These friends have thrived on a feeling of “us against the world.” That kind of loyalty is appealing, but it’s also demanding and high-pressure. What happens when it explodes?
Read more about my newest story, “The Staircase”–along with thoughts on YA, mythmaking, and writing during a pandemic–in my interview with F&SF blog.
In our town, there are two roads that cross on top of a hill. Go through the intersection and you’ll tip down toward the mall (east) or the turnpike ramp (west) or the high school (north) or the endless town-house developments (south). But everyone at school says there’s another tipping point there, a fifth cardinal direction.
Specifically, there is a staircase cut into a grassy hill: fifteen wooden planks, the final one inches above the asphalt. If you walk down them, if you take that last step, your foot will never hit the street.
You will disappear.
My new story “The Staircase”–about urban legends, gossip, and what we’ll do to keep our friends–is available now in the July/August 2020 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
You can now order individual paper copies (click the PayPal link) and e-books (all formats).
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This past year saw the release of two stories eligible for awards consideration:
“The Children’s Cabinet”
Shirley Magazine, Issue 13 (spring 2019)
730 words / short story
“The Albatwitch Chorus”
Asimov’s Science Fiction, September/October 2019
8,000 words / novelette
Read in the SFWA forums. (Log in required.)
I was also pleased to discuss the story with the Asimov’s blog, From the Earth to the Stars.
Thank you for reading!
I recently spoke to From the Earth and the Stars, the Asimov’s Science Fiction blog, about my new story “The Albatwitch Chorus.” I confessed to things like:
This idea, like most of my ideas, came both quickly and slowly. When I learned about the albatwitch, a kind of mini-Sasquatch from Pennsylvania folklore, I knew I wanted to write about it. I like cryptids and have a weirdly specific phobia of uncanny, humanoid tricksters.
Read the whole interview here.
You can find my newest short story, “The Albatwitch Chorus,” in the Sept./Oct. issue of Asimov’s. It’s about a witch going through a midlife crisis, her ex-husband, her teenage intern, and the cryptids in her backyard:
“Possum?” I asked, but the wind shifted, revealing the body was too big. Curled hands and pointed black ears of a raccoon, but sparse fur and no tail. I had never seen one before, but I knew.
“Albatwitch,” Jonas said, his eyes still fixed on the creature. “Go call animal control.”
Very little scared me, yet I nodded mutely, hurried through the kitchen door, and stood at the window with a phone in hand. Albatwitches carried disease. They attracted predators. And they had mysterious funerary rites one did not want to interrupt. They mostly kept to themselves, but they were quick to retaliate, and usually as a chorus—that was the name for a group—at least, before the 1979 Treaty of Half Moon Rock, sealed with an exchange of apples (from us) and a mound of empty soda cans, a few nuggets of raw garnet, and a deer carcass (from them).
You can order print and digital subscriptions, purchase an eBook copy, or find the issue on the shelves at Barnes & Noble, Books a Million, and a million other stores.
The baby — well, she’s no longer a baby. She stands at the cabinet door, only wobbles a little as it swings back. The baby — the youngest and the last, forever the baby — has inherited the amusements of three older siblings. To you, the cabinet is an archive of ten years of raising children, but to the baby, it contains the future.
Read my new flash story “The Children’s Cabinet” in Shirley Magazine.
This past year saw the release of two stories eligible for awards consideration:
“The Barrens”
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May/June 2018
11,100 words / novelette
Read in the SFWA forums. (Log in required.)
In one of his best of 2018 round-ups, Jason Sanford says, “A group of teenagers follow a pirate radio station’s signal into a dark forest — and the woods are hungry. This new take on a familiar horror trope is a beautifully haunting story.”
I also talked about the story in this interview and was thrilled to receive this review from the B&N SciFi & Fantasy blog.
“The Witch of Osborne Park”
Asimov’s, September/October 2018
3,700 words / short fiction
Read in the SFWA forums. (Log in required.)
Thank you for reading!
On the Asimov’s blog, I listed eight little weirdnesses that inspired my new horror story about motherhood. Here’s number two:
In mammals, fetal cells migrate into the mother’s body. The maternal immune system eliminates many of these cells, but some integrate into the host tissue, where they may remain for decades, or even permanently. This makes mothers “micro chimeras,” organisms with distinct sets of genetic material. Little is known about the impact on mothers, or the evolutionary value of such a phenomenon.
More over at From Earth to the Stars. You can find the story itself in the September/October issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction.
The September/October issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction is here, and it brings my story “The Witch of Osborne Park.”
It was expensive to live in Osborne Park, but it was worth it, the realtor promised. You were paying for the charm, engraved corner stones and peaked attics. You were paying for block parties and solstice celebrations. You were paying for the Neighborhood Association; for tranquility and protection.
(Spoiler alert: neither tranquility nor protection are found.)
It is a special joy to share this story with the world during the fall, when the children of Osborne Park gather in their purple robes and don their wooden masks. Happy Halloween, and hold your children close, unless maybe you shouldn’t.
You can order print and digital subscriptions, purchase an eBook copy, or find the issue on the shelves at Barnes & Noble, Books a Million, and a million other stores.
We also recognize that in order to fight for your values you must first be able to articulate them. My favorite response to the Writers Resist event came from an attendee who walked in with skepticism. He thought there was little use in preaching to the choir. In the end, he found a lot of value in publicly and collectively affirming our beliefs and our commitment to fighting for them.
(I said.)
Thank you to Foreword Reviews for interviewing us about Who Will Speak for America? Read the whole piece here.