Category Archives: Fantasy

Podcast-esque thing: Comfort food edition

Given that I take my second (and last, thank God) comprehensive exam tomorrow, I spend this week’s blatheratorium talking about one of my favorite books from when I was nine and spending six sun-drenched, magical months with my family in Portugal: Duncton Wood by William Horwood. I read from a bit of it.

The book in question, for any interested readers, does appear to be available for pretty cheap prices in both hardcover and paperback on Amazon. I’m sure it can be gotten elsewhere, too. And yes, it really is entirely worth it.

WIP Wednesday: Untitled Dystopian Queer Angel(?) Novel

I’ve censored the following, in protest of a bill that gives any corporation and the US government the power to censor the internet–a bill that could pass THIS WEEK. To see the uncensored text, and to stop internet censorship, visit: http://americancensorship.org/posts/14157/uncensor

I’m █████ to ████ █████ the ████ █████ I’m ███████ on. I ████, it █████ █████-██████. We’ll see.

██████ I ████: I ████ it’s set in a █████████ ████████ ██████. I ████ ████ █████’s a █████ of █████ █████ ████████ ████████████. I ████ my ████ ██████████ are █████ █████–a man ████ a ███████ ██████████ who has ████ ████████ ████ a ██████████ and who has ███████ to ████ █████ the █████████–and ███████–a man ████ a ██████ ██████, a ██████████ ████, and ██████████ ██████, who █████ to ███████ ████ he is an ███████████ of St. ███████ █████████. I ████ ████ █████ and ███████ ████ ██████████ ████ a █████. I ████ ████ the ████ █████ not ████ ██████ █████ ███████ ████████████ but ██████ the ███████ of a ████████ █████████ █████ to ███████ a █████ to █████████ the ██████████.

██████ I don’t ████: ███████ or not ███████ ██████ is an █████. ███████ or not █████’s ██████ is one of the ████ ████. ███████ or not █████ ████ be a █████ ██████.

█████ I ████ all of ████ out, ████ a █████.

- – -

He ████ ███████ the ████, ███████ his █████ ███████ it, ██████ ████ ████ and ██████ ███████ ████ and █████████ on. He no ██████ ██████████ how ████ he had ████ ███████.

█████ he had ███████ ████ the dog-man, █████ had ████ a █████ ████ of ████████ and ███████████ █████. ████ had ████ the ████, and for a ██████ █████ he had ██████ ████ ████. █████ was █████████ █████ the █████ ██████, so █████████ ████ the ██████ and ██████████ █████ ████ he had ████ all ██████ him, the ████ ███████ in the █████ █████. The █████ had ████ a ██████ ████…

████.

And he had ██████ in it, ████████ █████ in the ██████ of an ████████ █████ ████ █████, ██████ █████ ███████ ████ his ████ ████, ████ ██████ up to the sky and his ████ ██████. █████. ████. █████ ████ ████ ██████. He ██████████ ████ ████.

████ a ██████ and the █████ of ███████ █████████ ██████ him, and the ███████ of ██████ had ████████. The █████ ██████ him ███████. He was ██████ █████.

████ or █████ he █████ a █████ ████ ██████ to him ████ the █████ did, and █████████ in him ████████ him ████ the █████ was █████ and the █████ was ███████, and he ███████ and ████ ███████ ████ █████ and ██████ his ████ ██████ ███████ as his ████ was ███████ ████ ███████. He was ███████████ █████, █████████ and █████████ ██████ ████ ███████ a ████. ████████ █████. ██████ ████ was so █████ to ██████, ████ ████ was so █████ to ████.

████ was not ████. ████ was a ████ ██████ of it. He ███████ ████ and ██████ on, ██████ ███████ ███████, ███████ ██████ ██████████.

Why was he ████? █████ had he ████ ████? It ████ a ████ for the █████████ to ████ to him—to ████ ████████ █████████ as █████ as the ████ of his █████████—but ████ ████ ████ ████ ████ █████████, ██████████ to ██████, and ██████ by a ████████ █████████ ████ █████████ █████ ████ ███████. ████ he █████ ████ ████ ████. By ████ the █████ was ████████ and far ████ ████████, no ██████ █████████ to ████ in. █████ was ███████ his ████. He ███████ in a ████ █████ of ██████ and ██████ his ███████ █████ ███████ the █████ of his ████ and █████████.

He ████’t ████ why, █████ all ██████, he ██████ be ███████ ███████████.

Uncensor This

WIP Wednesday: The Scarred Utopian is kind of a jerk, really

This week’s WIP is still The Scarred Utopian Takes a Wife, which I posted a bit of last week. It’s close to being done, so here’s a little more of it. It feels like a fable; something particular is being talked about in a very particular way. I’m not yet sure if that’s good or bad. Hopefully I’ll have a better idea by the time it’s done.

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Quick update – a sale and some other assorted stuff

After a couple of years of trying, I’ve finally sold a story–”Chinvat”, a ghost story inspired by an odd confluence of real events and Zoroastrian mythology–to Shimmer. So I’m really excited about that. I’m not sure yet which issue it’s going to appear in–I mean, I assume the next one but I’m not positive–but I’ll post more news when I have some. I’ll also have a bit more to say about how the story came to be; it’s a story whose inspirations are, I think, even more interesting than the story itself.

