Grantville Gazette 36 gg-36

by Paula Goodlett

  Twenty-five years ago, I was twenty-five. So the entire length of my time on this Earth has doubled since that day, twenty-five years ago, when I went to the very first Writers of the Future workshop. The workshop was so new that it wasn’t even called a Writers of the Future workshop, although it was sponsored by WoTF. The workshop was an experiment, something that-if it failed-might not be repeated ever again.

  I hadn’t won an award from Writers of the Future, which was a brand-new competition-and a somewhat controversial one at that. I was chosen to go because winners had flaked out or couldn’t afford the time and money to attend.

  Algis Budrys had called me seven days before the workshop started and said, “I’m inviting you to a free workshop taught by myself, Fred Pohl, Gene Wolfe, and Jack Williamson in Taos, New Mexico. It starts one week from today, and you have to pay for everything. Hotel, food, plane tickets. But the workshop is free.”

  I jumped at the opportunity. Fortunately, I had a thousand dollars saved up. It was my first and last on the apartment I was going to rent due to my impending divorce, but hey, what’s more important? A workshop? Or fees for an apartment?

  I figured I would never have the chance again, and I was right. I never did win Writers of the Future, despite entering at least a dozen times, but I got more out of that workshop than anyone else ever did. I met my husband, Dean Wesley Smith, and we’ve been together ever since.

  Now our relationship and all the things that have come from it, from our own writing to Pulphouse Publishing to our various editing stints (mine at The Magazine of Fantasy amp; Science Fiction, Dean’s at Pocket Books) to the workshops we’ve taught for the last ten years, have become part of Writers of the Future lore. In May, many people at Authors Services, who sponsor the current workshop, mentioned my meeting Dean at the very first workshop as if discussing a fairy tale come to life.

  That was strange for me. But what was stranger was the realization that this controversial contest that many new writers wouldn’t enter when it started twenty-seven years ago has become a venerable proving ground for new writers in the modern era.

  Writers who win Writers of the Future really are writers of the future. The past winners have had multiple book contracts. Many of these winners are New York Times bestsellers or win other awards. Writers-and Illustrators-of the Future winners have gone on to win everything from awards in the sf field to Oscars and National Book Awards.

  I realized a lot of this while watching the ceremony, listening to the young writers accept awards that mean a great deal to them-and to writing and publishing in general. To these writers, the contest is what it was envisioned to be: a validation of their talent and a send-off into the world of publishing. The controversy is long gone-and remembered only by those of us who have been in the field for decades.

  These writers and illustrators truly are the future of the field, if they can navigate the changes ahead.

  And those changes are vast.

  I noted that as well, as I listened to my fellow professionals give advice at the workshop proper. In the past, we all gave the same advice on how to have a career in publishing. Oh, the details might have differed-publish short stories first or stick to novels only; go after awards or don’t bother with awards-but the principles we all espoused were the same.

  And now they aren’t. Half of us told the new writers to learn about e-publishing; the other half thought e-publishing was a fad. A few of us said that getting an agent is a treacherous and perhaps unnecessary thing in the modern era; the rest believed that writers can’t survive without agents.

  The only thing we long-term pros could agree on was this: the industry is changing and only those people who know business will survive the change. The rest will fall by the wayside.

  Right now, writers have more opportunity than they ever had before-especially short story writers. (Writers of the Future winners submitted short stories.) There are more magazines than there have been since the pulp era. There are more viable short story markets that pay good money and need content than ever before.

  The flip side is that it’s hard to get noticed. Twenty-five years ago, everyone in the sf/f field read the fiction in the same six magazines: Amazing Stories, Aboriginal SF, Analog SF, Asimov’s, The Magazine of Fantasy amp; Science Fiction, and Omni. Omni paid the best, but only published one story per issue. Asimov’s and F amp;SF had the most prestige, but Aboriginal and Amazing often found the best new talent. Analog had the most consistent voice, and any writer who sold to them was pretty much guaranteed to have a long career in hard sf.

