It's a Jumble

Okay, I'm a week late posting this, but. . . My novelette, "Between Sea and Shore," is live at GigaNotoSaurus! You can read it online or download it as an ePub from the site! I am so thrilled to be appearing in this publication. I first fell in love with this journal when I stumbled across C.S.E. Cooney's amazing How the Milkmaid Struck a Bargain with the Crooked One. My love has continued since that day; just look at some of the other stories on the site and you'll understand why. So I'm completely psyched to find myself published in the journal (founded by Ann Leckie of Ancillary Justice   fame) that has published so many authors and stories I've loved. Huge thanks to editor Rashida Smith who plucked my story from the slush pile and then worked so hard with me to polish and sharpen the story, catching every typo and inconsistency along the way. Thanks also to all my beta-readers! You know who you are, and I'm grateful to you all.

The food. Oh my god, the food. Food is everywhere. Steps from my parents’ house in Bangkok are the street vendors and open-air food stalls. Little coconut-rice pancakes sizzle on the corner; a woman walks down the street pushing a cart with vats of sweet tapioca noodles in coconut milk. There’s satay and curries and noodles and fruit everywhere I look. Mounds of fresh fruit for sale— rambutan ( ngoh in Thai) , mangosteen ( monkut ), longan , jackfruit, durian and more. Every time a relative or friend came over, they brought food. Every time we stopped at someone’s house, they brought out food. God forbid—the thinking seems to be in my family—that anyone go hungry for more than five minutes. Needless to say, I ate well. This is an example of the generosity I met and the Thai concern about food: One of my mother’s friends knew that my parents were hosting a full house for the week in Bangkok. This friend was worried about how my parents would provide breakfast. So nearly ...

Okay, I finally got around to making an " official" writer's website at Wordpress. This is the site I want to pop up when people search for my name. But I'm still keeping this one at Blogger for sentimental reasons (and linking to it from my official site). And of course, I need to do some fiddling/customization/prettying-up of all these sites. . . But damnit, I'm a wordsmith, not a website designer! Anyway, head on over if you're curious to see what I've been up to this weekend.                                                                                *** It's been a long day,...

I've signed the contracts; I've even been paid! And while they won't be out for a while, it's still a personal Big Deal for me to announce two short story sales. 1) "Congress of Dragons" is forthcoming in the Fall issue of Megan Arkenberg's lovely journal, Mirror Dance . I always knew I would have to write a story featuring dragons one day. Because, dragons. 2) I am also very excited to announce the sale of "Between Sea and Shore" to GigaNotoSaurus . This story was difficult for me in a number of ways . It pushed me in new directions. It's the longest thing I've ever written (nearly 9000) words. I love it, but its very length made it hard to sell in the current short sci-fi/fantasy market. I am so thankful that a venue like GigaNotoSaurus, dedicated to longer fiction ("longer than a short story, and shorter than a novel") exists. It was also a pleasure, and eye-opening, to work through the editing/revision process with edi...

Poem for a Sunday night: " The Sciences Sing a Lullaby"

Lackington’s is a new online speculative fiction magazine with a focus on beautiful prose—what the editors refer to as stylized prose. I’m a sucker for beautiful prose, so the concept of this journal appealed to me from the start. Then the introductory forward to the first issue drew me in and whispered star-lit promises. From Issue One’s introductory forward : “ The world isn’t built on hook-plot-epiphany, and it isn’t experienced in digestible, everyday language. One might argue that literature doesn’t operate the same way the world does, but nor should it operate as if it came out of a box, complete with instruction manual. An epiphany isn’t half as valuable when it’s as dependable as the tide, after all.” Editor Ranyl Richildis argues that the conventions of genre fiction—the story-telling “musts” that are taught as basics to beginning writers--constrain the literature produced and read. Does a character really need to change over the course of story? Does every story n...

  It’s been a long winter. The polar vortex (what a marvelous term! When I was a kid we just referred to it as a winter storm or “cold weather”) comes again and again. Snow piles past the height of our mailbox, buries shrubs and half-buries small trees. In between freezing spells the ice thaws; mud and slush puddle in the streets. Sun teases us with longer daylight hours; we hear robins in the trees. And then it all freezes again, hard and glistening. Snow swirls outside my window, and I feel I could just stare out the window all day, hypnotized by its falling patterns. Polar temperatures have kept us housebound; snow days have taken off a week of the kids’ school year. I let them watch too much TV. There’s paid work to do; there’s the struggle to find time (and will!) for personal writing; there’s always laundry to do, unrelenting as the snow. Last week we returned from a trip to Chicago, where my family had gathered to celebrate my father’s birthday. There was great ex...