Much traffic in and out of my mailbox these days.
Nerve didn't take the essay I sent them, "Supercalifornication," but I did end up getting a phone call from them. Isabella Robertson, one of their editors, was hoping I was actually still a missionary, and that I could comment on missionary attitudes toward the missionary position in an interview for their week-long "Missionary Position" issue. She was disappointed to discover that I wasn't even a Mormon anymore, but I did try to tell her how she might go about meeting real Mormon missionaries. [Excerpts from her eventual interview with a teacher at the Missionary Training Center can be found in the quickie article "Mission Impossible." Free registration required.]
In a subsequent email exchange, I offered to write, on spec, a 2000-word piece on missionary attitudes toward sex. She agreed, but I had to have it in within 30 hours or so if it was going to be considered for the "Missionary Position" issue. So I wrote up an article called "The Missionary Imposition" and emailed it off. Never heard back. (Hopefully I still will, though even if they take the new article it's way too late for inclusion in the special issue.)
I got my Atlantic Monthly rejection for "The Fanatic in the Street" just yesterday. Still considering where to send that one next.
"The Two Towers," my short story, came back from Ellen Datlow's ghost anthology, so I figured what the hell and sent that right back out to Playboy. "Sparkler" came back from Asimov's with a note that said, "Nicely done, as usual, but it's not for us." I sent that straight out to Ellen Datlow for Sci Fiction. Other stories still out include "Immaculate," a horror story now at The New Yorker; "An Extraterrestrial Perspective on the Temptations of Christ," a science-fiction story now at the British magazine Interzone; and "Timesink," which is still at F&SF. (It's a science-fictional ghost story, so if it comes back I'll send it to Ellen for her anthology and keep my fingers crossed.)
The most encouraging news lately, though, is that Jim Frenkel of Tor Books (and pardon me if you've learned this from ❦shunn already) has asked my agent to send him both my books, Missionary Man and Silvertide. We've been talking to him for sometime now about the novel—and in fact Jim's first question upon seeing me at the Nebula Awards was, "When will I see that book of yours?"—but to have piqued his interest in the memoir as well is a terrific feeling. Of course, I think I owe much of it to █████, who served as press agent par excellence over the Nebula weekend. Thank you, angel!
