As we continue the series of blog posts which began here, in order to say goodbye to the Magical Menageries series as they begin to make their way toward being out of print continues with this one about Corvidae.
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 Corvidae. Give it a read, it’s fun to see what people have been up to since their stories were included in this anthology.
Excerpt from “The Tell-Tale Heart of Existence” by Michael Rader:
I was ruined; my thesis had been rejected as needing serious revisions. The vicious old bastard even told me, at the very end, he would happily keep me on as I explored new research opportunities.
He suggested crows. Ha! Crows. Of course, crows, I should have chosen crows from the start.
What has changed for you in the past ten years?
I actually just this month started writing again and, as a means of keeping myself disciplined, I am working on a project where I write 100 short stories in a year based on random one-word prompts. I am posting these very rough little stories on my blog at www.michaelmrader.com.
Excerpt from “Seven For a Secret” by Megan Englehardt:
It is on her wall, Zinnia says, to remind us of our great failure, of the time we were neither quick enough nor clever enough. It is the reason we will never again work for hire. It is the reason why even now, years later, we pay our respects to every magpie that crosses our paths.
We owe it to them. We owe them our lives.
What has changed for you in the past ten years?
Ten years! WOW. I’m so proud to have been part of the Magical Menagerie anthologies series. I think when they were published we only had two children — we’ve doubled that since then! That definitely cut down on my writing time – and thinking ability – for quite awhile. But as time passes my brain and sleep recover. My next big thing, which I’m very excited about, is the release of “The Way We Used to Walk”, a horror novel being published by Creative James Media. I wrote it with one of my best friends, Mark Beall, and it’s full of reality-eating monsters, queer romance, and found family. It comes out on March 25, but it’s available to be preordered now.
Excerpt from “The Cruelest Team Will Win” by Mike Allen:
A spider with a leg span wider than my outstretched hand squeezed out from the space behind the light switch, and spread its wings.
I froze, my finger still on the toggle. Behind me the dust-draped ceiling fan hummed to life, the light bulb beneath it flicking on to paint the monster with my shadow.
The marks on its body formed a single staring eye above a screaming mouth. Two more false eyes glared red across its dragonfly wings. Another hideous little soul turned demonic, yearning to grow into something far worse.
I showed it my own spirit form.
It made good on its threat and lifted into the air, but its terrifying modification only made my task easier and my beak closed around it. The poison leaking from its crushed body spread warmth as it slid down my gullet.
What has changed for you in the past ten years?
I’m quite proud of the reception for “The Cruelest Team Will Win” from Corvidae. Podcastle adapted the story to audio, and in line with that, it’s been fun sharing Leeanne’s sassy voice at readings.
There’s been a lot of ups and downs in my life and career in the ten years since this story appeared — let’s stick with the ups, hah, hah! Those peaks include two Shirley Jackson Award nominations, two World Fantasy Award nominations, and even more award nominations and wins for books by other authors that were published through my company, Mythic Delirium Books. Anita and I had the extra special honor of being in the room when 2016 World Fantasy Awards host Gordon Van Gelder pronounced C.S.E. Cooney’s debut story collection Bone Swans the winner in its category.
In terms of my writing life, this year holds some of the wildest promise yet. My novel The Black Fire Concerto is being released in April by Ruadán Books, and I am at this very instant laboring on deadline to turn in revisions to the sequel, The Ghoulmaker’s Aria.
Even wilder, Broken Eye Books has plans to bring out my novel Trail of Shadows — and the big bad in that novel is the same one in “The Cruelest Team Will Win.” She goes by Lilith, but she’s not that Lilith. By the way, Lilith is the star of the cover Broken Eye commissioned. She would certainly approve, and as her vessel, I’ll be delighted to share her far and wide.
I actually completed the early drafts of Trail of Shadows long before I wrote “Cruelest Team,” but that story’s appearance in Corvidae marked the first time readers encountered one of my all time favorite monstrous creations in the flesh.
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 Corvidae if you haven’t already. Here they are:
Next time we’re going to take a look at what some of the contributors to Equus have been up to 🙂
