On Writing: I’m kind of a big deal … in South Africa

A couple of Septembers ago,  I submitted to an online horror and SF journal called Something Wicked. Run by actor/director/writer  Joe Vaz, Something Wicked  started out as a quarterly print journal in 2006 and went the way of the Internet in 2011. In 2012, the journal fell on hard times (just after it ran my story, It Pays to Read the Safety Cards -- which became my novel, Leaving Home) and ceased regular publication.

Vaz and company picked themselves back up and started to publish anthologies, the first – Something Wicked, Volume One – in September 2012. Volume Two is slated for an April 2013 release, and my Safety Cards is in there.  

This is where it gets a little weird.  Something Wicked, Vol. 2, is being co-published by eKhaya , a tiny little South African Random House imprint.

           “Joe [Vaz] and Vianne [Venter] have been tireless nurturers of South African and international genre talent for years, and we’re thrilled to have the opportunity to lend our support to this anthology,” wrote Louis Greenberg in an eKhaya press release.
         The anthology will be released as an ebook, with potential for a paperback in later days. You can, however, order a pre-release paperback via Indiegogo.
       What does it mean for me? Hard to tell. Joe paid me for the story two years ago. I guess I’ll get a weird kind of pseudo-international exposure out of the deal, and I’ll have a story in what is shaping up to be a really solid collection. That’s plenty, as far as I’m concerned.
        Still, you know, weird. A story written in New Hampshire gets picked up in a South African anthology, which is paid for by a combination of Random House money and Indiegogo? We live in interesting times.