Uncle River's cultural speculative fiction has appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Amazing Stories, the British Interzone, and Canada's Transversions, among many others. His story, "Love of the True God," published in Talebones #10, qualified for the Preliminary Ballot for a Nebula Award and was a finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. As of June, 2002, his "How We Know What Happened" is the cover story of the current Absolute Magnitude #18, and his "My Stolen Sabre" from the Dec. '01 Asimov's is due for reprint in David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer's Year's Best Fantasy #2.
Uncle River is due to appear as a panelist at two SF conventions in Summer, 2002: ReaderCon in the Boston area, July 12-14, and ArmadilloCon in Austin, Aug. 16-18. Trained in Jungian Analysis and holding what he believes to be the world's only earned Ph.D. in Psychology of the Unconscious (Union Institute, 1974), Uncle River has lived as a hermit/writer in the mountain Southwest for the past 20 years.
MOGOLLON NEWS
Set in the real New Mexico ghost town of Mogollon where Uncle River lived for five years, the fictitious "Mogollon News" began as a column in the Silver City Enterprise, at the time New Mexico's oldest continuously published weekly paper, in 1985. The "Mogollon News" ran as a regular feature on Public Radio Station KRWG, Las Cruces, from 1986-90, and has appeared as a column in several regional newspapers. Through the 90s, it was a regular feature in the leading British experimental speculative fiction periodical, BBR. Sufficiently authentic to back-country life that Uncle River's local postmistress wondered why she didn't know the people whose tales appeared in the paper, the complete "Mogollon News" comprises over two hundred stories, like the ones posted here. (Available in book-manuscript format to interested publishers.)
THUNDER MOUNTAIN
Thunder Mountain, (Mother Bird Books, 1213 Durango, Silver City, NM 88061, 189 pp., trade papberback, $11 + $1.50 shipping.) Set in the fictitious Thunder Range of remote Southwestern New Mexico, Thunder Mountain "explores how the land can live and how human spirits can bond with the land" (BBR). Thunder Mountain will show you the difference between an outlaw and a criminal.
"Uncle River transcends mere authorship to become an authentic voice of the abused land." . . . Paul DiFilippo, Asimov's Science Fiction
". . . a new sort of creature, perhaps related to magical realism, which I hope gets positive notice in both of its home worlds - New Mexico regional writing and science fiction...The way the book is structured makes an important read, which is good since the story is pleasant and brings laughter and tears at the right places." . . . Don Webb, The New York Review of Science Fiction
XIZQUILSpeculative fiction, poetry, articles, and art, Uncle River edited XIZQUIL from 1989-98, through 16 issues, winning a Rhysling Award for Year's Best Long Poem from the Science Fiction Poetry Association and placing stories regularly on the Honorable Mention list in Gardner Dozois's annual Year's Best Science Fiction anthologies.
"What better place than the genre of the fantastic to explore new ways of telling stories? XIZQUIL, edited by Uncle River, is firmly pointed in this direction." . . . Michael P. Belfiore, Tangent.
Preview of Uncle River's Novel, Mogollon News
Contact SouthernNewMexico.com if you are interesting in publishing Uncle River's "Mogollon News."
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The creek only came up about a foot though and didn't carry off much. Several tires washed through town and one chainsaw. Joe Malloney retrieved the chainsaw, but he didn't like the brand, so he tossed it back.
A number of the fruit trees bloomed too early again this year. It is always a shame when the warm weather fools them. However, it is quite interesting to watch the bees shortly after sunrise landing on the frozen blossoms. Sometimes the flowers shatter with a lovely little tinkle.
Mortimer Walker appeared briefly. First time anyone's set eyes on him since early November. He apparently climbed up the Fannie Hill in the middle of the night to see the comet.
Whether he saw it or not no one could tell, but his flashlight must have gone out on him somewhere up there. He passed through town, cursing Halley, barbed wire, and cactus about halfway between dawn and sunrise. No telling when he'll come outside again.
Those lucky enough to have a garden on the sunny side of the street are already into their second crop of salad greens and got tomatoes and melons well along in cold frames. The sun is high enough now that even the shady side of the street is getting a fair amount.
Stella and George Nevil live on the shady side, but they are avid gardeners. So they have been out with pry bars and come-a-longs harvesting the spring crop of rocks.
The freezing and thawing brings new rocks to the surface every year, but the Nevils say it is nowhere near as hard to get their garden in condition to plant as when they started back in sixty-eight.
"First three or four years," Stella recalls, "we had to use a winch truck just to pull the rocks out enough to turn the soil. We haven't had to use the winch on a rock but once in the past three years."
George says the truck has been worth the investment though. "We're the closest wrecker from Whitewater Mesa to Snow Lake. We lost money at first. - Had no idea how fast we'd go through brakes. But now we charge by the vertical foot."
Read more samples from the Mogollon News
Winter
The Silver Creek Temperance Society
Blasting
The Balloon
Ice
Halley's Comet
The Libyan Invasion
A Case of Religion
Politics
Contact SouthernNewMexico.com if you are interesting in publishing Uncle River's "Mogollon News."