Posts Tagged ‘Tombs: A Chronicle of Latter-Day Times of Earth’
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 And on with details about unpublished stories only (no reprints allowed), lengths, formats, etc., but all seemed to be leading to one thus far unsold story by me, set in the universe of my TOMBS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.
We had a special guest featured reader of sorts in the number two spot for November ‘s “Bloomington Writers Guild First Sunday Prose and Open Mic” (cf. October 1, August 6, et al.), at an otherwise not overly-crowded session. An almost freakish for the season warm and sunny afternoon (as was the case too with October’s meeting), combining perhaps with some time-change confusion may have made the difference.
But that’s the loss of those who missed it, and an only a few days reunion with past treasurer/Writers Guild member Annette Oppenlander — living in Germany the first half of her life and recently having moved back with her husband — a novelist with some twenty-five titles divided between books in German and English, and specializing in well-researched historic fiction often aimed at young adult readers. Thus this Sunday’s offering: several excerpts from her latest novel, WHEN THE SKIES RAINED FREEDOM, centered around the end of World War II and the 1948-49 Berlin airlift when supplies had to be brought by air to the English, French, and U.S. sectors of a then-divided city, blockaded by Russia from Western Europe. This followed the curtain-raiser, me (ever notice that I, specializing in short dark fiction, tend to be tagged as a featured reader around Halloween?) with a story-chapter from TOMBS: A CHRONICLE OF LATTER-DAY TIMES OF EARTH, “The Last Dance,” as a homage to the Mexican/ Mexican-American celebration of death in the often actually multi-day Dia de los Muertos. Plus, as a small bonus, a chance to announce that TOMBS is now available, as has been for some time THE TEARS OF ISIS, in the “Local Author” section of host venue Morgenstern Books.
And, after the break, an also not overly-long “open mic” slot brought two more readers, plus conversation in what proved to be a pleasantly laid back session ending.
This also from Thursday — the news seems to cluster, sometimes, at the ends of months — from Editor Dibyasree Nandy (see July 5): We are extremely excited to share THE RIVER IN US ALL, with the world. Please find attached a print replica of the anthology, which we hope you enjoy as much as we enjoyed putting the book together.
And also the blurb (this from Lulu’s site): Dive into an ethereal world of rivers and stories with THE RIVER IN US ALL., a spellbinding modern fiction anthology published by CultureCult and edited by the acclaimed poet and author, Dibyasree Nandy.
This anthology brings together 29 captivating short stories from 27 talented authors around the globe.
Discover tales that effortlessly transport readers across the ebb and flow of time, resonating with the unstoppable current of life itself. These beautifully crafted stories range from heartwarming to haunting, taking readers on a captivating journey through the interconnected threads of humanity. From veteran writers to emerging voices, these authors have contributed their literary prowess to create a one-of-a-kind anthology that celebrates the powerful symbiosis between our existence and the timeless flow of rivers.
This also was one, I had noted, that didn’t have much money in it for the authors, but was (just as THE RABBIT HOLE, below) directing a portion of sales to charity, in this case to go towards the care of street animals in Kolkata. And in any event, was open to at least some reprints. But also was willing to pay to put out a classy product, as the blurb continues: The exquisitely illustrated book features ink artworks that add another dimension to the book, their flowing brushstrokes mirroring the very essence of the rivers within us.
That is to say, a book one might be proud to appear in — as well as, with an Asian publisher, possibly might be distributed into some extra out of the mainstream places.
So my part in the lineup — third, in fact, on the contents page, a prime position where, hopefully having hooked the reader with the first one or two stories, an editor will now place one of his/her biggies in hopes of beguiling said reader to stay — is one of the book’s longer tales, “Miasma,” originally published as a story-chapter in my mosaic novel TOMBS: A CHRONICLE OF LATTER-DAY TIMES OF EARTH. A tale of a far-future dying Earth, and a voyage down an ultra-polluted, poisonous river to the sea.
So, completing the blurb: Immerse yourself in a unique literary adventure, celebrating the profound connection we all share with rivers—the life force that flows within us all. But with one caveat also, that (from Thursday’s letter, again) [p]resently, the illustrated paperback is only available on Lulu. The anthology, in both paperback and ebook forms, shall be available in more outlets online in the next few weeks, whose notifications shall be given on our social media pages. So complete distribution may take some time (indeed, I’m not sure the actual paperback is even on Lulu quite yet, at least as of my check earlier Thursday).
