Posts Tagged ‘Fairy Tales’
Another quick note for “The Writing Life” for the last day of April. This received this morning from Editor/Publisher Logan Uber (cf. March 19, 16), on a lead-up to publishing for a story originally submitted on February 8, a remarkably quick trip from submission, to acceptance, to contract, to entering the editing phase thus far.
Thank you for your patience as we work through all of the edits for “ONCE UPON A FUTURE TIME, VOLUME 4.” If you haven’t yet received a link to a Google Doc for your story don’t be alarmed we’ll have one to you shortly. On a different note, it’s getting close to time to remit payment for your story. Do you have a PayPal, Venmo, or similar account that we can use to send you your payment.
Additionally, please provide a brief author bio of no more than 250 words for inclusion in the book.
And so the information requested has gone back this afternoon. The story, a new one, “The Blue Man,” a far-future set variant on the Charles Perrault fairy tale “Bluebeard” — but with a different, and trickier, ending. This is for an anthology of fairy tales told with a science fiction bent. Or, quoting from the original call: There are as many tales as there are stars in the sky and now is your chance to share yours, once upon a future time.
To see for yourself, check these pages for more information as it becomes known.
Just a quick note for “The Writing Life.” Tuesday, March 19, the email received: I have attached the contract for your review and signature. Once we have received the signed copy we will proceed with the editing process. The story is “The Blue Man,” a variant on the fairy tale “Bluebeard,” accepted for ONCE UPON A FUTURE TIME, VOLUME 4 (see March 16, below). And so this afternoon, downloaded and signed, the contract whisked back to Editor/Publisher Logan Uber, with more to appear here as it becomes known.
This one’s a new tale, set in the far-future world of my novel-in-stories, TOMBS: A CHRONICLE OF LATTER-DAY TIMES OF EARTH. But it’s also a variant on a fairy tale, Charles Perrault’s “Bluebeard.”
The call: Return to a future full of mystery, magic, and malevolence. How can you tell friend from foe when faced with the cold darkness of outer space? The asteroid belt holds as much danger as the darkened woods, and the huntsman may be just another bounty hunter. The same warnings and concerns that were whispered over baby cradles and guarded by knights in shining armor can be found in the far reaches of space, but just a bit more . . . alien.
But not necessarily just outer space. The future is as expansive as the universe and full of untold stories. Rumors whispered in the dark of night and legends shared throughout the day. . . . There are as many tales as there are stars in the sky and now is your chance to share yours, once upon a future time.
Thus, ONCE UPON A FUTURE TIME, VOLUME 4, the fourth anthology installment based on fairy tales retold as science fiction. . . . upon a fairy or folk tale (Include title of the original tale after author name on the manuscript.) And on with details about unpublished stories only (no reprints allowed), lengths, formats, etc., but all seemed to be leading to one thus far unsold story by me, set in the universe of my TOMBS series (see also, e.g., “The Last Dance,” though in its case a reprint, lead tale in my new AVOID SEEING A MOUSE collection), a tale of two sisters and a chance to marry a reputedly wealthy but hideous man — in fact in his entirety colored blue. Of course, one can get used to just offbeat complexions. . . .
But what of that secret room, the one a bride-to-be has been given a key to, among many others, but told under no circumstances to open?
The word came Friday from Editor/Publisher Logan Uber: Thank you for submitting “The Blue Man” to ONCE UPON A FUTURE TIME, VOLUME 4. We enjoyed your story and would like to publish it in our anthology. After we hear from you we will send the contract for your review and signature. After receipt of your signed contract we will share a Google Doc for editing.
And thus, as we learn coming details together, perhaps we shall all find out for ourselves.
For February the Bloomington Writers Guild First Sunday Prose was on the first Sunday (cf. January 8; December 4 2022, et al.), at Morgenstern Books, with past IU Alumni Association and Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies publications/PR worker and author of mystery novel BLOOD TERMINAL, with a second in the editing stages, Carol Edge as first featured reader, with two memoirs of childhood/teen life in Birmingham Alabama in pre-integration days, one, “Whistling Dixie,” on events around her — including the assassination of President Kennedy — and the other, “Daddy’s Knife,” on more intimate relations with family and, especially, her father. She was followed by Literary Representative for the Arts Alliance of Greater Bloomington and Writers Guild coordinator for Last Sunday Poetry, as well as author and poet of numerous works including JOYCE & JUNG: THE “FOUR STAGES OF EROTICISM” IN A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN and poetry volumes ICARUS BURNING and ICARUS REDUX, among others, Hiromi Yoshida, reading a series of prose poems (including two, of two parts each, on the fairy tales “Bluebeard” and “The Goose Girl,” of which more in a moment), followed by a personal narrative originally published in THE BLOOMINGTONIAN in 2021.
Then came the break and, after, a group of five “Open Mic” readers with me at number four, followed by moderator Joan Hawkins ending the session. A bit nonplussed as we would be using a hand-held microphone this time instead of our usual one on a stand, but happening to have as well as my book, THE TEARS OF ISIS, that had the story I’d planned to read, a more juggle-able text in manuscript form of a different story, but also of an appropriate length, I made a last-moment substitution. And by sheer coincidence, given Hiromi’s fairytale-based poems, the story I now read was a jaundiced account of a hopeful, but vain young lady named Cinderella, titled “The Mouse Game,” in the voice of one of the mice temporarily transformed into horses to draw her heavy pumpkin-become-coach to the prince’s ball and her subsequent triumph.
But you may be sure, by the end, that the mice will have their own agenda.
