Barry Malzberg in Writers' Heaven

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One of Barry Malzberg's most delightful creations was Writers' Heaven, which he chronicled in four short stories. In a bespoke neighborhood of Heaven designed explicitly for Great Writers, former scribblers drink, squabble, brawl, steal each other's lovers, and have long conversations in bars. They behave, in short, exactly as they did on Earth, with one notable exception--they no longer have any desire whatsoever to write. That's what makes it Heaven.

The narrator of these stories was an author who was convinced he'd been squeaked in by some bookkeeping error, because he's painfully aware that he's not of a class with Hemingway or Mark Twain. In an interview, Barry identified the narrator as Damon Runyon. But the narrative voice didn't sound anything like Runyon's and a lot like Barry's. So it's possible to make a shrewd guess who he really is.

I was talking with Barry and Mike Resnick--they were famously good friends--and Barry told me that "Mike speaks with the authority of success and I speak with the authority of failure." Barry tried hard to make it as a mainstream writer before wandering into science fiction and then strove mightily to make it as an SF writer with only middling results. His vision was too bleak, too unrelenting for the mass audience. His critical writings were astute but collectively earned him a reputation as a prophet of doom. He never received the awards, the acclaim, the recognition that he obviously yearned for.

And yet. His passing is mourned by many, many writers--and, I would argue, writers of the best sort. The ones you hope would mourn your passing, when your time comes. He was the best of company, had a dry, mordant wit, and genuinely loved science fiction. And he wrote extremely well when the mood was on him. 

Tonight, I will haul out The Man Who Loved the Midnight Lady, which is perhaps my favorite of his collections, and spend some time with the man. 

And Barry? He's at the bar in Writers' Heaven, telling anybody who will listen that he squeaked in, probably because of a bookkeeping error. All his peers and heroes are there, his pal Mike Resnick among them, and not a one of them believes him. But they listen to him anyway.

Because, like all great writers, he's also a great talker.

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The Parable of the Creche

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It's almost Christmas! So, in one of the most venerable traditions of this blog, I present my yearly seasonal story . . .

The Parable of the Creche

by Michael Swanwick

When first I came to Roxborough, over forty years ago, the creche was already a tradition of long standing. Every year it appeared in Gorgas Park during the Christmas season. It wasn't all that big--maybe seven feet high at the tip of the roof--nor was it very fancy. The figures of Joseph and Mary, the Christ Child, and the animals were a couple of feet tall at most, and there were sheets of Plexiglas over the front of the wooden structure to keep people from walking off with them. But there was a painted backdrop of the hills of Bethlehem at night, the floor was strewn with real straw, and the neighborhood folk genuinely loved it.

It was a common thing to see people standing before the creche, especially at night, admiring it. Sometimes parents brought their small children to see it for the first time and the wonder they then displayed was genuinely moving. It provided a welcome touch of seasonality and community to the park.

Alas, Gorgas Park is public property, and it was only a matter of time before somebody complained that the creche violated the principle of separation of church and state. When the complaint finally came, the creche was taken out of the park and put in storage.

People were upset, of course. Nobody likes seeing a beloved tradition die. There was a certain amount of grumbling and disgruntlement. One might even say disgrumblement.

So the kindly folks of Leverington Presbyterian Church, located just across the street from Gorgas Park, stepped in. They adopted the creche and put it up in the yard in front of their church, where it could be seen and enjoyed by all.

But did this make us happy? It did not. The creche was just not the same located in front of a church. It seemed lessened, in some strange way, made into a prop for the Presbyterians. You don't see people standing in front of it anymore.

I was in a local tappie shortly after the adoption and heard one of the barflies holding forth on this very subject:

"The god-damned Christians," he said, "have hijacked Christmas."

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FIVE E-Books Super Sale! One Day Only!

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Okay, this is kind of refreshing. So far as I can guess, Open Road Media, makes most of its sales of my e-books on a variety of sales promotions. Today, I got a notice from them of five promotions, two of them Canada only, and three US only. It's good to see Canada as a peer of the US, as opposed to "and also in Canada."

Anyway, if you like e-books. And if you'd like to buy one of mine. And your dwelling-place and your desire overlap in the Venn diagram of this offer . . .

Well, here's your chance.