But for ebook fans, I think it may already be available in Kindle at least, on Amazon’s site; so for more information (including, one hopes, when it might be there in print as well), possible ordering, one may check here.*
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*And a final addition, as of today (Friday p.m.) it’s listed on Amazon in print as well, for which press here!
Well, first of all it’s for charity so, for the writer, the take is not great. Quoting the guidelines: Majority of the sales proceeds from all CultureCult publications go towards the care and welfare of street animals in Kolkata, India. But, hey, that means alley cats too, does it not? Or in other words, maybe, “the Goth Cat Triana made me do it?”
Also they were either very picky, or not many authors answered the call. They didn’t really want reprints, for instance — [w]e consider reprints but generally do not publish them unless they are absolutely exceptional. And, while my own submission went in on time, they did extend their deadline at least once. And for all that, though, they expect to publish — if they keep their schedule — with lightning swiftness: CultureCult Press invites fiction submissions for publication in its anthology of stories about Rivers THE RIVER IN US ALL (Expected release: July 2023). The extended final date for submission is May 31, 2023.
Be that as it may. As they continue: Rivers are beautiful things. They can harbour sinister legends, gift beautiful stories and feed us at night with a generous supply of fishes too! At their worst, they can be monstrous and wash away both life and property!
PLEASE NOTE that this is an anthology with a THEME. ONLY those fictions that feature a river in a prominent capacity, shall be considered for publication. Stories of all genres are invited. . . . Short Story: (between 1500-8000 words) Send no more than TWO short stories per submission.Flash Fiction: (between 50-1500 words) Send no more than THREE flash fictions per submission.
Manuscripts should directly be sent to CCAnthologyRiver@gmail.com
So. I thought I might send a reprint anyway, one from my novel-in-stories TOMBS: A CHRONICLE OF LATTER-DAY TIMES OF EARTH (Elder Signs Press, 2017), “Miasma.” One which, re. the cover art depicted above with non-final submission date, does concern a woman who who went down a river — or rather her brother’s quest thus to find her — but in rather a different way than that shown.
Or does she?
In any event, the word came today: We are pleased to inform you that “Miasma” has been selected by the anthology’s editor for publication in THE RIVER IN US ALL. So we’ll find out together: can they keep that schedule and bring the book out before August?
A trip back in time, of sorts, for the Bloomington Writers Guild’s “First Wednesday Spoken Word” (see March 4 2020, and before). It went on hiatus because of Covid, and hasn’t come back yet as a live event — but it has had an electronic rebirth through the “magic” of Zoom. It’s still not been reported here, there’s something about Zoom that, for me, is still off-putting and so I haven’t sought to attend these new sessions. Though admittedly there are advantages too, one being that since participants don’t have to be physically present, readers don’t have to be local or near-local, but can be recruited from anyplace, technically, in the world.
But comes Halloween and, as a local horror writer, I was invited to be one of three readers at an all-prose (well, plus musical interludes which are, traditionally, a part as well) spook-fest, joining with Louisville, Kentucky writer and Jefferson Community and Technical College English instructor Josh Conrad and San Francisco-based Dodie Bellamy, the former with a story culminating with Halloween and the latter with memoirs including a recollected viewing of the movie of Stephen King’s CHRISTINE. And between them, me with a tale in the far-future “Tombs” universe but not in the TOMBS novel, “Crow and Rat,” originally published in HUMANAGERIE (Eibonvale Press, 2018), and interspersed throughout electronic music via Ed Pettersen, weird and spooky in its own way.
The First Wednesday Series is sponsored in part by the Indiana Arts Commission, Bloomington Arts Commission, and the Bloomington Urban Enterprise Association, and was fun in a new sort of way, though I’m probably unlikely to re-become a regular quite yet — there’s something about the electronic format that, for me, still seems lacking. But there is still one more advantage, and that is these sessions are being live-streamed and, for tonight’s, by probably about the end of the week it should be on You Tube.
To see for yourself, and enjoy some pretty good stories, et al., too, in a few days press here.
