Category Archives: Interview

Corvidae Contributor Interview — C.S.E. Cooney

September 1, 2015 R. Parrish Leave a comment

Over the coming weeks I’d like to share interviews that I (and Magnus) conducted with the contributors to Corvidae and Scarecrow. This week we’ll talk with C.S.E. Cooney. Much like Angela Slatter, C.S.E. Cooney never actually submitted to Corvidae, but when I read her poem I really wanted to include it in Corvidae. I’m so glad I was able to 🙂

Interview with C.S.E Cooney

What is it about corvids that inspired you to write about them? Oh, I like birds. I don’t like them as pets. I like them as dinosaurs. They’re bright-eyed and frightening. I like people who behave like predator birds. But I only like them sometimes. Poets are good at this; poets often behave like predator birds, and that makes me want to write poetry about them. Dominik Parisien is one such poet, and this poem was for him.

Was there one corvid characteristic you wanted to highlight more than others? Curiosity and a trickster nature.

If you were a covid, what would you build your nest out of? Ribbons and stolen curls, tarnished rings, feathers stolen from the fletching of fallen arrows.

What’s your favourite ‘shiny’ thing? Most recently? A mask made all of rhinestones.

~*~

C.S.E. Cooney is a Rhode Island writer who lives across the street from a Victorian Strolling Park. She is the author of The Breaker Queen and The Two Paupers (Books One and Two of the Dark Breakers Trilogy), The Witch in the Almond Tree, How To Flirt in Faerieland and Other Wild Rhymes, and Jack o’ the Hills. She won the 2011 Rhysling Award for her story-poem “The Sea King’s Second Bride.”

Other examples of her work can be found in Rich Horton’s Years Best Science Fiction and Fantasy (2011, 2012, 2014), The Nebula Awards Showcase (2013), The Mammoth Book of Steampunk Adventures (2014), The Moment of Change Anthology, Black Gate Magazine, Uncanny Magazine, Strange Horizons, Apex, Subterranean, Ideomancer, Clockwork Phoenix, Steam-Powered II, The Book of Dead Things, Cabinet des Fées, Stone Telling, Goblin Fruit, and Mythic Delirium.

Her website is http://csecooney.com/

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B is for Broken, Interview

Fractured Friday: Alexis A. Hunter

August 28, 2015 R. Parrish Leave a comment

I met Alexis when she submitted a story to Niteblade. I accepted that story (Dragons of Fire) and that might have been the end of it, except that not long after Alexis volunteered to fill an empty slush reader position at Niteblade so I got to work with her further. And I’m exceptionally glad I did (and not just because she and Samantha Kymmell-Harvey were the pair of slush readers who worked the best together and practically did my job for me… though that helps).

I’m proud to include Alexis’ stories in both A is for Apocalypse and B is for Broken 🙂

Interview With Alexis A. Hunter

What letter were you assigned? N

Please share a short excerpt from your story:

Elise felt naked without the patterns on her skin. She couldn’t stand the idea of sleeping in her own bed tonight. The dark sigils brought a squirmy warmth to her stomach—a sort of unease, coupled with a thrill.

Mama said the negatives were evil—the magic of violence. Elise found herself staring at them. Their lines and edges were sharp, geometric, sometimes jagged. She didn’t know each sigil’s exact meaning, but she felt their intent: violence, harm, anger. They shimmered close, begging her to use them, oddly sharper and clearer than any sigil she’d seen in her magick before.

Instinctively, she trailed her fingers over her heart, reaching for the pattern of sleep. A thick sleep, a sleep that the dark shapes couldn’t disturb. But that comfort was gone.

What is the thing you’ve most regretted breaking? If we’re gonna get all deep and painful here, I’ll go ahead and say my faith. I broke it, I let it break—either way, it shattered and I’m still trying to pull the shards out of me. How’s that for morbid? 😉

Have you ever broken something and not been saddened by it? Can you tell us about that? There wasn’t actually “breaking” involved, but one day in a fit of teenage angst I burned a lot of photos and mementos related to a boy I thought I loved. Looking back the whole thing seems silly, but at the time it consumed my world. Burning the physical effects like that helped somehow.

