Happy International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day!
Remember the little ‘splosion I linked to a while back, where the vice president of SFWA called a bunch of people some highly insulting names for having posted their work for free on the Internet, claiming they were somehow stabbing the industry as a whole in the back by doing so? One of those names was “pixel-stained technopeasant wretch.” Because SF/F writers are a snarky bunch, and because a lot of us think Dr. Hendrix is wrong wrong wrongitty wrong about such things, Jo Walton (papersky) has adopted that phrase for the first-ever International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day, i.e. today.
So today, you may read good stories all over the Internet, because many writers are answering her call to post works of professional-quality fiction on their websites for free.
My contribution? “Calling into Silence”, my Asimov Award story from a few years back. I chose to post that one for three reasons:
1) I can’t post stories I’m trying to sell if I actually want to sell them, which I admittedly do;
2) I don’t want to inflict on you guys stories I gave up trying to sell, or never tried to sell at all;
3) this story gives me a neat opportunity to mess around with font colors for effect. (I almost messed around with fonts, too, but the color adjustments ate enough of my time yesterday that we’ll leave it as it stands.)
I may post something else later today, too, but for now, that will do.
And if you want to read more pro-quality fiction posted in honor of this day, check out papersky‘s roundup over here.