This would be Bloomington’s annual “Fourth Street Festival of the Arts and Crafts,” planned to be back from a several-year COVID 19 hiatus, including a two-day presentation of readings and other written-word features from the Writers Guild (cf. September 1, August 16 2019; September 1 2018; et al.), of which possibly more news will be coming too. But for now at least I emailed back to Tony that I’m game, with a possible Saturday afternoon preference. Thus ended the entry for July 12, about a month and a half below, explaining a possible final venue for a promised reading for June’s THE RYDER MAGAZINE poets (see also June 29, 13, et al.).
The event in general is a vendor rich street fair for local and semi-local artists — two-and-a-half blocks of Fourth Street blocked off for booths, with spurs on Grant and Dunn Streets added for readers and musicians. And this year, the Grant Street location was reserved for us, the Bloomington Writers Guild, with our usual Poetry On Demand Booth (you give a donation, one of our poets writes you a poem on your subject of choice) and Spoken Word Performance Tent.
Also this year, today, Saturday, I was involved in two scheduled performances, one of three “Ryder Showcase” poets as noted above* and a separate half-hour horror prose reading as I have also done in the past. All, so far, good except that my horror gig was the first set, for 11 a.m., on a day that began — Weather Channel forecasts for sun all the past week notwithstanding — with thunder and rain. Which doesn’t help audience turnout at fairs. But, miracle of miracles, with some patches of sunshine including one starting just about the time I left home.
So the story I read, good for foggy mornings, was “Ghost Ship,” originally published in TECHNO GOTH CTHULHU (see April 28, 21 2013, et al) and, more recently, BLACK INFINITY (November 6, 3, October 21 2019, et al.), one of a number of independent stories set in the universe of TOMBS: A CHRONICLE OF LATTER-DAY TIMES OF EARTH. This was followed, for me, by a brief trip to the local library and, back to Fourth Street, lunching on take-out jambalaya from the local Cajun restaurant. And then, at 1:30 p.m., with misting and light rain, poetry by Shana Ritter, Hirome Yoshida, and me for the Saturday Ryder Showcase.
This gave us ten minutes each with me batting third, each of us first reading the poems we had in THE RYDER, then filling the remaining time as we wished. In my case that meant two, “Don’t Always Believe Everything You Read” and “The Vampiress’ Soliloquy” (cf. June 13, including a link to the RYDER issue), which I followed with a six short poem “mini-chapbook” of poems from a dark, dangerous city, “Bon Appétit,” “Annchuck by Daylight,” “Nocturnal,” “Dig We Must,” “Rat Girl,” and “The Sisters,” and — with a tip of the hat for the Labor Day weekend as the traditional end of summer — “Summer Cancellations,” all seven poems (by convenient coincidence) reprinted in my second DARKER LOVES collection (cf. center column). And by contrast to “Ghost Ship,” aided perhaps by the strength of the preceding poets — or maybe as well with the rain starting to come down a little harder — we ended in a tent nearly full.
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*With three more Ryder poets set for tomorrow, at 2:30 Sunday. There were more than just six poets in all in the issue as readers at the time may note, but, summer over, that’s all that could be found.
Another excursion down memory lane, this time to two years in the past with a story, “Flute and Harp,” accepted for a future copy of HELIOS QUARTERLY. It would be a reprint, originally published in WHISPERS AND SHADOWS (Prime Books, 2001) as well as part of my 2017 novel-in-stories, TOMBS: A CHRONICLE OF LATTER-DAY TIMES OF EARTH, but there was one catch: due to backlogs it most likely wouldn’t appear until mid-2021 (cf. August 12, June 17 2019, et al.).
But of course things change. First, on July 26 this year: This is Olivia, the publisher behind Aurelia Leo (formerly Radiant Crown Publishing).
I’m writing to you all to ask if you’d be interested in having your work bound into a new anthology project.
It would contain the stories featured in the illustrated anthology projects UCHRONIA & HYPERION & THEIA, as well as MYSTIQUE.
The new anthology would be tentatively named UCHRONIA: ALTERNATIVE HISTORIES & ALTERNATE WORLDS, with new cover art by J. Querioz (unless our agreement falls through).
And now today’s (August 20) email: You’re one of twenty-three authors that expressed some interest in this reprint anthology (that will contain a handful of new stories that don’t fit properly anywhere in the publication schedule anymore).
Unfortunately negotiations fell through with J. Queiroz. However, I now plan to repurpose some of Stefan Paris’s illustrations used in the original edition of UCHRONIA. That or pay for 2-3 black and white illustrations to keep the feel of the older works. Send any recommendations my way.
