David D. LevineScience Fiction Author

At the moment we are at Potlatch in Seattle. So far we have had a delightful Chinese dinner with Janna Silverstein and Jack Bell, dim sum with Allen Baum and Donya White, and vegetarian Thai with Liz Argall and Julie and Greg Sardo. I also participated on a panel about “Writing the Other” with Ellen Klages and Nisi Shawl and hung out and talked with a bunch of other cool people.

We also spotted the May 2010 issue of Analog, containing my story “Teaching the Pig to Sing,” at a Seattle magazine shop. My name’s on the cover! (Yes, as far as the magazines are concerned it is now May. If you want a copy, run down to your local newsstand before June arrives at the beginning of April. This issue will also be available as an e-book in a variety of formats but I don’t know when.)

The video of my Ignite Portland talk has been posted on YouTube:

Someone accidentally opened a fire door at the beginning of my talk, causing a loud alarm buzzer. This made me really flustered and I flubbed some of my lines (like calling the Viking rover Voyager and forgetting where Bianca came from) but I did manage to recover once the noise stopped. Everyone said I handled the interruption really well.

Many people in the audience were on Twitter and you can see some of their comments here. The Mars Society’s Director of Operations called it “a very inspirational talk” and says she will be including it in the training videos for future crews.

You can see all 20 talks from Ignite Portland 8 on YouTube. My favorites are Why Wikipedians are the Weirdest People on the Internet and The Beginner’s Guide to Psychiatric Hospitalization.

I also participated in a group discussion on Laptop Magazine‘s blog about Which Technology Makes You Feel Like You’re Living In The Future?. Go over there, read it, and if you like it leave a comment. There may be more of these “Burning Question” discussions in the future if there’s sufficient response.

Having driven myself to a frazzle with rehearsing all day, I’m just heading out the door for Ignite Portland right now. If you’re coming, bring a nonperishable food donation. If not, you can watch it live — I’ll be appearing in the second half of the show. Wish me luck!

I wrote 500 words yesterday, and 500 words the day before, which is the first fiction I’ve committed this year. Nearly two months of writing time sacrificed on the altar of Mars, but I think it’s a decent tradeoff given the learning and publicity I’ve gotten out of it. Still, it’s good to get back to the actual writing, though I don’t think I’ll be producing any words today.

Although I haven’t been writing much lately, my little paper children are still out there in the world working on my behalf. In summary:

• My nonfiction essay “How the Future Predicts Science Fiction” appeared in the final (alas!) issue of The Internet Review of Science Fiction. This essay is based on the talk I gave at the Library of Congress last year.
• The audio version of my story “Wind from a Dying Star” was podcast at Escape Pod. It’s also available on iTunes. This story was my first professional sale (it originally appeared in the anthology Bones of the World, which is amazingly still available) and I’m still proud of it.
• There’s a fascinating discussion of “Wind from a Dying Star” going on in the Escape Pod forums. I’m particularly touched by comment #17, from user Mobius04, which says of this story: “Know that you helped change one soldier’s life for the better.” (Go read the whole thing.)
• On the same day “Wind from a Dying Star” appeared, I sold another story to Escape Pod: “The Last McDougal’s,” which originally appeared in the January 2006 issue of Asimov’s.
• I learned that Fangs for the Mammaries, including my story “Family Matters,” will be published in September. Rich Horton liked my stories in the previous two volumes of this series.
• Finally, the expanded version of Wild Cards Volume One, including my story “Powers,” is scheduled for November.

I had a great interview on KATU-TV this morning and it is already available online!

My previous TV appearance is stil available, if you haven’t seen it.

I think this may be the end of my 15 minutes of fame, for this round at least.  I’ll let you know if I get any more media attention.

I just received the following email from the folks at Drabblecast (http://www.drabblecast.org):

From: The Folks at Drabblecast
Date: February 25, 2010 12:26:38 AM PST
To: David D. Levine
Subject: Drabblecast People’s Choice Award 2009: Babel Probe by David D. Levine!