If you could break one law and get away with it consequence-free, what would it be? That’s a tough one for me. I’m all about following the rules (laws). I…honestly can’t think of a law I would break!

Do you have any rules for yourself, a code of some sort, which you’d never break? I’m still sort of reassembling my moral code now that I’ve left behind most of my faith. Ask me again in a year (and I probably still won’t have an answer, haha)!

Did you struggle with the letter you were assigned, or did the ideas come freely? I struggled a little, but not too much thankfully. I first had ‘N is for Neighbor’—an element which still plays a pretty big role in my story—but ended up changing it to the more important N of the story.

Additionally, at first I took the theme of broken to be about ‘breaking a spell’. I may have only felt it in the actual drafting stage, but at some part the theme of ‘Broken’ came to mean more to me, more to Elise as something broke in her in the end of the story. Similarly to my broken faith, there are some things you can’t put back together and usually those are the things that you break inside yourself.

What, aside from the anthology’s theme and your letter inspired your story? The entire magic system in this story was probably my favorite part to brainstorm—it came about after seeing some gorgeous chalk art on Pinterest. There’s something lovely to me about the idea of tactile magic—drawn and redrawn daily. From there came the ideas for the bandoleer (such a tiny detail, but it thrills me for some reason) and the focusing of magic by painting it on skin.

Alexis A. Hunter revels in the endless possibilities of speculative fiction. Over fifty of her short stories have appeared recently in Shimmer, Cricket Magazine, Flash Fiction Online, and more. To learn more, visit www.alexisahunter.com.

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B is for Broken, Interview

Fractured Friday: Samantha Kymmell-Harvey

August 21, 2015 R. Parrish Leave a comment

I met Samantha when she volunteered to be a slush reader for Niteblade. She had an uncanny knack for knowing which stories I’d want to read and consider and which I would end up passing on. That, combined with her insights into what worked (or didn’t) in a story made her contributions invaluable and told me I really needed to read her fiction. Once I had, inviting her to participate in the Alphabet Anthologies was a no-brainer 🙂

Interview With Samantha Kymmell-Harvey

What letter were you assigned? E

What is the thing you’ve most regretted breaking? My Dutch great-grandmother’s spinning wheel. I was a kid, I knocked it over and it busted. Because it’s so old, it would take some sort of antiques specialist to repair it. Now that I knit, I appreciate that spinning wheel so much more – and feel the regret all that much more too.

Have you ever broken something and not been saddened by it? Can you tell us about that? Well, a friend and I broke into her own house because she couldn’t find her keys and we were sopping wet from going to the swimming pool and needed to change into dry clothes. The extent of our “breaking in” was just lifting an unlocked window pane on the 1st floor, so nothing super crazy! This is probably a very boring answer.

If you could break one law and get away with it consequence-free, what would it be? Probably the law about importing/shipping wine. This might be a law particular to the State where I live, I’m not really sure. When I lived in France, I had the most amazing wines, some from tiny little vineyards. You can’t buy them anywhere in the States, so I miss them. It’d be great if I could just order them online.

Do you have any rules for yourself, a code of some sort, which you’d never break? I try to lead my life in a moral manner.

Never ever? No.

Really? Isn’t there something which could make you break it? Maybe if I had been brainwashed or placed under alien control (??)

Did you struggle with the letter you were assigned, or did the ideas come freely? Because “broken” can be interpreted in so many different ways, I had a ton of ideas so it was hard to narrow it down. Even as I went through the editing phases, I found that I had 2 stories within a story, so I had to focus even more on what exactly I meant by “broken.”

What was your favourite idea you didn’t use? I’m using a version of it for the next anthology – no spoilers!

What, aside from the anthology’s theme and your letter inspired your story? This story had two sources of inspiration: my great dislike of law school and my three times (at random!) being pulled up onstage as a magician’s assistant, which was totally embarrassing.

