TOM PURDOM

 Science Fiction Music Writing Essays
Bio FAQS Writers
Friends and Relations Bibliography  Quotes

Click here if you'd like to read the opening of my latest science fiction story.  It's a novelette called "Golva's Ascent" and you'll find it in the March issue of Asimov's, which is now on sale.  Click here if you'd like to read a bio that summarizes my writing career and my totally unscandalous personal life. You'll find more biographical information under Where are you from?, Recent Science Fiction,  Friends and Relations, my complete bibliography,  and the first ten installments of my attempts at a literary memoir.

The rest of this site is a grab bag containing stuff culled from my activities as a science fiction writer, music critic, arts writer, and general freelance writer. The science fiction section contains a bibliography of my recent SF, excerpts from stories, and the complete text of my first story.  FAQs includes answers to some of the questions people tend to ask writers, such as How much do you make?, Where do you get your ideas?, and How do you submit manuscripts to editors? The music writing section includes excerpts from reviews, articles on female percussionists and the art of the accompanist, and other items collected from twenty years of writing about music and the arts. The essays include a memoir on model airplanes, some advice for parents, and a good natured look at the evolution of grownup sex appeal.

ELECTRONIC REPRINTS

Electronic reprints of my stories can be purchased from the Barnes and Noble Nookstore, Amazon's Kindle store, and Fictionwise, a thriving electronic publisher that's been active since 2000.  The Nook items can be read on the iPad by downloading Barnes and Noble's free app.  I've put together a catalog that tells you what's available where.

ANTHOLOGY REPRINTS

My time travel novelette "The Mists of Time" is currently available in the 2008 edition of Gardner Dozois' annual anthology THE YEAR'S BEST SCIENCE FICTION.  My Hugo nominee Fossil Games can be found in Gardner's landmark anthology SUPERMEN: TALES OF THE POSTHUMAN FUTURE and David G. Hartwell's YEAR'S BEST SF 5. I also have stories in five other currently available anthologies: SPACE SOLDIERS, YEAR'S BEST SF 3, ISAAC ASIMOV'S VALENTINES, ISAAC ASIMOV'S UTOPIAS, and the 2006 Edition of Rich Horton's SCIENCE FICTION, THE BEST OF THE YEAR.

LITERARY MEMOIR, FIRST INSTALLMENTS

I'm writing a literary memoir which I'm publishing here as I finish each segment.  Each section tells how I wrote particular stories-- how I got the idea, the literary problems I dealt with, and so on.  The first installment covers my first story and the beginning of my writing career.  Installment two discusses three stories I wrote when I was hanging around Philadelphia coffeehouses in the late 50's.  Three discusses my only psi story and the factors, such as my relationship with my wife, that influenced it. Four discusses my Casanova series and tells how I started writing short fiction again after a long break, and how I became a music critic. Five concludes the discussion of the Casanova series.  Six discusses my first "military brat" story.  Seven discusses my second and third military brat stories.  Installments eight, nine, and ten tell how I wrote and sold the three novels I contributed to the Ace Double series. I'm also posting my first story, "Grieve for a Man".  Several installments have been reprinted in The New York Review of Science Fiction.  The entire opus is also available on the Nook and the Kindle, for those who prefer the convenience of an ereader..

MEANDERINGS

I attend most of the Philadelphia Fantastic readings that take place on the fourth Friday of each month at the Moonstone Arts Center, 108 S. 13th Street in center city Philadelphia.  I usually attend the monthly meetings of the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society, which normally meets on the second Friday of each month.  I'm planning to attend  Readercon (July 12-15), and I usually attend  the Philadelphia Science Fiction Conference  in November.

Asimov's Science Fiction cover Copyright © 2012 by Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications. Reprinted with permission. 

E-mail address: tompurdom@verizon.net