I'm delighted to announce that my new short story, "Last" (with a nifty illustration by Marco Megrati), has just appeared at Seat14C.com, an online science fiction anthology and writing competition presented by XPRIZE.

XPRIZE, as you may know, is a non-profit organization that designs and manages public science competitions intended to encourage technological development that could benefit all of humanity. (No small goal, there.) One of their latest initiatives is a push for science fiction stories that promote a more hopeful future than the dystopian visions that seem to be so popular.

To that end, XPRIZE has launched Seat14C.com, a site that is both an online anthology and a fiction contest. Thirty well-known science fiction writers have all contributed short stories about the passengers on a transatlantic flight that departs Tokyo in 2017 but somehow lands in San Francisco in 2037. (The contributors list includes names like Margaret Atwood, Hugh Howey, Nancy Kress, Bruce Sterling, Charlie Jane Anders, Paolo Bacigalupi, and Charles Yu.) Our stories were written to highlight the amazing positive effects that twenty years of scientific advancement could have on a city like San Francisco.

Full entry

This weekend, the New York City Poetry Festival invades Governors Island for two solid days of live readings on three stages featuring 250 poets from all five boroughs.

My reading series, Line Break, will be featured on the Festival's Algonquin Stage this Saturday from 12:30 to 1:00 pm. I'll be reading my poetry alongside Line Break alumni Emily Alta Hockaday and Oscar Sanders. It should be a great time, and I hope you'll come see us!

To be sure of seeing us, you should catch the Governors Island Ferry from Manhattan or Brooklyn no later than 11:30 am. The ferries are free before noon, and after you come see us in Nolan Park, you can spend the rest of the day soaking up great poetry in the middle of one of the city's hidden treasures.

Full entry

For those of you with an interest in science fiction, technology, and futurism—or just in life on Earth itself—I'd like to bring to your attention a new writing contest sponsored by XPRIZE.

XPRIZE, as you may know, is a non-profit organization that designs and manages public science competitions intended to encourage technological development that could benefit all of humanity. (No small goal, there.) One of their latest initiatives is a push for science fiction stories that promote a more hopeful future than the dystopian visions that seem to be so popular.

To that end, XPRIZE has launched Seat14C.com, a site that is both an online anthology and a fiction contest. Thirty well-known science fiction writers have all contributed short stories about the passengers on a transatlantic flight that departs Tokyo in 2017 but somehow lands in San Francisco in 2037. (The contributors list includes names like Margaret Atwood, Hugh Howey, Nancy Kress, Bruce Sterling, Charlie Jane Anders, Paolo Bacigalupi, and Charles Yu. My own contribution, about the passenger in 42E, will appear on the site on August 16th.) Our stories were written to highlight the amazing positive effects that twenty years of scientific advancement could have on a city like San Francisco.

Full entry

Norman Stock is the author of two books of poetry: Buying Breakfast for My Kamikaze Pilot (Gibbs Smith, 1994), winner of the Peregrine Smith Poetry Contest, and Pickled Dreams Naked (NYQ Books, 2010). His poems have appeared in The New Republic, College English, New York Quarterly, New England Review, The New York Times, Newtown Literary, Verse, and many other magazines, as well as in anthologies and textbooks.

The recipient of awards from the Writer's Voice, Poets & Writers' Maureen Egen Writers Exchange, the Bennington Writing Workshops, and the Tanne Foundation, Norman has also been a Bread Loaf fellow, a Sewanee scholar, and a finalist for Poet Laureate of Queens. Formerly the Acquisitions Librarian at Montclair State University, from which he retired in 2005, he lives with his wife, Lydia Chang, a clinical psychotherapist, in Jackson Heights, Queens.

Please join Norman and all our accomplished readers for Line Break #12, Saturday, October 7, 3:00 p.m. at Q.E.D. in Astoria. Tickets are only 7 bucks!

Full entry

A reader writes to ask:

I want to submit a novel manuscript to a small press in the US and their guidelines say "indented, not tabbed."

What's the difference? Usually I just hit the tab key once. Should I be doing something else?

I have Word Starter 2010, and I can't see any distinction between "indent" and "tab."

How do I make sure I'm indenting and not tabbing? If I'm tabbing, how do I change it to indent?

This is an excellent question, and I'm sure the cause of much confusion among word-processing novices. There is in fact a distinction between tabbing and indenting—or rather, it might be more accurate to say that tabbing is only one way to indent a paragraph. I will try to explain a method for indenting paragraphs that makes your document more portable* and easier for your publisher to use.

Full entry

Sigh. Much as I try, I can't keep those crazy kids at Sinister Regard from putting out new ebook editions of my juvenilia. The latest novella to get this pixelation treatment is Deus ex Machina, my ridiculous sci-fi romp about an artificial intelligence who tries to kill God and take the Big I AM's place.

The trade paperback edition of Deus ex Machina was released late last year, but for the ebook release Sinister Regard has given it a spiffily updated cover. And the ebook is available pretty much everywhere! Smashwords, Kobo, Nook, iBooks and Kindle all have it for a measly $1.99, and it's also available for your reading pleasure on such subscription services as Oyster and Scribd. How do you like me now?

But wait! That's not all! Sinister Regard will be bringing out three more of my books in print and electronic editions over the course of the summer, including two that have never before seen the light of day! First, on June 16th, is Whether We Are Mended, my collection of three long sci-fi love stories, which is also getting a cover that's a vast improvement over its original hardback edition.

Full entry