Out Now: The Sword of Saints and Sinners

I have a new story out in Daily Science Fiction: The Sword of Saints and Sinners.

bible with a sword handle in front of it

150 Year Old Bible With Sword

When I nabbed this title during the annual Codex Weekend Warrior Title Rummage Sale, I knew the story had to be about justice… and injustice. For the characters, I turned to the Old Bailey Online project (oldbaileyonline.org), which digitized the records of London’s central criminal court from 1674 to 1912. Some of the stories implied by those crime summaries are fascinating, some are heart-breaking, and all of them are very human.

Out Now: Miss Karami’s Academy For Time-Warping Ladies

woman in steampunk clothes standing in front of a large clock faceI have a new story out in Kaleidotrope this month: Miss Karami’s Academy For Time-Warping Ladies. It’s a fantasy of manners involving twins, time travel, and tons of mischief.

Ryksa and I are not quite identical twins. That’s how I got caught doubling myself—warping time in a manner that was, as Mother phrased it, “unbecoming for a lady in proper Society.”

This story was inspired by the annual Codex Weekend Warrior Title Rummage Sale, run by the amazing Vylar Kaftan.

 

Out Now: Fools Pass Under

I have a new story out in Mysterion.

“Fools Pass Under” is a historical tale balancing on the tightrope between dark fantasy and horror. The year is 1633 and a massive troll slumbers beneath London Bridge. John Potter swore an oath before God to sustain the bridge, which should have been a simple matter of collecting tolls and paying for repairs. But when the houses that line that bridge catch fire, the troll awakens… hungry for human flesh.

image of historic London Bridge

Claude de Jongh’s View of London Bridge, circa 1632

In reality, London Bridge did partially burn down in 1633. The damage to the buildings upon the bridge was expensive enough that repairs hadn’t been completed 33 years later when a far more famous fire began in Pudding Lane. The Great Fire of London spread towards the river but the burnt-out portions of London Bridge served as a natural firebreak and prevented the flames from crossing the river. A fire thus saved Southwark and the south bank from the Great Fire, proving once again that history is sometimes stranger than fiction…

Sale: Fools Pass Under

I’m delighted to announce the sale of my story about the troll of London Bridge, “Fools Pass Under,” to Mysterion. It’s tentatively scheduled for publication around Thanksgiving (late November).

image of historic London Bridge

Claude de Jongh’s View of London Bridge, circa 1632

Story Behind the Story: What Merfolk Must Know

What Merfolk Must Know

A lot of times when we write historical fiction, it’s tempting to restrict ourselves to narratives of political, intellectual, religious, and artistic “heavyweights” – people about which much has been written and who play a significant role in the large-scale historical narratives we learn in school. Even when we write about a character we make up in, say colonial America, it’s fun to have that character accidentally run into Benjamin Franklin or George Washington as they go about their daily lives.

But writing other narratives is necessary, especially when they’re narratives about oppressed peoples and the uglier parts of our history that we’d rather not think about. It took me a long time to figure out how I could best write about the Zong massacre in a way that introduced a fantastical element without underplaying or discounting the horror of both this event and the transatlantic slave trade as a whole. The story only succeeds (if it succeeds – I’m sure some people may beg to differ!) because of the utter naiveté of the narrator. Like the original little mermaid, she comes face-to-face with the cruelties of the land and doesn’t escape unscathed… as none of us should.

For anyone who’s interested in learning more about the transatlantic slave trade than their high school or college history books taught them, the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database has information on almost 36,000 slaving voyages and the over 10,000,000 African men, women, and children whose lives the trade consumed.

Story Behind the Story: A Legal Affair

To all Kings, Princes, and Lords,

Whereas I have no children, save only one daughter, I find it expedient to lock said daughter in a tower guarded by a fire-breathing dragon. Whosoever rescues the princess shall marry her and become my heir.

King John VII of Phantacia

* * * * *

To Sir Sedgway, Lord Chief Justice of Phantacia,

I pray you enquire into the cause of my imprisonment, if it be legal or no.

Your devoted servant,

Princess Melissande

image of a tree on a hill with a castle tower in the background

The question everyone always seems to ask authors is: where do you get your ideas? Well, the Princess Melissande sprang from my head fully-formed and Athena-like, in an incident that went something like this…

I was sitting in Panera, reading a book on legal history. Everything was fine and dandy until I reached the section on the use of habeas corpus in custody disputes and domestic violence cases.