David,
Not sure if you were even aware of this, but your story, Babel Probe made the top 5 in the Drabblecast People’s Choice Awards.  Out of all the stories we ran last year- listeners in our discussion forums voted for their favorites, and the top 5 were:
Clown Eggs by Jay Lake
Annabelle’s Alphabet by Tim Pratt
Teddy Bears and Tea Parties by S. Boyd Taylor
Let Us Now Praise Awesome Dinosaurs by Leonard Richardson
and then your story.
Finally, our listeners had to narrow it down and vote for their favorite of those– and you won!  You won “Best Story of 2009” in our 2009 People’s Choice Awards.  Congrats!  We announced it on this week’s show.  It’s a big deal for us.  That story was fantastic and I’m really glad that it won.  Even though we ran it all the back in April, our listeners still remember it and gave it crazy love.
So we have a cup called the “Sacred Chalice of Glory” that we’re having your name engraved on and that we’d like to send you, if you can provide us with a mailing address.
Again, congratulations, and thanks for the phenomenal story.  Hope we keep getting submissions from you– clearly our listeners would love that.
Best, Norm

The winning Drabblecast is a most excellent audio performance of the story, with music and sound effects and everything, and you can hear it here.

This is the story for which thepussinboots drew this awesome picture (click to embiggen):

I am so thrilled!

Sunday was my 49th birthday. (Thanks to everyone who sent birthday wishes!) It was a quiet day, but I ate some of my favorite things and hung out with my sweetie, who gave me the new Mark Knopfler CD.

I am a very lucky guy. I’m retired, which means I pretty much get to do what I want every day, and I have enough money that I can pretty much get myself whatever I want when I want it. This makes it really hard to buy presents for me or to do something “special” to celebrate a birthday. That’s okay; I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The day before my birthday, the TV interview I taped last week about my trip to Mars finally aired. I’m very pleased with how it came out, and you can see it below:

Today was the tech rehearsal for Ignite Portland, where I’ll be giving a 5-minute version of my Mars talk (at the Bagdad Theatre next Wednesday, March 3). I don’t feel quite ready but I’m sure it will go fine.

I have more news but this will have to do for now.

My appearance on KGW tonight has been bumped to tomorrow, due to breaking news about a police shooting.

Even if you don’t have a TV, you’ll be able to watch me live at http://www.kgw.com/thesquare when it does air, currently scheduled for 7:00 PST on Friday.

I got an excellent interview in The Oregonian (Portland’s daily newspaper) on Monday, which took up half the front page of section B and continued within. The full text of the article can be found online.

I also had an interview with Willamette Week (Portland’s “alternative” newsweekly), which they published on their website but not in their print edition.

I am scheduled to appear on two local TV stations — tomorrow evening on Live @ 7, (KGW, channel 8, February 18, 7:00 PM PST) and next Friday on AM Northwest, (KATU, channel 2, February 26, 9:00 AM PST). If you’re not local or don’t have a TV, both are supposed to be available via live streaming at the given web pages, and selected segments should be available online after the program airs. This is live TV, so it’s subject to change.

A one-R GRM is a rental equation
A two-R GRRM is a writer, Caucasian
But I would bet a can of worms
That there is no three-R GRRRM.

One of the hosts of the show, the one who is a space geek and really wanted to do this interview, had to have dental surgery, so my appearance has been rescheduled to February 26. Can’t say I’m completely surprised… in my experience, dealing with television means you have to be fast on your feet.

Meanwhile, I’ve had two interviews with local print media in the last two days. One of them may or may not publish the piece, depending on what the other one does and when. This process is fascinating to watch. I’ll let you know when and if either of these interviews bears fruit.

I also got the February Locus, with a big picture of me in my space suit in the People and Publishing section.

My fifteen minutes of fame are ticking away…