Speculation, Fact and Fiction

I'm looking to do a piece for later in the year, for Albedo One, and we've been discussing ideas.

I'd like to do a kind of overview/review looking at US writers of sf/fantasy/supernatural/etc who readers on this side of the Atlantic aren't likely to come across.

Mostly because one of the really fun things about me being published in the US is getting books from my editors over there that they think I'll like, which I don't see over here. Notable examples being Dave Duncan, James Alan Gardner, Kristine Smith and Victoria Strauss. Which shows the breadth of my tastes, I think.

And also, increasing numbers of UK writers are finding themselves first, or indeed, only published in the US - a situation resulting from a multiplicity of factors that I could elaborate on for probably several thousand words. So I won't. But I'd like to flag those writers up to potential UK readers too.

Would anyone care to suggest some names?

***Addendum/erratum/etcetera***

Of course, as a couple of folk have kindly pointed out, what I'm talking about here are American and Canadian writers. I'm doing that thoughtless Eurocentric thing of conflating Everything Over There and using "US" as lazy shorthand. I should know better. Hell, I do know better. My kid brother's spending a year at McGill university in Montreal. He'll be most unimpressed. But it's not the first time typing fingers and brain haven't fully meshed and I don't suppose it'll be the last. Apologies as appropriate

***

(And if you happen to have any details of publicists etc that you could pass along, that would be dandy, since there isn't any budget for book-buying here, so I'll be looking for review copies.)

(And that's writers published by established imprints, obviously, be they major players or smaller presses. I don't have the time or inclination to wade through self-published efforts.)

This piece in The Guardian Online caught my eye today.

"It was my first job out of university: I was bright-eyed and idealistic and imagined that I might become some kind of beneficent tweedy sprite, conveying the writing of unknown literary artistes to the masses. By the time I left my job in publishing a few weeks ago, my idealism was in tatters, destroyed by the piles of typescripts I received from people who told me that their fondest desire was to write full time while sitting in a villa overlooking the Mediteranian, despite the fact that they didn't know how to spell it."

The full article is well worth reading. I've not tackled the comment thread yet - I have too much to do today. If anyone has the time - and there are any useful comments, or come to that, candidates for a broadside from the clue gun - do flag them up