My World of Warcraft-inspired poem, “In Space No One Can Hear You QQ” has been published in Grievous Angel today. This poem, which is almost shorter than its title, was inspired by a conversation I had with my 2v2 partner and so it is dedicated to him. I hope you like it, David 🙂
We released latest issue of Niteblade, What Happened Among the Stars, today. This, our 32nd and penultimate issue, contains a farcical science fiction, magical horses, everyday immortals, creeping trees, fairies, close encounters with death and so much more.
Strange and unusual high-quality speculative fiction and poems that will make your heart skip a beat.
Table of Contents:
Small Necessary Things by Angela Enos
Shamaness by Wendy Howe
Jacks by Nicholas L. Sweeney
What Happened Among the Stars by Beth Cato
Monkeyshines by J.B. Rockwell
Carousel Ifrit by Sandi Leibowitz
The Third Sister by Gabriel F. Cuellar
coming home by Senia Hardwick
The Night Wind’s Ballad by Alexandra Erin
The Hanging Tree by Brian Ennis
Available now:
Direct from Niteblade
Smashwords
Kobo
Amazon
The issue will also be available online once we reach a combined total of $50 in sales and donations. Until that happens you can check out teasers of all the stories and poems.
Niteblade is open to submissions for our final issue (coming out in September) until the end of July. Protip: We’re not kidding when we say not to indent the paragraphs in your submission 😉
Broken people, broken promises, broken dreams and broken objects are just some of the ways these 26 fantastic stories interpret the theme of ‘Broken’. From science fiction to fantasy, horror to superheroes the stories within these pages cover a vast swath of the genres under the speculative fiction umbrella.
Featuring original fiction by:
~ Brittany Warman ~ Milo James Fowler ~ C.S. MacCath ~ Sara Cleto ~ Samantha Kymmell-Harvey ~ Megan Arkenberg ~ Gary B. Phillips ~ Alexandra Seidel ~ Jonathan C. Parrish ~ Simon Kewin ~ Beth Cato ~ Cory Cone ~ Cindy James ~ Alexis A. Hunter ~ Michael M. Jones ~ Steve Bornstein ~ BD Wilson ~ Michael Kellar ~ Damien Angelica Walters ~ Marge Simon ~ Michael Fosburg ~ Suzanne van Rooyen ~ L.S. Johnson ~ Pete Aldin ~ Gabrielle Harbowy ~ Lilah Wild ~ KV Taylor ~
Available now at:
Smashwords
Kobo
Amazon
Barnes and NobleAnd add it to your shelves at Goodreads
After months of hard work I’m incredibly excited to announce that B is for Broken is live and available for purchase! This anthology is the second in the Alphabet Anthologies series and because the theme was broader than the first (A is for Apocalypse) the stories are even more diverse in regard to genre, style, voice and theme than before. We’ve got retold fairy tales, robots and spaceships, superheros, minotaurs, second world fantasy and so, so, SO much more. The story length ranges from flash fiction to an incredible fantasy novelette from C.S. MacCath (trust me, you don’t want to miss this one).
Over the coming weeks I’ll be sharing contributor interviews, excerpts and even (once it’s complete) a ‘Broken Story‘ to try and tempt you into picking up a copy but if you enjoy speculative fiction I don’t think you can go wrong with this anthology. I’m biased but it really is packed full of awesome.
“This collection is a massive and magnificent assortment of truly enjoyable stories. There is simply no way to read this book and not find a story you can connect with or love. This is the book to have in your travel bag. In it you are sure to find a tale to fit any mood. Each time you open it, a new adventure begins.”
— Anita Allen, Assistant Publisher/Editor, Mythic Delirium Books
Also? We’re holding a Facebook party to celebrate the release and you’re invited 🙂
One of my favourite stories ever (that I’ve written, anyway) was published this weekend in the latest issue of Shroud magazine. I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am that Coming Storm has not only found a great home (just look at that cover!) but is now available for me to share with the world. When I showed this story to my favourite critic (my husband) he said, “Rhonda, this might be the best story you’ve ever written.” and since he doesn’t give unwarranted praise, that made my heart soar.
Annnnd then on Shroud’s Facebook page they said:
“Rhonda Parrish’s story “Coming Storm” is a particularly powerful piece of writing in Shroud 16. It addresses a number of important issues under a thin but riveting veneer of dark fantasy.”
*squee*
One more cool thing? If you check out this issue’s Amazon listing and use the ‘Look Inside’ feature you can read the first couple pages of it for free. Because #winning.
Proud writer is proud.
🙂
It’s that time of year. Where we share the work we did in the previous year which is eligible for awards. This is, for me, an awkward process that always feels a little vain, but I recognise that it is my job and it’s important, so I do it anyway 🙂
Besides, who knows, right?
