An Update On Who I'm Following These Days.

I'm always looking for up and coming, exciting new writers in the SF field. My hopes are that some of their brilliance might rub off on me, since I'm in the same boat struggling to make headway in this stormy sea of publishing.

Last night I suddenly remembered a promising young woman who first came to my attention many months ago in an issue of Locus Magazine. I dug through my stacks and finally found the volume -- March, 2008. Somewhere in the "Books Sold" column was a picture of a woman who looked fierce and full of verve. At the time, something about her seemed interesting, and I was intrigued by the announcement that she, Kameron Hurley, had just sold the rights to her debut novel, God's War, along with 2 sequels to Juliet Ulman at Bantam Books. I did a quick search and found a website, along with a sample chapter of the novel in question. You can read it here.

I got goosebumps from reading this short excerpt, it was THAT good! Strongly feminist and holding back no punches. The prose just had me hooked from the very first sentence! I immediately tried to pre-order the novel, but alas it was not yet available. I'd promised myself to keep an eye out for it nonetheless, then promptly forgot the details. But now after looking through that issue of Locus once more, I've re-discovered the writer's name and even found her blogspot blog! You can find a link to it in my "Interesting Folks" sidebar below.

Now that I've found Kameron Hurley once more, I vow to keep a constant vigil on her progress and novel release dates. I just hope she's survived all the recent upheaval that has been going on in the SF publishing field this past year. God's War was due out this Fall, but now seems to have been pushed back to next year. Argh! I want to read it RIGHT NOW!!!

Guess I'll just have to be patient.

At my friend, Cindy's, private book signing over a week ago, I mentioned how I'd met a bunch of cool and nifty fellow fledgling writers, some of whom are already published. One talented member of the bunch was fellow Bronxite and budding SF writer, Steven Cordero. Steve has several first-stab books he's working on, including the latest, Daughters of Earth. It's a near-future tale about an Earth where men are an extinct species. The concept and world-building is actually pretty darn nifty. Check out the link for more details.

And, yes, I've added Steve to my "Interesting Folks" sidebar, too. So feel free to check out his blogspot blog as well. He's in good company.

So there you have it. Two more additions to my list. Seeing new writers flourish gives me so much inspiration to continue onward with this dream of mine.

Hope you'll follow me along and see me through this journey.