Tag Archives: Blogging from A to Z 2013

A to Z Challenge, Niteblade

F: First Loves for the First Time

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First Loves for the First TimeFirst Loves for the First Time is a poem by Keith Kennedy that we had the pleasure of publishing back in March of 2011. I LOVE this poem. Love, love, love it, but every freaking time I read it, it makes my stomach flip. It’s visceral and disturbing.

Also? I’m not the only one who loves this poem, it was included on Ellen Datlow’s honorable mentions list for The Best Horror of the Year volume #4.

Awesome.

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A2Z-2013-BADGE-001Small_zps669396f9This post has been written as a part of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. My theme this year is ‘Niteblade‘, which is the magazine I publish. I chose this theme to help draw attention to the magazine during this, it’s 2nd annual fundraiser.

My first post in this series was about choosing stories and poems to nominate for awards and I’ve gone through a similar process in deciding what to write about for these posts. Not only did I have to choose stories and poems I loved, but they also had to fit with the A-Z theme. Tricky!

Blogging from A to Z 2013:

A: Award Nominations
B: Brenda Stokes Barron
C: Cato, Beth – The Pacifier
D: December 2011 (Giveaway open until April 30th)
E: Evil Bird
F: First Loves for the First Time

A to Z Challenge, Niteblade, Poetry

E: Evil Bird

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Magpie - Photograph by Rhonda ParrishI actually always imagine the bird in An Evil Bird by Anna Sykora to be a raven. Alas, I haven’t any pictures of a raven, so I’m going to use this one of a magpie instead. I didn’t do the embroidery you see there, just took the photo of it.

But yes. An Evil Bird by Anna Sykora. I adored this poem from the first moment I read it. It’s really quite fun and the last stanza always makes me smile. It says something about Ms. Sykora’s versatility that she also wrote On Its Own which is a thought-provoking, somewhat melancholy poem which remains one of my personal favourites ever. Ever. Not just of poems we’ve published at Niteblade.

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A2Z-2013-BADGE-001Small_zps669396f9This post has been written as a part of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. My theme this year is ‘Niteblade‘, which is the magazine I publish. I chose this theme to help draw attention to the magazine during this, it’s 2nd annual fundraiser.

My first post in this series was about choosing stories and poems to nominate for awards and I’ve gone through a similar process in deciding what to write about for these posts. Not only did I have to choose stories and poems I loved, but they also had to fit with the A-Z theme. Tricky!

Blogging from A to Z 2013:

A: Award Nominations
B: Brenda Stokes Barron
C: Cato, Beth – The Pacifier
D: December 2011 (Giveaway open until April 30th)
E: Evil Bird

ETA: People seem to be feeling bad for ravens because I said that’s how I imagine the bird in this poem. For the record I love ravens. Love them. I even have nine of them tattooed on my arm. Well, I call it a murder of crows, but crows, ravens… any corvidae has got my heart.

A to Z Challenge, Niteblade, Poetry

D: December 2011

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Niteblade poetry issue, original cover art by Marge SimonThis is the original cover art Marge Simon created for our December 2011 special poetry only print issue of Niteblade Magazine. That issue was the last one I worked on as poetry editor (Alexandra Seidel and I co-edited it). After that the mantle of Poetry Editor fell to her.  It’s a tough thing, giving up control of something like that, but it’s been a good thing for me and for Niteblade.

Our poetry only issue was an interesting learning experience. I learned things about writing submission guidelines, about soliciting submissions directly from specific authors, about working with another person to make editorial decisions. I learned about formatting things for printers, and finding printers, and judging printers and I remembered why I usually go with POD printers LOL I also discovered that selling a physical book of poetry is a lot different than selling an electronic book of poetry and prose.

