 On May 12, 2007 my little novel vaulted into history when it won the
Nebula for Best Novella. Although the print edition was actually its first publication, I began to podcast it a chapter a week for sixteen weeks on the release date. Tens of thousands of listeners first heard it on my Free Reads Podcast and many more than that downloaded the free pdf file. When it won the award, the SFWA site listed it as a podcast, which would make it the first podcast to win a major science fiction award.
You can listen to the podcast version in four parts:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
|
|
|
In 1989 sf writer Bruce Sterling coined the term slipstream to denote a kind of story that was neither sf nor fantasy, exactly, but that was showing up in all the places that sf and fantasy did; a kind of story that used sf and fantasy elements within otherwise realistic, or at least consistent, settings to provoke a feeling of strangeness or, better, feeling at home, strangely. After every three stories or so in editors Kelly and Kessel's pick of representative slipstream stories, excerpts from several young writers' blog exchange 17 years after Sterling's essay carry on the analysis, and it's interesting--but, oh, these stories!
The authors are mavericks old and new: such travelers from genre to mainstream and vice versa as Aimee Bender, George Saunders, Jonathan Lethem, Karen Jay Fowler, and Michael Chabon; longtime unclassifiables Carol Emshwiller and Howard Waldrop; new small-press stars Kelly Link and Jeff VanderMeer; two quietly grandiose weird imaginations who've broken onto the big publishers' lists, Jeffrey Ford and Ted Chiang; and virtual newcomers M. Rickert, Theodora Goss, and Benjamin Rosenbaum. Oh, and Bruce Sterling, whose "Little Magic Shop" is perhaps the tamest of a wild bunch. How wild? Try Rosenbaum's Arabian Nights-ish alternate-history tale with the long, academic-sounding name. Try Fowler's double-time-lined "Lieserl," about Albert Einstein's forsaken daughter. Try Bender's "Healer," and ask what world it's set in. Don't stop until all have been read. Ray Olson -- Booklist Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
|
|
|
|
On February 2, 2007, Audible.com, the largest seller of audiobooks online, launched James Patrick Kelly's StoryPod, a for-pay podcast that features me reading my own work. And on June 25, 2008, the great experiment came to an end. Over the course of that time I recorded fifty-two of my stories, most of them read by me. I did ask some of my actor friends to read a couple of episodes that for one reason or another I felt I couldn't do justice to. I also recast two stories as audioplays. I have yet to issue a greatest hits print collection, so in the interim, this will have to do. It includes all my award winners and nominees and everything that has ever been selected for a Year's Best.
If you've stumbled upon this for the first time, why are you wasting time reading when you could have me murmuring in your ear? Click over to Audible now!
|
|
|
|
The Wreck of the Godspeed |
 Here is my new collection from Golden Gryphon. It includes twelve stories and my short novel BURN, which won the Science Fiction Writer's of America's Nebula Award in 2007. This is my third collection from Golden Gryphon and my longest. I am particularly pleased to be showcasing my title novella "The Wreck of The Godspeed" since I think it is some of my best work but was fairly obscurely published. Other important stories in the collection are award nominees "The Best Christmas Ever," "Bernardo's House" and "Men Are Trouble."
|
|
|
|
