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Internet Speculative Fiction Database:

Gray's ISFDB Entry

Writer Friends:

Helena "Hel" Bell
Ada Milenkovich Brown
Oliver Dale
Rob & Karina Fabian
Nancy Fulda
Faisal Jawdat
Alethea Kontis
Mary Robinette Kowal
James Maxey
Steven Savile
Edmund Schubert
Gregory Steele
Eric James Stone
Alex Wilson

Writing Teachers:

Orson Scott Card's
Hatrack River

David Farland's Official Runelords Homepage

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Free Fiction Downloads

"The Surfman."

The market for historical short fiction is so small as to be almost nonexistent, so we didn't find a home for "The Surfman," a historical short story we originally wrote while at Orson Scott Card's 2004 Literary Boot Camp. This version is quite a bit shorter than the original version (which was 10,000 words in less than 24 hours, thank you); though, since the market for novel-length historical fiction is quite robust we might've had better luck if we expanded it into a novel.

"The Surfman" is the story of a wounded Civil War veteran who joins the U.S. Life-Saving Service. The Life-Saving Service was the forerunner of the U.S. Coast Guard, and operated stations along most of the east coast to rescue shipwrecked sailors and passengers.

spacer   Download PDF: "The Surfman"   spacer

In the summer of 2009, we visited the Chicamacomico Life-Saving Station on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and it was fascinating to go up in the watch tower, visit the boat house, and look at the Lyle gun and other implements they used to rescue people from stranded vessels. We had learned earlier that surfmen from the Kitty Hawk station helped the Wright brothers set up for their flight attempts, so the USLSS played a large part in our vacation. Our visit to the station prompted us to send a copy of the story to the Chicamacomico staff in August 2009, with our compliments.

 

 

 

Page last updated in August 2010

Header photograph credit:
Pawleys Island, SC, sunrise photos courtesy of Scott Pangburn (WHS '82).

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