Are You There and Other Stories

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Are You There

I wrote this story in the summer of 2005. It was a life saver -- literally. I think it was the only fiction I managed to get down in a six month period. That was a very bad six months, for a variety of reasons. "Are You There" rescued me, as my fiction has often done. It did not have an easy road to print, however. Though I felt very optimistic about the story, once it was out, Editor A saw things differently. This was pretty devastating, but I had the next mailer ready to go, as was my habit at the time. Good thing, because otherwise I doubt I would have prepared one. Editor B accepted the story in record time. It is now the title story and center piece of my collection, not to mention this excellent podcast from Starship Sofa...

Bean There

This one is a little sunnier than much of my fiction has tended to be. I have no idea why. The story flowed naturally, without much heavy lifting. I wrote the middle section in a notebook over a couple of days while sitting in a lawn chair in the backyard of my best friend's house in Torrance, California. It was almighty hot. My friend was at work, so it was just me and the palm tree. Gardner Dozois bought the story for Asimov's. The last line is his contribution. Podcast from Escape Pod

Quotes

"Each tale, by itself, is brilliant or close to that."
-- John Clute for Strange Horizons

"…readers braced for powerful emotions will find this collection more than worthwhile."
-- Publisher's Weekly

"These 26 stories could have been dictated by demons from The Twilight Zone, they’re so odd and so distinctively uncommon. They’re also that good, that funny, and that outrageous. Skillingstead has arrived, and there’s no putting his genius back in the bottle now. That’s the happy ending we’re left with as we shut this collection with wide eyes and a big, stunned grin."
-- Kilian Melloy for Edge

"Characterization is the strongest of Skillingstead's many strong points."
-- Cynthia Ward for Internet Review of Science Fiction

"...each story proclaims that Jack Skillingstead is a major author in the genre of SF."
-- Tangent