Through icy weather I walked the two miles to Chester city centre to the Bear & Billet public house. This black & white original Tudor pub is where Chester Writers meet monthly.  I’ve been attending irregularly for five years, but some have been reading and critiquing there for decades. An eclectic group, we have a Christmas cake mix of newbies, journalists, poets, published authors and then there’s me. Last night a member sent us rolling around laughing as she read out letters she received when she was an Agony Aunt on a San Fransisco newspaper in the 1960s. Others read poems and one read an extract from her novel-in-progress based on the 1700s Ladies of Llangollen. That will be a great novel. I might have helped a wee bit by pointing out where she could add smells to the reader’s experience. So many writers forget to engage all the readers’ senses in their work, and I have to keep reminding myself.

And so it was my turn. I decided to read my 1600 word fantasy short story, Witch’s Alien. The story came from the title, which came from a random title generator. Immediately, my brain warped into action – witch and alien, what a great combination! It had been critiqued already by members of the BSFA and Cafe Doom, but I wanted to test reactions at this 3-D group.  When the group realized what a laid-back quiet man I was, they asked me to remove my hearing aids. This trick makes me talk louder! Hah. I also removed my specs – all the better to read my story. All went well until page 2. My eye caught a pronoun, ‘his’, referring to the incorrect subject of that sentence. Ah. How could that have sneaked by all those crit groups? While my eyes and mouth continued reading, my brain, independently corrected the sentences and bookmarked it in memory to be sorted later. By the time I had to turn the page I realized I’d no idea how I’d read the rest of that page!

I thought it would take six minutes, and it probably did, butI couldn’t wait to grab my pen and do the correction at the end. After I used my teacher’s experience to emphasise and change voices in the reading I reached The End. A little applause and a few gasps, and congratulations came over. Umm, no one else noticed the pronoun error. Maybe it didn’t matter, except to me, although I couldn’t help thinking of my editor friend, Allan Guthrie, who would have pounced on it immediately!

It wasn’t until we were outside that my old colleague from teaching at Queens Park High School, came up to me and said: “Geoff, that was horrible. It made me feel sick.”

Oops. But then I thought, hey, it was a mix of fantasy, sci fi AND horror. So I thanked her for telling me the horror element was a success! If the story was bland and they happyclapped it, I would have failed. My next mission is to induce vomiting at the reading in January! Hah.

At home I corrected the pronoun and submitted the story to a magazine that publishes horror, fantasy and science fiction. Only five months to wait for a response. In the meantime if anyone wants to read it, drop me your e-mail.

I gave out flyers for EV mag including call for stories, poems and articles as well as a suggestion they buy a copy! Sales of Escape Velocity magazine are picking up. I was told by a Newcastle pal that his family are buying them for Christmas presents – so come on folks before the season is over. Buy it here.

Escape Velocity

Wow, what a week. Besides attending a friend’s book launch – see yesterday’s blog for Brian Lux’s Loppy Lugs; my birthday on Monday, my daughter’s birthday tomorrow; I have the pleasure of co-launching Escape Velocity. This is the first science fiction magazine I’ve co-edited. For over a year Robert Blevins in Seattle, USA and me in Chester, UK have swapped multiple e-mails daily over stories to accept or reject, articles, interviews, poems, images, page formatting, printers, prices and much more. Odd because I’d breakfast while tapping at my e-mails while Robert reciprocated at his supper time. A truly cross-planet cooperation.  The focus was to provide a vehicle for mostly unknown but talented writers of hard science fiction. It is a learning process for us, but we hope the magazine is the first of many. It will probably lose us money as most magazines do in their early issues, but we are exhilirated by the process and good wishes for its success.

There are at least three scoops I am delighted with for this issue #1.

1 – I spent a day with contemporary master science fiction author, Jon Courtenay Grimwood at last years Annual Writers’ Conference in Winchester and I’ve distilled a flavour of his wisdom in an article in this issue.

2 – Maria Ayres (a friend I made through Jessie Lilley in Hollywood) works at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Maryland. She runs the payroll for the guys and gals running the Hubble orbiting telescope! So I persuaded her to spend her precious time writing an article on what it is like rubbing shoulders with real astronauts and other insights such as what is going on with the new James Webb telescope. Terrific stuff.

3 – I’m not much of a poet, but I’ve always admired the lateral-thinking output from Magdalena Ball, and she kindly allowed us to use one of her powerful poems from her Quark Soup collection. Thanks, Maggie, for widening our hard-nosed sci fi into poetry.

You must know a family member who loves science fiction. Christmas is coming so grab them a copy or three of Escape Velocity here.

Yesterday I had a birthday party! I’m 60 tomorrow on Guy Fawkes day, November 5th. Although my family suggested a huge party they went along with my wishes to celebrate by going for a family hike instead.  I’ve always wanted to nip up the summit of Cheshire’s Teggs Nose, but we didn’t do that. Sadly Cheshire blessed us with continuous drizzle for a couple of hours as an ana Cold front passed over us, so we hiked through the trails of Macclesfield Forest instead. Quite brilliant – none of us had been there before and I can recommend it.

Escape Velocity has nearly escaped into the public doman. I’ve been proud to be involved in a brand new science fiction magazine to be published by Adventure Books of Seattle. Owner Robert Blevins and I have spent months sifting through submitted short stories, articles and poems, along with images and undertaking interviews. My favourite article of mine is one on Jon Courtenay Grimwood. I’d spent a day with him last summer at the Annual Writers’ Conference in Winchester, UK. He had led the day’s workshop on ‘Losing the Clichés in Science Fiction.’ He was filling in for literary agent, John Jarrold, who although declined to represent me and my Left Luggage trilogy, is a fine chap. In our new magazine are the pearls of wisdom Jon bestowed on the lucky few who attended the course. I’ve been on many writers’ course and Jon’s insights into the writer’s view of publishing, agents, anticipated trends and techniques make this article essential reading for any aspiring sci fi writer.

Just by chance I know Maria, who works at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Maryland. Her finance career at the NASA-related institute involves her rubbing shoulders with real astronauts. and being among the first people to see the fascinating images from Hubble and soon, the new James Webb orbiting telescope. She’s written a fine article for our first issue of Escape Velocity.

Besides the articles we have great short stories from over a dozen authors, and we’re proud to be the vehicle for some fine debut stories. I’m delighted to say, too, that the marvelous writer, Magdelena Ball has treated us to a poem excerpt from her Quark Soup collection.

As soon as EV is ready for sale I’ll let you know.