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…

 

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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…

 

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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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