Category Archives: Action 37 News

As our regular readers know, we had a terrific time at Balticon 45 (read our day-by-day recaps here, here, here, and here), which was the official debut of Channel 37. One of the highlights of the event was getting to meet Zach Ricks and Scott Roche of Flying Island Press, whose magazine Flagship is in the vanguard of what we’re hereby christening the Neopulp Movement.

Paul had the pleasure of interviewing Zach and Scott for Channel 37 and they kindly turned right around and interviewed Paul right back for a special edition of the Galley Table podcast. Check it out!

Later that day, Scott interviewed both Paul and Gary for The Seekrit Projekt, Scott’s very cool initiative to help fellow content creators get the word out about their new project through the power of social media. Be sure to stay tuned to the part where the giant flying robots come storming through the interview!

Well, here we are on Sunday. We each got matching stuffed kangaroos from Angela Render because we found her. That’s a nice way to start the day!

One of the nice things about getting here before the dealer room opens is that we get to chat with the other folks before the crowds arrive. Interesting and knowledgeable folks!

Check out our Facebook page for regular updates from Gary, including photos of friends old and new. Check back throughout the day for links and stories…

UPDATE 1: Well, it was one of those whirlwind days where we talked with so many people, attended sessions, chatted in the halls, and made the rounds, that we didn’t have time to blog, tweet, or FB very much. But it sure was great! We got to meet and chat with Nathan Lowell and some of the other authors at the Ridan table, which was very nice. They had some exciting things to say about the state of SF/F publishing. Between magazine publishers like Flying Island Press and book publishers like Ridan, there’s an incredible new market emerging. The new magazine and book publishers are basically re-establishing the concept of the midlist. They are basically using technological innovations to fill in the gaps that traditional print publishers have had to abandon out of the necessity of protecting their bottom lines. The field is wide open, folks! It’s a great time to be writing SF/F . . .

It’s a busy, fun day here, and the joint is hoppin’! Paul had a blast interviewing Scott Roche and Zach Ricks of Flying Island Press, and had the pleasure of being their guest on a special edition of the Galley Table podcast.

In Part One, Zach and Scott talk about Flying Island Press. In Part Two, Zach and Scott discuss the current and future landscape of Pulp Publishing 2.0. We’ll have the video soon (bandwidth, you know…)

Paul also had a great chat with “fan for life” Scratch Bacharach on the past, present, and future of fandom that will have you fist-pumping and booyah-ing by the end. I need to edit this interview down for length, and hope to get it posted by the end of the convention, but if not then shortly after.

UPDATE 1: Just back from the great Galley Table live podcast with Ben Bova. Inspiring! Looking forward to the launch party for A.C. Crispin’s new book at 5:30. An interview beckons!

UPDATE 2: Back home after a terrific time at the launch party for The Price of Freedom, where we got to chat with Michael Capobianco about the impact of e-publishing on SFWA qualifications. (Hint: the new bylaws are going to have some interesting changes!) Then drinks and convo in the bar with bestselling mystery author Cathy Wiley, writer, fan, and all-around great person Shirl Phelps, and contact juggler, standup comedienne, and storyteller Dorian Gray (yes) — a great way to relax after a high-energy day!

Okay, as promised here are Parts One and Two of Paul’s interview with Scott Roche and Zach Ricks. In Part One, Zach and Scott talk about Flying Island Press:

In Part Two, Zach and Scott discuss the current and future landscape of Pulp Publishing 2.0:

See everyone tomorrow!

We’re here! Hope everyone had safe travels, and we’re looking forward to meeting our Twitter friends.

FYI, if you’re driving the Baltimore beltway (I-695) to get here, be aware that there’s a funeral procession that will be on the Beltway from 1-4 pm, so expect delays…

UPDATE 1: It’s been a busy and fun first day here at Balticon. We met some old friends (Hi, Shirl and Dorian!) and made plenty of new ones, including some we hope to get to sit down with us for interviews. We had time for one interview today, with author, artist, and costume designer J-F Bibeau about his new book Felsic Tension , which was released today at Balticon:

We’ll have more updates and interviews tomorrow! Unfortunately, Gary and Paul both had to miss the Alien Sex panel this evening, but I understand from the Twitter feed that it is quite the show, along with some “cloud sex” in the background…

See y’all tomorrow!

