Cover design by Jonathan C. Parrish, original artwork by Tory Hoke
For the next several weeks I’ve decided to call Fridays ‘Fractured Friday’ and use them to share news, contributor interviews and excerpts from B is for Broken.
B is for Broken is the second title in the Alphabet Anthologies series. It follows A is for Apocalypse and will in turn be followed by C is for Chimera. Each story in the series is associated with a letter of the alphabet and is titled in the letter is for word format. What’s more, just to keep things nice and complicated, the story’s title isn’t shared at the beginning but at the end so that you can guess at what it might be while you read.
On that note, even though the story titles could be considered spoilers because of how the book is formatted, for the sake of simplicity if the author has chosen to post their title publicly somewhere else (their blog, Facebook, wherever) I am going to include it in my posts. If they haven’t revealed that information, though, I’ll list the story titles as Letter is for…
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.
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.