You'll never get a softer sell than that.

Friday, December 6, one day only, $1.99 only. Here's the grid they gave me:

ISBN13	Title	Author	Promo Type	Country	Start Date	End Date	Promo Price
9781504036467	Bones of the Earth	Swanwick, Michael	ORM - 1K Sale Weekly	US	2024-12-06	2024-12-06	$1.99
9781504025669	The Iron Dragon's Daughter	Swanwick, Michael	ORM - Rank Boost	CA	2024-12-06	2024-12-13	$2.99
9781504036511	Tales of Old Earth	Swanwick, Michael	ORM - Rank Boost	CA	2024-12-06	2024-12-13	$1.99
9781504036474	In the Drift	Swanwick, Michael	ORM - Rank Boost	US	2024-12-06	2024-12-13	$1.99
9781504036481	Jack Faust	Swanwick, Michael	ORM - Rank Boost	US	2024-12-06	2024-12-13	$1.99

Above: I swiped the graphic from Reactor, which used to be Tor.com. I'm sure they won't mind. Under both names, they've published a lot of my short fiction, which you can still find at Reactormag.com. You should go there and poke around. They've got a lot of cool stuff, all free.

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Ray Ridenour, Artist and Fan

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My friend Ray Ridenour died the other day, after a long illness, the details of which I know nothing about. But it helps explain why I hadn't seen him at conventions for far too many years. It was typical of him that he kept his illness from so many of his friends. H wouldn't have wanted to distress us.

Ray was an artist, a fan, and an eccentric. Even more so than most of the rest of us, I mean. He came by it honestly. His father was a psychiatrist at St. Elizabeth's Hospital and as a boy Ray used to play tennis with Ezra Pound. His normal was not like yours and mine.

Like most artists, Ray had a day job. He spent twenty-three years as a graphic artist for the City of Baltimore before going freelance. His art was all over the place. He created window displays, newspaper illustrations, posters, portraits, and abstract paintings. A stained-glass window he made, of a Tyrannosaurus rex, was displayed at Dinofest.

He also took an image from a photo shoot by Joanne Burke of Gregory Frost, Tim Sullivan, Gardner Dozois, and me and turned it into a poster for The Back Page Boys, "the Original Boy Band of the 20th Century." Which, out of nowhere, he gave to its four principals. It's hung on my office wall for decades. One week ago, Joanne came to our house for a party and was astonished to see it--Ray hadn't thought to ask permission to use her image.

Which is so typical of Ray: enthusiastic, generous, and just a little oblivious. There never was anybody quite like him.

And now he's gone. 

Vayos con dios, my friend. I'm sure the afterlife is much livelier for your presence.

And because I know . . . 

You're dying to see it. So here it is, Ray's Back Page Boys poster:

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A Cynical Little Story

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I was working on a group of stories about the Moon the other night, and this one wrote itself onto the page. It wasn't appropriate to the project, however, so I had to cast it out.  

Rather than leave it in the Graveyard of Flash Fiction that is my hard drive, I thought I'd share this one with you.

I must caution, however that it is very sexually implicit.

Traditional Romance Moon

I shouldn't be out here with you. Not with the sky so thronged with stars and the moon so, you know, big and bright. Not with the thoughts I'm thinking. My mother would be scandalized. She'd wash out my mind with soap. I'm not sure how that would work. But I'm certain she'd try. So I really. I. Really I shouldn't.

Oh. Yes, it is. Full, I mean. The moon.

My father thinks so too. That you're bad for me, I mean. He doesn't know you the way I do. All he thinks about is money and jobs and things like that. So of course he disapproves. Of you, I mean.

I don't think I've ever seen the moon so large as it is now.

No, really I shouldn't. What if we? If we? You know. We?

Oh, yes.

Yes.

Stop that. Stop that right now. Look at the moon. Isn't it beautiful? Honestly, it is. I mean, for real.

Now, is that helping anything? You should.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh, my goodness. Oh. Ahhh. Oh.

That was nice. Did you like too? That was nice. Of course, we'll have to get married now.

Now don't look at me like that. You knew what the consequences would be when you did it. When we did it. I tried to stop you.  And it was nice, wasn't it? You know it was. It can be nice again. After, you know, the ceremony.

