Archive for February, 2024
Another fun little “femme fatale,” or sometimes things do move fast (see, e.g., February 24). In this case the call was exactly one week back, February 22: Our editors are looking for previously published flash fiction and short stories that fall into the genres of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Flash fiction should be up to 1,200 words, . . . Brownie points if your work can make us chuckle.
The magazine was METASTELLAR and reprint flash doesn’t pay, but [a]ll reprints are eligible for inclusion in our “best of the year” anthologies and are considered for our You Tube story time channel, and you will be contacted if your story is selected. Well, no results on the latter possibilities quite yet (the story, however, takes place on Christmas so there’s still plenty of time), but this word came today: Your short story “Naughty or Nice?” is scheduled to be published on Mar. 3, 202. [I’m assuming that final number is meant to be “2024.”] A link which will be live then was included along with a very nice illustration for my approval (which it got, and is reprinted here), plus bio information and links — again all done quite well — and a contract, that last signed and sent back this afternoon.
The story itself is one I’m fond of, the second (I think) that I’d sold to a then very respected ezine, DAILY SCIENCE FICTION, and published December 21 2011. The story title is “Naughty or Nice” and the femme, noted above, a lady who calls herself Mignonette, an immigrant to Paris from a land farther east who is just getting used to Western customs — in this case that of sending a wish list for Christmas to Saint Nick. (But the setting out of milk and cookies too? . . . so many details!)
And in three days the link I was sent will go live, so stay tuned to be able to read it yourself this Sunday!
It’s been awhile since I’ve been to the Bloomington Writers Guild’s “Last Sunday Poetry Reading & Open Mic” (see October 29, et al.), in part because both November and December were cancelled for Thanksgiving Weekend and Christmas.* And while January was on the 28th as scheduled, due to host Morgenstern Books changing the time for the readings from afternoons to 7 to 8:30 at night — especially inconvenient since I usually walk there — I elected to miss it.
This month, however, was different because of the lineup, combined with an unseasonably warm (even if no less dark) evening, and I do generally enjoy the sessions. So — cut to the chase — the session opened with featured poet and Writers Guild founding member Antonia Matthew, author of the audio theater production “Antonia’s Homefront” as well as a poetry chapbook, JOURNEY, along with many appearances in journals including VERSE WISCONSIN and Bloomington’s own THE RYDER, with a series of poems on subjects close to her own life, including such things as family, events, friends, and nature. She was followed by self-proclaimed “new kid in town” Peter Kaczmaraczyk, a friend to felines and co-creator of Bloomington’s Captain Janeway Statue, with poems in numerous periodicals and anthologies including a chapbook, DISTANT YET ALWAYS HEARD, reading work on varying topics (including at least one specifically on cats), with a tending toward themes of love and fading and loss.
With evening hours forcing a more rigid schedule, facilitator Hiromi Yoshida decided to skip the usual break (leading, as it happened, to extra time for schmoozing after the program’s end) moving directly into the “open mic” portion where I came in sixth of a healthy total of eleven walk-on readers, with two poems written to “Third Sunday Write” challenges for the past winter months, both on the subject of snow, “This Is What I Love About Winter” and “Under the Snow.” Though, belying the picture accompanying this post, the second, especially, not nearly as jolly.
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*As will next month’s too, March 31, for Easter. What a year!
Some things move fast (one might say, in a flash?). Two months from submission to acceptance of a story is fairly common (cf. February 18), but from there to publication in just under a week?
Apparently so. The word came this evening from Editor Parth Sarathi Chakraborty: In the luminous glow of anticipation, woven with a sense of thrill, we are delighted to unveil FEMME FATALE FLASHES, now gracing the catalog of Wicked Shadow Press.
Enclosed, you will discover a print replica PDF, an invitation to peer into the anthology that has blossomed from stories of captivating danger, narrated in succinct, powerful flashes. This journey, rich with the fruits of our collective labor, finds its roots in the depth of your imagination, for which we remain eternally grateful.
But . . . (ah now, the catch) the replica PDF is for me, as one of 43 contributing authors (of 56 stories — some of us authors more busy than others), but for others the book can be ordered via Lulu. And judging by the blurb (and, yes, the PDF too), it looks like a winner: Welcome to the shadowed corners of intrigue and peril. Wicked Shadow Press presents FEMME FATALE FLASHES, a captivating anthology of flash fictions, each one casting the spotlight on the elusive femme fatale, a figure at once dangerously seductive and imbued with an undeniable strength.
Dive into narratives where mystery and malice dance closely, as these women tread the fine line between morality and desire. From the straightforward journeys of beguiling yet sinister characters whose beginnings are as veiled as their intentions, to the intricate tales of those sculpted by the harshness of society, the sting of betrayal, or the tumultuous twists of love, this collection delves into the myriad hues of what it means to embody the femme fatale.
FEMME FATALE FLASHES beckons you to explore the complex realm of these mesmerising women through stories that are as concise as they are profound. Brace yourself to be captivated by the lethal allure of the femme fatale, in a collection that promises to enchant, entangle, and ultimately, redefine your perception of power, vengeance, and seduction.
Of which my lady, not least of the lot (ah, now), is the “Casket Girl” Hélène of the vampiresses of New Orleans, les filles à les caissettes, arrived in the year 1728 and taking a bite out of history since then. The story, “Dinner Date,” a brief romantic adventure.
But for the whole bunch one can see for oneself, for information and possible ordering, by pressing here (for paper) or for ePub here.
