ASCENT STAGE Short Fiction Slowly Climbing Fandom Ladder

With nearly two hundred members, the fan page for Michael Andaluz' first short SF collection has broken into the top 15 SF author forums at Yahoo!Groups.

Detroit, Michigan (PRWEB) May 16, 2006 -- Local SF writer Michael Andaluz has been waiting for this moment...

Since January of 2004, with the release of the Sanctuary Press offering of his first SF Short story collection, Andaluz has been closely watching his online presence grow.

The fan base for his written science fiction appears to have taken up his challenge: to prove to the world that there is still hope for the concept of word-of-mouth promotion. Only two years since his initial offering, the author now boasts a fan newsletter that has broken into the top fifteen author forums by number of members, at nearly two hundred. His collection is currently available in print on demand and is serialized online, enjoying positive reviews. With the second collection on the way and a planned novel based on several of the concepts explored in AS1, there seems to be nowhere to go but up for this Metro Detroit writer.

"I am a shameless self-promoter," he claimed in a recent interview, shortly before being carried off the stage during a recent function honoring one of several local personalities in Troy Michigan. "You can't accuse me of anything without raising my profile anyway. To that end, call me guilty."

Andaluz seems to draw crowds like horses draw flies. His antics brought low-budget costuming to the scene in the early nineties when his cadre of area friends designed and built a series of unlikely - but startlingly original - costumes for Southeastern Michigan fandom. The originality persisted; in later years his drawings permeated convention websites, his essays and fiction have become permanent fixtures of certain area and Midwest fanzines, and his pirate radio station, active since 2001, still echoes in the halls of several hotels that have hosted these events.

Getting thrown ranting out of roasts seems to be his style. Palladium Books mastermind Kevin Siembieda's remarks - that ASCENT STAGE 1's initial sales were 'incredible' for a first-time small press effort - accompanied endorsements from publisher TRI TAC and praise from Writer's Hood and Marsdust.com. Despite all this, Andaluz pledges to stick to his guns and 'make a fool out of himself' in the way he's known best. "Whatever it takes," he smiled, as he walked into a writing workshop sponsored by his marque Sanctuary Press recently in Livonia Michigan. "My student index in the yearbook at high school in 1985 had a big scary blank in it for Future Plans. Back then I punted, and wrote down BECOME MASTER OF SPACE AND TIME. I think I'm satisfied with my progress thus far."

ASCENT STAGE Vol 1 is available at any online book store.
ISBN 01-4116-0130-0