New Ebook Collection from Nancy Jane Moore

Book View Cafe has just released my ebook collection of very short stories, Flashes of Illumination. These 52 stories include everything from slipstream to science fiction to fantasy to memoir.

As with all Book View Cafe ebooks, this one is DRM-free and comes in a variety of formats so that it can be read on all reading devices. It costs $2.99.

Book View Cafe Anthology for Oil Spill Fund

Book View Cafe has just released an anthology to help raise money for the Gulf Coast Oil Spill Fund. The book is called Breaking Waves, and it includes an essay by Rachel Carson in addition to fiction, memoirs, and poetry from Ursula K. Le Guin, Vonda N. McIntyre, and many others. The anthology was edited by Phyllis Irene Radford and Tiffany Trent, and is available as a DRM-free e-book in several formats for $4.99 at Book View Cafe.

Nancy Jane Moore Reading in Austin

I'll be reading Friday night Jan. 29 as one of the winners of the Five Things New Year stories contest. The reading is in Austin at the United States Art Authority, 510 W. 29th St., and starts at 7:30. It costs a buck to get in, and -- this being Austin -- there will also be music.

Just after I finished my 50th short-short for my year-long Flash Fiction Project on Book View Cafe -- links to all the stories here -- I saw the notice for this contest. And even though I'd sworn that I was taking a break from writing short, I couldn't resist. After all, when you've spent a year coming up with a weekly flash fiction, you start to think of that task as something you do, and do well.

So I entered, and I won, along with four other Austin-area writers: CJ Hallman, Jack Boettcher, Tyler Stoddard Smith, and Jimmy Dawson. We're all reading, and there will be music by The Baker Family Band, Morris Orchids, Cartographers, and Bethany Bauman.

If you are in or near Austin this Friday, come by and check us out.

The End of the Flash Fiction Project

I've spent the last year publishing a flash fiction (almost) every week on Book View Cafe. On Thursday (Dec. 10) I reach Number 50. It seems like a good place to stop.

Making sure I had a story ready to go up every week was quite a challenge. I thought I'd written quite a few very short stories, but it didn't take me long to go through all the reprints and the little gems I'd written that never found a home, which left me confronting a weekly fiction deadline.

I cheated a little. After awhile, I decided the upper limit could be 2,000 words, which gave me a few more reprints. Then I raided the personal stories I developed for oral storytelling and came up with something I called "flash memoir." I even posted a poem.

But I also wrote a lot of stories. At least half the stories in the series were brand new the week they were published, and a lot of the others were old ideas significantly reworked.

On the whole, I'm really happy with what I produced. I don't think all the stories are great, but some of them are real gems that I'm extremely proud of writing.

I don't think I'm going to do this again, though. It took up a lot of time -- I've been reminded forcefully that the length of a story doesn't necessarily correlate with the amount of work involved. And I've got a pile of ideas that need more than 2000 words to develop.

The stories will remain up on Book View Cafe for the time being. You can find links to all 50 here. They're in reverse order, with the newest one -- "An Oral History of Ceres: Lyda Gambon" -- on top, and the first one -- "The English Major's Revenge" (a homage to The Day the Earth Stood Still) -- at the bottom.

Book View Cafe Hits 1,000 Members

Book View Cafe, the online professional authors' cooperative, now has 1,000 registered reader/members and we're celebrating with cheers and giveaways. Of course, you can also celebrate by signing up and/or reading our fiction. New work is posted every day.

Aqueduct Press authors participating in Book View Cafe include Sylvia Kelso, Sue Lange, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Nancy Jane Moore.

An Update on Book View Cafe

By Nancy Jane Moore

Book View Cafe is moving right along. We've been putting up new fiction every day since we opened, so there's plenty available to read and more being added all the time.

I'm posting a "flash" fiction (short-short story, sudden fiction, etc.) every week on Thursdays. This week's offering is "Thirty-One Rules for Fulfilling Your Destiny," a story that was originally published in my collection, Conscientious Inconsistencies. For those of you who haven't bought a copy of the collection, here's an opportunity to read one of the stories for free and see if you want to buy the book.

Though the story isn't typical of the other stories in the book, since it's an epic tale (fantasy or science fiction, depending on how you read it) told in 31 aphorisms. Some writers have told me they find it inspirational, a number of people have giggled enough for me to figure out that it's funny, and I personally would like to think it's profound, though that's probably just the aphorisms talking.

Of course, if you're an Aqueduct reader, you'll want to get the whole book for the wonderful introduction by Timmi Duchamp!

The Book View Cafe blog is also drawing a lot of readers, most recently to read Vonda N. McIntyre's thoughts on writing Star Trek novels. Twenty plus writers can generate a lot of wildly diverse blog posts, so there's something on the blog for everyone.

Don't neglect your Aqueduct blog reading -- I'm currently awed by Lucy Sussex's essay on the Australian Fires, "Dresden, With Eucalypts" and still thinking about what Cat Rambo had to say in "YACAP."

Nancy Jane Moore on Long Ridge Writer's Group

Nancy Jane Moore is the Professional Connection guest this week -- December 8-13 -- on the Long Ridge Writer's Group Post-a-Note page. She'll be answering questions about Book View Cafe and the future of publishing, as well as giving writers some career advice. Odds are she'll talk about feminist science fiction at some point, too.

If you register on the site, you can pester her with questions.

Book View Cafe: A New Venture in Online Publishing

By Nancy Jane Moore

Do you find yourself running out of good fiction to read? Book View Cafe is the solution to your problem!

Book View Cafe is a brand new (we're still arranging the furniture) online source for fiction from 21 writers, including Ursula K. Le Guin, Vonda N. McIntyre, and Aqueduct authors Sue Lange and Nancy Jane Moore.

Book View Cafe has everything from flash fiction to novels, and we include many genres, though we're heaviest on science fiction and fantasy. Most of the content is free, but some authors will also be offering expanded work, subscriptions, print versions, and additional content for a fee.

Right now I'll be posting a new free flash fiction every Sunday -- with an occasional longer story thrown in just to keep you on your toes. My first story, "The English Major's Revenge," debuted Sunday, Nov. 16.

We have a companion blog to the site and it will be updated daily, too. My regular blog posting day is Sunday. Here's my first post: my opinions on flash fiction.

Book View Cafe writers are all professionals with lots of print publishing credits. We just want to widen our publishing horizons.

The authors are:

Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff
Brenda Clough
Katie Daniel
Laura Anne Gilman
Christie Golden
Anne Harris
Sylvia Kelso
Katharine Eliska Kimbriel
Sue Lange
Ursula K. Le Guin
Rebecca Lickiss
Vonda N. McIntyre
Nancy Jane Moore
Pati Nagle
Darcy Pattison
Irene Radford
Madeleine Robins
Amy Sterling
Jennifer Stevenson
Susan Wright
Sarah Zettel

Come by and check us out.