Channel 37 is delivering a one-two punch this week. Following right behind the release of Paul Lagasse’s new novella Invasion of the Orb Men, we’re happy to announce the premiere of the Kindle e-book editions of our first two completed serials, The Terror from the Other Dimension! and They Came from New Jersey! Both books are available at the ridiculously low price of $0.99, as will be all future editions in the Channel 37 Serials line.

The Terror from the Other Dimension! and They Came from New Jersey! are the stories that launched Channel 37. Paul started writing Terror on his blog Sotto Voce back in March 2010 as a writing exercise. Four months later, he launched the WordPress.com version of Channel 37 around the story, and soon thereafter Gary Lester joined the crew and launched New Jersey.

Someday we’ll get around to making really nice covers for them, or even better we’ll get a real artist to do some. But in the meantime, we hope you won’t judge these fun stories by their craptacular covers.

Come meet Gary and Paul at the Channel 37 table at Balticon 45! We’d love to meet you.

Paul Lagasse’s new novella, Invasion of the Orb Men, a story of mistaken identity in 1950s Cold War America, is now available on the Kindle store for $0.99.

The debut book of the Channel 37 Publications line of science fiction novellas, short stories, and anthologies, Orb Men follows Captain Len Creeger, the director of the Air Force’s flying saucer investigation project, as he risks his career to help Charlie Neville, a young writer of pulp science fiction who’s been accused of being a communist spy. Equal parts humorous and dramatic, the story unfolds over a period of three days in 1952 as Creeger and his team — the laid-back intelligence analyst Carl Langford, the capable young secretary Miss Mackenzie, and the resident sci-fi nerd Milt Fleener — match wits against the paranoid security officer Tom Kiley, who along the way inadvertently becomes history’s first Man in Black.

The novella rings true with period details that will appeal to science fiction fans, UFO aficionados, and military history buffs. “I’ve been a collector and reader of books about flying saucers since I was a kid, and I can recite the details of classic sightings and flaps like a mantra,” says Lagasse. “And I’ve been an avid reader of golden-age science fiction for almost as long. Not to mention that as a kid I was an airplane and NASA nut too. So it was probably inevitable that I would have to find a way to mix all of those together in a story that’s an homage to the things that shaped my childhood. I hope that my affection for them, and my eternal gratitude to them, come through in Orb Men.”

Invasion of the Orb Men is available today on the Amazon Kindle store for $0.99. You can also download a free sample and share the book with friends.

Channel 37 Publications will feature original work by Channel 37 contributors and select authors, and will publish e-book compilations and anthologies of Channel 37 serials. Two complete serials — The Terror from the Other Dimension! and They Came from New Jersey! — will be debuting later this week, in time for Balticon 45 at the Hunt Valley Lodge north of Baltimore. Paul Lagasse and Gary Lester will be at Balticon all weekend at the Channel 37 table.

A wonderful time was had by all at the 23rd annual conference of the Maryland Writers’ Association yesterday at the University of Baltimore’s Thumel Business Center. We were especially pleased to be able to show off the new Channel 37 banner, hot off the — what, the presses? Is there such a thing as a banner-press? It’s a mystery. But anyway, here it is:

At lunch, Gary and Paul participated in the Buskers’ Cafe by interrupting the proceedings with an “urgent announcement” about Channel 37. Here’s an audio recording of our little schtick (I don’t seem to have an option to embed the file in the post, but it I can figure out a way to do it, I’ll come back and update the post accordingly), and here are a couple photos. That’s Gary “They Came from New Jersey!” Lester on the left, and Paul “Space Repairman” Lagasse on the right:

Many thanks to Laura Shovan, editor of the new MWA poetry anthology, Life in Me Like Grass on Fire: Love Poems, for the photos. Eagle-eyed readers will note that Laura was somehow able to travel back in time two days to get these photos — which probably won’t surprise anyone who knows the supremely talented Laura, but to us mere mortals an amazing and wondrous feat nonetheless, and one for which we at Channel 37 are deeply grateful!

