I am in awe of this anthology. Not just of the stories, and they are indeed fine stories, but of the shared road traveled by the stories’ authors. Mark their names, because you’ll be seeing a lot more of them.
Some years ago, when Craig Shaw Gardner suggested to me that perhaps we should run a workshop for aspiring science fiction and fantasy writers, I agreed without too much hesitation. We had both taught at workshops before—Odyssey, New England Young Writers Conference, and others—and we both enjoyed working with other writers. In fact, we have been part of the same local writing group (called, cleverly, “the writing group”) for over thirty years! So, committed, we secured some meeting space at the Pandemonium bookstore in Cambridge, Massachusetts, called ourselves the Ultimate SF Writing Workshop, and put out some flyers.
We had a pretty good idea of what to expect, and we got that and more: students with huge imaginations, and wildly varying degrees of talent and craft. Often enough, at the beginning, the talent and imagination outstripped the skills of the writers. And that was perfect for a workshop. I don’t think you can teach talent, though sometimes you can tease imagination out of a mind that just needs the right trigger. But craft and skill—those you can work with, and develop, and watch grow. And that’s what we set out to do, although truthfully, Craig and I didn’t so much teach as help these new writers learn from each other.
And learn and grow they did! Over the course of several years of the workshop, including some advanced sessions for the most motivated, we saw nascent talent blossom into professionalism. We followed with pleasure as alumni members sold stories to magazines, published novels, and in a few cases went on to participate in other professional-quality workshops, like Odyssey and Viable Paradise. We all stayed in touch, through a continuing online group and regular meet-ups at local conventions. It was at one such meet-up, a dinner at Readercon, that the idea for this anthology was born.
Two things I didn’t expect when we started the workshops:
One, that Craig and I would learn so much from the students, and that working with them would inspire our own writing. Two, that we would come out of it with a roomful of new friends and colleagues to join us in our battle to try to take over the world, literarily speaking.
No, there’s a third thing I didn’t expect—that so much damn fine writing would come out of it, just few years later. The contents of this book are just a sample. I should add that Craig and I are, I guess you could say, benevolent godfathers to this anthology. We gave it our blessing and our best wishes, but all of the work was done by the workshop alums, from the selection and editing of the stories, right down to the cover art and the formatting and book design. I’m mighty pleased to be associated with it, even if I didn’t lift a finger to create it myself.
I said it before, but it’s worth repeating:
Remember the names of these authors—KJ Kabza, William Gerke, Julia Rios, Timothy S. Kroecker, E.L. Mellor, Meredith Watts, Talib S. Hussain, Scott Davis, Fernando Salazar, LJ Cohen, and Chris Howard—because you’re going to see lots of good things coming from them. I guarantee it.
—Jeffrey A. Carver
July 2013