(no subject)
Apr. 2nd, 2022 12:52 amI have a new short story out today in Kaleidotrope! I have been describing it as a story about the irreconcilable differences between your past self and your present self, and also about robot nuns.
(no subject)
Feb. 7th, 2022 11:15 pmWhile I'm self-promoting, two more brief items:
a.) finally got a website in order to keep track of my fiction! this is entirely due to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
genarti doing all the hard work of initial setup last year and then mellific making some absolutely incredible art so that when I go to the site I can gaze peacefully upon it and feel joy rather than what I would otherwise be feeling, which is stress and imposter syndrome
b.) "This Is New Gehesran Calling," my short story from the Consolation Songs anthology, is going to be reprinted in The Long List Anthology, a collection of shorts from the longer Hugo Award nomination list (assuming it's funded.) I realize everyone who read and liked this story already owns it in anthology form by the very nature of its publication so this is probably not actually that exciting as news goes, but there is quite a bit of other exciting-looking stuff in the TOC if you are interested in it!
a.) finally got a website in order to keep track of my fiction! this is entirely due to
genarti doing all the hard work of initial setup last year and then mellific making some absolutely incredible art so that when I go to the site I can gaze peacefully upon it and feel joy rather than what I would otherwise be feeling, which is stress and imposter syndromeb.) "This Is New Gehesran Calling," my short story from the Consolation Songs anthology, is going to be reprinted in The Long List Anthology, a collection of shorts from the longer Hugo Award nomination list (assuming it's funded.) I realize everyone who read and liked this story already owns it in anthology form by the very nature of its publication so this is probably not actually that exciting as news goes, but there is quite a bit of other exciting-looking stuff in the TOC if you are interested in it!
(no subject)
Jun. 30th, 2020 08:20 amConsolation Songs, the charity anthology edited by Iona Datt Sharma I mentioned last week, is out today! One can purchase it in physical or mobi form from the Amazon or as epub from Smashwords.
Meanwhile, I personally stayed up too late last night gorging everyone else's extremely delightful stories, including:
"Storm Story," Llinos Cathryn Thomas - a magical generation ship crossing a boundless ocean, a once-in-a-lifetime storm, and a mandate to keep the lights burning; near-impossible tasks, community and hope
"Girls Who Read Austen," Tansy Rayner Roberts - Greek mythology monsters college roommate AU!
"Upside the Head," Marissa Lingen - a medical trial for a new treatment for head trauma (in mostly, specifically, hockey players); unexpected changes & unexpected growth
"Bethany, Bethany," Lizbeth Myles - a changeling story about sisters! my jam!!!
"Seaview on Mars," Katie Rathfelder - accessible elder-home hunting on a space colony that is now but was not always thriving; a really great evocation of a larger world and context from a quiet and personal moment
"A Hundred and Seventy Storms," Aliette de Bodard - a sentient spaceship and her human cousin weathering a terrible storm (as a sidenote, Aliette de Bodard's Xuya books have been on my TBR for a while but had not personally realized that the premise was quite that much "McCaffrey's Ship Who Sang books, but good!", which I am very excited about)
"Low Energy Economy," Adrian Tchaikovsky - a contract worker chugs along on a doomed mission that may not in fact be completely doomed after all
"Four," Freya Marske - a Good Omens-ish riff on apocalyptic powers, set in suburban Australia & ft. Freya's trademark incredibly gleaming prose
"St. Anselm-By-The-Riverside," Iona Datt Sharma - a middle-aged hospital worker navigates her way through a first romance in a world that is borked in ways slightly parallel to our own; rich and layered with a fascinating second thread running through it
"This Is New Gehesran Calling," Rebecca Fraimow - this one is me! pirate radio and diasporic community in space!
"Of a Female Stranger," Jeannelle M. Ferreira - turn-of-the-eighteenth-century selkies! "are they lesbians" OF COURSE they are lesbians and it's great
"Love, Your Flatmate," Stephanie Burgis - a human gets stuck with an unwanted fairy houseguest during COVID-19 lockdown ... And Indeed They Were Roommates
If any of that sounds interesting, and if you have six dollars to spare, please consider making the purchase; all proceeds go to the University College London Hospitals NHS Trust!
Meanwhile, I personally stayed up too late last night gorging everyone else's extremely delightful stories, including:
"Storm Story," Llinos Cathryn Thomas - a magical generation ship crossing a boundless ocean, a once-in-a-lifetime storm, and a mandate to keep the lights burning; near-impossible tasks, community and hope
"Girls Who Read Austen," Tansy Rayner Roberts - Greek mythology monsters college roommate AU!
"Upside the Head," Marissa Lingen - a medical trial for a new treatment for head trauma (in mostly, specifically, hockey players); unexpected changes & unexpected growth
"Bethany, Bethany," Lizbeth Myles - a changeling story about sisters! my jam!!!