I published a fair number of things last year, and I am happy to provide copies of it all to anyone who is eligible to nominate or vote for any of the major awards (including, because I am Canadian, the Prix Aurora Awards). If you’re interested in that email me at rhonda@jofigure.com 🙂
Being human, however, I do have a few favourites I would especially like to bring to your attention, and pieces with an asterisk are my favourite, favourite. I’m allowed to have those because I said :-p
Seedpaper (3,400 words)*
Published by Mythic Delirium in April 2014 and then again in the Mythic Delirium anthology which earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly this story was described as being fairy tale-esque, which made me happy.
…when you got down to the marrow of it, she was a storyteller. She created her own paper, beautiful stuff that was strung through with coloured fibers and peppered with seeds and blossoms. She wrote on it, her hand as elaborate as the paper and reminiscent of medieval scribes. She would often sew the pages together, creating books that she lined up, spines out, along her mantle. Sometimes though, she’d bury them by moonlight in her garden—
The Other Side of the Door (2,700 words)
Published by Kzine in January 2014. This is a ghost story I wrote while on vacation in Nova Scotia and it has been described as being haunting and heartbreaking. Two awesome things for a ghost story to be, right?
The boat was carried in on the back of the fog.
Growing up on the bay, Aric had seen boats slip through fog plenty of times, he’d even been on a few of them. They were nothing new or unusual for him, and yet—there was something about the shape in the mist, about this particular vessel. He leaned closer and pressed his forehead against the glass…
Matches (13 lines)*
Published by Ruminate Magazine in August 2014. This poem isn’t speculative, which is problematic for me since most of the poetry awards I know are speculative, but it is my favourite poem, maybe ever.
She liked their straight lines, / bright red tips. / The sulfur taste / on her tongue…
Hereditary Delusions (32 lines)
Published by Every Day Poets in February 2014. The speculative angle is subtle, but it’s there if you look for it 😉
I thought he’d come / from light years away, / that the dust was residue / from the Big Dipper…
Fae (17 short stories about fairies)
Published by World Weaver Press in July 2014
“The Fae prove treacherous allies and noble foes in this wide-ranging anthology from Rhonda Parrish that stretches boundaries of folk tale and legend. These fairy stories are fully enmeshed in the struggles of today, with dangerous beings from under the hills taking stances against the exploitation of children and the oppression of women, yet offering bargains in exchange for their aid that those in desperate need had best think twice about accepting. There’s no Disney-esque flutter and glitter to be found here — but there are chills and thrills aplenty.” — Mike Allen, author of Unseaming and editor of Clockwork Phoenix
A is for Apocalypse (26 short stories about the apocalypse)
Published by Poise and Pen Publishing (me) in August 2014
“In A is for Apocalypse, the world ends in both fire and ice–and by asteroid, flood, virus, symphony, immortality, the hands of our vampire overlords, and crowdfunding. A stellar group of authors explores over two dozen of the bangs and whispers that might someday take us all out. Often bleak, sometimes hopeful, always thoughtful, if A is for Apocalypse is as prescient as it is entertaining, we’re in for quite a ride.” – Amanda C. Davis, author of The Lair of the Twelve Princesses
Niteblade Magazine
We published four issues last year (in March, June, September and December) all filled with fantasy and horror short stories, poems and art.
“The haunted, wonderful stories and poems published by Niteblade are often unsettling and strange but always utterly fantastic. I look forward to every new issue and I am honored that my work has been a part of it.” – Brittany Warman
(I won’t pick a favourite favourite from my edited works)
This year I can nominate and vote only for the Prix Aurora Awards, World Fantasy and Dwarf Star awards (I think). I will be keeping my eyes out for blog posts like this one, listing peoples eligible work, but if you’re afraid I might miss something you’d like me to consider, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment or drop me a line.
Issue #15 of Plasma Frequency Magazine is out, and it includes my short story, The Witch.
Go. Read the story and then come back to finish this blog post. Seriously. I’ll wait.
*waits*
*waits some more*
*waits a wee bit more*
Ya know, I can tell you haven’t gone to read the story. It’s short. Humor me. I’m about to talk about it and you’ll get more from the discussion if you’ve read the story.
*waits*
Right.
So.
Some stories are trickier to sell than others and The Witch was a tricky story to sell. It gathered 21 rejections including a fair number of ‘close but not quite’ personal rejections and several times it got rejected for the same reason. The editors would say (I’m paraphrasing of course), “I know what’s going on in this story, but I don’t know if my readers would.”
Which could be legit but every time I considered making the story more obvious I’d send it to a friend and be like, ‘Do you know what’s going on here?’ and they’d be like, ‘Yes?’ and I’d be like, ‘Damn it!’ which was a bit confusing for them but if everyone who read it ‘got it’… well then the problem was one of perception, not storytelling. So how do I fix a problem that exists outside of the story?
The answer, it turned out, was Plasma Frequency Magazine. Which just goes to show that it’s all about finding the right market for the right story. My point (which most of us know but occasionally need a reminder of anyway) is, the home for your work is out there, the trick is not giving up before you find it.