Samantha Kymmell-Harvey‘s stories can be found in Spark: A Creative Anthology, Every Day Fiction, and Waylines just to name a few. She is a 2012 graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop. You can follow her adventures on her blog: http://samanthakymmell-harvey.blogspot.com/

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Corvidae, Interview

Corvidae Contributor Interview — Angela Slatter

August 10, 2015 R. Parrish Leave a comment

Over the coming weeks I’d like to share interviews that I (and Magnus) conducted with the contributors to Corvidae and Scarecrow. This week we’ll talk with Angela Slatter. Angela never actually submitted to Corvidae, but when I read her story in another anthology I just knew it would be the perfect way to end mine, so I emailed her and asked if I could reprint it. Happily (for everyone) she said yes 🙂

Interview with Angela Slatter

Please share a short excerpt from your story/stories:

The feathers were tiny and Emer hoped they would stay so.

Indeed, she prayed they would fall out altogether. They were not downy little pins. Small, but determined, their black shafts hardened as soon as they poked through her skin, calcifying under her touch as she stroked them in dreadful fascination.

All day she’d felt something happening beneath the gloves hastily donned after her morning’s escapade. The sight of those ladylike coverings had brought approving nods from both her mother and governess, as if they were a sign she was finally listening to their exhortations. A princess does not run. A princess does not shout or curse. A princess keeps the sun in her voice, but off her fair skin. A princess sits quietly, back straight. A princess smiles at a gentleman’s tasteful jest, but never laughs too loudly. A princess never furrows her brow with thought. A princess does not chew her nails.

Emer had been determined that nothing untoward was occurring; that the healing salve she’d sneaked from her mother’s workroom would put everything to rights.

But that night, when Emer closed her bedchamber door and finally peeled away the doeskin gloves, she found that the wound in her palm was sprouting dark fronds around its ragged edge. They looked like the collar of her mother’s favorite cloak—except those feathers with their vibrant eyes were from the palace peacocks. A great ball of fear threatened to stopper her throat.

What is it about corvids that inspired you to write about them? I think it’s the sheer wealth of lore behind them: they’re thieves; they’re clever and sly; they cross many mythologies; they’re quite lovely-looking (what’s not to love about black feathers?); they can be sinister and clownish at the same time.

If you were a covid, what would you build your nest out of? The pages of books, so I’d be comfy and have something to read.

What’s your favourite ‘shiny’ thing? The various rings I’ve inherited from aunts over the years because (a) shiny-shiny, and (b) they have a family and emotional connection for me. I’ve got an emerald and diamond one of which I’m especially fond.

Mr. Yegpie: I also would sure love to know where they got their ideas from! I caught several familiar references from existing books and mythology and fairy tales; I like seeing people riff off stuff. (What inspired your story/poem?) I work a lot with European fairy tales and myths as my base, and “Flight” is a mix of “The Raven” and “White Bride, Black Bride”. I’d tried to write this story years ago when I was doing my MA and failed. I gave it another go when I was asked for a story for Once Upon A Time: New Fairy Tales by Paula Guran. This time I won.

Mr. Yegpie: I think I would like to know what people’s favourite corvid is though; and if it isn’t a magpie, WHYEVER NOT?!? (If they come back with some guff about crows using tools, PLEASE LET ME KNOW AND I WILL SEND THEM A COPY OF MY ROGERS BILL. Pffft, crows.) (What is your favourite corvid?) The raven. It’s got the best name. It guards the Tower of London. It’s cool.

Queensland Writers Fellow Angela Slatter is the author of the Aurealis Award-winning The Girl with No Hands and Other Tales, World Fantasy finalist Sourdough and Other Stories, British Fantasy Award-winning “The Coffin-Maker’s Daughter,” Aurealis finalist Midnight and Moonshine (with Lisa Hannett), as well as The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings, Black-Winged Angels, and The Female Factory (also with Lisa L. Hannett). She has an MA and a PhD in Creative Writing, and is a graduate of Clarion South 2009 and the Tin House Summer Writers Workshop 2006. She blogs at angelaslatter.com about shiny things that catch her eye.

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Corvidae, Interview

Corvidae Contributor Interview — Kat Otis

August 3, 2015 R. Parrish Leave a comment

Over the coming weeks I’d like to share interviews that I (and Magnus) conducted with the contributors to Corvidae and Scarecrow. This week we’ll talk with Kat Otis 🙂

Interview with Kat Otis

Please share a short excerpt from your story/stories:

Humans were never meant to fly.