"Seaview on Mars," Katie Rathfelder - accessible elder-home hunting on a space colony that is now but was not always thriving; a really great evocation of a larger world and context from a quiet and personal moment
"A Hundred and Seventy Storms," Aliette de Bodard - a sentient spaceship and her human cousin weathering a terrible storm (as a sidenote, Aliette de Bodard's Xuya books have been on my TBR for a while but had not personally realized that the premise was quite that much "McCaffrey's Ship Who Sang books, but good!", which I am very excited about)
"Low Energy Economy," Adrian Tchaikovsky - a contract worker chugs along on a doomed mission that may not in fact be completely doomed after all
"Four," Freya Marske - a Good Omens-ish riff on apocalyptic powers, set in suburban Australia & ft. Freya's trademark incredibly gleaming prose
"St. Anselm-By-The-Riverside," Iona Datt Sharma - a middle-aged hospital worker navigates her way through a first romance in a world that is borked in ways slightly parallel to our own; rich and layered with a fascinating second thread running through it
"This Is New Gehesran Calling," Rebecca Fraimow - this one is me! pirate radio and diasporic community in space!
"Of a Female Stranger," Jeannelle M. Ferreira - turn-of-the-eighteenth-century selkies! "are they lesbians" OF COURSE they are lesbians and it's great
"Love, Your Flatmate," Stephanie Burgis - a human gets stuck with an unwanted fairy houseguest during COVID-19 lockdown ... And Indeed They Were Roommates
If any of that sounds interesting, and if you have six dollars to spare, please consider making the purchase; all proceeds go to the University College London Hospitals NHS Trust!
(no subject)
Jan. 4th, 2018 11:08 amLike an astute and alert professional, I totally missed the actual release of my one published story of 2017!
So, uh, anyway, it turns out my short story Romeo, Revisited came out last week in Volume 3 of Aliterate. It features a lot of productions of Romeo and Juliet, and also some aliens, although generally only the ones appearing in productions of Romeo and Juliet.
So, uh, anyway, it turns out my short story Romeo, Revisited came out last week in Volume 3 of Aliterate. It features a lot of productions of Romeo and Juliet, and also some aliens, although generally only the ones appearing in productions of Romeo and Juliet.
(no subject)
Aug. 31st, 2015 05:53 pmMy short-short fiction piece, "There Are No Eaters Of Souls In America," is now up at Daily Science Fiction.
Fun fact: the protagonist in this story is named Hodel. Unrelatedly, I learned for the first time this weekend that Hodel was my great-grandmother's given name. I had always thought her name was Ada; apparently she didn't like Hodel, and took Ada because she thought 'Ada Adler' sounded elegant. Then, when she married, she talked my great-grandfather -- an Adler on his mother's side -- into ditching his father's last name and sticking with Adler so that she wouldn't have to give up her dream name.
Anyway all this is completely irrelevant to the story; my great-grandmother never immigrated to America and as far as I know she has had no communication with sea monsters of any kind.
(In other publication news, another story of mine, "Further Arguments in Support of Yudah Cohen's Proposal to Bluma Zilberman," will be appearing in Diabolical Plots next May, but that is quite a long time from now, so.)
Fun fact: the protagonist in this story is named Hodel. Unrelatedly, I learned for the first time this weekend that Hodel was my great-grandmother's given name. I had always thought her name was Ada; apparently she didn't like Hodel, and took Ada because she thought 'Ada Adler' sounded elegant. Then, when she married, she talked my great-grandfather -- an Adler on his mother's side -- into ditching his father's last name and sticking with Adler so that she wouldn't have to give up her dream name.
Anyway all this is completely irrelevant to the story; my great-grandmother never immigrated to America and as far as I know she has had no communication with sea monsters of any kind.
(In other publication news, another story of mine, "Further Arguments in Support of Yudah Cohen's Proposal to Bluma Zilberman," will be appearing in Diabolical Plots next May, but that is quite a long time from now, so.)
(no subject)
Feb. 7th, 2015 06:14 pmSo I totally forgot to note when this happened, because I'm SUPER ON TOP OF THINGS, but my short-short magical realist story "Crowned" went up last month on Daily Science Fiction. If you happened to visit me any time between 2009 and 2011, you'll recognize the mural.
(In other news, for the next week I'm in Portland! Oregon, not Maine. It is deeply surreal not to be surrounded by snow.)
(In other news, for the next week I'm in Portland! Oregon, not Maine. It is deeply surreal not to be surrounded by snow.)
(no subject)
Dec. 27th, 2011 03:29 pmAt the recommendation of my friend Rahul over at Blotter Paper, I read my first two Shirley Jackson books over the past month or so: The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle.
I have lots of thoughts, obviously, but my strongest and most envious thought is that Shirley Jackson is one of the best writer of first sentences and paragraphs that I have ever come across.
Look at the opening of We Have Always Lived in the Castle:
My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantaganet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.
DOES THIS OR DOES THIS NOT make you instantly want to know everything else about Mary Katherine Blackwood and her sister Constance and her dead family? It does me! (Everything else about Mary Katherine Blackwood and her sister Constance and her dead family is not that hard to guess in terms of the facts of what went down just from that first paragraph, but it's the way that it plays out that's so creepy.)