You can share the cover, your story, and release date of January 4, 2022 now if you’d like! But if you give me about two weeks, I’ll have a pre-order up and an ARC ready that may be more useful to share.
Included: a contract, now signed and sent back, as well as the cover which is rather cool! And so, too, a hoped-for release date the first week of next year, with more details to come.
The full title actually is TWISTED FATE VOL. I: APPLES RED AS BLOOD (cf. January 6), to be published by Fantasia Divinity, whose magazine of the same title we’ve met before. The call had been for retellings and retakes on the fairy tale “Snow White,” with no nods to Walt Disney (at least ones that might cause copyright problems). We want you to elaborate on the original short tale, give depth and feeling to the characters, motivations, desires, hope, and despair. The stories can be told from the POV of any character, not just Snow White. Reprints being okay, I sent a tale from the “Tombs” far future, dying Earth universe called “River Red,” originally 
published in the anthology ESCAPE CLAUSE (Ink Oink Art, Inc., 2009) and also appearing in my collection THE TEARS OF ISIS.
That was last September with the acceptance coming in January this year. And so the wheels turned deliberately, slowly, the myriad details of publication each in its own time being addressed until, at last, today, the contract arrived, was read by me, electronically signed, and sent back this afternoon to Editor/Publisher Madeline Stout. As for “River Red,” the names have been changed along with the setting and a ghoul added as well as, maybe, a sort of zombie, the ending cribbed from (I admit it!) the Greek tragedian Euripides (well out of copyright by now), but there is still a magic mirror. Or a mirror, anyway. So while maybe not obvious, the roots of Snow White are there.
Or more to the point, the Writing Life continues. An edited copy will come next for my approval or possible re-tweaking, maybe an updated bio sent. . . . A date for publication set? More to be here as it becomes known.
Perhaps we’ll recall FANTASIA DIVINITY which we’ve met before concerning a reprint of “Flightless Rats,” a tale of the “casket girl”/vampiress Aimée and her problems with dating in 19th century New Orleans (cf. September 27 2017, et al.). Fast forwarding to September last year, the publisher emerged again with a call for TWISTED FATE VOL. I: APPLES RED AS BLOOD, [t]he first in a new series featuring retellings of fairy tales! This one will feature Snow White. We will be looking for new and fresh takes on the tale, however it has to be easily recognizable as a Snow White story. . . . We want you to elaborate on the original short tale, give depth and feeling to the characters, motivations, desires, hope, and despair. . . . Reprints would be okay and the deadline was listed as September 5.
As it happens I ran across the call on September 4, so the time would be short. But I also realized I had such a reprint, “River Red,” a “Tombs” universe story originally published in ESCAPE CLAUSE (Ink Oink Art, 2009) and reprinted in my 2013 THE TEARS OF ISIS, so out it went the next day, deadline day, with a cover letter hoping it wouldn’t “be too far afield for use.” Living on the edge, yes?
Then yesterday evening the email arrived — and a happy ending: Congratulations! Your story has been chosen to appear in our upcoming anthology APPLES RED AS BLOOD. We will be in touch soon with the contract.
Details to appear here as they become known.
Sunday afternoon was Bloomington Writers Guild “First Sunday Prose Reading and Open Mic” day (cf. October 6, May 5, et al.) at local tavern Bear’s Place. As of last month, there have been two featured readers rather than three to give sufficient time for open mike readers and still be cleared before 5:00 p.m. (at which time the Ryder Film Series has scheduled screenings), this month’s being Andy Hubbard with several books of both prose and poetry who, in the spirit of “Days of the Dead,” 
read four poetry-like shorts on ghosts and hauntings both in the rural midwest and coastal Maine; followed by me with “Ghost Ship,” a tale set in the universe of my mosaic novel TOMBS: A CHRONICLE OF LATTER-DAY TIMES OF EARTH of a “Flying Dutchman” type figure’s appearance on a far future ocean, originally published in TECHNO-GOTH CTHULHU as well as reprinted just last month in BLACK INFINITY (see October 28, 21, et al.; also April 28 2013 et al.).
After a break (which included shared candy courtesy of Antonia Matthew, who we’ve met before), the “Open Mic” portion drew only three readers this time, the last being Andy whose scheduled presentation had run a bit short with two more extra-brief ghostly poem-stories.
jamesdorrwriter 