Al Bogdan

Jim Hines (jimhines ), Merrie Haskell (fairmer ), and I were hanging out at ConClave 34 last weekend talking. Jim had a reading in an hour and then had to leave. I suggested we do a quick interview! Appropriate jokes were made as I escorted them back to my room to be videoed. Light shades off hotel room lamps, one high atop a table I placed on the bed, the camera precariously balanced since I didn't have a proper tripod with me, and "Action!" Merrie and Jim interviewed each other.

Hearty congratulations to Nicole Kimberling for winning the Lambda Literary Award for LGBT Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror for her novel Turnskin. Nikki and I did the Clarion Writers' Workshop together back in 2004, and I'm thrilled for her!

More hearty congratulations to Nisi Shawl for winning a Tiptree Award for Filter House! I know Nisi from my first writers' group, back when she lived in Michigan. A totally wonderful lady. Time to finally move that book off my wish list and into the cart.

Also, congrats to my Clarion instructor, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, for winning the Best Short Story Nebula for "Trophy Wives"!  Nina has been increadably generous and kind, and it was wonderful finding out she took that award.

I was also happy to hear Kathe Koja found a home for her new definitely-not-YA novel, Under The Poppy, at Small Beer Press. I was allowed to enjoy an early draft, and it's a great read! Plus, it has a freaky trailer put together by crazy people.

When I talk to someone about fiction it's generally, as would be expected, with a reader or writer. One of the interesting things about being published is talking with non-readers who read something simply because they know me. It really highlights the difference in how readers think, especially in how science fiction readers think. Not only is there that language gulf between those that do and don't read SF, but there's the simple ability readers have to accept what is written on the page and imagine it. Doubly important with science fiction and fantasy. I knew this gulf existed, but I've never experience it personally until I published, especially because the story in question requires imaging some people with soft bones that can't stand and must slither and others with wings sculpted from breath. It doesn't matter how direct the language is, some people simply won't be able to wrap their heads around such things.

Reading fiction definitely requires certain skills as much as writing it does.

Larc spotted my name in a neighborhood newspaper. Just a few paragraphs about the "Writers Of The Future" contest. This is not the first time I've been in that paper, but the last time was due to a visual art project. That might explain why the newspaper accidentaly congratulated me for being an illustrater, not a writer.

I find myself absorbed by little details about the "Writers Of The Future" anthology. You know, the physical object -- holding it, turning the pages, looking at the order of the stories, enjoying the quality of the art. It's such a new experience, and I fully admit to being pleasantly entertained in a childish way. I have no interest in pretending to be a jaded adult. Naw, this is too much fun.

By chance, it looks like my quarter of the contest, the third, totally frames the anthology. Very cool... in a comically cliquish way.


PHIL KALDON

First off, my Clarion buddy, Phil Kaldon, has the first story, "A Man In The Moon"! Phil's also from Michigan and was a finalist in the third quarter. That essentially makes him the only fourth place winner in our year! The first story is prime real estate. I'd bet his well written story is there to help settle people into the anthology gently, as the story is very approachable, and grounded in the reality of NASA and astronauts.

The second story is the grand prize winner, "Bitter Dreams", by Ian McHugh, also a third quarter winner. The Australians are well represented in this issue, as Sonia Helbig is another of the great Aussie writers included.


SONIA HELBIG with art by WILLIAM RUHLIG

The last two stories just happen to also be from the third quarter of the contest. Second to last in the issue is Kim A. Gillett's "The Bird Reader's Granddaughter". The last is mine, "The Girl Who Whispered Beauty", and I'm delighted to know that my words will be the last the reader will read before setting the book down.

Here's a quick report on last weeks activities, especially the people I ran into in Denver.

We arrived at Denvention (WORLDCON!) through a Stargate. Coral kept jumping from world to world until she came upon the giant robots. She'd seen enough Dr. Who to know to always hold mom and dad's hand when there are giant robots about. Smart kid.