Related, but not, my current record for number of rejections before a sale is 23, and that eventual sale is one of the ones I’m most proud of thus far in my career. What’s your record so far? Can you beat mine? LOL
This issue of Plasma Frequency is available at:
Createspace:
Print
Weightless Books:
Kindle, ePub, or PDF
I’m going to briefly interrupt the holiday-themed posts to share the fact two of my poems were published at Page and Spine last week. The two pieces are really very different from one another, so it tickles me to see them right beside each other on the page. The first, A Chance to be Heard, is a sci-fi poem inspired by robocaller/dialers and the second, In the Valley, is nature-tastic.
Normally I don’t post two blog posts on the same day, and I usually wouldn’t make a single post that included details about FAE being on sale and also the latest issue of Niteblade. But today isn’t just another day, so I’m doing exactly that.
First of all, if you didn’t see it, my other post for today is about Giftmas cards. Basically I’d like to send you one, so if you’d like to receive one you ought to sign up using this form right here.
Now, about Fae and Niteblade…
Fae is on sale, and it’s a good one. From now until the end of the year you can get a paperback copy of both Fae and of Far Orbit for only $19.95. That’s two great anthologies from World Weaver Press for less than twenty bucks. If you’ve already bought one or the other of them, well, what can I say? Books make fantastic gifts, right? LOL Unfortunately these books can only be shipped within the United States, but I happen to know a lot of my friends and readers live there — it’s a pretty big place 😉
Annnnd, last but most assuredly not least — the latest issue of Niteblade came out today.
Issue #30 (holy freaking hell, 30 issues!) is called Vampyrics and features a fang-tastically festive cover by Marge Simon. Our table of contents looks like this:
Abominable Snowman by Ada Hoffmann
Cold by Thomas Wood
Nameday by Anne Carly Abad
A Million Miles Away by Christian Riley
Vampyrics by John Philip Johnson
Bindings by Jamie Killen
The Art by Sandi Leibowitz
Three Little Words by Sealey Andrews
Ghost Engine Updates an Ad for Angry Spirits by Anne Carly Abad
Date of Death by Stone Showers
We’ve got monsters (traditional and otherwise), subtle horror, kinky fae-like critters, living nightmares and modernized hauntings. This is truly one of our strongest issues yet and with more ways to enjoy it than ever before.
You can check it out at the Niteblade Website. From there you’ll be able to read previews of every single piece we’re offering you, as we try to tempt you into purchasing a downloadable copy (.pdf, .ePub or .mobi) or sending us a donation. As soon as we reach $50 in sales and donations combined we will release the full issue on the website for everyone to read for free (but our downloadable copies are still the best way to experience Niteblade. No lie.)
Or
You can also check out this issue over at Smashwords. There, they will give you the first 20% of the issue for free, to make sure you like what you see before you take the $2.99 plunge and buy a copy –> Vampyrics at Smashwords. From Smashwords you can pick up copies of this issue in every freaking format conceivable. And yes. Your purchases still count toward eventually releasing the web version for free.
But wait! There’s more!
This issue of Niteblade is also available from Amazon and Kobo.
*Catches breath*
So. There’s that.
🙂
Two of my poems, Two Wrongs and Golden Hour (which are completely different from one another aside from the fact both have nature-y stuff in ’em) are included in this month’s issue of Dual Coast Magazine. It looks like quite an impressive line-up of contributors, including Milo James Fowler who I am always happy to share a table of contents with 🙂
“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”
Write 1 Sub 1 is a super supportive group of writers who, inspired by Ray Bradbury, have committed to write stories (or poems, or novels, or whatever) and submit them for publication on a regular basis. The hardcore members aim to write and submit one story a week. Some set their goal at one a month. The point, at least to me, is consistency. It’s easy to let our writing get lost in amongst all the other things happening in our lives and W1S1 definitely helps shine a spotlight on it and keeps you motivated and conscious of how much you are (or aren’t) doing in that arena.
I didn’t sign up for W1S1 this year, largely because my goals for 2014 didn’t include a lot of short fiction. However, I’ve been a happily participating member in years past and so, when submissions opened for Drunk on Writing, W1S1’s first ever anthology, I totally sent them my qualifying works. Happily, they accepted one of my poems, Broken.
Drunk on Writing has officially been published (yay!) but best of all, because of the terms of the contract I’m totally allowed to share it here with you for free. YAY!
You can download a copy of Drunk on Writing below.
I hope you like it 🙂
For some reason WordPress won’t let me upload the .Mobi or .ePub versions, but I have them! If you want one, just drop me a line and we’ll make that happen.
Enjoy!
My poem “Hold This Camel” and vignette “Memories” were both reprinted in this month’s issue of Hermeneutic Chaos. Neither were available online before, but now you can take a peek and give them a read for free if you are so inclined. And you should be. Because, c’mon! 😉