Then there is the first sentence of The Haunting of Hill House:
No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream.
I liked The Haunting of Hill House a lot - it's the kind of book that features four people in a situation together and starting to like and trust each other and then the psychological horror turning everything wrong, which is probably the kind of that gets me worst - but to be honest, the rest of the book, however excellent, couldn't quite live up to that sentence.
-- although seriously, the book is really good. The heart of it is the relationship between Eleanor, who's lived her whole life without doing anything for herself until she gets the invitation to participate in a psychic experiment, and Theodora, a lighthearted lesbian artist who pretty much only ever does things for herself. Eleanor is the POV character, and the horror is horrible because of how much hope it dangles at first.
Anyway, the thing is, I honestly can't do that kind of opening at all. I always feel like the beginnings of my stories are the weakest part.
. . . well, and the endings. Actually there are a lot of weak parts, ah well. But I've never had that gift of launching in and grabbing the reader's attention with a stunning start; I usually just kind of fumble my way in to what I want to talk about. What about you guys? Do you find brilliant openings jumping into your head, or is an opening just a chore to get through to the meat of the story?
I have lots of thoughts, obviously, but my strongest and most envious thought is that Shirley Jackson is one of the best writer of first sentences and paragraphs that I have ever come across.
Look at the opening of We Have Always Lived in the Castle:
My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantaganet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.
DOES THIS OR DOES THIS NOT make you instantly want to know everything else about Mary Katherine Blackwood and her sister Constance and her dead family? It does me! (Everything else about Mary Katherine Blackwood and her sister Constance and her dead family is not that hard to guess in terms of the facts of what went down just from that first paragraph, but it's the way that it plays out that's so creepy.)
Then there is the first sentence of The Haunting of Hill House:
No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream.
I liked The Haunting of Hill House a lot - it's the kind of book that features four people in a situation together and starting to like and trust each other and then the psychological horror turning everything wrong, which is probably the kind of that gets me worst - but to be honest, the rest of the book, however excellent, couldn't quite live up to that sentence.
-- although seriously, the book is really good. The heart of it is the relationship between Eleanor, who's lived her whole life without doing anything for herself until she gets the invitation to participate in a psychic experiment, and Theodora, a lighthearted lesbian artist who pretty much only ever does things for herself. Eleanor is the POV character, and the horror is horrible because of how much hope it dangles at first.
Anyway, the thing is, I honestly can't do that kind of opening at all. I always feel like the beginnings of my stories are the weakest part.
. . . well, and the endings. Actually there are a lot of weak parts, ah well. But I've never had that gift of launching in and grabbing the reader's attention with a stunning start; I usually just kind of fumble my way in to what I want to talk about. What about you guys? Do you find brilliant openings jumping into your head, or is an opening just a chore to get through to the meat of the story?
(no subject)
Dec. 1st, 2011 10:44 amThe plus side of drowning in final papers: because I can't work on my Yuletide, it makes me really want to work on my Yuletide! So much so that I . . . have been writing bits and pieces surreptitiously in my class notebooks when things get dull, um.
Here is the thing, though: it's been ages since I've hand-written anything besides notes, especially anything fictional. I actually can't remember the last time I've hand-written anything properly that wasn't an in-class final (and that was four years ago.) And it's weird! My brain seems to work differently when I don't have the option to go back and instantly delete, cut and paste, and rephrase stuff as I'm in the process of writing it, and by 'differently' I mean 'not as well'. Also there's the factor that when I'm hand-writing, my hands just don't go as fast as my brain can go, and so I keep having to hop back and remind myself what I was thinking. It's SUPER FRUSTRATING. It's impossible for me to imagine having to do all my writing by hand, having to go that slowly all the time, and not having the opportunity to go back and instantly self-edit and be constantly making it better. But of course up until recently that's what everyone did.
I don't know, someone must have written up the theory about how typing does different things to your brain than hand-writing does. And I know some of you prefer to hand-write! I would love to hear if you guys have thoughts about this.
I have a poll over on LJ about it, so go over there to vote!
Here is the thing, though: it's been ages since I've hand-written anything besides notes, especially anything fictional. I actually can't remember the last time I've hand-written anything properly that wasn't an in-class final (and that was four years ago.) And it's weird! My brain seems to work differently when I don't have the option to go back and instantly delete, cut and paste, and rephrase stuff as I'm in the process of writing it, and by 'differently' I mean 'not as well'. Also there's the factor that when I'm hand-writing, my hands just don't go as fast as my brain can go, and so I keep having to hop back and remind myself what I was thinking. It's SUPER FRUSTRATING. It's impossible for me to imagine having to do all my writing by hand, having to go that slowly all the time, and not having the opportunity to go back and instantly self-edit and be constantly making it better. But of course up until recently that's what everyone did.
I don't know, someone must have written up the theory about how typing does different things to your brain than hand-writing does. And I know some of you prefer to hand-write! I would love to hear if you guys have thoughts about this.
I have a poll over on LJ about it, so go over there to vote!
