Okay, "soon" may be an overstatement, but in any case, I'm happy to report two new stories that should be out later this year. "A Chorus of Voices," a Lovecraftian secondary-world fantasy about an ambitious monk who realizes not all the vibrations they're chanting are for the good of the world, will appear in the November issue of Weirdbook Magazine.
Also, my solarpunk story "Riding in Place" is part of the Biketopia anthology from Microcosm Publishing. It's the fourth in their "Bikes in Space" series, and that's exactly what my story's about: a woman and a humanoid robot bond over stationary bikes on an asteroid mine. There's a Kickstarter running to fund the anthology (and I get paid for the story based on how well the Kickstarter does), so please go check it out, maybe order a copy or show it to some friends. Below are some images from my Pinterest boards for these two stories. I hope the images below will pique your interest enough to give the stories a read when they're released. I'll be sure to let you know when that happens. "A Chorus of Voices"
See the whole Pinterest Board by clicking here: "A Chorus of Voices"
Forthcoming in Weirdbook Magazine, November 2017 "Riding in Place"
See the whole Pinterest board by clicking here: "Riding in Place"
Forthcoming in Biketopia: Feminist Bicycle Science Fiction Stories, edited by Elly Blue
0 Comments
I encountered author and editor Danielle Ackley-McPhail via Broad Universe, an organization for women working in speculative fiction, and was immediately intrigued by her "Bad-Ass Faeries" project. So she wrangled together a few of her authors and let me ask them just how bad-ass those faeries are. The authors below are all contributors to eSpec Books’ upcoming anthology The Best of Bad-Ass Faeries, which is currently funding on Kickstarter. The book is a reprint anthology featuring the highlights of the award-winning Bad-Ass Faeries anthology series, which just celebrated ten years in print. The first four anthologies are now out of print, but the Best Of is the editors’ way of preserving the series and hopefully continuing it. See what the authors have to say about their Bad-Ass Faeries, and then check out the Kickstarter here. Kelly A. Harmon, author of “Selkskin Deep”  What’s bad-ass about your faeries? Cade Owen, the faerie in my story, “Selkskin Deep”, is a selkie (a seal who can shed his skin and become a man) and a Navy SEAL. You don’t get more bad-ass than a Navy SEAL! This character has both mythical powers, and is in tip-top physical shape—but in all the years he’s lived, he’s never quite understood his “human” side. It’s that curiosity about how humans live their lives that brings him to be on board the USS Livingstone at the height of the Vietnam War. Did you write your story (or stories) specifically for the Bad-Ass Faeries anthology, or had you already written a story about a bad-ass faerie that just happened to be a perfect fit? This story was written specifically for the Bad Ass Faeries series. It started off with a brief email conversation with the editor along the lines of, “wouldn’t it be cool to have a selkie who was also a Navy SEAL?” I ran with the challenge. But the story is much deeper than that. What are you working on now, and where can readers find you? I’m currently working on the fourth book in my Charm City Darkness series—an urban fantasy that takes place in Baltimore. You know that old saying, ‘No good deed goes unpunished.’? Case in point for Assumpta Mary-Margaret O’Connor. Her good deed gets her demon-marked, making her fair game for any passing demon (and a few specific ones). But she’s managed to survive—with help from angels, ghosts, and witches—through three books so far: Stoned in Charm City, A Favor for a Fiend, and A Blue Collar Proposition. The fourth book--In the Eye of the Beholder--is about Assumpta’s best friend Jo, and should be available in May. For folks who love short stories, I’ve co-edited two dark fiction anthologies with Vonnie Winslow Crist: Hides the Dark Tower and In a Cat’s Eye. We’ll be reading for a third anthology in March, Dark Luminous Wings, which should be available in October. Find Kelly A. Harmon Online: Facebook I Twitter I Amazon I Website Jody Lynn Nye, author of “Fifteen Percent”  What’s bad-ass about your faeries? My faerie is not afraid to get seriously physical to get her author back to his keyboard and writing. Did you write your story (or stories) specifically for the Bad-Ass Faeries anthology, or had you already written a story about a bad-ass faerie that just happened to be a perfect fit? My story is original to the Bad-Ass Faeries anthology. What are you working on now, and where can readers find you? I'm working on three different novel collaborations, four short story assignments, a new SF series, and a new fantasy series. Find Jody Lynn Nye Online: Facebook I Twitter I Goodreads I Website L. Jagi Lamplighter, series editor and author of “A Not-So-Silent Night”  What’s bad-ass about your faeries? Tom-O-Thunder is the guardian for an Irish-American family. This gives him the sort of attitude that only a Leprechaun whose charge is in danger can have. Did you write your story (or stories) specifically for the Bad-Ass Faeries anthology, or had you already written a story about a bad-ass faerie that just happened to be a perfect fit? Just for the B-A Faeries anthology. What are you working on now, and where can readers find you? The Awful Truth about Forgetting, book four of the Books of Unexpected Enlightenment. Find L. Jagi Lamplighter Online: Website John French, author of “Too Many Deaths”  What’s bad-ass about your faeries? There are several kinds of bad ass fairies in my story "So many deaths." There are those who despite being tortured can still turn and attack those they believe to be their captors There's a member of the Watch who despite politics and circumstance still manages to achieve some sort of justice And there's a faerie SWAT team. It doesn’t get more bad-ass than that Did you write your story (or stories) specifically for the Bad-Ass Faeries anthology, or had you already written a story about a bad-ass faerie that just happened to be a perfect fit? I wrote my stories, there were two of them which were combined into one, at the request of Danielle who specifically asked me for a "Faerie Swat team." What are you working on now, and where can readers find you? Along with Patrick Thomas, I’m currently editing Camelot 13, due out in 2018 from Padwolf Publishing and Monsters Among Us, a new collection featuring the Baltimore Police Department Monster Hunter Bianca Jones, should be out this spring. As for finding me, I'm on Facebook, and readers are free to email me at [email protected] Danielle Ackley-McPhail, series editor and author of “Within the Guardian Bell”  What’s bad-ass about your faeries?