Aside from that, life goes on much as usual. I’ve got departmental funding for the summer in the name of getting a couple of articles edited and sent off for review, and I’m using that breathing space to also get some work done on the novel draft I’ve been plugging away at. I’m posting a lot more day to day in my Dreamwidth/Livejournal and reserving this space more for especially pertinent news and especially pertinent essays, but I’m always happy to see people over in either of those two places.

Wiscon was amazing. Thanks so much to all the delightful people who made it so. I can’t wait to see you next year.

Hellebore & Rue in print: now available!

Hellebore & Rue: Tales of Queer Women and Magic is finally out in print–and available for free Prime shipping, if you’re a student/faculty member with an Amazon account.

Look at that cover goddamn. You know you want a piece of that.

And I need to see if DC-area contributors want to do a reading/event thing, because I feel like getting out there and stretching my promo legs after a shitty, shitty month. And I do love to read aloud.

For a short explanation of how my story “Thin Spun” came to be–and an excerpt of the same–see the post here.

Hellebore and Rue: in print!

A tasty Eastery tidbit of news: you can now pre-order the print edition of Hellebore & Rue on Amazon if you want to. And you do want to. You know this.

Hell to the yeah. Thanks very much to Lethe Press for taking us on and putting out the dead tree edition.

Fairy Tale Week

Author and editor EM Lynley is doing a Fairy Tale Week event over at her blog; she’s edited two anthologies of fairy tale-themed erotica–one of which I’m a contributor to–and with a couple of film fairy tale retellings coming out soon, this seemed like a good time to talk about both.

I’ve written a post on how my story “The Art of Storm-Riding” was written–some of which I’ve already talked about here–and it’s up now, along with an excerpt. Check it out. And be sure to stay tuned for other great content and excerpts from contributors to both anthologies, coming up in the next week.

Hellebore & Rue: On sale now!

So Hellebore & Rue: Tales of Queer Women and Magic is finally out, and I am super excited. Not only is it out, but at the moment you can pick it up in a variety of formats for 15% off the list price–or $8.49, down from $9.99. It features a fantastic variety of takes on a theme by some really wonderful authors; big kudos to our lovely and talented editors for assembling such a diverse lineup of great fiction.

My own piece, “Thin Spun”, is a prequel of sorts to Rosetta, the sf novel that I’ve co-written. As I’ve said before, one of the wonderful things about building Rosetta’s world was the number of other stories and characters that came out of it, largely independent of the central storyline. One of these stories has been published in the MSF benefit anthology Help: Twelve Tales of Healing, and this is another.

When I decided to sit down and try to write something for this anthology, I knew it would probably be something from the world of Rosetta, and I realized fairly quickly that I wanted to explore the backstory of one of our major secondary characters (and say a brief hello to yet another, as well as to one of our heroes). I honestly don’t want to say straight out who it is, because it ends up being a slight spoiler for Rosetta itself. But regardless, it was a lot of fun to watch that story unfold, and along the way I got to meet some new characters I didn’t expect, as well as get an even fuller picture of the world in which I’ve been spending a lot of the past year.

The title itself is from John Milton’s poem “Lycidas”, one small passage of which deals with the myth of the Moirae:

But the fair Guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with th’ abhorred shears,
And slits the thin spun life.

The Moirae are only referenced once in the story, but I think they maintain a kind of constant background presence in the persons of the Aalim–the scholar-sorceresses of the Bideshi, the nomadic interstellar tribe to which the main character Lakshmi belongs. Or used to belong. “Thin Spun” is the story of the choices that led to her leaving the Bideshi and of how she finally makes peace with those choices, in the course of helping a scared girl with a stolen spaceship.

Hope you enjoy. Excerpt under the cut.

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On persistence.

So today I sold a story.

The story in question is “Memento Mori”, a strange, slightly surreal little piece that was hugely inspired by the closing passage of Bob Doto of Quiet Earth’s review of Werner Herzog’s My Son My Son What Have Ye Done, which remains one of the best movie reviews I have ever read. It’s finally been sold to Shadows & Tall Trees, which is a new annual publication; being that they seem to feature strange, slightly surreal fiction, it’s a good fit. I’m very happy to have placed it there.

However, I’m mentioning this not so much to toot my own horn–though I’m always happy to spend time on that–but instead to highlight the journey of this particular piece, which I think is illustrative of some things.

Some numbers: I originally wrote “Memento Mori” in the spring of 2010, so it’s almost a year old. Since then, it has gone through eleven rounds of submission, counting this one. It has been rejected nine times. It got one rewrite request, which eventually resulted in one of the nine rejections. As a result of that rewrite request, about a third of its original length was cut. It’s been cut further–though not as much–with this acceptance, because the editor at S&TT was nice enough to say “I really liked this but I think I could only accept it if the last couple of paragraphs were gone; would you be okay with that?” To which I naturally said yes, because the story was honestly better without those paragraphs. I count myself extremely, extremely lucky that I happened to send it to an editor who would take the time to look carefully at the piece and then point out what would improve it. Twice.1

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Hellebore & Rue – Out tomorrow!

Got my contributor’s copy of Hellebore & Rue last night, along with the news that it’ll be out tomorrow. I’ll be posting an excerpt of my story, at the very least, and watch for other promo goodness soon. I hear that our fabulous editors have some tasty things planned in that area.

We have a Faceboat page that you may wish to sail upon.

Finally, I will soon be making an announcement regarding my Super Secret Awesome Project of Win. Watch this space.