Creative Corner

Here's what Creative Friends of KaCSFFS are Doing!

Bryan Thomas Schmidt

Bryan Thomas Schmidt's debut novel, The Worker Prince, which made Barnes and Noble's “Year's Best SF of 2011,” is being released in a newly-revised and expanded Author's Definitive Version from Kevin J. Anderson's WordFire Press, in November.

Two sequels, to complete The Saga of Davi Rhii space opera trilogy, will be released next year, with both out by MidAmericon II. The Returning was released earlier; it will be re-released in a revised edition, along with the brand new conclusion to the series, The Exodus.

MISSION: TOMORROW, Bryan's next anthology for Baen and his first as a solo editor, is out November 3rd.

Bryan will be appearing at Archon, and as being a Featured Speaker at Susan Satterfield's MCC Longview Literary Festival in October, and appearing at Stan Lee's Comikaze Comic Con in Los Angeles Oct. 30-Nov. 1.

Mitch Bentley
Mitch Bentley will be the Artist Guest of Honor at Fencon, September 25-27, at the Westin Dallas Ft. Worth Airport. He also will appear at Archon the following weekend, October 2-4, at the Gateway Convention Center and Doubletree Hotel in Collinsville, MO (near St. Louis).

Mitch will debut a new cover for Rhonda Eudaly's Tarbox Station, published by Yard Dog Press, at Fencon. Also for Yard Dog, he will debut a new cover for Lee Killough's Ancient Enemy, later this year.

In addition, Mitch just completed the cover for Virtue Inverted, for Piers Anthony and co-writer Kenneth Kelly, who also served as art director on the project. The book is still in the initial stages of layout and design, but it should be released very soon as an eBook. The trade paperback will be released a little later.

William F. Wu
William F. Wu's most recent work is a short story called "China City Flame" in an anthology called Asian Pulp. It's a crime story set in 1939, and is his second published crime story, though the first was also a ghost story.This is his first published story without any science fiction or fantasy elements.

Wu also had a new story, titled "Yellowsea Yank," in the original ebook anthology, Defiant, She Advanced: Legends of Future Resistance, edited by George Donnelly. The story is steampunk, set in the 1890s, and he hopes it'll be the first of a series. He also has another steampunk short story in the pipeline, for another original anthology, the game-related Steamscapes: Asia. This story is titled "Clockwork Glide."

In addition, Wu has an ongoing series of stories in the War World anthology series, edited by John F. Carr, and he has begun releasing some of his short fiction in e-book form, on all the major retail websites.

Mark Esping

Mark Esping has reprinted NEQUA, or The Problem of the Ages, a "feminist, hollow-earth, utopian science fiction novel" originally published in 1900 in Topeka, KS. It includes 40 pages of new material, giving background information on some of the people originally responsible for publishing it. Available via Amazon, ABE, and biblio.com (KAXFEN interested in purchasing a copy should bring $20 cash to a meeting, and he'll hand-deliver your copy).

If you are interested in learning more about this piece of sf history with a local angle, you may find the small item Mark wrote for Fantasy and Science Fiction interesting. The novel also is the subject of a Wikipedia page. There are only 11 or 12 copies of the original edition still in existence.

Susan Satterfield 

Susan Satterfield reminds local and regional writers that the 2015 MCC-Longview Literary Festival will be held Friday, October 23 on the Longview campus of the Metropolitan Community College, in Lee's Summit, MO. (Please note the link currently leads you to information on last year's festival, but 2015 should be similar). For more information or if you'd like to participate in panels, readings, and/or a table to sell your work, contact Susan Satterfield.

IMAGES: Many thanks to Bryan Thomas Schmidt for his cover art, Mitch Bentley for the images of his cover artwork, to William F. Wu for the images of his covers, to Mark Esping for the cover image of NEQUA, and for the photo of students at the literary festival, from the Longview Literary Festival page.