Online Fiction Recommendations & Publications for 3/12/2013

Here’s some pieces that I’ve particularly enjoyed over the last week, as well as pointers to some recent publications of my own.

Print:

Apex Magazine had some terrific pieces in its March 2013 issue. My favorites are Mermaid’s Hook by Liz Argall and If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love by Rachel Swirsky. I will confess that I’m particularly fond of the latter because Rachel wrote it during a group flash writing session I was part of.
GrÃ¡ Linnaea has kicked off a serial fiction effort that’s a lot of fun. Check out The Curious Investigations of Miranda McGee on his website.
I love pieces of fiction masquerading as something else. It’s such a fabulous device when used well. Jake Kerr’s produced a great story doing exactly that in Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince for Lightspeed Magazine. (Question: is there no audio version? The “Listen” link doesn’t work for me.)
A lovely, resonant piece about grief from E. Lily Yu is up at Eclipse Online.
The Nymph of Limantour by J.J. Roth, up at Every Day Fiction, is a marine love story — or is it?
My collaboration with Ben Burgis, Logic and Magic in the Time of the Boat Lift appeared in Giganotasaurus. It’s a story of a motorcycle mechanic with a graduate degree in paraconsistent logic and a summons from the Powers that Be investigating a mystery involving were-gators, demons, and dreams of Che Guevera, all set in 1980s Miami and Cuba.

Audio:

Part of the Broad Universe Rapid Fire Reading at Arisia, featuring Roxanne Bland, Kimberly Long-Ewing, and Gail Z. Martin. Broad Universe is a good organization for writers and well worth checking out if you don’t already know about it.
This piece on YA fiction podcast Cast of Wonders has a simple, almost pastoral world with a sinister overlay: magic that demands the sacrifice of young women and strict societal sexual roles. An almost inevitably tragic love story between Charlotte and Lily plays out against it. Eliza Hirsch, A Song for the Season, read by Kate Baker.
Sandra M. Odell writes wrenchingly and wonderfully. Check out David Milner Is… narrated by Joe Sammarco for Tales to Terrify.
The Drabblecast kicked off its Women and Aliens Month with Amid the Words of War, which originally appeared in Lightspeed Magazine and was reprinted in Near+Far. Eric Marsh does a super job with it.
Podcastle has the audio version of Logic and Magic in the Time of the Boat Lift, read adeptly and wonderfully as always by M.K. Hobson. I always smile when I hear her distinctive voice.

P.S. If you’re in the Seattle area, Deb Taber is reading tonight at the University Bookstore and should be well worth attending.

One Response

Jake Kerr says:

March 12, 2013 at 10:54 am

Thanks for the kind words, Cat! To answer your question: The nature of the piece was one that the Lightspeed team wouldn’t lend itself easily to audio. So I’m currently thinking of sending it off to an audio publication.

Reply

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WIP: Carpe Glitter

August 19, 2014

Today I have been writing! Costa Rica is fabulous, and we’re enjoying Jaco. Walked out for breakfast this morning and later on to the super mercado for groceries. My high school Spanish is, luckily, coming back in leaps and bounds.

I’ve been working not on a story set here, though, but one in Vegas. Here’s the beginning of what is looking like it will hit novelette length at least, “Carpe Glitter.”

Carpe glitter, my grandmother always said. Seize the glitter.

And that was what I remembered best about her: the glitter. A dazzle of rhinestone, a waft of Patou Joy, lipstick like a red banner across her mouth. Underneath all that, a worry little old lay with silver hair and vampire-pale skin.

Not that she was one, of course. But grandmother hung with everyone during her days in the Vegas crowd. Celebrities, presidents, they all came to her show at the Sparkle Dome, watched her strut her stuff in a black top hat and fishnet stockings, conjuring flames and doves (never card tricks, which she hated), making ghosts speak to loved ones in the audience and when she stepped off the stage, she left in a scintillating dazzle, like a fairy queen stepping off her throne.

All that shine. And at home?

She hoarded.

I mopped sweat off my forehead with the hem of my t-shirt and attacked another pile of magazines. No cat pee – I’d been spared that in these back rooms, closed off for at least a couple of decades. Grandmother had bought the house when she was at the height of her first fortune, just burst onto the stage magician scene, a woman from Brooklyn who’d trained herself in sleight of hand and studied under the most famous female stage of her time.

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Teaser: The Threadbare Magician

March 14, 2013

Still revamping this, since it insists on struggling from novelette length towards novella. Here you go.

Friendly Village loops and winds, tiny roads scattered among the trailers. Every patch of landscaping is different ““ cacti surrounded one mobile home, followed by a forest of rhododendrons, then dahlias that might have originated in my own garden.

Up along the creek ran a little road, unlined with homes. It led to a trailer of a peculiar pearly hue that might have been mistaken for grime at first. It was a Nordic style, almost, simulated white pine beams, rough wrought ironwork on the walls. Its landscaping was bare: a line of rocks, two tiny fir trees, one slightly larger than the other.

Outside, a massive rock crouched beside the mailbox.

In Greek mythology, such stones were sacred to Aphrodite. But I didn’t think a Greek God lurked within.

A man stood on the front porch, watching me approach. His attitude was expectant, perhaps even impatient, as though my visit was overdue. His gray beard hung down to his belly: woolly as a blanket. His eyes were blue and a few golden strands showed among the silver on his scalp to attest to his Nordic heritage.

I stopped a few feet away, looking at him.

“You’ve come of your own accord,” he said. “It would’ve been easier if you just let them bring you.”

I acted unsurprised, and maybe I was. Occam’s razor again. One) move to a new place. Two) be attacked by a powerful magical adversary. More than time connected that chain.

“I’m Forseti,” he said.

I searched through crumbs of mythology. My knowledge might have only the depth of a Wikipedia article, but it was wide. You learn the names of all the gods, once you realize most still exist in our act in acting out their own plans, few of which are constructed to dance humanity. Or even take into account, really.

“Justice, right?” I said.

He dropped a slow nod.

“What justice is there in killing me?” I asked.

He said, “Perhaps you should come inside for tea.”

—–

Reminder – both the Electronic Publishing class and the first Editing 101 online class run this Sunday. You’ve still got time to sign up! To find out more, click on “Take an Online Class with Cat”.

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Online Fiction Recommendations & Publications for 3/12/2013

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