Seems I’m blabbing all over the place these days.  Charles Tan, proprietor of the uber-informative blog Bibliophile Stalker, has interviewed me over at the Nebula Awards website.  Go on over,  check it out, and learn the essential, arcane truths of…  Well, ok, it’s really just me bitching and moaning about military SF and praising Gary Gygax, but please go check it out anyway.

Pretty much all of my energy and thought right now is devoted to my newborn twins.  They are, thank God, doing well and gaining weight — which can be a concern with premies.  Mom’s recovering handily from surgery, as well, so I’m exhausted but thankful over here.  Pics and video soon…

But there are a few developments outside of the lives of these little cuties who, as my wife put it, “would kill you to get at my milk if they were big enough”:

– After three years of (part-time) work on the manuscript, I have FINALLY sent off agent queries for my fantasy novel (working title: Throne of the Crescent Moon), set in the same world as my short stories “Where Virtue Lives” and “Judgment of Swords and Souls.” This feels both amazing and a bit anticlimactic.  After all, it will likely be weeks or months before I know what agents think of it — and I’m ready to know NOW, dammit!  But one of the adages I hear most consistently from more veteran novelists is that this professional author thing is all a big game of hurry up and wait.  It seems that if one is to have any success at all, one must write through the ‘wait’ periods as well as the ‘hurry up’ periods.  So that’s what I’ll do.

– My short-short supervillain story “Doctor Diablo Goes Through the Motions,” which appeared a little while back in Strange Horizons, is now available as a podcast over at the excellent audio fiction site Drabblecast. It sounds great — apropos music, cool vocal effects, and I love the illustration, which captures perfectly the story’s tone.  Go on over and give a listen, whydonchya?  As always, comments at the site are especially appreciated.

– I can’t say a lot about this one right now, but I’ve just had my first foreign language reprint request.  Seems my Nebula Finalist story “Hooves and the Hovel of Abdel Jameela” is going to be translated into Portuguese!  More on this soon…

That’s about it on this end.  I do hope everything’s rainbows and ice cream with y’all.

Howdy again, people!

Well.  This has been the most eventful week or so of my life.  Not only am I honored to be a finalist for the John W. Campbell award for best new SF/F writer, but I AM NOW A DADDY TO TWINS!  Ladies and gentlemen, please let me introduce you to Malcolm Ismael Ahmed (in blue) and Naima Octavia Ahmed (in lavender):

They’re even cuter when they’re awake, but you get the drift   While I use this site primarily for professional news (personal blabbery tends to happen more on my LiveJournal and, even more so, on my Facebook), I can’t promise that the occasional ‘look how freaking adorable they are!!’ picture post won’t sneak through here.  You have been warned, earthlings!

…aaand I’m back, with various newsy bits.

I tend to save my personal-life posts for Facebook or, you know, talking to people.  So y’all may or may not know that my awesome wife and I are expecting twins on April 6th, just two weeks away.  Obviously this is the huge, thrilling, scary, mighty center of my life right now.  Still, a few writerly things going on and coming up:

– My first published story,  “Where Virtue Lives,” is a finalist for a cool new award called the Harper’s Pen Award, “given in honor of the best Heroic Fantasy or Sword and Sorcery short fiction published during a given year.”  The award’s admirable aim is to “encourage authors to continue to explore heroic fantasy and sword and sorcery fiction, as well as to reward those who continue to publish it.”  I’m honored and excited!

– Blake Charlton, whose buzzing-with-acclaim debut fantasy novel Spellwright wraps canny musings on disability and language in a brightly-colored high-magic mystery, has interviewed me over at his website. Blake’s a smart guy — a savvy writer and a medical student to boot — and it was fun doing this interview.  Drop by and let’s chat in the comments thread — it’ll be like hanging out in someone else’s living room!

– I’ve sold audio rights for my supervillain story “Doctor Diablo Goes Through the Motions” to awesome podcast site The Drabblecast. This makes two stories now that are headed for podcasts — “Hooves and the Hovel of Abdel Jameela” will soon be appearing on PodCastle.

– I will be attending the Nebula Awards Weekend in May.  Anyone else out there attending?

That’s my Gnews, what’s yours?

Happy Tuesday, good people of Internetistan!