Like a lightbulb going off in my head, it occurred to me that your average princess (having been raised in Court and therefore possessing at least a modicum of political sensibility), upon being locked in a tower guarded by a fire-breathing dragon (you know, the cliche), would attempt to secure her release by writ of habeas corpus (assuming she didn’t agree to be locked up in the first place.)

Great idea! And I’ve always wanted to write a princess-in-a-tower story. So I jotted it down on my mental to-do list and tried to go back to the book.

“Wait, aren’t you going to write it down for real?” Princess Melissande demanded.

“Um, I don’t have any paper on me, except my receipt,” I replied to the figment of my imagination, hoping no one thought I was crazy for talking to thin air.

“What kind of writer doesn’t have any paper on her?” The princess turned to her lawyer. “Is there some legal precedent for this?”

The lawyer frowned. “Maybe if she goes home right away and writes it down?”

“But-” I protested.

Princess Melissande nodded. “Very well. Shoo.”

“But-“

“Now!”

In the face of her royal displeasure (and the fact that she wouldn’t shut up so I could go back to my book), there was nothing to do but race on home (she’s a horrible backseat, in case anyone cares). I spent the next several hours feverishly writing out her story, until I reached The End.

“Is that it?” Princess Melissande asked, staring at my computer screen doubtfully.

“It’s not done until she puts it into standard manuscript form,” her lawyer declared.

“Fine, fine,” I said, before they could start in on me again. I hastily reformatted it, calculated the word count, and put that in the upper right hand corner of my first page.

1200 words.

“Hmm. You know, there’d probably be a better market for this if I could get it down to flash fiction size,” I said.

“A better market? What do you have to do for that?” Princess Melissande asked, excitedly.

“Oh, just cut out two hundred words-“

Her screech of outrage stopped me cold. “Two hundred words!”

“Well, if it increases the chance of publication…,” her lawyer began, then cut himself off abruptly as she turned her ire on him and began using words no princess ought to know.

Very quietly, I slipped away while they were both distracted and went back to my book.

This story can be found in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword & Sorceress XXVI, available through all the Usual Bookstore Suspects

Story Behind the Story: Mudlarks

The river Thames collects the rubbish and sewage of London’s residents. Mudlarks are poor children who survive by scavenging for that rubbish in the mud at the river’s edge. They work in crews, each with its own territory, each with its own leader.

In honor of my website redesign (and because the affordances of WordPress make me feel guilty for not blogging, YES I know that’s silly but whatever) I’ve decided to institute a series of posts on the “Story Behind the Story” of some of my favorite published fiction. While there are lots of great stories I could tell, I figured this series could only start with Mudlarks, my first publication.

A lot of writers workshops have a particular story exercise: the 24 hour story. Participants have approximately 24 hours (a bit more if they don’t mind sleep deprivation) to write a short story from start to finish. I had only just recently moved from London back to the States, and one of the many things I missed was the river Thames. And I knew about the historical mudlarks, mostly children and the elderly, who eeked out survival by scavenging on the banks of the river. Okay, great, but where’s the speculative element to go with it? Edmund Schubert – then editor of IGMS – happened to be in that workshop with me and while we were working on brainstorming he said, quite casually, “You know, her magical powers ought to be related to the river somehow.”

That was the missing piece that made the entire story – indeed the entire world – fall into place. I spent 24(ish) frantic hours writing. At about 2am I almost killed off the main character just so I could go to bed (do not do that, that is a bad reason to kill off your main character) but I persevered and finally around 5am managed to finish the first draft of my story at a “mere” 8,000 words.

When it came time to critique my story, my fellow workshop participants had very valuable advice to give me (especially about not rushing the ending because I wanted to go to bed). I knew substantial revisions would be necessary before I could even think about submitting this story to markets and I was mentally prepping myself to do so even as the critique session ended… with Scott Card telling me that, even in this form, any editor would be a fool to not snatch it up if it crossed their desk.

Readers, Edmund was not a fool. I spent several frantic weeks revising and several more months wondering if it was all a dream, only to be absolutely thrilled to finally see my story published with an amazing illustration to boot (the illustrator even blogged about the artwork). While the full story is behind a subscription paywall, you can check out the beginning (and other great stories in the magazine’s free issue) at http://www.intergalacticmedicineshow.com