I have two sets of faeries in my story. The first is Lance Cosain, leader of a biker gang called The Wild Hunt MC. Lance is half fae, half human, and all bad-ass. He is also an ongoing character for me in all my BAF stories. The other faerie in this particular story is a road gremlin who is literally the embodiment of the road. This is relevant to the story because they say there is a love/hate relationship between bikers and the road that is kept in balance by respect. This story is about when something comes in the way of that usual respect…blood is involved. Did you write your story (or stories) specifically for the Bad-Ass Faeries anthology, or had you already written a story about a bad-ass faerie that just happened to be a perfect fit? My stories were all written specifically for the series, but they have also grown beyond the series into novels. There are two so far, The Halfling’s Court and The Redcaps’ Queen. Both are the tale of Lance Cosain and how he came to challenge the High King of Faerie without even knowing it. Needless to say there are power struggles. What are you working on now, and where can readers find you? Goodness... too many things to list here, but primary of which is Eternal Wanderings, a spin-off novella that is based on my Eternal Cycle trilogy about a whole other kind of bad-ass fae. And the third book featuring Lance and his gang, The High King’s Fool. You can find out about me at www.sidhenadaire.com and www.especbooks.com, plus on social media. I tend to stand out. I first met Matthew Burnside a massive Facebook group called MFA Draft when we were both applying to MFA programs. The group was set up so applicants to the many creative writing grad programs could share support and anxiety while they waited for those acceptance calls or rejection notices. Matthew was one of the many memorable personalities in that group. I, certainly, was not, but many of them friended me anyway, and I love seeing where their paths have taken them now that we've all finished our programs. Matthew Burnside's Facebook feed alternates between the most ridiculous, awkward memes and the most inspirational, heartfelt manifestos about writing and art. See the interview below and you'll get a taste of what I mean. Matthew's first full-length story collection, Postludes, is out today from Kernpunkt Press.  Sarena Ulibarri: The most important question first: is that a corgi on the cover? Is there a corgi in this book?! I must know. Matthew Burnside: There are at least two dogs in Postludes, but I never specify that either is a corgi. I actually asked the cover artist to just “envision your most precious pet” and a corgi was the result. Pets are inextricably linked to childhood, nostalgia, and most notably our early conceptions of loss I think, so they definitely had important roles to play. SU: In a nutshell, what was the path from manuscript to publication for Postludes? MB: Postludes is a jigsaw of mostly formal experiments I did over the years, some preceding my MFA but many of them completed while I was in my program. Finding a home for the collection was difficult because they aren’t traditional pieces, some have more in common with poetry than prose, and a cohesive theme proved elusive for the longest time. In short, it was a monster to market. I feel like much of my work feels like B-sides, not in quality hopefully but in tone and variety. Prose that feels more like poetry at times (or vice versa) can be really alienating to readers, but it’s how I write for better or worse. Plot or narrative doesn’t interest me nearly as much as conveying a feltness or visceral emotion through landscapes of language. SU: You earned an MFA from the prestigious Iowa Writers Workshop—what advice do you have for young (or not so young) writers struggling through the MFA application process? MB: I know when I first started trying to crack the MFA code (I was rejected by 50+ programs before Iowa finally said Sure, come on in) I was doing it for the wrong reasons: I needed validation. To feel like a writer. I needed people who had already been successful to pat me on the head and go, Yes, little one you have my permission to write your little things. And then, of course, you look around at all the other really talented writers and do your best to follow their example. To publish where they’ve published and how they’ve published. You try to sound like them and maybe look like them and think like them, too. This is the mistake I think, because it means latching on to a path that’s been tread a thousand times already instead of maybe footing it and exploring your own path, which can be scary and lonely but may lead you to yourself---your own unique identity as an artist. At a certain point when I was at Iowa, I remember some of my peer’s words ringing in my ears, regarding this weird new media project I had made: “How in the HELL are you ever going to sell this?” And I