Am I behind? No, I’m exactly where I should be!
I do have a few recent publications to share with you though! ;D
Up first is my solarpunk, future Earth story, “Dates Around a Driftcity Where We Used to Roam.“ Published in The Dérive, from Air & Nothingness press, this story features the idea of psychogeography. The exploration of a city in non-standard ways, with a lack of a particular goal driving the direction. I share these pages with three other skilled and wonderful women who each crafted a story featuring a different city. In “Dates Around a Driftcity…” the story features a series of dates between two characters who come from very different socioeconomic backgrounds. And may have a different idea of humanity’s future as well…
When you turned the conversation back to my diving, to ask if I’d ever dove beneath the driftcity, felt its bulk above my head, the weight of it pressing down, down on my shoulders, you had a strange lilt to your voice. You wanted to know if I felt wrong, felt off…felt as if I didn’t belong to this world any longer.
I didn’t know how to answer. I wanted your attention, your beautiful green gaze to linger on me longer. Wanted your lips to curve in a giggle I elicited. Your fingers to reach across the table and stroke my own. So, I shrugged and admitted I, too, sometimes felt as if I were drifting, unable to see my purpose.
I meant it in an existential fashion, but that wasn’t how you took it.
~Dates Around a Driftcity Where We Used to Roam (Air & Nothingness Press)
Up second is a contemporary fantasy story that takes place in DC. “Like Ladybugs, Bright Spots in Your Mailbox” is a feminist story featuring witches and small hopes that was published in Diabolical Plots #104. I had a rental house for a very long time that would be crawling with ladybugs every September, the only bug I’ve ever been okay with sharing my living space. They would make me feel hopeful, feel happy when I would catch them lingering about. Sometimes I’d step outside my house and they’d be hanging out all over our tiny porch. In this story, I wanted to capture that small hope vibe, let it meander a bit into your heart.
Someone began sending hand-written spellcrafted postcards out of DC in July of 2024. Those postcards made the rounds for a good nine months, under the radar, scarcely observed. That was, until the rash of good health, the proliferation of wealth, and the sudden uptick in good living coupled with a grand downtick in big socioeconomic issues the mayor was quick to claim as her own—such as suicides and unemployment—brought the situation to the attention of the East US Coven.
Because we can’t have downticks in unemployment and upticks in good health, not if there’s witchery being waved under everyone’s noses. Especially if the handwriting has a particularly feminine flair. No siree.
~Like Ladybugs, Bright Spots in Your Mailbox (Diabolical Plots)
The third story I’ve had out this year is a secondary world adventure fantasy, sword and sorceress-like, and recently came out in Kaleidotrope’s Autumn 2023 Issue. “Bone-Wood-Metal” features a woman who is the last of her kind, with the ability to transform people into weapons (literally). Also features a manticore! I wrote this story a number of years ago and sold it two years ago, so it’s been a long time coming, hopefully worth the wait :D
With a flourish, Lars waved her three-bladed claw. “Bone. Wood. Metal. Dead, all of them, but representing all of life as we know it. The Jaekarti knew so much and yet behaved so differently. Murdering each other for weapons to use in a war against the manticore? And yet you both have been whittled away over the years until you’re mere fragments of the powerful cultures you once were.”
~Bone-Wood-Metal (Kaleidotrope)
I would also like to give a shout-out to the amazing editors I’ve worked with on these stories! David and Ziv over at Diabolical Plots! Todd at Air & Nothingness Press! And Fred at Kaleidotrope! You were all fantastic — super communicative, always supportive and energetic, and simply lovely individuals I am happy to have worked with! Thank you!
And Thank YOU, for any and all words of mine you have read or will read in the future. Writers survive off of people who give their eyeballs to our words and I’m ever so grateful for every second you graciously gift to mine <3
mariecroke.com 