Actually, we knew it was going to be a good con when we ran into Connie Willis, Nancy Kress and Charles N. Brown the moment we stepped out of the hotel. It was nice to say "Hi" to Connie and Nancy. Nancy was one of my Clarion Writer's Workshop instructors back in 2004.

While waiting in line to get our memberships I discovered Scott Edelman was right behind us. We had a great time joking about the length of the line, which they continuously kept splitting even though it never seemed to get shorter. Made the wait quite fun. I've seen Scott at convention in the past, but this was the first time we had the pleasure of conversing.

I also spotted Clarion classmate Amelia Beamer and ran over to say hello.

Chris Kastensmidt and I are friends from back when I was on the Online Writer's Workshop. Great guy. Came all the way in from Brazil where he does computer game development and ports. He's also sold a number of fantasy stories. We hung out a bunch, and enjoyed a great party full of writers at his suite. Hey, post a list of where people can read your stuff, Chris!

Tracy Morganfield (right) is also from on-line. She writes these wonderful Aztec stories and has had a few stories in Paradox. Chris, Tracy and I did a lot of party hopping.

Jeremy Tolbert was there with his wife, Sarah. Jeremy is always great to hang out with. We also did the party hopping. We decided one of the main reasons for a SFWA membership was easy access to their parties as well.If you haven't hit his Roundbottom website do yourself the favor of dropping by. Also, note that he's thinking of bringing back The Fortean Bureau!

Daniel Ausema attending his first Worldcon.

Coral the Adorable the super hero pricncess! Ignore the floppy sword...

Havn't seen John Joseph Adams since Readercon last year, so it was cool to catch up John in both the dealers room and the Seeds Of Change party.

I also had a chance to meet some of my "Writers Of The Future" contestants and judges. This is the lovely and talented Erin Cashier. I also saw Ian McHugh from Australia (1st place for my quarter) and Rob Sawyer who was one of my judges.

Jo Walton alerted me to the fact that Karl Schroeder wasn't in attendance because of surgery. Hope you're doing well, Karl and we can get our families together at the next con!

Enjoyed a reading by Sean Willaims who was a judge for some of the other quarters.

Talked a bit with Samantha Henderson at the Weird Tales party.

And caught up with our friend Kim once she was done actually working at the con. Kims a really good writer as well.

Here I am with Rebecca Rowe, another of my Clarion 2004 classmates.

This is how Coral spent much of her time. Running with Shamus and the other kids.

I had fun with Lucy Schmeidler because her badge said she was from Flushing NY, but I knew better! She definitely had a Bronx accent. She sounded just like my grandma Schachinger from the Bronx, not grandma Bogdan who lived in Flushing.

Erin Evans did a great panel on working with placsticine and resins. I got some good tips, which I'll use next time I do a sculpted puppet.

Wil McCarthy did a great job hosting both the costume contest and the Hugo awards. I'm sure if you're interested you know the scores.

I also attended some panels, but they're a blur now, like the entire event. It was a ton of fun and I stayed up way too late each night.

I'm at the "Writers Of The Future" workshop right now. We've been keeping very busy! I need to write a short story in 24 hours starting now. Fred Pohl came in to chat with us just an hour ago, which was thrilling. More later... for now I have a story to work on. Just wanted to do a shout out while I have Internet access. I'll post more sometime later in the week. Al off.

My fellow writers and I are all so giddy to see our "Writers of the Future" anthology listed on Amazon! A space cover (versus half-naked-warrior-chicks)! Yes, thank you!

Galleycat had a nice review of the puppet trailer I worked on for Kathe Koja's Under the Poppy.


Now available on YouTube:

I'm finishing up a book trailer for my friend Kathe's new work "Under The Poppy", a dark tale set in a brothel during wartime in the fuzzy past. One of the main characters is a puppeteer who helps with the brothel's stage shows.