My rather bitter, slightly silly story “General Akmed’s Revenge?” is now live (and free!) at Expanded Horizons.  It’s a sort of “Tales from the Darkside” response to the crappy racist action movies of yesteryear, with the obligatory Super Mario Brothers-as-metaphor-for-life bit thrown in.  Hope you enjoy it!

Also, a couple of award season reminders:

1) I am eligible for the Campbell Award for Best New SF/F writer.  If you are a Worldcon member you can toss a nomination my way, as reviewer par excellence Rich Horton has. But the nomination deadline is rapidly approaching!

2) The deadline for final Nebula voting is March 30th.  My story “Hooves and the Hovel of Abdel Jameela” is on the ballot.  Active SFWA members can vote here.

Now back to novel revisions…

“Hooves and the Hovel of Abdel Jameela,” my story of medieval Islam, magic, and surgery gone wrong, is officially on the final ballot for the 2009 Nebula Awards.

Whoa.  I mean…WHOA.

The Nebula Awards are, along with the Hugos, the biggest awards in genre fiction.  They are voted on by the membership of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.  I published my first genre story only 10 months ago.  “Hooves” was the second.  To be honored in this way by writers who’ve been at this for years — in some cases, decades — is a powerful shot in the arm.  Thanks to any and all who voted for the story.  As a geeky book-buying teen I can remember looking at countless covers that had “Nebula Winner” or “Nebula Finalist” splashed across them.   And now I’m on that list!

I haven’t a chance in hell of winning the award, of course.  But just being a finalist…

“Whoa,” he says again.

“Hooves” has had an incredible life already.  Huge thanks to editor Mike Allen and publisher Norilana Books for including it in the second volume of the provocative Clockwork Phoenix anthology series.  Thanks also to Fantasy Book Critic for putting it online and to PodCastle, who have picked it up for an upcoming podcast.

Speaking of awards, I am also eligible for the 2010  John W. Campbell Award for best new science fiction or fantasy writer.  My profile is here.  If you are voting for the Hugos, please do take a gander!

Now please excuse me as I pass out in ecstatic delirium.

People of Earth!

My short-short supervillain story “Doctor Diablo Goes Through the Motions” is now live at Strange Horizons.  It’s free and bite-sized — what more could you ask for?  Check it out and, if you like it, please consider taking a few minutes to drop a note in the forums (there’s a “Comments on this piece” link at the bottom of the page).

Thanks as always,

Saladin

This is pretty cool: I just sold the audio rights to my ‘just-might-make-it-onto-the-Nebula-ballot’ short story “Hooves and the Hovel of Abdel Jameela!”  It has been picked up by PodCastle, the popular fantasy fiction podcast site.

Hi!  A quick note here to mention that Callaloo Volume 32, Issue 4 is now out.  The issue features work from luminaries of African American and Middle Eastern poetry like Sonia Sanchez and Mahmoud Darwish.  Less impressively, it contains two poems (“How to survive in Detroit #32″ and “Recite!”) from yours truly!

Also, I’ve sold another story!  “General Akmed’s Revenge?” is my short-short slipstream-ish response to the crappy anti-Arab action movies of the 1980s.  It contains gratuitous Super Mario Brothers-inspired metaphors and is slated to appear in the March issue of Expanded Horizons.

This is the website of fantasy writer and poet Saladin Ahmed.  My fiction has been nominated for the Nebula, Campbell, and Harper’s Pen awards, and has appeared in Strange Horizons, Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, Clockwork Phoenix 2, Beneath Ceaseless Skies,  Drabblecast, PodCastle, and Expanded Horizons.  My poetry has earned fellowships from the University of Michigan, Brooklyn College, and the Bronx Council on the Arts, and has appeared in over a dozen journals and anthologies including Callaloo, The Brooklyn Review, Big City Lit, Inclined To Speak: An Anthology of Contemporary Arab American Poetry, and Abandon Automobile: Detroit City Poetry.  My first novel, THRONE OF THE CRESCENT MOON, is forthcoming from DAW Books.  To check out my writing, please see my bibliography.  If you’d like to learn more about me, head over to my biography page.  You can also get in touch with me on Facebook , LiveJournal, and Twitter, or via email at saladinahmed [at] hotmail [dot] com.  Thanks for dropping by!