That thought consumed Morgaine as she stared out the Mosquito’s windscreen at the thickly-falling snow. If humans knew what was good for them, they would be content to fight over earth and leave air to the corvidae, water to the leviathans, and frost to the giants. Unfortunately, humans had never been very good at sharing – among themselves or with the other great species of the world.

Was there one corvid characteristic you wanted to highlight more than others? Do you think you were successful? The characteristic I wanted to highlight the most was corvid intelligence. When I was trying to decide what kind of corvid to write about, I started by browsing bird websites and quickly fell into a research pit of corvid videos where they showed amazing levels of intelligence and tool use. Obviously the only proper response was to elevate the corvidae as a group to be as sentient as humans and… um… leviathans and frost giants. I sure hope I was successful, as the story makes very little sense without it!

If you were a covid, what would you build your nest out of? If I had to live in a nest, it would be a giant bean bag. Actually, sophmore year of college my roommate and I put a bean bag in a corner of our tiny dorm room, for an oft-visiting friend of ours, and called it her nest. So… I guess I sort of already have built a nest out of a bean bag 😉

What’s your favourite ‘shiny’ thing? Shiny new ideas, of course! For example, I was just working on my latest shiny new idea, a steampunk piece with exploding airships, and- OH NEW SHINY NEW IDEA GOTTA GO LATERS!

Mr. Yegpie: It would be cool to know where all these stories came from, I mean geographically – like I think I could tell who was from Edmonton and who was from Vancouver! (Where do you live, and did that affect your story/poem at all?) Oh, ye spoiled ones of fixed addresses! In just the last seven years, I’ve lived in twelve places, four time zones, and two countries. I’ve lived at latitudes ranging from 34.2 to 51.7 N, longitudes ranging from 0.1 to 118.1 W, and altitudes ranging from 115 to 2,080 feet. Or, as they say on Facebook, “it’s complicated.” My location has probably only affected my story in the most general ways – I have yet to live somewhere that it doesn’t snow.

Mr. Yegpie: I also would sure love to know where they got their ideas from! I caught several familiar references from existing books and mythology and fairy tales; I like seeing people riff off stuff. (What inspired your story/poem?) Well, I started with World War Two spy pigeons, because, hello, SPY PIGEONS! Who of course immediately morphed into corvidae for the purposes of this anthology. Then I added a pinch of recent personal tragedy, a dash of additional historical research, and a pound of advice on how to crash airplanes from the family pilots. Voila!

Mr. Yegpie: I think I would like to know what people’s favourite corvid is though; and if it isn’t a magpie, WHYEVER NOT?!? (If they come back with some guff about crows using tools, PLEASE LET ME KNOW AND I WILL SEND THEM A COPY OF MY ROGERS BILL. Pffft, crows.) (What is your favourite corvid?) Definitely the ravens of the Tower of London. What other birds have the power to topple an entire empire just by deciding to up stakes (up coops?) and move? But after that, I’ll give you magpies, who are pretty awesome.

Kat Otis lives a peripatetic life with a pair of cats who enjoy riding in the car as long as there’s no country music involved. Her fiction has appeared in Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, Daily Science Fiction and Penumbra eMag. She can be found online at www.katotis.com or on Twitter as @kat_otis.

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B is for Broken, Interview

Fractured Friday: Marge Simon

July 31, 2015 R. Parrish Leave a comment

I met Marge way back in 2007. I’m not sure exactly when but it was before September. I know that because September 2007 is then the first issue of Niteblade came out and I’d already been in contact with Marge by then because she did the cover (and every cover since). Marge has been a great friend, encouraged me in my writing, offered support as I found my way as an editor and Niteblade would not be the same without her artwork. It’s a pleasure to work with her and I’m pleased to have been able to do it for both A is for Apocalypse and B is for Broken (in addition to our other projects).

Marge and Michael Fosburg collaborated on a story for B is for Broken.

Interview With Marge Simon

What letter were you assigned? T

Please share a short excerpt from your story:

Hessura motioned Timon inside the bedroom. In her arms, a second child. “This one too, Timon.”