Kathe Koja and Diane Cheklich came up with the script. Joe Stacy was then asked to produce the music, keeping it to one minute. All he had to go on was a description of the project, and he did an excellent job. I was then brought in because Kathe knew I had experience with puppetry. Kathe found the actors that appear in the ending section, and Diane directed them. Aaron Mustamaa did the opening and closing motion graphics.

My part in the project ended up being to create the puppets, supply equipment, handle the camera and lighting, create and animate the additional digital sets and props, composite the live and digital elements together, and do the editing.

WARNING: Adult content... with puppets

http://www.chronasoft.com/utp

I'm going to a demo of the RED camera tonight. I'd love me some 5K goodness, but for the cost, without backing it's more likely I'll end up with a 3K next year when the Scarlet comes out. My current DV and HDV cameras seem so quaint.

So, I've been using my common shortened name to sign my work, but there are two other people using Al Bogdan competing for my Internet presence. One is related to me (Yo, Dad!), and the other, the sports guy, is not. I was wondering if I should choose a different writing name to avoid confusion? Now would be the time. But what? And is it important to have a totally unique name?

I've found that people from the Middle East often have a problem just saying Al. It's not a name, it's a prefix! "So, your last name is Al-Bogdan. What is your first name? What? No! What do you mean? I cannot call you Al."

My last name is also questionable in the U.K., but I may just have to live with it. Lenny Hendry once had some fun with me. "Bogdan? Ha, ha! You know what a BOG is in Brittan, don't you? Ha, ha! It's the Bog-man! You may not want to sit next to him."

So, let's see...

Albert E. Bogdan	Similar to Albert E Cowdrey, but that's only an issue with F&SF magazine. It was once pointed out that it sounds a bit like Alfred E. Neuman. Albert is so two centuries ago, but of course that would probably be good for writing fantasy, and Albert is so geeky (A-la Einstein), which would probably work fine for the average SF reader. Seems so formal. Good or bad? Better than Al?
A.E.Bogdan	Similar to A.E. van Vogt. Genderless. Neutralized. AEB looks big and blocky graphically. (Graphic layout people, does that make it bold or ugly?) It is more modern than using Albert. Is it good, or bad that people would have to call me Mr. Bogdan because no one would know my first name? Maybe I'm at an age that people should call me Mr. Bogdan!
Al Blessed	For fun, this is what happens if I Westernize my name. Of course, a Google search would return nothing but religious pages! For better comical effect, change Al to Alby. Definitely less foreign sounding. No one would wonder how to pronounce it. I've also heard it's best to use Jewish female names, but I think that was when writing romance.
BOGDAN	Yeah, like Prince or Madonna! Of course, only people from Eastern Europe would know what it means, and even they would wonder if it was a first or last name. Would I sell better in Poland?
A. Podling	An Indian woman once misheard my name as Podling. I still find that funny.

So, did you have any second thoughts when deciding what name to put on your work?

You know it's cold when you have to scrape the frost off the window INSIDE the car!

Woke up yesterday with gout. Just got back from having a needle inserted into my foot. Luckily it's fast, a minute or so of wiggling the needle under skin, not nearly as tiring as dental work. Tomorrow the foot should be back to normal. I go to the dentist on Thursday.

Our daughter, Coral, suggested I grow a beard. Why not? Comically, I found growing the beard an oddly rebellious activity. How adolescent! I actually had a beard when I worked as a corporate employee. I went clean-shaven during my post corporate employee consulting years. It was the new me in a way. I've been thinking lately of cutting back that corporate consulting work and targeting other means of income. Doing taxes and reviewing our lifestyle tells me this is a good time to try such a move. Coral only wanted to see her dad with a beard. Ha! Maybe I'll let my hair grow too long as well. Damn hippie, get a real job! Such fun. "Sorry, can't take that project on for your company right now. Why? Well, I have this beard, you see?" Financially this may be the best move for me to make, so not to worry. The beard hasn't possessed me.

