Hi, everyone.
Nita and I hope your Easter will be filled with special moments with friends and family – and, of course, good memories and good food as well. Our dinner tradition (that is, in addition to having way too much) usually involves ham and deviled eggs along with lots of other assorted good stuff. Fortunately for us, the next major holiday isn’t until July, so that gives us a couple of months to work off the excess.
Writing news: March 6 was potentially a banner day in the writing business. The editor of Spank the Carp (an iconic on line magazine that previously published the “Doomsday 3.0” story) advised that the science fiction story “The Chosen One” had been accepted for publication. No word yet on which edition it will appear in, so I don’t know the release date. I’ll keep you posted.
That same day, one of the editorial staff at Stackpole Publications sent a note saying that he was going to take the military history manuscript “Hidden Heroes: America’s Forgotten Military Leaders - Cold War to Present Day” to the company’s editorial board for approval to publish. That was very interesting news. Haven’t heard anything since, so the delay may mean that the board decided against publication.
Whichever way it goes, the note was a bit of a welcome surprise. As I mentioned long, long ago, one of my goals was to write about leaders from each of America’s wars that have done marvelous things on behalf of the country – and to whom we owe enormous debts – yet their contributions have been too little acknowledged and too seldom celebrated. The first two volumes – “In the Shadows of Victory: America’s Forgotten Military Leaders -1776-1878,” and “In the Shadows of Victory II: America’s Forgotten Military Leaders – Spanish-American War to World War II” – were published by Casemate (in 2016 and 2017, respectively). Then, I took what I thought would be a brief break to help a university colleague write “Fire in the North: The Minnesota Uprising and the Sioux War in Dakota Territory” (2018). I had the draft of the third and final book essentially complete when two events intervened and changed the publishing world considerably. The first – especially as related to the British companies that publish a considerable portion of the military history books that make their way to American readers and shelves in American bookstores – was a series of World War II anniversary dates (declaration of War, Battle of Britain, Pearl Harbor, Midway, D-Day, etc, etc.) which induced publishers of military histories to focus more on that conflict and defer publishing other prospective titles.
The second major event was, of course, COVID-19, which significantly impacted publishers around the globe. Considerable numbers of smaller and mid-size companies went out of business while many of the major publishers reduced the sizes of their editorial and marketing staffs. Thus, fewer books were released and the publishing cycle was slowed down for those that were selected for publication. So … the third and final manuscript has been gathering dust for a long time. A few weeks ago, I dug it out and revised it a bit – shortening it, doing some modest rearranging of the narrative, and tweaking the title to make it more descriptive and hopefully add some pizzazz. I sent a query letter and brief synopsis to a few companies. The editor from Stackpole was the first I heard from. A couple of weeks later, a staff member from Osprey Publishers asked for more information about it. We’ll see if those notes lead to anything. It was nice to know that the new version piqued a bit of interest.
Lastly, special thanks to the readers who suggested titles for the prospective short story book that I mentioned in the last newsletter. Interestingly, two or three folks mentioned some formulation using “Scrambled Eggs” as a possibility. Here’s where we stand with that. I’ve had a bit of time to research companies that focus on publishing short story anthologies and verses. As some readers noted, few publish mixtures of those genres. I’ll continue to look, but I’m thinking that perhaps the better/wiser approach might be to split the two – a book of short stories and a separate one of verses (which are most often produced in the form of very short publications – often 40 pages or less - called ‘chapbooks’). It’s possible that neither of those will see the light of day, but doing it that way would satisfy those who asked separately and specifically for short stories or poems.
Let’s start to close this down with some quotes that may draw a smile:
My school teacher daughter may especially like this one: it is from a report card quoted in a letter to the London Times. “If ignorance is bliss, this boy is in for a life of undiluted happiness.”
From an evaluation report written about a British officer by his superior in the rating chain:
“Soldiers follow this officer only out of idle curiosity.”
Finally, some TRULY AWFUL PUNS …
What did the Roman say when a lion swallowed his wife? Nothing. He was a gladiator.
The worker had an industrial accident. He fell into an upholstering machine. He’s fully recovered now.