  There were other magazines, like Weird Tales, which published on an irregular schedule and some prestigious anthologies. Twilight Zone still existed then, but had begun the struggles that eventually killed it. (And it didn’t publish much science fiction.) Writers of the Future came in and filled a void, first publishing writers from Dean to Nina Kiriki Hoffman to Karen Joy Fowler.

  Now most of those magazines are gone. Asimov’s and Analog are doing great, thanks to the forward-thinking that got them into e-publishing early. Their subscription rates, if you count e-editions (which I do), have gone way up. F amp;SF has one-tenth the circulation it had at its peak. Omni, Amazing, and Aboriginal are long gone, memories to those of us who sold to them, like the pulp magazines were to the generations ahead of us.

  But now there’s a dozen other magazines that exist mostly online or in e-format, from Subterranean Online to Lightspeed. They’re starting to dominate the awards, and the stars who first appear in those magazines are starting to dominate the field.

  Kinda. Because there isn’t that much of a field left to dominate. The rise of the new magazines, of e-publishing, and of big mega-conventions like Comic-Con and DragonCon have meant that what was once a small little club of about 10,000 people who read the same thing (and disapproved of newcomers, like Writers of the Future) has been subsumed by mass culture.

  Writers of the Future has moved into that mass culture. The little workshop I attended, held in a tiny Taos hotel, has morphed. In the late 1980s, WoTF added the workshop to the awards ceremony. Then the contest went to spectacular places like the United Nations to hold that ceremony. But the contest and its “event” as the organizers call that week didn’t really take off until the rise of the internet.

  Now, the judges, speakers, and contestants go through a Hollywood-style to-do, complete with clothing approval and all-day make-up/hairstyling sessions. This is so that we’ll look presentable for the television cameras that are filming us during the ceremony, which has become the biggest such event in all of writing. The ceremony gets streamed live over the internet, and the WoTF organizers say that millions of people eventually watch it. Since the ceremony initially streams worldwide and remains on the website for a year after the initial airing, I have no doubt that eventually millions do watch some or all of it.

  This has come a long way from the tiny little workshop that I attended twenty-five years ago. Some of the new writers I met at the later WoTF ceremonies are now old hands in the field. Many of them have moved to other fields, like Jo Beverly, a New York Times bestselling romance writer.

  The one thing that has remained the same, however, is the support from WoTF and Authors Services. They do their best to prepare the new writers for a career in publishing. Not for another award ceremony, but to actually make a living at the profession. And with the exception of the workshops Dean and I run, some of which are shamelessly modeled on that first WoTF workshop, I know of no other writing workshop that trains writers to have a career.

  Go take a peek at the website, www.writersofthefuture.com. You’ll see how successful the contest has been over the years. Its track record is astounding. Then look at this year’s class picture, at the faces you don’t recognize scattered among those of us you’ve seen too much over the decades.

  You are looking at the future of the science fiction field. At the publishing field.

  I realized as I scrambled down a flight of st
airs at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel to get to the photograph session on time that a lot more of my anecdotes will start with phrases like “Twenty-five years ago . . .” because I am a bigger part of the history of the field than I ever thought I would be.

  Part of that history stood beside me in Hollywood. Someday, fans of the genre will look at that photo and say, “Wow, look at all the famous writers who hung out together.” And they won’t be referring to me or Eric Flint or Larry Niven. They’ll be referring to the winners, who have become long-term professionals in the field.

  Those fans will be looking at their past. But right now, it’s our future.

  And that’s really cool.

  ****

  The Comfort of Your Wake

  Written by J. F. Keeping

  The joyous din of feeding time-bursts of conversation, crunching bredfish, the wandering ghosts of lost echolocation clicks-faded when a sobering message of silence spread through the gathered pod: They're here. Fear sapped the strength from Squeak's tail and flippers and the frightened taste of her urine filled the water.