I thought the two shadormas were fun, though perhaps in context a little didactic. Eg., “What’s a Shadorma?” And “Pas De Dead” was a nice little poem, but zombies are so passé in these modern days.
The one that shone, though, was a lengthened variation on a “Little Willie,” poems introduced in the early 1900s about a naughty Victorian boy and how he comes to grief — a moral message thus delivered but nobody else in the poem much cares (at least about such things as death or maimings). Example:
Willie on the railroad track
didn’t hear the whistle’s squeal,
now the engine’s coming back,
they’re scraping Willie off the wheel.
And so this, a Christmas poem actually and at a whopping 18 lines, “Scientific Method,” about Willie’s adventures with a just received chemistry set. And today the reply from the Writers Guild’s Tony Brewer wearing his RYDER guest-editor’s hat: Hi, James, thanks so much once again for submitting. I would like to include “Scientific Method” in the issue. Could you send me a bio when you have a minute?
The street date for the issue will be around April 19 and it will be available online shortly after that. There will be a showcase reading of poets published in the issue on Thur May 9 here in Bloomington. Let me know if you think you can make it. Thanks again.
The magazine in question, THE BLOOMINGTON RYDER and its annual Poetry Issue, in which I had some poems last year as well (cf. May 3 2023, et al. — although more recently in the news here too with their fiction edition in December). And so once again, while with only one poem, but one I think people may especially enjoy.
It seemed like a fun little project. No money to speak of, but cash isn’t everything.
FEMME FATALE FLASHES headlined the call: All genres are invited, with the only stipulation that the story feature a femme fatale.
Flash Fiction: (between 50-1500 words) Please send no more than TWO flash fictions per submission.
We are considering TRANSLATED WORKS as well. Submission of translated works must be accompanied by a statement declaring that the translator has obtained the author’s permission and their publisher’s, if required.
And on. But it sounded, did it not, a bit like a job for those irrepressible New Orleanian misses, les filles à les caissettes, and to my ear one who we have not heard overly much of before, the shy, restrained Hélène, who perhaps conceals her vampiric nature too well? Might this not be a chance for her to shine?
And so suppose on a sort of first date with a man who knows of the “Casket Girls” urban legend and, to be sure, doesn’t realize parts of it are real, she finds he will still not let the legend go. He keeps coming back to it, dwelling on vampires and how, if they existed, they would personify evil. Who goes on and on, raking the subject over, not just making Hélène feel quite uncomfortable with all this chatter, but worried he might blunder onto some kind of truth. What would Aimée do, the Casket Girls’ founder and leader? she wonders.
In “Dinner Date” she may discover an answer.
In just over two months, in any event, the reply came from publisher Wicked Shadow Press: We hope this message finds you well and brimming with creative energy! It brings us immense pleasure to reach out to you today with some great news. We are delighted to inform you that your story “Dinner Date” has been accepted for inclusion in our upcoming anthology, “FEMME FATALE FLASHES.”
More here as it’s revealed.
For today, a quick trip on the wayback machine — but not too far back! — courtesy of Facebook (see also just below, February 5): Tentative front cover design for STORMWASH: ENVIRONMENTAL POEMS (ed. Hiromi Yoshida, March/April 2024), to be independently published by Ray Zdonek, author of Poems of Love and Protest, and Lake Effect: Selected Poems, among numerous other titles.
In STORMWASH, 40 poets uniquely address the climate crisis and its various effects. From the Foreword:
“Invariably, these poems suggest an uncanny attunement with nature: Something in the air, a shift in carbon molecules foreshadowing an ominous onslaught, an accumulating avalanche, some kind of storm—the stink of destruction. In either case, these poems enable us to hope that the survival of future generations is not so tenuous after all.”
My dog in the hunt (cat in the chase? Yes, Triana), a single poem, “The Drowned City,” written as a reaction nearly twenty years back to Hurricane Katrina’s trashing New Orleans, placing it into a broader context. And not exactly a hopeful one either.
But I’m just one of forty, as noted above, and most of the others with more than one poem, so there’s plenty for contemplation, as well as a currently planned multi-media presentation of some of the contents later this spring — for which more here as well.
This from the original post (see below, November 13 2023): The subject was STORMWASH: ENVIRONMENTAL POEMS, a project sponsored by the Arts Alliance of Greater Bloomington, and the Writers Guild @ Bloomington. And this was the call, via Facebook from Writers Guild member Hiromi Yoshida: As global warming continues to trigger severe climatic patterns, consider how we can manage the harm that results from the continuous release of carbon emissions, and enable the survival of future generations. Nature today is neither simply pretty nor merely furious. Instead, it is something that requires judicious management and legislation, while it begs for consecration through the arts.
And so (I explained), given a somewhat solarpunk vibe, I’d noted to the editor that as a general thing I don’t do “hopeful.” That would be okay, I was told. Then I thought back to 2005 New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina and noted, if horror-writer-type attitudes could be accommodated, I thought I might have something I’d written back then. . . .
And so it was accepted, “The Drowned City,” originally published in THE MAGAZINE OF SPECULATIVE POETRY in 2006 — and now, in a PDF proof of the nearly completed STORMWASH, I’ve gotten to see it, check it for errors, and also sample surrounding poems in what looks to be an extremely interesting publication. Lovely!
And, no mistakes found, I sent back my “okay” earlier this evening, with more to come here as it becomes known.
jamesdorrwriter 