Newlyweds

April 8th, 1972 at Mission San Antonio – a beautiful day!

Like a Thorny Child

The Central Coast Writers, a branch of the California Writers Club, is an active group.  Aside from meetings, seminars and a conference for working writers, it conducts writing contests in both the spring and the fall.  My story “Like a Thorny Child” was honored in the CCW spring contest.  If you’d like to read it, here is a useful link:

http://amykitchenerfdn.org/2012-cc/ccwinners.html

The Man Who Murdered Mozart

Barry Malzberg is one of Science Fiction’s greatest writers of the last fifty years.  He helped judge last year’s Galaxy contest and wrote to me expressing admiration for my story.  An exchange of emails led us to discover a mutual passion for classical music and interest in music’s greatest mystery:  Mozart’s Requiem Aeternam.  Who finished it?  How?  It was my great honor to collaborate with Mr. Malzberg on a story inspired by this mystery.  “The Man Who Murdered Mozart” was just published in “Fantasy and Science Fiction“, the March/April edition.  You musical friends of mine might want to have a look at it.

Istanbul Nights

As many of you know, Phyllis and I shared a great adventure with our sons in 2006.  We visited Jeremy in Istanbul for several weeks and also traveled widely across Turkey.  Jeremy’s amazing linguistic competence and deep knowledge of Turkish culture afforded us all a far richer experience than ordinary tourists can imagine, much less achieve.  Jon’s brilliance with his camera crystallized special moments of our adventure.  I kept a journal.  At long last, one small segment of my journal has been published.  We had Iskender with Arzu on the Asian side of the Bosphorus.  The link is below.

http://www.leaplocal.org/magazine/monday-escape/iskender-arzu-robert-walton-turkey/

After the ferry ride, before Iskender

Dogwood Dream

The “Steel Toe Review”, a fine journal of contemporary Southern Arts and Literature, just published my “Dogwood Dream”.  I am most honored to have it included in this journal and pleased that people will be able to read it.  The link is below.  This story was singled out last year by winning the  ”New Millennium Writings” short fiction award, though I remain quite humble about the recognition.  Some stories push you to a higher competence than you can achieve on your own.  This story did that to me.  I can’t write any better.

http://steeltoereview.com/2012/01/27/dogwood-dream-by-robert-walton/

Morning Manzanita

I’m pleased to share with you all that my poem “Morning Manzanita” will be published in the Winter Issue of Song of the San Joaquin Quarterly.  I’m not a good judge of my own poetry, but this poem pleases me more than any I’ve written in recent years.  I wrote it last summer during a brief visit to Kings Canyon.  Between cloudbursts, floods and bears, I squeezed in a good word or two.  Also, as I was with Chip Kosty, I had to keep up my end of the wine drinking.  Ah, a poet’s travails!  Here’s the poem:

                      Morning Manzanita

 My friend stroked manzanita bark,

Smokey red,

Newborn smooth,

As she would a child’s cheek

And she laughed like sunlight bursting

Through dawn mist.

Her delight turned hikers’ heads,

For few women laugh so

Or dare allow their hands to linger

Upon such silk

RosettaBooks Announces Winning Authors in The Galaxy Project Sci Fi Writing Contest

Contest Winners Published alongside Classic Galaxy Magazine Stories

 in New E-Book Editions from RosettaBooks

I’m most pleased to share this news with you all!  I’m proud of this story and proud of the response it’s received so far.  I’m also a bit nervous about trusting it to Amazon’s Kindle.  John Miller keeps patting my hand, but I still feel like I ought to be able to hold a book!  I checked my notes and found that I first started working on “Vienna Station” in 1988.  It took awhile to get it right.  All you writers out there keep at it!

Read the entire press release here.