My name, and I’m not afraid to use it, is Lance Schonberg (shawn-berg). I currently, and for the foreseeable future, live in Eastern Ontario, Canada with my far-too-understanding wife, three incredible kids, feline overlords, and the prehistoric monster known as Geckzilla.
I’ve been a writer for longer than I can remember, finally deciding about two and a half years ago that if I really intended to write I needed to get a little more focused and apply myself. About half way between then and now, I started sending my work out into the wild and a few stories have found homes so far. All short fiction sales as I haven’t written a novel yet I’m willing to let anyone else look at, much less try sending to an agent or publisher.
Several of those stories have been to different editors at the Library. (Have I mentioned there’s always a lot going on there? I think there are ten or eleven open anthologies at the moment spread between the imprints.) Moderately active in the forums there, I somehow missed the entire “do we need a new imprint for SF&F?” discussion, but when the idea of Novella collections appeared, I offered to read for them. The offer read something along the lines of “I’d love to either submit something towards a novella collection or be involved in the reading/editing for it. The novella is a far under-represented length any genre.” The boss, the inestimable Dr. Pus, was listening and offered me the job. I took it, abandoning any hope of submitting and not regretting it for a moment.
The rest is history, discussion by e-mail, and keeping an open mind. I’m not sure if the lesson is “be careful what you wish for” or “yield to temptation – it may not pass your way again”, but better to grab for the brass ring than to never know what might have happened.
What’s do I find so compelling about novellas anyway? I’m not sure. It definitely is an underrepresented length in genre (or any) fiction. They’re hard to write and they’re hard to sell. Who’s got the patience for a short story that long? Who would bother with a novel that short? A novella can tell a story big enough to sink your teeth into but small enough that you might be able to finish one in an hour or two. You’ve got a lot more room for character development and world building but need to stay focused on the story.
I’m getting a bit off track here and this is far more than I gave the person who asked for which I now feel a bit guilty. Sometimes when I start typing it’s hard to stop.
You can find me on Twitter as WritingDad if you like, and I maintain (more or less) a personal blog at http://smallrealities.wordpresscom. I’m also on Facebook, but a bit leery of it sometimes due to a couple of past strangenesses – if you decide you want to friend me there, feel free but please add a little note onto the request so I know where you’re coming from. And of course I’ll answer e-mail at distanteditor at gmail dot com.