remember thinking I HAVE NO IDEA and then promptly thinking, How Exciting is That? Maybe it doesn’t matter if I sell it at all? Maybe it shouldn’t? That doesn’t mean it’s not a worthy investment of time and craft. That doesn’t negate its value as an artful endeavor. That acceptance changed a lot for me. Since then, I’ve just sort of been exploring and writing what’s interesting to me. Some things have been successful, most haven’t, but it’s all one big exploration now. So, I guess my advice to younger writers would be Forget Trying To Make It Into the Cool Writers Club. Forget carving a fail-proof career out of art. Forget perfectly padded CVs whispering the promise of tenure and wide-eyed admiration from little versions of you. Accept Loneliness Now. Invite Failure Now, the more ambitious the riskier the better. Accept being an outlier, an outsider, an under-the-radar obscure no-name Nobody. Because there’s tremendous creative freedom in that, to work on what you want how you want for your own pure-as-ice joy. If you want rabid fans, if you’re desperate for attention, go start a cult. Writing is not a way to get love from others, or at least it shouldn’t be. It’s about finding a key to unlock rooms you never knew you had inside of you.  SU: Much of your work can be classified under that fuzzy label of “Experimental Writing.” What does “experimental” mean to you, and how has your understanding of it morphed over your writing career? MB: It used to mean WRITER WHO WILL NEVER MAKE MONEY EVER. It still means that, mostly. But it also means being a Serpentine Disciple of Yes in a narrow valley of mediocrity. It means a willingness to die again and again through your work for the off chance to be reborn as something better. It means restlessness and motion sickness and a stubborn refusal to wear the same hat even if it is the prettiest and most comfortable of hats. SU: What books, authors, or films most influenced you while writing Postludes? MB: I’ve already spoken of the influence Akira Kurosawa’s DREAMS had on the book in another interview, but there are others too: Chris Van Allsburg’s The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, the dream fog logic of David Lynch, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, the dancing of Martha Graham, the science of Stephen Hawking, cartoons, video games, even the comedy of Mr. Bean. SU: Do you have any readings or signings coming up? Where can readers find you? MB: None scheduled. I find that my work doesn’t really lend itself to performativity. I mostly prefer to leave it as a thing that exists on the page or screen, but in 2017 that may be something I try to change. I’d welcome the opportunity, especially if it involves working with young writers, as the classroom is where I feel most comfortable. Until then, I live on the internet at http://matthewkburnside.wixsite.com/2017 and currently teach fiction and creative writing for new media at Wesleyan University. Matthew Burnside’s work has appeared in Best American Experimental Writing, DIAGRAM, Ninth Letter, Kill Author, PANK, and Pear Noir! among others. He is the author of several chapbooks and numerous digital works. He currently teaches at Wesleyan University and is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
Find your copy of Postludes: Amazon KERNPUNKT Press Small Press Distribution
My story "Astra, the Falling Star," a surreal sci-fi about two astronauts whose ship is destroyed while in orbit around an alien planet, has been published online by KasmaSF Magazine. KasmaSF publishes a new story each month, and I have the privilege of being their February author. They were nice enough to publish my apocalyptic Cassandra retelling "As Dust Rolls Toward the Mountains" a few years ago, and I'm thrilled they liked "Astra" as well. KasmaSF commissions original artwork by José Baetas for each story, which makes publication there extra special.
Here's the story's opening paragraph, and below that, the wonderful artwork José created after reading it. I freefall, plummeting through an alien sky. Clouds obscure my vision. Tears and mucus smear across my helmet to obscure it even more. I shut my eyes—such fickle and sensitive sensory organs—and imagine the equations of the forces acting on my body. I try to rearrange their values: my version of praying, I suppose. But the laws of physics will not bend just to save my life. 
Speaking of artwork, I've recently joined Pinterest, and created a few boards that represent imagery from some of my forthcoming stories. I hope the images below will pique your interest enough to give the story a read. You can do that by clicking here. It's a short one, only about 3,000 words. And with luck, maybe I'll have a few more boards and a few more stories to share soon.
See the whole Pinterest Board by clicking here: "Astra, the Falling Star" |
Archives
January 2024
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed