In life, strangeness often seems to compound with additional strangeness, like dominos falling in rapid succession.
The latest strange domino: Inner Workings, the first anthology I’ve had the pleasure of editing, was selected for a special eBundle curated by the Writers of the Future. This is an amazing collection of novels, novellas, and short stories all written by judges and winners the Contest.
For the next few days, you can get all 14 titles at 70% off.
This includes novels by several of my favorite authors, including Orson Scott Card, Keven J. Anderson (who have been killing it with the Dune series!), and Larry Niven. Check out it out here.
There is also a copy of Writers of the Future Volume 37, if you are not familiar with the contest. It was created by L. Ron Hubbard in the early 1980s to help give new authors and illustrators a boost in launching their career. As it is free to enter, and contestants retain the right to their work, it is leading aspiring author completion of its kind.
My first domino in this story
In 2019, while I was training to become a couple and family therapist – itself a strange adventure – I received a phone call from Joni Labaqui, the Writers of the Future Contest Administrator. Rather, I received the phone call from Joni, letting me know I had taken 2nd place in Writers of the Future Vol. 36, Q2, and that I would be going to Hollywood to do many things I had never done before: ride the LA metro, rent a tuxedo, meet Tim Powers, eat at In-N-Out Burger; the works.
I did end up doing all those things, but not before another strange domino fell: COVID-19 shut down the world and our grand WOTF gala was summarily postponed.
Cut to the Fall of 2021 and I’m finally landing in LA, ready to meet not one but two cohorts of WOTF winners (36 & 37)! Not to face one-another in honorable combat for final bragging rights, but to share our writers’ workshop and gala event.
Though almost certainly a logistical nightmare for Galaxy Press, this plan was devised to make up time lost to COVID, and wouldn’t you know it, will now go down as one of the most unique Writers of the Future (WOTF) galas of all time (another strange domino).
Inner Workings anthology (included in the eBundle)
What I wasn’t expecting was to develop such a great group of friends from our prestigious international double cohort, nor that the silly pie-in-the-sky ideas we shared around the hotel pool about starting a small publishing house would ever turn into reality.
And yet here we are, three years later, and our publishing house Calendar of Fools has two successfully funded Kickstarters under our belt, including the forthcoming Intergalactic Rejects, edited by Storm Humbert and publishing authors’ greatest rejected stories, and our first collection, Inner Workings, edited by me.
Inner Workings is a collection of short SFF fiction by WOTF winners and judges, and each story is paired with a craft essay by the author covering a topic close to their story. In other words, audiences will get to read a story and then peek behind the curtain for a conversation with the author about everything from how to write crackling dialogue to managing life and death itself!
Needless to say, the strange dominos keep tumbling!
So far, our collections have focused on the content that brought us together in the first place: the business and craft of writing science fiction and fantasy. Writers of the Future has always been about finding the next generation of great SFF writers and helping them find their voices. Calendar of Fools is a collective of WOTF-winning writing craft nerds who have been through the WOTF program, published in a variety of venues, and want to continue to create space for learning and sharing the what, how, and why of writing SFF.
I am delighted to see Inner Workings included in this fantastic Writers of the Future inspired ebundle – just one more of those dominos I keep going on about.
For fans of SFF who want to know more about how the authors think, or readers with the spark to write something of their own, Inner Workings is a great starting point for entering the world of SFF writing craft, and a perfect match with the other books in the bundle.
Conclusion
Don’t forget to check out the amazing eBundle with 14 novels, novellas and short stories for 70% off: https://www.arcmanorbooks.com/bundle
This eBundle expires at the end of the day on 11 December.
Read, write, and who knows, the next domino might fall for you!
Zack Be is an author, obscure songwriter, and psychotherapist trapped in the Washington, D.C. area gravity well. His fiction has appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Asimov’s Science Fiction, and Writers of the Future Vol. 36. His story “Locus of Control” was the winner of the 2024 Jim Baen Memorial Science Fiction Award, and he is the editor of the Inner Workings anthology, available now from Calendar of Fools. Music from his band Pretty Bitter can be found on all streaming platforms. More info about Zack’s writing and music can be found at <zackbe.com> or anywhere on social media @bezackbe.