“A demon-son!” Timon gasped, and forked his fingers at the sleeping babe. “’The second chases after the first’ — a bad omen.”

“Aye, “ Hessura nodded. “Cursed by that yellow moon, Japeph would say. He’d have it killed.” She turned her head and spat. “A fishwife’s tale, if I ever heard one—and I’ve heard them all.”

Timon frowned, but he reached his finger to the tiny hand and grinned as the boy clasped it. “We must never let them know of this one,” he said. “Can you handle this, Hessura?”

What is the thing you’ve most regretted breaking? The heart of my first “true love” – but it wasn’t as real for my fickle young self as it was for him.

Have you ever broken something and not been saddened by it? Can you tell us about that? I tore up a photograph of a former boyfriend and me at a dance. Does that count?

If you could break one law and get away with it consequence-free, what would it be? I can’t answer this. I’m too “anal” about the idea of breaking the law. But I do lots of other wicked things.

Do you have any rules for yourself, a code of some sort, which you’d never break? Yes, writing a super trite story with lots of blood and guts and bad language–so poorly contrived that it makes me sick. But if I could write like Jeff Strand (brilliantly humorous), I might break the rule!

Did you struggle with the letter you were assigned, or did the ideas come freely? Ideas came freely!

What was your favourite idea you didn’t use? I wrote one about Lizzie Bordon, but it was pretty hokey, and Michael (Fosburg) had a better idea. I’m glad we went with his. I later rewrote the Lizzie Borden piece and sold it to Max Booth for an anthology (Perpetual Motion Publishing).

Marge Simon‘s works appear in publications such as DailySF Magazine, Pedestal, Urban Fantasist. She edits a column for the HWA Newsletter, “Blood & Spades: Poets of the Dark Side,” and serves as Chair of the Board of Trustees. She won the Strange Horizons Readers Choice Award, 2010, and the SFPA’s Dwarf Stars Award, 2012. She has won three Bram Stoker Awards ® for Superior Work in Poetry and has poetry in HWA’s Simon & Schuster collection, It’s Scary Out There, 2015. Marge also has poems in Darke Phantastique, Qualia Nous collections, and Spectral Realms, 2014. www.margesimon.com

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Corvidae, Interview

Corvidae Contributor Interview — Jane Yolen

July 27, 2015 R. Parrish Leave a comment

Over the coming weeks I’d like to share interviews that I (and Magnus) conducted with the contributors to Corvidae and Scarecrow. I’m going to begin with the amazing Jane Yolen because, c’mon, she’s Jane-freaking-Yolen.

Interview with Jane Yolen

Please share a short excerpt from your story/stories:

Part of one of my two poems in the volume:

Postcards from the Abyss
No “Wish you were here,”
no “Having a good time,”
only a sniff of sulfur,
groans from a nearby hummock,
three crows lifting off a limb,
probably laughing at the reader,
but who can tell with corvids.

What is it about corvids that inspired you to write about them? We are a family of birders, and corvids are among the smartest (and sassiest) of birds.

Was there one corvid characteristic you wanted to highlight more than others? Their knowingness.

Do you think you were successful? I can only hope. . . .

If you were a corvid, what would you build your nest out of? Coins and bottlecaps and peacock feathers.

What’s your favourite ‘shiny’ thing? My earring collection.

If you have work in both anthologies, which came first? The corvid or the scarecrow? Corvid first.

Massachusetts in the States. Summers in St Andrews, Scotland. Being a birder was more of an influence than where I live.

I love knowing the venereal (collective) names of animals and birds. One of my favorites has always been “ A Murder of Crows.” So that poem came naturally. “Postcards from the Abyss” is one of the many poems I have written to my birder husband, dead these nine years.

Sorry—but it’s crows for me. Though I love the look of magpies strutting across my Scottish lawn.