I am very proud of our poetry issue (for it’s content, not just what it taught me) and it just so happens that I have *mumble* copies sitting in a box in my bedroom closet. I’d like to see some of those find homes with people who will read and appreciate them. If that is you please leave a comment to this blog entry. At the end of the month I will send out three copies to random commentators. It could be you 🙂

Niteblade: December 2011 Poetry Issue

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A2Z-2013-BADGE-001Small_zps669396f9This post has been written as a part of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. My theme this year is ‘Niteblade‘, which is the magazine I publish. I chose this theme to help draw attention to the magazine during this, it’s 2nd annual fundraiser.

My first post in this series was about choosing stories and poems to nominate for awards and I’ve gone through a similar process in deciding what to write about for these posts. Not only did I have to choose stories and poems I loved, but they also had to fit with the A-Z theme. Tricky!

Blogging from A to Z 2013:

A: Award Nominations
B: Brenda Stokes Barron
C: Cato, Beth – The Pacifier
D: December 2011 (Giveaway)

A to Z Challenge, Niteblade

C: Cato, Beth – The Pacifier

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The Pacifier - Original art by Marge SimonA lot has changed since 2009 when I first read and accepted The Pacifier by Beth Cato for Niteblade. Though I consider her a good friend now I barely knew her then. She was a member of NaNoLJers like I was but that was about as far as our connection went. So that’s changed. What hasn’t changed is how much I love this story. Everyone I talk to loves this story. It’s a post-apocalyptic tale that will leave you holding your breath.

When Beth eventually wrote two sequels to it (The Empty Crib at the End of the World and The Teething Ring), I was honored to accept them for Niteblade as well, and later to nominate the trilogy for a Pushcart Prize. Though I love all three stories, it is The Pacifier that has a special place in my heart and the bookshelf in my brain. I mentally take it out, dust it off and relive it regularly.

Off topic a little bit? If you pop over to read The Pacifier (and you should) it’s also very much worth checking out Following Rabbits by Gregg Winkler which appeared in the same issue. I wanted to include Following Rabbits in my month of Niteblade blogs, but I couldn’t fit it into the alphabet on its own.

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A2Z-2013-BADGE-001Small_zps669396f9This post has been written as a part of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. My theme this year is ‘Niteblade‘, that being the magazine I publish. I chose this theme to help draw attention to the magazine during this, it’s 2nd annual fundraiser.

My first post in this series was about choosing stories and poems to nominate for awards and, on a related note, I’ve gone through a similar process in deciding what to write about for these posts. Not only did I have to choose stories and poems I loved, but they also had to fit with the A-Z theme. Tricky!

Blogging from A to Z 2013:

A: Award Nominations
B: Brenda Stokes Barron
C: Cato, Beth – The Pacifier

A to Z Challenge, Niteblade

B: Brenda Stokes Barron

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Maribelle Remembers IceIn September 2011 Niteblade published a story by Brenda Stokes Barron which was entitled Maribelle Remembers Ice.

We publish a lot of stories and sometimes when I go back and look through the archives I need to re-read a paragraph or two of a story in order to remember it. That is not the case with this one. This story stuck in my brain and occasionally it comes, spontaneously, to the forefront of my thoughts and lingers there for a time, even now, months after I first published it.

This isn’t a story for everyone, and it could be triggering for some. For others it may leave them scratching their heads. I know this because of the reactions I’ve heard from different readers. For me it is beautiful and disturbing (a fantastic combination). The imagery is wonderful and, as I recall one slush reader commenting, ‘like something from a fairy tale’.

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A2Z-2013-BADGE-001Small_zps669396f9This post has been written as a part of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. My theme this year is ‘Niteblade‘, that being the magazine I publish. I chose this theme to help draw attention to the magazine during this, it’s 2nd annual fundraiser.

My first post in this series was about choosing stories and poems to nominate for awards and, on a related note, I’ve gone through a similar process in deciding what to write about for these posts. Not only did I have to choose stories and poems I loved, but they also had to fit with the A-Z theme. Tricky!

