Hello!

My story "The DSF Rejection Ceremony" just got published by Daily Science Fiction this morning! If you are a visitor from DSF, welcome to this page--I hope you enjoyed the story!

- Ben

New Stories Are Out!

So, if you visit my Published Works page, you may notice that it has expanded a little recently. That’s because my college’s annual arts magazine and Sonder Midwest’s first-ever issue have published, combined, THREE of my short stories! Sonder published “Important Transmission” (probably my most comical presentation of a sci-fi concept to date), while the arts magazine took “Plumber” and “To Write a Story”. I thought I’d discuss those latter two stories here, though, because…the circumstances of their publication were rather interesting.

Here are three of those peculiarities.

First, the fact that my college’s arts magazine took two of my stories is new on me. Normally they only take one—but last year I did get one story and one photo accepted. Other than that, it’s just been one story at a time. I hope this is a good sign for my writing skills and not a bad sign for submission quantity, but whatever the case may be, it’s rather flattering.

…Except that I submitted three stories, and to be honest, the one that didn’t get published was probably my favorite. Oh well. That means I’ll feel better when I submit it elsewhere.

Second, one of the published short stories, specifically “To Write a Story”, won for me my third Short Fiction Award. I didn’t think that was allowed. I’d won it before with “URCARU” in 2015 and “The Longest Three Days” last year, so I was expecting—and OK with—not acquiring it this year. But I guess it is possible. So to all those who may be attending any academic institution with such an arts award (I’ll tell you my college someday, probably after I’ve graduated), I offer this advice: shoot for the fiction award every single year. Don’t expect it every year maybe, but trying for it will at least get you some good stories in your stories folder.

The weirdest detail, though, is probably Detail Number Three.

Third, and I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before, but this semester I’m also a reporter for the college newspaper (but you may never see those articles in “Published Works”—believe it or not, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t writing fiction). I was attending the arts magazine not only to see if any of my stories had made it in, but also to cover the story of the magazine’s release. It was a pretty big anniversary edition, and I volunteered to take the story because I was pretty confident that I wouldn’t have to worry about getting an award.

And then I did. Which was awesome, make no mistake. But what am I supposed to write for my article? I’ll probably have to close it out something like this:

“Even though this reporter won the Short Fiction Award, he would like to reassure you that everything in this article is absolutely true and he didn’t make up any of this.”

Subscriptions and Scientists

Hello, loyal and disloyal readers! Happy Easter, Happy April, Happy whatever-you-happen-to-be-celebrating-at-this-moment (maybe the arrival of this blog post, I don't know). Anyway, I thought I'd kick off this month with a few updates.

First is this font size. I think it's more readable, but as I'm writing this it's causing me some formatting headaches. We'll see if it works.

Second, off to the left of this page, you may have noticed a couple of extra features on the “SIDEBAR OF MANY THINGS.” That’s right; after nearly TWO YEARS of blog authorship, I have finally added a “Blog Search” gadget and—probably more importantly—a Subscribe-By-Email gadget. Now you can receive blog update notifications directly to your email address, and in return I promise to spam your account. Again, these posts are published merely twice a month, and I tend to hold all important news until those posts come out.

Third, according to sources I found after a brief Google search, April is the National Month of Inventors, Humor, and Pets. What better way to celebrate that than with Lab Rules, my Monday-Wednesday-Friday cartoon blog that features inventors, humor, and…sort-of pets? Plus, I’m looking into finally installing a “Subscribe” gadget on there as well (and that blog has been online for nearly SIX years). Bit of an oversight on the part of my editor.

Also, as long as you’re checking out Lab Rules, be sure to admire the new poster I’ve put on my blog’s page. Its predecessor was getting kind of old.

That’s all I have for now. Tune in next time for…well, I don’t know really. We’ll find out. You will definitely find out if you subscribe.