So, I'm thinking of trunking every short story I've ever written and starting fresh. Even the ones that have not made the rounds. Not that I think all those stories are particularly bad, I actually like some of them quite a bit, but I think I'm interested in a fresh start. I need my very best work to be what I'll be writing next, not what I did in the past. The older the story the more distant it is from the person I am today. It seems a bit early for spring cleaning, but since I'm planning to increase my writing time quite a bit in two weeks, it feels like Spring, so maybe I'll clean early, heartily, and focus on the new. (Luckily trunking just means moving a file to a folder, so I can always resurrect a story if a market opens up that calls its name. Like the beard, it's symbolic thinking.)

A friend of mine convinced me to join him walking the dog. Not a euphemism, we really do walk his dog. We walk at least 4 miles at a time. I've done this six times over the past month, braving the cold on some days. What surprised me was my blood pressure went from around 140/90 down to 128/75 this quickly. Guess I really needed this kind of exercise!

In the past I would throw on the TV and work-out. Back when I did Ashtanga yoga (power yoga) daily I was in great shape. That was before Coral. Exercise looks like too much fun to our daughter, and fun means joining in, and joining in means climbing all over daddy: over the mountain, under the bridge, ride the bronco. The only room with enough space is our living-room, so there's no way to protect myself outside of locking her up. I tried using her for weights, but she wiggles around, falls off a lot, and insists on telling me what I have to do... which never includes working out. I just gave in and stopped working out.

My friend and I walk at night. Of course, I couldn't just grab the coat and go. No way. Had to buy new walking shoes first (my feet thank me greatly), a headlamp (I'm a cyborg!), and a pedometer with a USB port (geek) to upload the data into the computer. Did I need all that? Of course! Now I'm vested.

The only problem is it takes about 1.5 hours out of the day at least three times a week (that's my goal). For me that's a lot of time that could be spent doing things like writing. Yet, I really need to do this. That's obvious.

Luckily, in two weeks I should have 18 more hour a week because Coral's increasing her preschool hours. With luck and persistence I'll be able to be both productive and mildly healthy at the same time. That's two big changes for this year, and I didn't even need to call them new year resolutions.

My best first-reader has discovered World-Of-Warcraft. Only checks his e-mail once a week now. I can tell that he's totally distracted. Barely communicates anymore. Too distracted to read. WOW is dangerous, I tell you! Hope the carpal tunnel doesn't disable him. Any WOW intervention groups out in Maine? He's lost, man! Lost I tell you!

Rats! Good first-readers are so hard to find...

I love it when I'm writing away and suddenly realize the story is really about something much bigger than I realized. It's not just about the characters, the ideas, the world building, but about how all of those fit together -- the "secret theme" of the story that was hidden in the choices made. It's an amazing experience to have a story reveal itself half-way though, because then the story then blossoms into something so tight, whole, and important (to myself, if not anyone else) that I become so glad I was able to write it. No editor may realize or care, but I'll know what it means to me beyond the fun ideas, the action, the plot, and it reminds me how thrilling writing can be.

When we came home from the convention the other week I found my recently created Bishop puppet on the steps with his head in his lap! Chopped off at the neck! When we had left, he had been sitting proud, watching over us as we passed, but now he has been done-in.

Many of my extended family would, of course, blame a spirit. It's that Eastern European mysticism. My first creative impulse was to think of who has the most against the clergy. Ah, yes. The tea reader, my grandmother on my mother's side. Obviously it was she who pushing the Bishop and knocked off his head. (This is all just fun and games. Don't worry, I'm not still feverish.)



Motive? When my grandfather died leaving my grandmother with three children to support on her own, the church told her she would be responsible for maintaining the same level of tithe in the till that my engineer/inventor grandfather had offered. They didn't care about the boy in college. They didn't care about the young woman who had skipped two grades and was in college as well at 16 (my mother). They didn't care about the new crying baby. Hands were out. Hell and damnation was threatened. And that was the year my grandmother left the church. On her deathbed some 50 years later my aunt called in a priest to say last rites. My grandmother lay there and glared the entire time.