/////
Best always,
Tom
Nita and I hope your Easter will be filled with special moments with friends and family – and, of course, good memories and good food as well. Our dinner tradition (that is, in addition to having way too much) usually involves ham and deviled eggs along with lots of other assorted good stuff. Fortunately for us, the next major holiday isn’t until July, so that gives us a couple of months to work off the excess.
Writing news: March 6 was potentially a banner day in the writing business. The editor of Spank the Carp (an iconic on line magazine that previously published the “Doomsday 3.0” story) advised that the science fiction story “The Chosen One” had been accepted for publication. No word yet on which edition it will appear in, so I don’t know the release date. I’ll keep you posted.
That same day, one of the editorial staff at Stackpole Publications sent a note saying that he was going to take the military history manuscript “Hidden Heroes: America’s Forgotten Military Leaders - Cold War to Present Day” to the company’s editorial board for approval to publish. That was very interesting news. Haven’t heard anything since, so the delay may mean that the board decided against publication.
Whichever way it goes, the note was a bit of a welcome surprise. As I mentioned long, long ago, one of my goals was to write about leaders from each of America’s wars that have done marvelous things on behalf of the country – and to whom we owe enormous debts – yet their contributions have been too little acknowledged and too seldom celebrated. The first two volumes – “In the Shadows of Victory: America’s Forgotten Military Leaders -1776-1878,” and “In the Shadows of Victory II: America’s Forgotten Military Leaders – Spanish-American War to World War II” – were published by Casemate (in 2016 and 2017, respectively). Then, I took what I thought would be a brief break to help a university colleague write “Fire in the North: The Minnesota Uprising and the Sioux War in Dakota Territory” (2018). I had the draft of the third and final book essentially complete when two events intervened and changed the publishing world considerably. The first – especially as related to the British companies that publish a considerable portion of the military history books that make their way to American readers and shelves in American bookstores – was a series of World War II anniversary dates (declaration of War, Battle of Britain, Pearl Harbor, Midway, D-Day, etc, etc.) which induced publishers of military histories to focus more on that conflict and defer publishing other prospective titles.
The second major event was, of course, COVID-19, which significantly impacted publishers around the globe. Considerable numbers of smaller and mid-size companies went out of business while many of the major publishers reduced the sizes of their editorial and marketing staffs. Thus, fewer books were released and the publishing cycle was slowed down for those that were selected for publication. So … the third and final manuscript has been gathering dust for a long time. A few weeks ago, I dug it out and revised it a bit – shortening it, doing some modest rearranging of the narrative, and tweaking the title to make it more descriptive and hopefully add some pizzazz. I sent a query letter and brief synopsis to a few companies. The editor from Stackpole was the first I heard from. A couple of weeks later, a staff member from Osprey Publishers asked for more information about it. We’ll see if those notes lead to anything. It was nice to know that the new version piqued a bit of interest.
Lastly, special thanks to the readers who suggested titles for the prospective short story book that I mentioned in the last newsletter. Interestingly, two or three folks mentioned some formulation using “Scrambled Eggs” as a possibility. Here’s where we stand with that. I’ve had a bit of time to research companies that focus on publishing short story anthologies and verses. As some readers noted, few publish mixtures of those genres. I’ll continue to look, but I’m thinking that perhaps the better/wiser approach might be to split the two – a book of short stories and a separate one of verses (which are most often produced in the form of very short publications – often 40 pages or less - called ‘chapbooks’). It’s possible that neither of those will see the light of day, but doing it that way would satisfy those who asked separately and specifically for short stories or poems.
Let’s start to close this down with some quotes that may draw a smile:
My school teacher daughter may especially like this one: it is from a report card quoted in a letter to the London Times. “If ignorance is bliss, this boy is in for a life of undiluted happiness.”
From an evaluation report written about a British officer by his superior in the rating chain:
“Soldiers follow this officer only out of idle curiosity.”
Finally, some TRULY AWFUL PUNS …
What did the Roman say when a lion swallowed his wife? Nothing. He was a gladiator.
The worker had an industrial accident. He fell into an upholstering machine. He’s fully recovered now.
/////
Best always,
Tom
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