While the weather had looked a little as if it might presage snow, albeit quite a bit warmer (but this is March), an attendance in around the low twenties was much better than for last month’s Bloomington Writers Guild “First Sunday Prose Reading and Open Mic” (see February 6, et al.). And this held for post break walk-ons as well with seven reading work this time, as opposed to February’s . . . just me.
But first the scheduled readers opened with local poet Lisa Kwong, with a chapbook, BECOMING APPALASIAN, due out from Glass Lyre Press and her “Searching for Wonton Soup” winner of Sundress Publications’ 2019 Poetry Broadside Contest, along with numerous other poems, offering a prose poem, an essay in progress (“Appalasian Enough,” on an Appalachian-raised Asian finding, ultimately, her own poetic individuality), and a closing poem from her upcoming chapbook. This was followed by fiction from Indiana University American Studies Associate Professor and Adjunct Associate Professor of Anthropology and Folklore, Susan Lepselter, a short story set in the area she was brought up in, “Animals of Southeast Pennsylvania.”
Then, break over, with me fifth of seven, I read my most recently published new tale, in DAILY SCIENCE FICTION, coincidentally titled “The Seven” (cf. February 11, et al.). And also coincidentally the seventh story of mine that’s been published in DAILY SF, in this case the epic of seven small people in the mining trade, who’re starting to get tired of being asked questions about other people they may have met in their off-work hours.
But see for yourself by pressing here (where, if desired, you can also subscribe to DSF for free, and/or enter my last name, “Dorr,” in the search box to the right to read/count the other six titles I have there).
Speaking of snow . . . and surprises! DAILY SCIENCE FICTION, a much-esteemed market for flash length speculative fiction, has usually given its authors a few weeks notice on dates when stories are set to appear. But customs change, or perhaps the Internet Monster swallowed it up this time, but the notice I got that my story “The Seven” (cf. July 25) is up came from fellow author RJ Sullivan on Facebook this morning! But hey, that’s okay — publication is publication — and, yep, it’s been published! Coincidentally, my seventh for them.
To see for yourself, simply press here. (Then if curious about the other six, just enter my last name only, “Dorr,” in the search box and — voila! — they will appear too.)
“The Seven” is a riff on fairy tales, notably “Snow White,” but from the point of view of the seven small people whose names may not quite be what you remember. But then some of their stories may be different too. And the tale itself may be open to several interpretations: Existentialist fiction or satire? A comment on modern times and/or mores or metafiction? Folklore or horror? And, written from a sort of communal point of view, is there even a meaning to truth itself?
As my Author Comments appearing with “The Seven” imply, it’s not the first thing I’ve written inspired by fairy tales either. Or even by “Snow White,” my all time favorite there, perhaps, being one called “River Red,” second-to-last story in my collection THE TEARS OF ISIS, which translates it into the world of my mosaic novel TOMBS: A CHRONICLE OF LATTER-DAY TIMES OF EARTH (for descriptions of both books click on their pictures in the center column).
But this is the one we have today and it can be read for free on DAILY SCIENCE FICTION, so why not give it a try (and if you should like it, perhaps give a comment)?
Yesterday, from Lori Michelle, re. “Upward!” and NIGHT FRIGHTS (cf. just below): Okay here is a super rough proof of the magazine. Please make sure I have your name and title spelled correctly in the headers and in the Table of Contents. Look at your story and bio, make sure all is good. The blank page before your story will have a picture with your name and title on it. Still getting there! So equally quickly (almost) I looked through the copy, noted some small things — including keeping the “!” in “Upward!” — and back it went this afternoon.
Then second, in the wee hours this morning from DAILY SCIENCE FICTION an e-note acknowledging my return of the contract, with bio and story comments for “The Seven” (see September 6, July 25), including from co-Editor/Publisher Jonathan Laden: I anticipate publication in 3-6 months. So DAILY SF does carry a backlog but, notwithstanding, the wheels grind on.
A bit of back story: When word came that we were to go into COVID-19 lockdown, my sanity-preserving decision was to write a new story every weekend. For a year (well, in this case, as it turned out — for “the duration” or else for a year, whichever came first).
So, most of these are flash, now that it’s over (the 52 weeks, that is) tending at around 1,000 words. One or two, I think, under 500 and with at least one that’s kissing 2,000. But then these days I’ve been writing short anyway. The challenge, however, is now to sell them.
Some, of course, may just suck — that happens too. But for those that can be sold, I don’t want to have done that much work for something that will get me, say, only $10.00. Not unless there’s some other reward too. So I’ve been tending to aim high for markets (one even went to venerable “pro-zine” FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION — it came back fast) and, in some cases, more literary outlets. Part of the “fun” that kept me going was experimentation with such things as metafiction and post-modernism. So some may never sell at all because a market for them just doesn’t exist.
But today the anti-sale logjam burst! We would like to publish your story, “The Seven”, in DAILY SCIENCE FICTION. We’ll email a contract to you shortly for your approval. A sample email, including any edits to your story that may be necessary, will come later. The edits will be sent with enough time for your feedback, so we may resolve any issues and present the best possible story to our audience. Yes, that’s DAILY SCIENCE FICTION which we last met almost two years ago with the Trumpian zombie satire “Steel Slats” (cf. December 20, August 23 2019, et al.), a high-circulation “early choice” market for less-than-1500-word stories that I’ve only placed in about six times before since mid-2011.
While as for the story, it’s titled “The Seven,” a riff on Snow White but more about stories and folklore collecting than the actual young woman herself (whose name, in any event, was “Mary,” or so the dwarves say). But then their names may mutate as well — a name, after all, is just what you call something — and, tired out from a hard day in the mines, maybe they sometimes embellish things too.
You never know — that’s fiction for you (with more to be posted here as it becomes revealed).
jamesdorrwriter 