It's always Summer in our dreams...

My story "The Huntsman" - a mash-up of at least three different fairy tales - is now online at Lightspeed. While you're there, check out the reprint of Ken Liu's incredible "Mono no aware."

The June issue of Mirror Dance, Watchers: Stories of Angels and Demons, has also appeared (and been appeared for a little over a week now. Apologies for my belatedness!). The poetry in this issue is some of the most incredible work we've published - check it out!

On a different front, last Friday I finished my student teaching semester, and with it, my B.A. in English and Secondary Education. Insert joyful noises here. As of tomorrow, I will be spending the rest of the month visiting the multi-talented Therese Arkenberg in Washington DC, where I intend to catch up on a semester's worth of writing! And, you know, see some museums and pandas and stuff.

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Tuesday, June 11, 2013

editing, fairy tale, fiction, Lightspeed, Mirror Dance, Therese Arkenberg, travel, writing

Mirror Dance Summer 2012

"Passages: Stories of Gateways and Guardians"  is now online! This issue has gods and fairies, heroes and monsters, ghosts and vampires, temples and mysterious forests and icy fog-shrouded mountaintops. (It also has a few mysterious formatting issues, which I am trying desperately to sort out, and incredible original art by Shirl Sazynski, which should more than make up for the formatting.) Happy reading!


Also, in honor of this issue's theme, have a look at these fascinating entrances that are clearly gateways to Narnia.

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Friday, June 01, 2012

editing, fantasy, fiction, Mirror Dance, poetry, publishing, reading

Grief, m'sieur, is a carousel.

"The Celebrated Carousel of the Margravine of Blois" appears in Fantasy today. Also, there is a spotlight.

Happy reading!

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Monday, February 28, 2011

fantasy, fiction, publishing

That Happy Nervous Feeling

My fantasy novelette "The Summer King" will be published in the December 30th issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, y'all. This is very-happy making because I love this story and I love this webzine, but it's also a little nerve-wracking because I want other people to love this story as much as I do. We'll see how that goes. :-)

Expect a long rambling-ish post on the 30th as I tell you all about this story's conception. Here's a hint: it involves Huckleberry Finn. And the unfortunately short-lived TV show Kings. And a pretty dire misreading of a page from an American history textbook. And my facination with the French Revolution...

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Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Beneath Ceaseless Skies, fiction, updates, writing

That's not QUITE my name on the ballot...

My sister's story "Invitation of the Queen" is live on Beneath Ceaseless Skies today!

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Thursday, September 23, 2010

fiction, recommendations

No, silly, that's a master's thesis!

So the part of my brain that is good at finding ideas hidden in texts went a little haywire today. It was supposed to help me find the post-apocalyptic drama hidden in the book of Judges, but instead, it formed silly ideas about tribal loyalties and moral ambiguity. None of which will be useful in the post-apocalyptic drama.

I think I was trained too well in high school. My brain wants to write essays about everything.

Now, open question; what would the psot-apocalyptic equivalent of the tribes of Israel be?

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Friday, September 03, 2010

fiction, nonfiction, The Good Book, writing

I don't know what an Eidolon is, but...

This? Is awesome.

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Sunday, May 09, 2010

Clarkesworld, fiction

Website functioning again!

My freewebs site was sorely in need of an update, and a number of the links had completely ceased to function. Everything should be in working order again. (If you do find a bad link, please let me know!)

A few of my stories and poems had become inaccessible when they were removed from the internet or when the publications they appeared in shut down. For those of you who missed "Leanansidhe" (July 2007), "A Choice of Treason" (November 2007) and "The Shadow of Nemesis" (July/August 2008) the first time around, they are available now.

Don't thank me until you've read them, though. "A Choice of Treason" in particular was a very early work.

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Thursday, April 29, 2010

Cthulhu fhtagn, fiction, poetry, voice, weird fiction, writing

I cannot work under these conditions!

I cannot get my brain to work.

Cannot.

There's a billion and a half story ideas floating around in there, but for the last three weeks or so I just have not been able to get them out. Normally, when I feel like this I read through old stories in an attempt to recalibrate, but somehow the sight of my own words has become incredibly wearying. I'm sure this will pass in another week or two, but until then...

Looks like it's time for a meme.

Works out of Progress

The Riverland
Sixty-four miles past the Junction, the land becomes a red and vibrant place...The Riverland means "halfway."
It's a story about trains. And magical lions. And a woman calling herself Gamaliel who is trying to run the former while not being killed by the latter. Unfortunately, the theme of cultural appropriation is proving more difficult to handle than I expected, because I come across as a anglocentric oaf even when I really, really don't want to. This is a personal failing. I'm working on it. In the meantime, this poor story languishes and searches for a first line.

