Mabfan's Musings

Today is the 111th anniversary of the General Slocum fire, the worst one-day disaster in New York City before 9/11. For some reason, not many people learn about it when they study history. (On a personal note, it's the central event of my novella "Time Ablaze," which was nominated for the Hugo Award.)

Historian Ed O'Donnell, author of the book SHIP ABLAZE, has said this about the tragedy:

"Ask any New Yorker to name the city’s greatest disaster before September 11, 2001 and invariably they offer the same answer: the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire of 1911. That tragic event garnered international headlines as 146 young immigrant women lost their lives in an unsafe garment factory. Yet even though it is certainly Gotham’s most famous disaster, it runs a distant second to a much larger catastrophe which occurred only seven years earlier. On June 15, 1904, more than 1,000 people died when their steamship, the General Slocum, burst into flames while moving up the East River. It was the second-most deadly fire (after the Peshtigo fire of 1871) and most deadly peacetime maritime disaster in American history."

For more information about the tragedy, see the Wikipedia entry on the General Slocum.

To begin with, consider this an official notification that I am done writing and providing stories for the GISHWHES 2014 scavenger hunt. I know the hunt is still going on, but I've been up late many nights this week writing stories, and I need to reconnect with my family. :-)

In the end, I provided stories to 63 teams. In addition, I published one story that the team decided not to use ("Ashley and the Moon") and ended up with one other story for which the team that requested it never got back to me. (Actually, a few teams requested stories and then told my assistant that they managed to secure a story from another writer; I wished them well, rewrote those stories, and provided them to other teams.) So, 65 flash stories written in the space of a week, 63 being used for GISHWHES. Not bad.

I am delighted by how many of these stories I managed to churn out and I am frankly hoping that I provided more stories than any other writer. Will someone let me know if I set that record once the hunt is over?

And now for the thank-yous...

My first thank-you goes to my sister-in-law Rachel, who is very involved with GISHWHES and has done this before. I provided her with the first story I wrote for this madness, and she generously gave me permission to provide stories for other teams, even though that would make it harder for her team to win. So, thank you Rachel, for all that.

My second thank-you goes to all the teams who were willing to buy my story collection I Remember the Future as a condition of having me write you a story. When I saw that so many teams needed stories and weren't going to get them from Neil Gaiman, I realized that this gave me an opportunity to expose more people to my work. Some writers mentioned online that they were approached by people in a rude way; I am very pleased to say that not a single person who contacted me was rude about my own request, or complained about it. I'm hoping that those of you who bought the book will actually enjoy the stories contained within; and that fact is that every single story in that book save one was either a Hugo nominee, a Nebula nominee, or both. So at least one of those stories has to have been worth your $5. So thanks to all of you for your own random act of kindness to me. I hope you all win.

Finally, thanks to Annie Houston and especially Misha Collins. I must admit that I do not watch Supernatural, although it is exactly the sort of show I would watch. My wife and I did watch the first season, but then had to give it up for other things. (See The Brookline Parent for an example of what occupies our time.) Making item #78 one that required the teams to find a previously published science-fiction writer was a stroke of genius on your part. I hope you'll do something similar next year. I stand ready to serve.

(ETA on Friday morning: I have a handful more stories written but unclaimed. First come, first serve. Deadline Friday 3 pm EDT USA time. The stories were inspired by the team names of the teams that originally requested them, but they are NOT using those stories and indeed have never seen them.)

Over the weekend, I found out that the current GISHWHES list includes the following as item #78:

"Get a previously published Sci-Fi author to write an original story (140 words max) about Misha, the Queen of England and an Elopus."

I found this out because my sister-in-law participates in GISHWHES, as do a few friends and acquaintances. I posted on Facebook about helping these people out, which I was more than happy to do.

I've since discovered that many participants are apparently bothering famous writers they do not know, asking them to write a story for them. Needless to say, that's not the best way to do this. Many writers are happy to do favors for friends, but they don't want to be bombarded by random requests from folks they do not know.

I, on the other hand, will be happy to write a story for you if I don't know you, on one condition. I'd like you to do a random act of kindness for my publisher, Apex Publications.

First, email my assistant Julia at julia@mabfan.com and tell her you would like a story from me. Include your own name and the name of your team, and an emaill address to which I can send the story.

She will email you back to confirm that I have the time to write the story for you.

Then click on this link: "I Remember the Future: The Award-Nominated Stories of Michael A. Burstein" and have one member of your team purchase a copy of my 2008 collection I Remember the Future directly from the publisher (NOT from Amazon; use the "Add to Cart" button). It can be the trade paperback or the ebook, but I'm guessing most of you will opt for the ebook, as it's only $4.99.

Send a copy of your receipt to my assistant at julia@mabfan.com. Once we see that you have bought the collection, I will write the story and she will email it to you.

One caveat: DO NOT PURCHASE THE BOOK UNTIL YOU HAVE HEARD FROM JULIA THAT I WILL HAVE TIME TO WRITE YOUR STORY. If I get too many requests, I won't have time to fulfill them all.

Good luck with GISHWHES, and enjoy my stories.

Edited to add: A few people have sent receipts from Amazon. The purchase needs to be made directly from the publisher, Apex Publications. Please use the link above. Thank you.

So, although I wasn't able to attend the screening of I Remember the Future this past weekend at Worldfest Houston, amysisson did! She has posted a review along with reviews of the four other films that constituted the Sci-Fi Shorts.

I am very glad to say that she liked the film:

...I'm not sure which surprised me more: the "Australian" part or the "student" part, because I can definitely say that there was nothing "student" about this film...

I Remember the Future is the reason I became aware of the festival in the first place, and the reason I went. This one film was worth making the trip across town for just by itself; the fact that I got to see a couple of other really good short films too was icing on the cake.

You can read more of her thoughts about the film and the other films here:

Sci-Fi Shorts at Worldfest-Houston 2014

#SFWApro

Last week, Apex Blog posted three of my stories for free on their blog. This week, in my blog post The Utility of Free Fiction, I explain why I allowed them to do this, and in fact, why I encouraged it. Go read it, and let me know what you think.

#SFWApro