Right now, look at the moon. Isn't it wonderful? Isn't it perfect? Don't you just want it to stay this way forever?

 

Above: Photo courtesy of NASA.

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One Last Farewell to Tim Sullivan

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So Tim Sullivan and I are, back in the early eighties, intensely browsing the science fiction paperback section of a bookstore when the young woman running the place comes up and brightly asks, "Are you interested in science fiction?"

Tim kind of shuffles his feet and, looking down at them, says, "Not really."

"Don't let him kid you!" I say. "This is Tim Sullivan, the famous science fiction writer. You may or may not have his books in stock, but you've definitely sold a lot of them."

"Really!" the clerk says, and addressing him directly, "How did you decide to become a science fiction writer?"

"Well," Tim replies, "I'm not any good with my hands and I don't have any talent for music or art, so..."

And now you know why you probably have never heard of this good man.

The last time I saw Timothy R. Sullivan was at Gardner Dozois's funeral. He had lost a little weight and shaved off his unfortunate mustache and, to everyone's surprise, it turned out that he was handsome. Not that that mattered to anyone when he and Gregory Frost shared rooms just off Brown Street. They two and Gardner Dozois and I were the beating heart of science fiction in Philly back then. We were, in the parlance of Saturday Night Live, "wild and crazy guys."

So the news that Tim died recently, of congestive heart failure, leaves me mourning not only him but a time in my life when we were all undiscovered geniuses only a matter of months away from the astonished recognition and accolades of a grateful world.

Old people like to say that youth is wasted on the young.  They're full of it. We all had great fun, great plans, and a heartfelt appreciation of how lucky we were to have such friends as each other. Somewhere in there, we managed to write a lot of worthwhile fiction.

Tim was a solid writer. He was a finalist for the Nebula Award. And he and I collaborated on a story, "Fantasies," which, it must be admitted, was not much of a much. He had a good start on a writing career when he veered into movies, acting in Somtow Sucharitkul's The Laughing Dead and co-writing and starring in Twilight of the Dogs, both ultra-low budget endeavors. He moved to California and then to Florida, focused on scriptwriting, and we fell out of touch. I regret that.

Rather than mope about the loss of someone who was a very good friend (we had lunch together when our friendship was new and when Tim objected to me picking up the check, I said, "Be honest. You're a writer, a creator. Don't you honestly feel that the world owes you a living?" Tim thought about it and replied, "Yes." I got out my wallet and said, "I've been authorized by the world to say: Fuck you. You're lucky to get a sandwich"), I would like to celebrate those days when we all knew we were the best thing about to happen to literature ever.

And you know what? I am authorized by the world to say we were.

Rest in peace, Tim. You never got your just deserts. But maybe nobody ever does.

Above, l-r: Gregory Frost, Gardner Dozois, Tim Sullivan, John Kessel (not a Philadelphian, but visiting), and me, mugging for the camera. Those were the days.

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One-Day E-Book Sale of Vacuum Flowers

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Once again, one of my e-books will briefly be on sale! Vacuum Flowers will be available in the US for only $1.99. Here's the news from Open Road Media:

Hello,

We are pleased to let you know that the following ebook(s) will be featured in price promotions soon.

ISBN13	Title	Author	Promo Type	Country	Start Date	End Date	Promo Price
9781504036504	Vacuum Flowers	Swanwick, Michael	ORM - Portalist NL	US	2024-11-13	2024-11-13	$1.99

Open Road will promote the feature via social media. We hope you can share the deal with your network as well. You can subscribe to the newsletters at the links below so that you will get the direct link to the deal on the day that it appears.

Newsletter	Link
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Please let us know if you have any questions. We are thrilled to be part of this promotion; hope you are too!

Best,
The Open Road Editorial Team

And because you've probably wondered . . .

I've been asked this many times, but the answer is no: I don't have a nude drawing of Gardner Dozois hanging in my living room. It's in the upstairs hallway. Anyway, he's wearing a sheet, so much of him is covered.

Robert Walters posed Gardner as the evil genius Jonaman for one of the illos (back when SF magazines had illustrations) that went with the serialization of Vacuum Flowers in Asimov's, way back when.

It's not the sightliest picture. But it is treasured.

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