Jane Yolen, often called “the Hans Christian Andersen of America”(Newsweek) is the author of well over 350 books, including OWL MOON, THE DEVIL’S ARITHMETIC, and HOW DO DINOSAURS SAY GOODNIGHT. Her books and stories have won an assortment of awards–two Nebulas, a World Fantasy Award, a Caldecott, the Golden Kite Award, three Mythopoeic awards, two Christopher Medals, a nomination for the National Book Award, and the Jewish Book Award, among many others. She has been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize in Poetry. She is also the winner (for body of work) of the World Fantasy Assn. Lifetime Achievement Award, Science Fiction Poetry Association Grand Master Award, Catholic Library’s Regina Medal, Kerlan Medal from the University of Minnesota, the du Grummond Medal from Un. of Southern Missisippi, the Smith College Alumnae Medal, and New England Pubic Radio Arts and Humanities Award . Six colleges and universities have given her honorary doctorates. Her website is: www.janeyolen.com

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B is for Broken, Interview

Fractured Friday: Simon Kewin

July 24, 2015 R. Parrish 2 Comments

I don’t remember where I met Simon but it might have been from Write 1 Sub 1. Maybe? I may not be clear on that, but I am clear on this–Simon’s stories are awesome 🙂 I’m proud to include his work in both A is for Apocalypse and B is for Broken 🙂

Interview With Simon Kewin

What letter were you assigned? J

Please share a short excerpt from your story:

“You stayed true, though,” she said. “Those promises we made to each other that day at Hong Kong Station.” A wicked smile crept across her features. “And the ones we whispered the night before in this cramped little hab room. You remember?”

Of course he remembered. “You can’t be here,” he said again. “We’re on a wrecked alien spaceship in the Kuiper Belt, not at Hong Kong station. That was all a long time ago. You’re not Avi. None of this is possible.”

What is the thing you’ve most regretted breaking? When I was, like, four years old I broke my brother’s toy spaceship. Just after he’d received it. On Christmas Day.

Have you ever broken something and not been saddened by it? Can you tell us about that? Fast, every day.

If you could break one law and get away with it consequence-free, what would it be? Something that brings huge financial gain. Then I could spend my days writing. From my Caribbean villa.

Do you have any rules for yourself, a code of some sort, which you’d never break? I’ve been a vegetarian for nearly 30 years, so eating meat would be one.

Never ever? A couple of times in that period I’ve eaten nibbled on some dead creature’s cooked remains, generally to try something new that someone said I should. It didn’t give me a change of heart.

Did you struggle with the letter you were assigned, or did the ideas come freely? The ideas came pretty freely. Although, actually, I posted on my blog asking for ideas, and the inspiration for the story I wrote came from someone’s suggestion.

What was your favourite idea you didn’t use? My contribution to A is for Apocalypse was science fiction, so I quite wanted to do a fantasy story for B is for Broken. Which didn’t work out, but I was playing with the idea of a Jack-in-the-Green story for a time.

What, aside from the anthology’s theme and your letter inspired your story? The image in my head of this vast, weird, alien spaceship floating ghost-like in the void. That and breaking my brother’s toy spaceship when I was four…

Simon Kewin is the author of over 100 published short or flash stories. He lives in England with his wife and their daughters. His cyberpunk novel The Genehunter and his fantasy novels Engn and Hedge Witch were recently published. Find him at simonkewin.co.uk.

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B is for Broken, Interview

Fractured Friday: Alexandra Seidel

July 10, 2015 R. Parrish Leave a comment

I met Alexa through Niteblade, first as a submitter then a slush reader and, eventually, the poetry editor. We’ve worked together for several years now and it’s always been a true pleasure. I am super stoked to include Alexa’s work in both A is for Apocalypse and B is for Broken 🙂

Interview With Alexandra Seidel

What letter were you assigned? H

Please share a short excerpt from your story: The second peddler has a hat weighing heavy with cream white roses. “A cup is a beautiful thing. When it breaks, there is grief in the world[…]

What is the thing you’ve most regretted breaking? A clock. I was still a kid back then, and I broke it while playing. The clock was a gift to someone else, and something that was lost forever in a way because the gift giver is dead.

Have you ever broken something and not been saddened by it? Can you tell us about that? Actually, this is how I try to feel when I accidentally break something. I tell myself, it’s broken. You cannot unbreak it. This is the reality of the situation. Accept and move on.

If you could break one law and get away with it consequence-free, what would it be? The first law of thermodynamics. It’s just because I want a perpetual motion machine. I figure it’d be way cooler than an iPod.

