Fae first came out in 2014 — that is over ten years ago.
Honestly? I can’t quite wrap my mind all the way around that. Time is such a strange, strange thing… 2014 feels simultaneously like an eon ago and like just yesterday.
Fae is the anthology that ‘started it all’. It’s the first one that put me on people’s radars as someone they might want to work with and someone whose anthologies they might want to read. It was the first anthology where I actually felt like I knew what I was doing and the first one that made sales numbers that I could be proud of.
When Fae first came out I went to When Words Collide for the first time to launch it and we sold out! That thrill, you guys, I can’t even begin to tell you. Plus, through Fae and WWC I met so many people who would become my dear friends.
In short, it’s both really special and really special to me.
Unfortunately, as they say, all good things must come to an end, and that includes the Magical Menageries.
Somewhere around the end of March this anthology series is going to go out of print. In order to see it off in style, World Weaver Press is discounting all the titles and I thought it might be fun to check in with some of the contributors and see what they’ve been up to for the last decade.
We’ll visit each anthology one at a time, starting with Fae.
If you haven’t got your copy of it already now is absolutely the time because soon it will be impossible. Here are some handy links for that:
Buy it now
OR buy it direct from my publisher — World Weaver Press. They have the ebooks discounted and are offering free shipping on the paperbacks they have in stock.
And then here are some excerpts and ‘Ten Year Updates’ from some of the contributors of Fae. Give it a read, you will definitely be impressed by what people have been up to since their stories were included in this anthology. I promise.
Excerpt from “The Cartography of Shattered Trees”:
Since that terrible night six months ago, Vivian had tolerated her body as a foreign, broken thing. She took care to never look at herself naked, yet as she stepped from the shower that morning, she glimpsed something strange in the mirror and paused. Instead of mere scars, a map adorned her skin. A highway of red traced the curve of her breast and flowed down to her belly button. The flecks and scars of wooden shrapnel had shifted to create the outline of hills and the undulation of a river. Her city rested above the knoll of her heart, thatched by cross-streets and byways.
Her fingers glanced her skin. The scars felt like divots, the fern-like spread of her burns in soft ripples. According to doctors, the Lichtenberg figures should have faded months before. Now those fractal burns had metamorphosed into something more…
What has changed for you in the past ten years?
I’ve had several books come out in the past few years. My food magic and musketeers novel, A Thousand Recipes for Revenge, now has over 4,000 reviews on Amazon! My first cozy mystery, Cheddar Luck Next Time, will be released by Datura on April 8th, and I have a cozy fantasy, A House Between Sea and Sky, out in September from 47North. My food blog, Bready or Not, has been running for over 10 years now, and I encourage people to stop by and look through my catalog of ad-free cookie recipes. Visit BethCato.com for that and more!
Excerpt from “The Last King”:
Turning to note the landmarks behind her, she realized the woods were getting darker. Probably from the rain, she thought. Unless the sun was setting. She wasn’t wearing a watch and had walked further than she planned. Resisting the urge to panic, she did a quick calculation and told herself it couldn’t possibly be sunset yet.
She had only gone a few feet farther when she heard a sound like soft whispers beneath the rain. Turning first one way and then the other, she stared between the thick trunks. From the corner of her eye, she thought she glimpsed movement in the shadows. Gooseflesh pricked her arms and made the fine hairs of her neck stand on end.
“Quit it!” she said as firmly as she could, trying to convince herself that nothing was there, but the eerie feeling continued to grow.
The creepiness won out over her desire to prove her confidence, and she suddenly very much wanted out of these woods. Forcing herself not to hurry, she turned and started back. The little feet playing in the treetops abruptly became thousands of feet, drumming a loud tattoo on the leaves as they ran.
What has changed for you in the past ten years?
“A lot has changed in the past ten years: My first book was published, then my second. I went from winning an international short story contest for non-professional authors to having more than two dozen original stories published, many in pro markets. I was a 2020 finalist for the SFWA Small Press Award for a short story in DreamForge, and two of my books won the Colorado Book Award for best Science Fiction and Fantasy. On top of all that, in just the past six months I signed two publishing contracts: a four-book deal in another genre, and a three-book deal for my set of myth-based dark fantasy books, due to come out soon from Solaris Nova!
I haven’t arrived. In fact, I don’t even know where there is that I’m headed. But I’m on my way to somewhere and it’s sometimes hard and often rewarding, and I probably couldn’t stop this train now if I wanted to.”
Excerpt from “The Fairy Midwife”:
“I’m going to send a taxi to your apartment, loaded with all the gear. We’ll bill for time and a half on this one. Thanks for being a team player.”
Team player, Tara chanted to herself as she detangled her hair with her fingers and went hunting for a clean pair of jeans. She splashed some water on her face — no time for a shower — and rinsed her mouth with Listerine. The intercom buzzed as she was lacing up her sneakers. Team player.
She was too groggy to make small talk with the driver. In retrospect, she might have paid more attention to a few things: like, it wasn’t actually a taxi. Just a regular sedan. And the driver was very, very short, with tufts of white hair that stuck up almost like horns. But it was 4am, she’d only been awake for fifteen minutes, and while she noticed these things they didn’t exactly register.
The mom and dad were an odd couple too. Tara had a hard time getting a read on them: when the door first opened to her knock she had an initial impression of an old, bent-over man, but as she stepped into their apartment she saw a young hipster type in skinny jeans and plaid. He told her his name and she promptly forgot it. Five minutes later she asked again, and he told her, and she forgot that time too.