The Widow's Island
You will wake to the sound of singing.
As it stands, this is a prose poem more than a short story, but I'm thinking it would work better if it was more story and less poem. The setting is inspired by the beautiful Mont St. Michel. Unfortunately, my original wordbuilding isn't working, and I'm hesitant to take it up again, knowing the long labor that lies ahead.

Saraband
No first line yet, not even the hint of one. This story was inspired by one-too-many "I fell in love with the Queen of Elfland" stories. I think it shares a setting with my novella-in-progress Jaquemart, and like Jaquemart, Saraband plays with as many fairy tale tropes as she can get her hands on. The challenge here is developing the main character.

Four Burning Things
I misread the title of someone's blog, and that's where the title came from. It has more than a little in common with "Four Lies from the Mouth of God," including forbidden love and a lot of soldiers. The big challenge with this is finding a narrative style that let me tell all the facets of the story. It hasn't been easy.

The Keeper of the Farthest Tower
I have characters. I have a setting. Now they need to start interacting.

The Oracle of the Shore
She hates the sea. For a long time, she thought it was the only thing she hated.
More forbidden love! And Oracles, which are always tasty. I have no idea why this one isn't moving along, since I know the characters and I know the plot and I know where both of the above are headed. It's like I can't tap into my own narrative voice to actually get the words on the page.

The Burning of Gethsemane Jones
Cosmic horror, alien invasion, plague, themes of alienation and empathy...I have a pretty clear idea why this one isn't taking off, as a matter of fact.

Where is my Kingdom
The quest for Aztlan, as related by Malinalxochitl. This one's getting bogged down in research purgatory.

The Second Name of Summer
Otherwise known as the Dead Languages Society. And that sums it up surprisingly well.

The Last Letter of Lazare Roland
Forgery! Murder! Revolution! And a neat forray into architecture. Also bogged down in research purgatory, though a bigger problem is that I simply have no bloody idea where to begin the story. Hence, no first line.

And of course there's the general list of novels and novellas spreading from here to Yuggoth, but I'm not even going to worry about those until one of these starts to jello. Wish me luck!

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Tuesday, April 13, 2010

fiction, writing

Chinese!

"Four Lies from the Mouth of God" is being translated into Chinese. If you'd like to check it out, the page is here.

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Thursday, March 11, 2010

fiction, foreign language

Nothing like IROSF...

...to make my day.

Reviews of "Four Lies from the Mouth of God" and "All the King's Monsters" here. I learned with "Winterblood" a) not to take this sort of thing too seriously and b) that the reviewer and I have completely different opinions about what speculative fiction should do for the reader.

Speaking of which, a question to the readers: when did I say Julius wrote Four Lies from the Mouth of God?

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Thursday, February 11, 2010

Clarkesworld, fiction, review

That thing, the one I don't have a name for...

I have finally realized the nature of my WIP. It is a documentary about an age that never was, and a man who never lived in it.

That makes it sound both more and less fantastically nerdy than it actually is.

(I have also described it as a story about Richard Wagner and Oscar Wilde getting drunk in a Viennese bar and merging personalities. Then I remembered that Wagner was a complete $*@%ing dick. I also remembered that I know absolutely nothing about opera. So Wagner = not so much.)

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Saturday, January 30, 2010

fiction, insanity, updates, voice, writing

The darling buds of January

More stories appearing in January:

- "Firstborn", at the Lorelei Signal

- "Fugitive 135711400", in 10Flash

- "Four Lies from the Mouth of God", in Strange Horizons

- "Song at a Cottage Door", in the January issue of Cabinet des Fees

Stay tuned!

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Saturday, January 02, 2010

fiction, reading, recomendations, short story, updates, writing

First Issue of Lacuna Published Today!

Visit the first issue of Lacuna: A Journal of Historical Fiction, and don't forget to check out our first issue review contest!

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Thursday, October 15, 2009

editing, fiction, historical fiction, Lacuna, reading

Heroic Fantasy Quarterly

I should have checked this magazine out around sixteen days ago, when the first issue came out, but reading for Mirror Dance and Lacuna has kept me busy. Fortunately, I found a small break this morning, and discovered that I actually do enjoy unapologetic Sword & Sorcery when it's done intelligently.

I particularly recommend James Lecky's story "The Black Flowers of Sevan" and Elizabeth Barrette's poem "Ansel's Army."

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Friday, July 17, 2009

fantasy, fiction, poetry, reading, recommendations

Thoughtcrime Experiments

Congratulations are in order for my sister, Therese Arkenberg, and the other authors and artists whose work appears in the online anthology Thoughtcrime Experiments. Check it out--it's well worth a read.