Do you have any rules for yourself, a code of some sort, which you’d never break? The categorical imperative comes to mind.

Never ever? Well, I write fiction you know, so never is a challenge more than anything. Maybe I’ll explore that further down the Alphabet Series…

Did you struggle with the letter you were assigned, or did the ideas come freely? Well, I first wrote another story, but it wasn’t right. Then, this story happened, and even when I was feeling it come together in my head, I knew that it was for Broken.

What, aside from the anthology’s theme and your letter inspired your story? Life. And death.

Alexandra Seidel is a writer, poet, and editor. H is for Hanging Man (aka The Hanging Man Who Does Not Heal) is her second story in the Alphabet Series. Other than that, her writing appeared in Strange Horizons, Lackington’s, Stone Telling, and elsewhere. If you are so inclined you can follow Alexa on Twitter (@Alexa_Seidel) or read her blog: www.tigerinthematchstickbox.blogspot.com.

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B is for Broken, Interview

Fractured Friday: Cindy James

July 3, 2015 R. Parrish 1 Comment

I met Cindy through a local critique group we were both members of several years back. While I’ve lost contact with most of the people I knew from that group, Cindy and I are still good friends. It was my pleasure to include one of her stories in A is for Apocalypse (where she definitely won the award for most creative title. You will never guess what P was for) and I was super stoked to have her continue her involvement with this series with a story in B is for Broken.

Interview With Cindy James

What letter were you assigned? M

Please share a short excerpt from your story:

I stare at the dim outline of the ceiling fan as the rhyme repeats itself, and I see faces again. I’m accustomed to these disembodied, anonymous heads that flash through the dark with taunting, gnarled expressions, but they still make my heart race. I roll onto my side and promise myself I will talk to Dr. Woo when I have my checkup on Monday.

The next morning when I get to work, I call the cable company and arrange a service call and then sit at my desk Googling overheated electronics and stare at words like “toxic” and “tumour” and “toluene” until I don’t want to read anymore, and Shelley texts me to meet her for lunch. At noon I escape the office tower and find her downstairs on the sidewalk, huddled against the December bite in her long black coat with a smoke in her leather-gloved hand. I grimace at her, and she makes a face back.

“Don’t even think about saying anything.” Shelley narrows her eyes at me.

“I thought you quit.” I stand upwind of her and breathe shallow as she drags back her smoke in rapid-fire puffs.

“Yeah, so I’m weak. Gary walked out last night.”

“Oh,” I say. This isn’t really news, it’s happened so many times. “What happened?” I ask. I don’t mind talking about her problems. Shelley’s shitty life makes me feel better about my own.

What is the thing you’ve most regretted breaking? I’m sure I’ve broken a few promises along the way, but not real regrets.

If you could break one law and get away with it consequence-free, what would it be? Tax laws!

Do you have any rules for yourself, a code of some sort, which you’d never break? My one rule is if it’s going to make me feel guilty, don’t do it!

Never ever? Never!

Really? Isn’t there something which could make you break it? I don’t deal well with guilt.

Did you struggle with the letter you were assigned, or did the ideas come freely? Yes, I struggled with it.

What was your favourite idea you didn’t use? M is for Memorial. Couldn’t get it going.

What, aside from the anthology’s theme and your letter inspired your story? An episode from Law & Order from years ago stuck with me. A mother killed her children and while on the stand she said she did it because she couldn’t stand the thought of them suffering.

Cindy James lives in Edmonton, Alberta with her husband and two children. After twenty years working as a court reporter and listening to other people’s stories, she decided to engage the right side of her brain and tell a few of her own. She is pursuing a degree in English and History, and is committed to one day write something truly great. She now works as a broadcast closed-captioner, volunteers at the local art gallery, and agonizes in what remains of her free time over whether she should be writing or painting.

~ Twitter ~

B is for Broken is available now at:
Smashwords
Kobo
Amazon
Barnes and Noble

And add it to your shelves at Goodreads

B is for Broken, Interview, Reviews

Fractured Friday: Fragments

June 19, 2015 R. Parrish Leave a comment

I called this Fractured Friday entry ‘Fragments’ because instead of one long excerpt and interview I’m going to share two of the shorter B is for Broken contributor interviews and also a bit of good news.

