Pushpin Books will be home to Last Outpost (a military themed SF anthology withing the Far Orbit anthology series) and future Far Orbit space opera anthologies including Far Orbit Perigee (accepting submissions Jan 1 - March 1, 2017, see pushpinbooks.com for more information).
Recently, editor and anthologist Bascomb James announced that his next venture after editing Far Orbit and Far Orbit Apogee for World Weaver Press and Hyperpowers for Third Flatiron Press (forthcoming May, 2016), will be to establish his own publishing house, Pushpin Books, a celebration of short speculative fiction.
Pushpin Books will be home to Last Outpost (a military themed SF anthology withing the Far Orbit anthology series) and future Far Orbit space opera anthologies including Far Orbit Perigee (accepting submissions Jan 1 - March 1, 2017, see pushpinbooks.com for more information). Beginning writers are often given the advice "write what you know." It's not a rule, not by a long shot. It's advice. And it's not even advice that applies long-term. It's training wheels. When you're starting to write, you have a lot of brand new considerations to make. You're learning to balance craft -- storytelling, grammar, narrative, pacing, character, dialog -- and the best way to do that is to do. That is, write. And if you're spending the majority of your time researching, then you're not writing. Further, it can become hard to parse if your story isn't working because of craft issues or because you're writing about something you clearly have no experience with. It's best to eliminate variables to help diagnose the problem. In this case, eliminating places, careers, time periods, situations, etc., that you're unfamiliar with, means that the problems that are left are probably craft problems. So once a writer reaches the stage where her writing feels solid enough to take on research . . . well, that's a brand new, fabulous can of worms. Read on for a discussion of reasons to research, pitfalls to avoid, how to move beyond Wikipedia, and when/how to approach an expert. Last month, I announced that I was stepping down as Editor-in-Chief of World Weaver Press, the speculative fiction small press I founded in 2012, to be succeeded by Sarena Ulibarri. I am thrilled with what I've accomplished as Editor-in-Chief and by how far we've come in just under four years. My time as co-founder of the press has been fantastic, primarily because I've had the chance to work with such great authors crafting intensely interesting novels. I think that every reader of speculative fiction should pick up a World Weaver Press title, not because I published them, but because they are such damn engaging stories crafted by truly artful storytellers, each working in her own idiom. I'm happy to be handing off the creative direction -- both for continuing the series we've started and to seek out new ones -- to someone who shares our vision and passion for speculative fiction and who can continue to drive World Weaver Press forward. In her welcome post last week, Sarena Ulibarri writes: If you didn't get a chance to read my flash fic fairy tale retelling "Yaga Dreams of Growing Up" in Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, you can now listen to it in the online audio magazine PodCastle. The recent episode features three pieces of flash in PodCastle's excellently produced show.
Listen here: Podcastle episode 378. First off, I have done A Thing: my short story "Candy, Shoe, and Skull; Sallow Flowers Plucked Like Chains" appears in this month's issue of Niteblade Fantasy and Horror Magazine. And yes, it's the dark fairy tale issue. If you know me, you understand why that is perfect. I've read the magazine and there are some delightfully wondrous and oh-so-dark retwistings of fairy tale in these digital pages. So far my favorites, other than my own story (because: of course), are Eric J. Guignard's "A Kiss and a Curse," a Beauty and the Beast retelling of dire consequence, the narrative poem "Et je ne pleurais jamais les larmes cicatrisantes magiques; c’est seulement un mensonge joli: Arne-Thompson Index No. 310" by Elizabeth McClellan featuring a Rapunzel with agency and engineering on her side, and Rhonda Eikamp's "The Men in the Walls," which is also very, very dark. Well, they're all dark. This is, after all, the dark fairy tale issue. But there's a delight in these dark stories that my brain keeps turning over and over. I love the twists and shapes of these tales. My piece, "Candy, Shoe, and Skull; Sallow Flowers Plucked Like Chains,"really came about because I kept picking at the notion of where fairy tales come from, then applied that to the modern world. We're all just dark and twisty beings who don't understand what's going on.There are two main theories in folklore studies about the origins of these stories of the people and the fact that so many cultures developed the same basic tales seemingly independent of one another. One notion is that these tales arise from the collective subconscious. That human brains are all hardwired similarly -- we fear the dark and unknown, we have a thing about shoes, we conflate eating, sex, and cannibalism -- and communicating this to each other produces narratives. The ones that resonate with the listener get retold, and retold, and retold. Over the generations, a regional flair gets added or subtracted as the culture changes. Eventually, the tales were written down, but that didn't stop them from changing. The other notion is that humans craft fairy and folktales as a coping device -- the tale itself is a means of understanding the world we live in. This notion draws mythology and fables in under the same explanation even though folklorists like to firmly divide folklore, fairy tale, myth, fable, tall tale, etc. into their own groups. But the notion is that we tell origin stories to explain why the sea is salt or why the sun chases the moon across the sky. We also tell stories that are warnings: don't take candy from stranger houses, be careful or a fox will trick you out of your riches, nobody likes vain mean girls. Beauty and the Beast tale types are generally seen to convey the hope make the best of a bad arranged marriage and maybe it'll get better. When strange things happen, we seek explanation. What goes on when people leave civilization? What is out there? What happens to children who wander off from town? Letting it unravel to its furthest logical outcome.I started in a modern(ish) world that possessed fairy tale logic -- a belief that wonder and action create life not just action; therefore, magic (in certain forms, such as talking bears) exists. I then brought forth a town and gave them a collective voice who didn't know what happened to children who wander off from town. And I let them tell their story. Let them set forth into the modern-yet-fairy-tale world to discover the tale-truths of their existence.
I hope you'll pick up a copy of Niteblade and see the story for yourself as well as the other great offerings in the issue. It's well worth the $2.99 to get the ebook or PDF edition. But since we're talking about money . . . Niteblade has an interesting sales model: Once they reach $50 of sales and/or donations for an issue, the stories and poems unlock and become available online as well as continuing in their for-purchase avenues such as Amazon Kindle. (N.B. The sidebar meter does not appear to be updating in real-time, rather it's a once-a-day update. I think.) So go forth, and unlock the dark fairy tale goodness.
Celia West is the daughter of Commerce City's two most renowned superhuman heroes . . . and Celia, by her own description, is a dud. Whatever granted her parents' superpowers skipped her completely. Still, she's pretty damn impressive in her own right. After a period of teenage rebellion, Celia became a forensic accountant . . . and as much as she would like to avoid it, her chosen career still brings her in line with the task of defeating the city's supervillians.
Because I've watched too many movies, I eagerly watched for signs of Celia's late-blooming superpower. Instead she continues to impress the reader by being smart and courageous. Not stupidly fearless, but earnestly brave. And constantly underestimated by a city of people used to mutant heroes in spandex. "No one was afraid of her; she didn't have any powers. But she wouldn't flinch. That was her talent. That, and recognizing people under their masks."
The novel opens with Celia being kidnapped . . . yet again. She's become an old pro at being kidnapped to trap her parents. She's less than thrilled with it, but how she handles it lends an interesting dimension to her character.
When I initially heard of this book, I thought it would be YA; superheroes' teenage daughter rebels. But that part of the story is actually told through flashback. Instead, After the Golden Age picks up with Celia at age 25 while she's working as a CPA and her total estrangement with her parents has become a still tense, but lighter estrangement. An easy but artfully rendered and engaging read. |
Eileen WiedbraukWriter, book designer, coffee addict, cat herder, learning to code, MFA grad, Odyssey Workshop alum, tech geek, kdrama devotee, avid reader, and a somewhat decent cook. Categories
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