, I know. But what if she strokes tomorrow?”

Lisa’s right, of course. The habitat’s a contingency. I won’t have to use it until it’s that or the crematorium.

But can I watch Mom suffer day after day, once there’s an alternative?

“You’re giving her a gift,” Lisa says. “You of all people should know that.”

Me of all people.

I walk to the viewport in the north wall. It sits mounted in a steel band like a ship’s porthole. Below it, a brass plate reads “George Dieter — Captain, Husband, Father. 1960-2049.”

Dust covers the screen. Has it been that long? I reach up to wipe it clean.

Blackness flickers into life.

A turquoise sea laps against a stretch of sand. The beach glares blinding white, studded with regal palms. Beautiful.

I could grab my immersion headset, feel the heat of the sun, hear the breeze coming off the water. But then I’d have to face the man on the sand.