Blogging from A to Z 2013:

A: Award Nominations
B: Brenda Stokes Barron

A to Z Challenge, Niteblade

A: Award Nominations

4 Comments

NitebladeAs editor-in-chief and publisher of Niteblade Magazine I nominate works for awards on a regular basis. For example, every year I nominate works for The Pushcart Prize, The Micro Award, send all our horror stories and poems to Ellen Datlow to consider for her year’s best horror series and, until I recently let my membership to SFPA lapse, nominated poems for the Rhysling and Dwarf Star awards. It is a daunting task. Well, with the exception of what I send to Ellen, of course, she gets everything we’ve published that I’d call ‘horror’ 😉

For every other award I begin by going through our year’s work to discover what pieces qualify. Usually they can’t be reprints and there is often a format (poetry or prose) and a length requirement. Once I have that list, I narrow it down to a short list by picking my favourites from it. You may think that is an easy thing to do. You would be wrong. Finally, once I have my shortlist I make an educated guess about which pieces would be most likely to win whatever award I am nominating them for.

That is why you’ll often see me nominate a poem for one award but not another.

This process also sort of applies when I’m picking the poem to be our cover piece. Of course I only choose poems I really like for that honor, but I also need to consider which piece will be best interpreted visually. What kind of covers have we had recently? Have they all been dark and scary? Light and airy? Have we featured a vampire recently? What about a dragon? What colors do I want this quarter’s cover to have, and what poem would be the best fit for that?

Things are rarely simple, or black and white, when you’re sitting on this side of the submission. But I like it here 🙂

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A2Z-2013-BADGE-001Small_zps669396f9This post has been written as a part of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. My theme this year is ‘Niteblade‘, that being the magazine I publish. I chose this theme to help draw attention to the magazine during this, it’s 2nd annual fundraiser.

A to Z Challenge

Blogging from A to Z 2013

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A2Z-2013-BADGE-001Small_zps669396f9For the month of April I am going to be participating in two different challenges. The first is Camp NaNoWriMo and the second is this. Blogging from A to Z.

I participated in both last year (Blogging from A to Z successfully, Camp NaNoWriMo not so much) but they were in different months last year. I expect having them in the same month is going to be extra challenging. What’s more, I should also be starting another course toward my degree in April. Busy, busy, busy. Because of that I’m trying to get all my blog entries written ahead of time (for example, I am writing this one on February 12th). That will mean that all I have to do for the blogging challenge is visit my fellow participants blogs and respond to visitors here. That is something I ought to be able to manage even around Camp NaNoWriMo and schoolwork. I hope.

Oh, wait. It just occurred to me that you may not know what Blogging from A to Z is.

Allow me to copy and paste a segment from the Blogging from A to Z website:

Can you post every day except Sundays during this month?  And to up the bar, can you blog thematically from A to Z?

Most of the time if you subtract Sundays from April, you then have 26 days–one day for each letter of the alphabet.  When April 1st lands on a Sunday you begin on that day which will be the only Sunday you would post during that month’s challenge.

Using this premise, you would start beginning April First with a topic themed on something with the letter A, then on April second another topic with the letter B as the theme, and so on until you finish on April thirtieth with the theme based on the letter Z.  It doesn’t even have to be a word–it can be a proper noun, the letter used as a symbol, or the letter itself.  The theme of the day is the letter scheduled for that day.

But wait! There’s more! It’s not -just- about writing the blogs it’s also about visiting the blogs. Part of the challenge is visiting the blogs of at least five other participants a day in addition to whatever blogs you usually visit. Since I always visit the blogs of anyone who comments here, in addition to the ones I follow regularly even if I get all my blog posts pre-written and scheduled, I’ll still have plenty to do with this challenge in April. And frankly, I’m not optimistic about my chances of getting all my blog posts pre-scheduled LoL

Last year when I participated in Blogging from A to Z I didn’t have a theme. I just wrote whatever came to mind that fit with the letter for that day. This year I wanted a theme. But I totally struggled to come up with one. In the end I’ve decided to go with ‘Niteblade‘ which I figured was open enough to not be a nightmare to write, but interesting enough to be worth reading. Plus it’s a good way to promote something I’m passionate about during it’s second annual fundraiser, so… yeah. Win-win, right?