The mom was already fully dilated and experiencing intense contractions, so not really interested in chitty-chat.
What has changed for you in the past ten years?
I’m doing well: recently completed a space pirate novel that I’m shopping around, and I launched a Substack for my fiction at https://joshannonphillips.substack.com/.
Excerpt from “Faerie Knight”:
The formula was ancient. Her boon kept the years at bay. Had he not accepted it, he would have begun to age again, like any other mortal. There was another gift that her boon bestowed, however, and it was which he looked forward to the most.
She removed his glasses, touched his eyes and suddenly light flared through them. Slowly, sight came with it. Sight that would last until end of the full Hunter’s Moon tonight. One day a year, he could see. And once a year, he received the gift of life.
Yet, he had seen so much evil, had fought against so much evil, that he wondered if his preternatural lifespan was a blessing, or a curse. His right knee ached and his hands had begun to curl under the debilitating effects of arthritis. Some mornings he felt as if it was all he could do to get out of bed, let alone prepare his lesson plans and gather his school supplies.
However, all his pains seemed to melt away when he looked upon his queen.
What has changed for you in the past ten years?
When last we spoke and when you published my story, “The Faerie Knight,” in Fae, I was a 6th grade English and Language Arts teacher at East Lake Academy in Chattanooga, TN. I stayed at that position for 3 years having previously worked as a Library Assistant for 17 years at the Chattanooga Public Library (I worked at all branches, but primarily worked at the downtown branch having been a patron at that particular library during my childhood). However, at the end of my 2nd year as a 6th grade teacher, I decided that I would like to go back to school. During my 3rd year, I took the GRE and applied to various universities in the Tennessee and Georgia area and was accepted into the Ph.D. program at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU). I spent 8 years in the Ph.D. program, taking classes, teaching as an adjunct instructor, working in the university’s Writing Center as Consultant (and later as Editor of the Writing Center’s Off Center journal publishing student work — 2 years). I originally had no idea of what I wanted to write about for my dissertation, but in 2018 Black Panther was released and I absolutely adored the craftsmanship of the movie along with the incredible performances by the many actors but especially the late Chadwick Boseman. While keeping Rhetoric and Composition as my major focus, I moved into Film and specifically, Afrofuturism. Covid occured and then the fateful summer of 2020 when Brianna Taylor, Ahmad Arbery, and George Floyd were killed and I noticed an outpouring of empathy for these three individuals (and also worrying lack of empathy from some), and I began my dissertation on how Afrofuturistic works –like Black Panther — had the potential to increase empathy from those viewing/reading/engaging with Afrofuturistic works. I continued working on my dissertation and worked at MTSU until my stipend came to an end at which point I found a position at Jacksonville State University (JSU) in Jacksonville AL with a Visiting Professor of African American Literature (thanks to my focus on Afrofuturism). I continued to write my dissertation, and applied for a Tenure Track position at both JSU and the University of North Alabama (UNA) in Florence AL. I was accepted for both positions, but ultimately chose UNA in the Fall of 2022. I worked as a lecturer my first year at UNA while finishing my dissertation and successfully defended my dissertation entitled, The Future is Now: The Power and Promise of Afrofuturism. I graduated from MTSU with my Ph.D. in English Rhetoric and Composition and Film in Spring 2023 and am now Dr. Sidney Blaylock, Jr. I am currently preparing my 3rd Year Tenure Review Portfolio as “practice” for when I go up for my “official” 5 year Tenure Review in about another year and half (hence not a lot of time). Highlights have been meeting writers/actors from London who have come to campus along with teaching some really cool classes — Creative Writing Appreciation (last semester) and Martial Arts Films (this semester). My first academic book chapter is entitled, “”How Nichelle Nichols’ Uhura Inspired the African American Female Character in Science Fiction,” in Space, the Feminist Frontier: Essays on Women and Gender in Star Trek, edited by Jennifer C. Garlen and Anissa M. Graham (published in 2024).
On the creative writing front my writing has been consistent and I’ve managed to publish a story or two about every 1-2 years, although it has been about 2.5 – 3 years since my latest speculative fiction publication. I did have some notable successes as one of my (still unpublished) story was a Finalist in two different writing contests — 1) LeVar Burton Reads Origins & Encounters Writing Contest (2022) where, even though it didn’t win, the story was read by LeVar Burton! and 2) Baen Fantasy Adventure Award Competition (2023) — where again, even though it didn’t win, the story got a handwritten note from a Baen editor telling me that the story was a good one and to “keep writing.” I am currently working on 1) several new stories (won’t have time to work on them until the summer, unfortunately), 2) adapting a short story into a graphic novel script to try to expand into a full graphic novel (if successful, I will do this with more of my published work, including “The Faerie Knight,” and 3) expanding the skeleton of a novella into a full-fledged novel/novel (multi-year work as the initial draft is about 3k-5k words). Oh, one other thing, a speculative fiction online review site reviewed the stories in Fae and my story received a “starred” review. The link has been taken down from the website, but here is a reaction to it from my blog at the time: https://sidneyblaylockjr.wordpress.com/2016/04/03/huh-will-you-look-at-that/.
That, I think, was one of the coolest experiences I’ve had as a writer!
As I say, ten years simultaneously feels like a long time and an incredibly short one, but I really enjoyed this look at what some of the contributors have been doing in that time — I hope you did too!
Let me save you the trouble of scrolling all the way back up for links to pick up your own copy of Fae if you haven’t already. Here they are:
Buy it now
