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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Armand, at fifty-seven, has never married. There are no children currently living in Mogollon. Armand is not used to kids. Things generally went all right, however, till Martina realized she had forgotten to bring an extra box of pampers.
She took the baby with her. The oldest girl, Natalie, rode along too, to get in a talk with her mother. This left Armand with seven children ranging in age from just two to thirteen.
Everything might have been all right if Martina had not made a wrong turn at the highway and ended up driving to Reserve. As it was, she was gone most of the day.
Armand described the experience as being, "Like I was back in Korea. - You know, the war nobody mentions except on MASH. Felt like I was surrounded, outnumbered. And they all move so fast!
"First thing Martina was out of sight, Dennise (she's six) says she's hungry. I say, 'How about a cheese sandwich?' She's pleased as can be. I think I'm doing fine. Next thing I know, they all want a cheese sandwich, and there isn't enough cheese to go around. You could of heard the ruckus clear to Mexico.
"By the time I had half of them talked into peanut butter, little Daniel, the two year old, and Steve, who is four, had found the grease gun, a couple of pipe wrenches, a can of nuts and bolts, and a five gallon bucket of flour. I'm not sure if they were making a cake or a rocket ship, but whatever it was supposed to be, it was a big one.
"That's when Billy (he's ten) discovered the balloon. I felt like a prisoner that got reprieved from death - just in time for a riot. It at least caught everyone's attention. Except Cynthia. But she was no problem anyhow, though she wasn't any help either. She just found an old Reader's Digest book of condensed novels and read. A very serious twelve year old that Cynthia.
"I blew up the balloon. Had, 'I like Ike,' printed on it. I batted it to Billy, and he batted it on to Joanne (she's nine). I held my breath waiting to see if she'd squawk or play. She laughed and batted the balloon on to Steve. By then they were all hooked.
"All but Cynthia. She just wanted to know who Ike was, so I told her. Then she went back to her book."
Martina and the kids left Monday morning. Armand has been over at the Bloated Goat ever since.
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."