  Squeak couldn't see them, of course-eyes were useless in the liquid night of Europa's ocean. She could only listen helplessly as they drew near. Then her mother outlined them with her sonar beam and Squeak read the echo image: four large orcas, male judging by their proud dorsal fins, dangerous judging by their scars and confident, sinuous stroke.

  "Stay close," said her mother.

  Squeak obediently took up a position beneath her left pectoral fin.

  The nearby orcas gave way and the newcomers began circling Squeak and her mother.

  One of them directed a tight beam of high-frequency clicks at Squeak's mother. It was a private message, but Squeak with her experience in eavesdropping could hear it: "I am Hammerhead-mater-Grabjaw. That female cowering under your flipper-she is your calf?"

  Squeak noted that the other males, probably Hammerhead's brothers, did not identify themselves-a breach of whale etiquette.

  "I am Tailspinner." Squeak's mother broadcast her reply so that everyone could hear. "What business is it of yours?"

  Squeak noted the absence of the matrilineal name with bitterness.

  "Our business is to ensure that the Breeding Laws are obeyed," Hammerhead replied in the same fashion. "I think that you can see how we need to catalogue descent to do that."

  "She is mine." While she clicked these works, Squeak's mother said simultaneously in the slower squeaks and groans language that orcas shared with the Grandfather whales: Defy.

  "You are refugees from Broken Tail Spire, are you not?"

  "Yes! When the vent died, we had to move our herds. The whole pod was dispersed; families that had swum together for generations never to touch again. Only five tides ago did we join your pod."

  "You are welcome to the Singing Valley pod. We ask only that you obey the rules." And like Squeak's mother, Hammerhead whistled a counterpoint: Punishment.

  One of the other circling orcas took up this whistle as a refrain: Punishment . . . Punishment . . .

  Squeak wondered desperately why the other whales from their old pod weren't coming to their defense.

  "Please, my calf . . . my calf is no threat to anyone." Mercy.

  "No one doubts that you love your calf, Tailspinner. Mother and calf, brother and sister are of one flesh." Compassion. "But you forget that all whales are one family. Your calf may be blameless, but her genes-her genes can do fathomless harm to future generations."

  "She won't breed!" Please. "Nor will I. I haven't mated since . . . since . . ."

  "We all swim in the same waters," Hammerhead recited. "What each one of us does affects us all. Without exception. Did they not have the Breeding Laws in your pod? Were they not orcas?" Hear me.

  The circle of whales hemming Squeak and her mother drew tighter. She could feel the impact of every echolocation pulse. One of them beamed her in the face and she let out a little squeak of pain.

  "Before the Migration, we were little more than animals. Before the Migration, we breathed air. There is no air here, and we breathe with gills. If we wish to maintain ourselves without regression, genetic hygiene must be observed." Hear me. "She is defective! Blind!"

  As if reading the echo beam of one of her captors, Squeak imagined how they saw her: overgrown calf, head shriveled where her melon should be. Unable to produce the focused beams of sound orcas used for echolocation, she was dependent upon the beams of others like her mother to see.

  A swell of water sloshed Squeak away when her mother rolled to one side, adopting the posture of submission. Squeak wondered fearfully what she was doing. But then her mother tight-beamed her a single word: "Flee."

  Broadcasting a steady stream of sonar clicks, Squeak's mother rammed into one of the encircling whales.

  Before the others could react, Squeak shot through the opening. Her tail pounded the water, the thought boiling through her mind: They want to kill me, they want to kill me! She imagined teeth tearing her flesh, the sharp tang of her blood filling the water. . . .

  From behind came sounds of churning water and the explosive shock of a tail blow. Her mother! What was happening to her mother? Why was no one helping them? Squeak didn't know what to do. She wanted to help but her mother had told her to flee, and Squeak always did what her mother told her. And she was so afraid, terribly afraid. They want to kill me.