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Monday, April 27, 2009

anthologies, fiction, reading, recomendations, short story

Palimpsest

This post is spoiler-free.

I've just finished reading Palimpsest by Catherynne Valente, and I honestly can't say just now what I think of it.

Did I enjoy it? Yes, immensely. The word "imaginative" fails to convey the richness of the city Valente has created. The utter strangeness of the creatures and events in Palimpsest makes the author's ability to make them real and concrete in the mind of the reader all the more impressive--and necessary. The four protagonists were interesting--much more so towards the end of the book than at the beginning--but nothing compared to the citizens (I hesitate to say "people") of Palimpsest themselves. The hints of a soon-to-be-revealed violent past behind the city kept me engaged when the plot lagged.

That said, I am a prose reader rather than a story reader--it's not the what that interests me, but the how. Valente has been frequently and deservedly praised for her rich prose. However, there are places where richness becomes unintelligable, or simply silly. An example from page nine:

She balanced one hand--many-ringed--on her hip and jerked her head in the manner of a fox snuffling the air for roasting things.

"Balanced," "snuffling," and "many-ringed" can all be argued, but why on earth would a fox--a wild animal--be interested in cooked meat? This kind of slip is rare, and becomes rarer as the novel progresses, but when the prose is generally so effortless, it's all the more obvious when the author is trying too hard.

So what do I think of Palimpsest? I'm glad I read it, but it won't get a rereading from me. The protagonists, interesting as they were, didn't feel real enough for me to truly invest myself emotionally in their story (I hesitate to say "struggle"), and I don't feel as though there was any deep meaning to dig for the second time through. To be fair, I am also simultaneously rereading The Fountainhead and The Picture of Dorian Gray, so my literary expectations are high. I'd certainly recommend giving Palimpsest a try--at the very least, you'll have a new way of looking at honey bees.

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Saturday, March 28, 2009

fantasy, fiction, reading, recommendations, review, voice

Oldie but Goodie

"A Reader's Manifesto" appeared about eight years ago in The Atlantic, but it's a) taken me this long to discover it and b) still true. I most emphatically agree with the closing statements about blaming the reader for faults of the writer. Reading should not be about trying to translate florid and inaccurate prose into English!

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Wednesday, March 11, 2009

fiction, literature, reading, recomendations, voice

The State of the Writer Address

I’ve spent most of this month working on literary magazines; Mirror Dance, for which I’ve read, edited, formatted, accepted, rejected, solicited, and “illustrated” a decent number of quality stories, and my most recent brainchild, a historical fiction e-zine that I hope to begin taking submissions for in June. I’m making an effort to keep my resolution about shortening Mirror Dance’s response time, but there’s been an unusual influx of 7,000+ word submissions, which take a little longer to read and work through rewrites for than the 3,000 word variety. Not that I’m complaining; they all have much to recommend them, and I’m honored to be able to consider them for Mirror Dance.

I’ve taken a small break this week from formatting and art searching (though not, of course, from reading and editing) and worked on revising several tanka from my old notebook. I dislike revising fiction and narrative poetry, but I find it an enlightening and deeply relaxing process with tanka. Since nearly all of my tanka are written from life, I often need the revision time to flesh out the ideas that came spur-of-the-moment and half-formed during the original writing.

I’ve also taken a break from the swarm of meticulously planned-out short stories awaiting nascence on my word processer and begun writing a short novella by hand. It’s coming out with surprising coherence for not having an outline, and there’s something about hand-writing a story that makes the voice feel more organic. Which is a good thing, honest, even if it means I’m falling occasionally into the tone of a turn-of-the-century-esque city boss.

On Wednesday I finished reading Tanith Lee’s indescribably magnificent The Gods are Thirsty. I cannot recommend this book highly enough, particularly to my fellow French Revolution fanatics. I’m just surprised that I didn’t discover it sooner!

And finally, for those same fellow French Revolutionary fanatics, yesterday was the first day of Ventôse CCXVII in the French Republican Calendar. Vive la Révolution!

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Friday, February 20, 2009

editing, fiction, French Revolution, Mirror Dance, New Year's Resolutions, recomendations, tanka, voice, writing

Mirror Dance Updates

I am in need of one more poem for the Spring 2009 issue of Mirror Dance. There is one fiction and one poetry slot open in the themed Summer issue, "Villains and Antiheroes." Finally, I have nonfiction/opinion/art slots open in both these issues; the Summer item should relate to the theme, but I will consider a wide variety for Spring.

Submissions information can be found here.

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Thursday, February 12, 2009

art, editing, fiction, Mirror Dance, nonfiction, poetry, publishing, updates, writing