This month, #TorChat is talking about short stories, with two premier editors and one award-winning short story author. Joining us on May 16th from 4 to 5 PM EST are Ann VanderMeer, Jeff VanderMeer, and Mary Robinette Kowal!
Tor Books (@torbooks) is thrilled to announce the May #TorChat, part of a monthly series of genre-themed, hour-long chats created by Tor Books and hosted on Twitter.
#TorChat has been going on for over a year now (where did the time go?!), and we realized that we’ve spent most of our time talking about novels. We love novels, don’t get us wrong, but we thought it was time to give a little love to short stories by chatting with two of the premier anthology editors out there, as well as an award-winning short story writer. Ann VanderMeer (@AnnVanderMeer) and Jeff VanderMeer (@jeffvandermeer) are a husband-and-wife team who have, between them, won a Hugo Award (Ann) and a World Fantasy Award (Jeff), and has edited anthologies such as Best American Fantasy, Steampunk, The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities, and most recently, The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories. Jeff is also an accomplished novelist, with his most recent novel, Finch, receiving a nomination for Best Novel for the 2010 World Fantasy Award.
Joining them will be Mary Robinette Kowal (@maryrobinette), who in addition to Shades of Milk and Honey and Glamour in Glass has written a variety of short fiction. Her short story “For Want of a Nail” won the Hugo Award in 2011, and this year her novella “Kiss Me Twice” is a finalist for the Nebula, Hugo, and Locus awards. She’s also a cohost on the podcast “Writing Excuses,” with Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Howard Taylor, and Jordan Sanderson. Mary knows her way in and out of the online world as well as the world of short fiction, so we thought she’d be the perfect choice to chat with the VanderMeers about editing anthologies, short fiction, and the digital world.
The chat will be loosely moderated by Tor Digital Marketing Manager Cassandra Ammerman (@leanoir). We hope that short fiction fans, as well as fans of the VanderMeers and Mary Robinette Kowal, will follow the chat and join in using the Twitter hashtag #TorChat!
About the Authors
ANN VANDERMEER and JEFF VANDERMEER are both active teachers who have taught at the Clarion and Odyssey writing workshops and the teen summer camp Shared Worlds, where Jeff serves as the assistant director. Ann VanderMeer is a Hugo Award-winner, and Jeff VanderMeer has won the World Fantasy Award. They have recently co-edited such anthologies as Best American Fantasy; Best American Fantasy 2; Steampunk; Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded; The New Weird; Last Drink Bird Head; Fast Ships, Black Sails; and The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities. They are the co-authors of The Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals: The Evil Monkey Dialogues.
Jeff’s latest books include Finch, a World Fantasy and Nebula Award-finalist; the short story collection The Third Bear; the non-fiction collection Monstrous Creatures; the coffee table book The Steampunk Bible (co-authored with S. J. Chambers); and the writing guide Booklife. Ann is the editor-in-chief of Weird Tales magazine, the oldest fantasy magazine in the world, and is a regular contributor to the popular science fiction and fantasy web-site io9. Together, they have been profiled by National Public Radio and online at Wired.com and the New York Times’s Arts Beat blog. They live in Tallahassee, Florida, with too many books and four cats. Their most recent anthology is The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories.
MARY ROBINETTE KOWAL was the 2008 recipient of the Campbell Award for Best New Writer and a Hugo winner for her story “For Want of a Nail.” Her short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Asimov’s, and several Year’s Best anthologies. Mary is an active member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and currently serves on the board of directors as vice president. A professional puppeteer and voice actor, Mary grew up in North Carolina and spent twenty years as a professional puppeteer, including several national tours. She recently moved to Chicago with her husband, Rob, their cats, and over a dozen manual typewriters. Her most recent novel, Glamour in Glass, was published in April.
About #Torchat
#TorChat is a genre-themed, hour-long chat series created by Tor Books and hosted on Twitter. Guest authors join fans in lively, informative and entertaining discussions of all that’s hot in genre fiction, 140 characters at a time, from 4 – 5 PM EST on the third Wednesday of every month. Each #TorChat revolves around a different genre topic of interest, often of a timely nature, and strives to provide a new media opportunity for readers to connect with their favorite authors.
About Tor Books
Tor Books, an imprint of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, is a New York-based publisher of hardcover and softcover books. Founded in 1980, Tor annually publishes what is arguably the largest and most diverse line of science fiction and fantasy ever produced by a single English-language publisher. In 2002, Tor launched Starscape, an imprint dedicated to publishing quality science fiction and fantasy for young readers, including books by critically acclaimed and award winning authors such as Cory Doctorow, Orson Scott Card, and David Lubar. Between an extensive hardcover and trade-softcover line, an Orb backlist program, and a stronghold in mass-market paperbacks, books from Tor have won every major award in the SF and fantasy fields, and has been named Best Publisher 24 years in a row in the Locus Poll, the largest consumer poll in SF.