Looking at the dead Bishop, I was thinking about how the story that just sold to WOTF is so much about my grandmother. The character's name, Etelka, is Hungarian. Like my grandmother, her mother had died (my great-grandmother died in the great flu-epidemic.) Her father did not feel up to raising all the children on his own and put them up for adoption. The woman that adopted my grandmother threw great parties in a grand house. Okay, the house was in New Jersey, not on a distant terra-formed planet in the far future, but I assure you the situation was similar. The adopted mother did not want what was best for her. As my mother tells it, when my grandmother's first love came for her the step... I mean "adopted"... mother told him my grandmother didn't really care for him, and she told my grandmother he never showed. Ah, the drama. As the story goes, the woman wanted my grandmother to remain to serve food at parties and clean the house. If you read the story later this year in the anthology you might remember some of this and think of her. I'd be pleased.

Oh, and if you do actually believe in spirits, then feel good knowing the Bishop was pushed by a strong woman who went on to raise her family strong. If you don't, I've got you covered with my grandfather on my father's side, (and the fact I should have taken the woodworking tools out, not Sculpy) but that's another story.

We had a blast at ConFusion 2008 this year. One of the things I love about this convention is the balance between just-for-fun fannish activities and the writer/reader intellectual (and often hilarious) discussions. Everyone enjoys it: pros, gamers, costumers, pirates, etc. It's a good energy.



Scott Westerfeld and Justine Larbalestier were the writer guests of honor this year. Good people. Caught them on numerous panels. You didn't have to be a YA reader to want to hang out and listen to these two.



John Scalzi was the Toastmaster. John's a lot of fun and did a masterful job at keeping things entertaining. (He left the blog, cat, and bacon at home, but brought plenty of wit and smarts.)



Of course, during the constant Pirate attacks, John did spend a lot of time quivering in the corner and crying.



Luckily we know Ann Harris (ABOVE, and yes, she's just happy to see you), and renniekins, so I wasn't flogged too badly, though a few other people did rather enjoy the experience and came back for more. Unluckily, one of my buddies enjoyed the rum one sip too many. {he he... it's not funny... he he...} Hope you're feeling better, Drew!



Hung out with my Clarion 2004 buddy, Dr Phil Kaldon (dr_phil_physics), quite a bit. Did I mention we'll both be in the next "Writer's Of The Future" anthology together? I did? Oh, I am so forgetful... hope I don't accidentally mention it again.

Had a great time talking with writer Carl Schroeder and his wife and daughter at breakfast Saturday. I hope you've experienced some of Carl's amazing worlds. We both have three in the family and paired off for conversation and a really fun start to the morning.

Coral and Larc spent much of their time in the kids activities, then crashed when Coral became overstimulated, but I had a great time hanging out with many people and stayed up way too late Saturday night hitting parties with my buds Drew, Pippa, Eric, Giles, and Rick Lieder. There were a ton of parties!

Saw Tobias Buckell and his lovely writerswife. This guy was busy! Saw him on panels more than off. Talked briefly (meaning not enough) with other busy writers like jimhines,  paulmelko Mike Resnick, Kathe Koja, among others. A number of editors were in attendance as well, which I really like to see.

Oh, and a special moment seeing one of my writing mentors from my very first writing group. It was good to see Ted Reynolds again. Hang in there my friend. See you again.

Talked to too many people to mention everyone, (HI again tshaile,  kgkofmel, jeffreyab) and realized I sort-of missed actually chatting with a few people (Like drzarron), but a shout-out to all of you who were there!!!

All in all, a great time.

Seems I took 2nd place in the "Writers Of The Future" contest, third quarter 2007. The judges were Eric Kotani, Tim Powers, Robert J. Sawyer, and Dave Wolverton.

I don't typically read Forbes business magazine, but after clicking over (from the Small Beer Press blog) I think I'll find myself perusing their web site today. They're doing a Special Report on THE FUTURE.

Ten articles and five science fiction stories based on the following: "It's the year 2027, and the world is undergoing a global financial crisis. The scene is an American workplace." (The stories are below the articles.)