Big Pulp - The Kennedy Curse proofing

I just finished proofing my entry in the upcoming Big Pulp anthology The Kennedy Curse, which includes my story "The Cuban Exile Crisis."  For some reason, the editors capitalized the "p" in my last name.  I'm sure my far more French ancestors did that, and I know my brothers have done retrofitted it back that way themselves (while my sisters both sport married surnames now), but I'm carrying on a tradition here, and have for all my previous published work.  Retaining the exact spelling of "Laplume" proves all the more important to me considering a decade ago I was fully convinced that I would write under a pseudonym.

(This has always been something of a small joke for me, considering "Laplume" translates to, variously, "the feather" or "the pen."  My own name is a pen name!  I like to imagine future generations, should I be lucky enough to be remembered as a writer, just assuming that it's not my real name.  To those prospective fans, I will now reveal my true surname: Firefox.  My name is Tony Firefox.)

Another reason to be particular about my last name is that I come across very few French surnames in the world of books, excepting of course French writers themselves and the occasional Cajun. 

"The Cuban Exile Crisis" has another distinction that I've referenced in the past, in that it will be the first official publication of Space Corps material, "official" in the sense that I didn't release it myself.  Reading through the proof, I'm reminded that I took a very deliberate literary approach to the story, "deliberate" in the sense that it reads like ordinary prose, not exactly the style I normally use.  Even if this is ends up being the only Space Corps story published this way, I think it'll give people a small idea of what the rest of it was about. 

The anthology is centered around the Kennedy clan and its legacy, and so is "Exile Crisis" (the title of course is a pun on JFK's Cuban Missile Crisis), but it also reflects the basic struggle between humans and the alien menace known as the Danab that lies at the heart of the saga.  While approached obliquely, the emphasis on the human toll carries the weight I would expect from an Space Corps story.

I'm excited for this Big Pulp release.  I should be getting my contributor copy sometime this month, and the release is scheduled for September.  I'll keep you posted.