  Then Squeak felt the brush of a sonar beam against her tail and realized they were pursuing her. Her heart pounding like a second tail in her chest, she fought to think. If only she could see! She recalled the image she had received from her mother's sonar a moment before. Below and to her left would be the herd of bredfish, hemmed in by circling orcas for feeding. Inclining her head in that direction, she heard in her jawbone the familiar rustling of dozens of small, agitated swimmers.

  Into the herd she dove, mouth agape. Squeak whirled, batted her flippers, kicked her tail, sending the panicked fish flying. Without thinking she snatched one in her jaws and gobbled it down. Then she shot off in a random direction, leaving a confusion of sonar echoes in her wake.

  Squeak fled on into the darkness, straining to hear sounds of pursuit. But none came. When she felt she could go no further, she drifted to a stop in the water.

  Squeak was alone. She had never been alone before. The very notion seemed incomprehensible. Social as they were, most orcas went on occasional forays away from the pod, but not Squeak. How would she find her way back? What if she were set upon by a pack of Songless whales? So her mother had always said, and Squeak always listened to her mother.

  Was she afraid? She didn't know how she felt. Her head was full of little explosions. She felt like she was losing her sapience, becoming one of the Songless. She was alone. Her mother's touch, the background hiss and grumble of whale voices, the wandering currents of a mob of milling orcas . . . all her bearings were gone. What was she supposed to do? What was she supposed to feel?

  As the roar in her head subsided, Squeak began to hear sounds. Creaks and booms drifted down from above-that was the shell of ice that covered the ocean world, forever worked by Europa's tides. Back the way she had come was the soft susurration of the hydrothermal vent, spewing hot minerals that fed the euplankton which in turn fed the pod's herds of bredfish. The water had its own voice: a textured sigh, shaped by the slopes of the valley in which the pod made its home. And through it came the squeaks and groans of whalesong. Behind her was a muted babble of many voices, her own adopted pod. From another direction a faint call drifted, a message transmitted across the ocean to some distant friend or relative. And beneath it all was the Song of the Grandfathers, the living memory of the whale colony, telling of their voyage upon the vessels of the No-Fins from the dying seas of Earth and their lives on this new world. Of course, no whale was ever alone. It was the first lesson of the Song.

  Then, as Squeak listened to the sea, a voice from out of the darkness touched her like a caress: Squeak, mother calls. To me, to me! It was
one of the first songs a whale learned, simple and repetitive, intended to lead a lost child to her mother. Tailspinner was alive! Her mother was alive, and searching for her.

  Squeak started to reply, then cut herself short. Were the tail-biters hunting her? If she spoke it would give away her position. But she desperately needed some contact with her mother. The danger seemed distant now, unreal. But her loneliness was very close.

  She sang a short response: Tailspinner, await me, I come! Normally such songs would be repeated many times, so that the intended recipient would eventually hear it over the hubbub of whale life. But that would be too risky.

  Moments later, a familiar male voice called out of the dark: Come home, little fish, we are waiting for you. It came from the same general direction as her mother's, but closer, much closer.

  Squeak pondered several miserable seconds and then fled. Off to one side she could hear the moaning of the tidal current surging through a narrow channel. If she guessed correctly, this was the mountain pass through which she and the remaining stragglers of her former pod had wearily made their way here. It might offer some place to hide.

  Why were they doing this to her? She and her mother weren't harming anyone! The Broken Tail pod only killed dangerous defectives such as the Songless-genetic throwbacks to pre-sapience-and those that were so terribly malformed that it was an act of mercy. Squeak and her mother had only been banned from breeding. Of course, no male would want to breed with a female once she had borne a defective. And Squeak's mother was always too busy taking care of her to be interested in more offspring anyway. She had always said that Squeak was all she needed. Their family status had suffered, but what did that matter?

  The sound was very loud now-she must be almost there. Behind, her mother's call came again and she fought the desperate urge to respond. Then she heard traces of sonar clicks hunting for her. Too far away to resolve an echo perhaps, but for how long? Tired as she was, Squeak forced herself to swim faster.