Good news first!

B is for Broken received its first review last week. Long and Short Reviews said:

“This doesn’t happen very often when I read anthologies, but I enjoyed every single selection in this book.”

and

“I’d recommend B Is For Broken to anyone who loves contemporary science fiction as much as I do. There is a lot of great material to explore in this collection!”

Whoot!

The reviewer also specifically called out Sara Cleto and Gary B. Phillips’ stories for praise. You can read the full review here.

And now, a pair of short contributor interviews. The first is from Damien Angelica Walters, followed by Gabrielle Harbowy’s. Enjoy!

Interview with Damien Angelica Walters

What letter were you assigned? S

Please share a short excerpt from your story:

Here is the bridge where we first met. Do you remember? The clouds were heavy in the sky and we were both in a hurry to beat the rain and our shoulders bumped and we went spinning in opposite directions. The book in your hand dropped nearest to me so I picked it up and spun myself back to you.

Did you struggle with the letter you were assigned, or did the ideas come freely? I sat with my notebook and pen one night and started jotting down a list of words that began with S. I wrote about a dozen before I added the word that became part of the title. From there, it was a quick mental trip to the story concept as a whole, which, incidentally, revolved around another word beginning with S.

What was your favourite idea you didn’t use? One of the words on my list was salamander, but before I could come up with an idea, my brain had already taken the other and run with it.

What, aside from the anthology’s theme and your letter inspired your story? Without giving anything away, I’d wanted to write a story in a certain format for a while, but the right idea hadn’t presented itself. That format fit perfectly with this story.

Damien Angelica Walters’ short fiction has appeared in various magazines and anthologies, including Year’s Best Weird Fiction Volume One, The Best of Electric Velocipede, Strange Horizons, Nightmare, Lightspeed, Shimmer, and Apex. “The Floating Girls: A Documentary,” originally published in Jamais Vu, is on the 2014 Bram Stoker Award ballot for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction.

Sing Me Your Scars, a collection of her short fiction, is out now from Apex Publications, and Paper Tigers, a novel, is forthcoming from Dark House Press. You can find her on Twitter @DamienAWalters or online at http://damienangelicawalters.com.

Interview with Gabrielle Harbowy

What letter were you assigned? X

Did you struggle with the letter you were assigned, or did the ideas come freely? There were TOO many ideas! I knew I didn’t want to do something obvious, so I went to the Scrabble dictionary and browsed through, writing down any X-words that looked interesting. When I had a list of ten or so, I sat down with them and tried to come up with story hooks for each.

What was your favourite idea you didn’t use? Xerosis, a dermatological disease that causes cracking of the skin. I went for breaking multiple trees instead of one person, so that the story could have a larger scope.

What, aside from the anthology’s theme and your letter inspired your story? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kintsugi Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken objects with gold. No matter which letter I got, I knew I wanted to incorporate it into my story.

Gabrielle Harbowy has edited for publishers such as Pyr, Lambda Literary, and Circlet Press. She is the managing editor at Dragon Moon Press and a submissions editor at the Hugo-nominated Apex Magazine. With Ed Greenwood, she co-edited the award-nominated When the Hero Comes Home anthology series. Her short fiction can be found in anthologies, including Carbide Tipped Pens from Tor, and her first novel is forthcoming from Paizo. Check out Gabrielle’s personal site: www.gabrielle-edits.com.

~ Twitter ~ Facebook ~

B is for Broken is available now at:
Smashwords
Kobo
Amazon
Barnes and Noble

And add it to your shelves at Goodreads

Rhonda Parrish

Category Archives: Interview

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Fractured Friday: Cindy James

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Fractured Friday: Fragments

“This doesn’t happen very often when I read anthologies, but I enjoyed every single selection in this book.”

“I’d recommend B Is For Broken to anyone who loves contemporary science fiction as much as I do. There is a lot of great material to explore in this collection!”

Interview with Damien Angelica Walters

Interview with Gabrielle Harbowy

I write, I edit and I take a lot of naps.