The summer has been good to me, and after the struggle of a hard winter, I’m ever so thankful for that. Here are four new publications of mine that have recently come out:
“A Lullaby of Anguish” is my third story to appear in Apex Magazine! It came out in July in Issue 145 and is now available also on their website. This story features children of the sea: baby leviathans, mermaids, selkies. And old photography that two sisters took part in when they were very young with strange ideas of how the world, and anguish, worked.
It’s a darker story, dealing with the perverted desire for our cultures to glorify anguish and pain in our articles and newspapers and videos. How awful things around the world are shoved into spotlights over and over again, as if by sharing we are sharing in empathy, though that idea is merely obfuscating the idea that people have a perverse desire to rubberneck at the worst the world has to offer rather than help.
This story is accompanied by an interview, where I’m given space to answer questions about this story as well as other aspects of my writing. You can find that interview free to read here. There is also a small essay with a parade of elephants on the Apex Patreon account.
We used to cage them in the tide pools, when they were still small enough to capture in our little hands. Pull them out and snap photos that we could pretend to sell to magazines just like Papa. Them, gasping for breath, unable to see, fins fluttering. We would photograph until they began to loosen, go limp. And then we would dunk them again, let them freshen up. Try again.
Our models, we called them. Smear some lipstick. Work it, girl!
~”A Lullaby of Anguish”
“Ghost Tours of Eaden Marsh” in Strange Locations
This anthology, edited by the indomitable Marissa van Uden, is filled with micro-fiction that depict places, strange and wondrous, where the setting takes point within every story.
Each of these stories is a tiny piece of about 250 words, where every single word is carefully constructed.
For my story, “Ghost Tours of Eaden Marsh,” I took the role of a tour guide. The story features Cat-tail Run, a marsh that has long since dried up, and the three tours on offer there, each revealing new layers to this marsh and what happened there in the past. It’s a tiny story, so I can’t give more away.
Strange Locations is available via Apex Magazine Kickstarters. Thank you to Marissa van Uden for choosing this little piece to be included in this super neat anthology!
“Whoops, I Wrote a Story: How to Make App Addictions Work for Your Writing” in SFWA Blog
This is my first article in the SFWA Blog. For those of you who don’t know, SFWA is the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and their blog publishes articles of use to writers. For this piece, I was giving suggestions on how to add extra words in throughout the day by turning app addictions against one’s self, allowing you to trick yourself into writing more. It has an upbeat, almost comedic, tone, in the hopes that it will provide useful information in a fun way.
Thank you to Bob Greenberger and Roxana Arama for their guidance and help with this article!
From phones and tablets to computers, we all tend to fall into habits once we turn the power on, whether those habits lead to social media, games, endless news, or some other vice. Despite all our good intentions, those habits hold us in thrall and require a great deal of motivation to overcome—on a daily, hourly basis—sometimes forcing us to struggle down to the minute.
But what if turning on our devices didn’t have to mean time sinks? What if those dead minutes we turn to our phones to fill could work for our writing rather than against it?
~”Whoops, I Wrote a Story: How to Make App Addictions Work for Your Writing”
“The Ethereal Nature of Superpowers” in Apparition Lit, winner of the July Flash Fiction Contest
The contest is done via prompts and this year Apparition Lit’s flash themes have been all revolving around food. For July, the prompt was sweet treats! I used the idea of flavored ice, that would stain our teeth and tongue as children, and channeled some summertime memories and current summer Rita’s vibes to write this story.
There’s a lot of nostalgia wrapped up in this one, like a sweet-and-sadness desert, yet with the bottom of your paper cup filled with a splash of hope for the future.
This story was also the first time I ever wrote (finished lol) a story based on Apparition Lit’s flash themes on time to actually send it to them, so it was utterly lovely to win! So very glad that the editors picked this story as the winner for July! A shout-out to the Apparition Lit team for always being so supportive of their authors!
Red Cherry
The stain on our teeth would last beyond a brushing, more so than any other flavor. And yet, cherry was always the first to disappear at the flavored ice vendor. Had the easiest name. Easiest introduction to a world of nonsense.
“The Ethereal Nature of Superpowers”
I have two more stories forthcoming this year: “The Impermanent Surface of Lake Scintillate” coming in Orion’s Belt Magazine and “A Bestiary of Past, Present and Future Animals” coming from Air & Nothingness Press in their Fathoms anthology filled with Tempest retellings. I also have a new article coming to the SFWA Blog.
mariecroke.com 