A big thanks also to Fernando “The Word Pimp” Quijano III for coordinating the Buskers’ Cafe, and for letting us “barge in” on him the way we did. We’re lucky he likes SF as much as we do!

We’ll be leading panel discussions and busking at the 2011 Maryland Writers Conference, the 23rd annual conference of the Maryland Writers’ Association this Saturday, April 2, at the University of Baltimore’s Thumel Business Center in downtown Baltimore!

At 1;30 in the Auditorium, Gary (“They Came From New Jersey!”) Lester will be moderating a panel discussion on poetry, featuring contributors to the MWA’s new anthology Life in Me Like Grass on Fire: Love Poems. At 4:00 in Room BC-205, Paul (“Space Repairman”) Lagasse will be moderating a panel discussion on what editors look for when hiring freelancers.

During the lunch hour, we’ll be participating in the Buskers’ Cafe, where we will have five minutes to pitch Channel 37 to the crowd. Hopefully, we’ll have our cool new Chevy Engine Red-and-chrome banner to show off to everyone too.

So if you’re planning to attend the Maryland Writers Conference, we’d love to meet you at one or both of our sessions, and please cheer us on at the Buskers’ Cafe!

Noted SF author A.C. Crispin was the guest speaker at last night’s monthly meeting of the Baltimore Chapter of the Maryland Writers’ Association (MWAB) at the Towson ARTS Collective in downtown Towson. And your Action 37 News! team was there to cover it. (Disclosure, of sorts: The president of MWAB is none other that Channel 37’s own Gary Lester.)

In addition to being the self-professed “go-to person for backstory,” having written a number of Star Trek and Star Wars novels as well as the forthcoming Pirates of the Caribbean: the Price of Freedom, Ms. Crispin is well known and highly respected for her work with Victoria Strauss and Richard C, White on Writer Beware, which tracks and exposes scams and frauds in the publishing industry.

Ms. Crispin held the audience of 20+ attendees in rapt attention as she related stories of the brazen con artists who pose as agents, editors, and publishers and prey on unsuspecting authors, reading off a list of the most notorious offenders as if they were a roll call of America’s Most Wanted. Then she had the audience in stitches as she gleefully related the story of the famous “unpickuppable” collaborative novel Atlanta Nights, a hoax perpetrated on PublishAmerica to expose the falsity of their claim of publishing only high-quality manuscripts.

Novice authors need to better educate themselves about how scams operate, Ms. Crispin explained. “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” she said. “Not all legitimate publishers are right for everyone, but crooks are crooks!”

“The best way to avoid getting scammed?” she asked. “Do. Your. Research.”

After the meeting, Gary, Paul, and Dead to Writes author Cathy Wiley had the pleasure of wide-ranging and entertaining conversation over drinks and dinner with Ms. Crispin and her husband, SF author and past president of SFWA Michael Capobianco. What a great ending to terrific evening!

Channel 37 is looking forward to interviewing Ms. Crispin about her new book at Balticon 45!

Channel 37 is pleased to announce that we have been accepted as a vendor at Balticon 45, Maryland’s legendary regional science fiction and fantasy convention, Memorial Day Weekend (May 27-30, 2011) at Marriott’s Hunt Valley Inn just north of Baltimore!

Come meet Gary (They Came from New Jersey!) Lester and Paul (The Terror from the Other Dimension!) Lagasse in person all four days. We’ll have some neat merchandise for sale and a raffle for a door prize. Not only that, but you’ll be able to buy e-books of The Terror from the Other Dimension! plus Gary’s fantasy novel Ursula the Yellow and Paul’s new SF novella Invasion of the Orb Men — right from the comfort and security of your own smartphone!

And if you can’t make it in person, don’t worry — we’ll be vlogging and podcasting interviews and updates throughout the convention.

Channel 37 thanks Larry Sands and the Balticon staff for allowing us to attend this year. And be sure to stay tuned to Action 37 News! for the latest updates as Balticon draws closer.