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.
B is for Broken contains 26 stories (one for each letter of the alphabet) centered on the theme of brokenness. The diversity of genres and subject matter will blow you away. We’ve got science fiction, fantasy, horror and weird fiction about broken hearts, broken space ships, broken lives, broken bones–you name it. If you like speculative fiction and short stories, this collection is one you’re going to want to check out 🙂
I met KV through Niteblade and invited her to contribute to A is for Apocalypse. I’m super stoked that she stuck around to contribute to B is for Broken as well!
Interview With KV Taylor
What letter were you assigned? Z
Please share a short excerpt from your story:
“I’m gonna cut your fucking heart out,” she promises.
I doubt this very much, but don’t see the point in telling her. I know how dangerous she is. I’ve seen my twin sister’s brains blasted all over the front of her Chevy. I was willing to let the State have her, but they lost her, and now she’s mine.
I go back upstairs and look to my closet for inspiration. Spartacus follows on his silent padded feet and asks me what I’m doing, so I tell him. (Not really, of course, I know cats don’t speak; I haven’t lost that part of my mind. Yet.) I ask him what he thinks would work better. Could I use buttons? No, that would leave gaps. Velcro would become messy.
Well use a zipper, dummy, Spartacus doesn’t say, with an indolent lick of his paw.
What is the thing you’ve most regretted breaking? Oh god, I don’t know. I had this really beautiful glass calligraphy pen that got broken in a move once. I totally regret that. There must be something worse, but I can’t think of it right now.
Have you ever broken something and not been saddened by it? Can you tell us about that? Several relationships >.>
If you could break one law and get away with it consequence-free, what would it be? I’d like to be able to travel anywhere without visas and all the paperwork. That counts.
Do you have any rules for yourself, a code of some sort, which you’d never break? Yeah, I’m really weird about what food I buy. I’m careful about cruelty-free stuff… and yes, that also includes cruelty to humans.
Never ever? Probably at some restaurants where I don’t know their ingredients, yeah.
Really? Isn’t there something which could make you break it? Personally… I mean if my family was starving, yeah! If I can’t afford stuff, I can just go without, but I wouldn’t do that to my family. Or my cats. They’d eat me in my sleep. (The cats, not the family. I hope.)
Did you struggle with the letter you were assigned, or did the ideas come freely? It actually came to me straight away, for once. No one is more surprised than me.
What was your favourite idea you didn’t use? That was, amazingly, my first thought.
What, aside from the anthology’s theme and your letter inspired your story? My basement. I always think basements are incredibly creepy. Though mine does not have a dirt floor, it’s one of those partially excavated ones, so I always wonder what’s under all that gravel and dirt and stuff behind the half-walls…
KV Taylor is an avid reader and writer of fantasy and dark fiction, even though the only degree she holds is in the history of art. (Or, possibly, because the only degree she holds is in the history of art.) In her spare time she enjoys comic books, Himalayan Buddhist art, loud music, her Epiphone, and Black Bush. Her fiction can be found at kvtaylor.com.
B is for Broken is available now at:
Smashwords
Kobo
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
And add it to your shelves at Goodreads
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