Members of Critical Mass: Terry England

Terry England's book Rewind is still pretty easy to find online. He entered the manuscript in a contest back in the 90's, and although it didn't win said contest, it caught the eye of one of the judges and was eventually published. Then internal politics at the publisher resulted in Terry's second novel being dropped. This is not at all uncommon.

In the ten years since, Terry's been working at his craft and has been a regular at Critical Mass meetings since its foundation, six plus years ago. His short story, Out of the Cradle, appears in the DAW anthology, Far Frontiers. I have to say, this man on a roll is a phenomenon. One of the best short stories I've ever seen was a horror short he wrote that begins with a little girl falling down a well. That's not the really horrific part. While she's down there, wedged in a narrow space, she feels something tickling at her toes. The POV character is her slightly older brother, old enough to comprehend what's going on, but not old enough to do anything to help his sibling. I won't tell you how it ends because I still hope that some short story market out there sees the light and publishes this thing.

He's also got a superhero novel that's making the rounds to agents. This is a rather dark time in the field to be looking for an agent. Last night people shared stories of authors with a publishing contract in hand that couldn't land an agent. Anyway, he's enduring the form letter rejections, and I'm really hoping this doesn't go on long. Yes, there are a lot of superhero projects out there, but Terry's mind is something else, I have to say. (And his name looks real nice on a book spine.)

By day he works as the Books Editor of at the Santa Fe New Mexican. But that's not why I say nice things about him, honest. (He'd be honest about my work regardless ;-)