Recent News as of June 2014

I do a good bit of writing by hand, usually in a large hardbound sketchbook, although I sometimes like the feel of a nice narrow yellow-lined pad or the sprawl of an enormous expanse of drawing paper. And to write on these, while sometimes I’ll wander over into glitter gel pens or fine-point felt tips, my favorite is the Pilot Varsity disposable fountain pen.

Depending on where you’re getting it, the price varies from $3-10, with the high range of that usually appearing in fancy stores aimed at writers, which will strategically place a mug of them near that stack of leatherbound, gilt-edged journals locking with tiny moon and star clasps whose splendor will prove so intimidating to live up to that you will never actually use it. Overall, it will prove much cheaper to buy yours at an art supply store, which is where I get mine, since I go through at least a few each month.

I like writing with this pen because it never feels as though the nib and paper are dragging at each other. The nib could best be described as medium, somewhere well between broad point and narrow. The pen comes in a variety of shades and shows clearly what color it is at both the top and the bottom. For me, the availability of the color depends on how recently the store’s restocked, but the web tells me it comes in black, navy blue, red, green, pink, purple, and turquoise blue.

My only quibble with the pen is a small one that may not apply to many people’s experience. I am tough on pens. They end up jammed in purses, pockets, lost in coat linings, moved from one book bag to another. And so if your treatment of your possessions is overall gentler, which it probably is, you may not experience the same results I do, which is that about one in twenty pens ends up not exploding so much as getting a bit drippy to the point of ink-stained fingers.

You can read this review at http://thegreenmanreview.com/what-nots/making-words-flow-with-pilot-varsity-fountain-pens/

Happy Pride Month! I wanted to put together a list of some of my F&SF stories featuring queer characters that I particularly love.

“Every Breath a Question, Every Heartbeat an Answer” is a story that appeared this year in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, set in a hospital for war veterans, involving a lesbian centaur coming to terms with loss and the enigmatic ace paladin who seems to promise an answer to the question haunting her. Like many of my stories and the Tabat Quarter, it’s set in the world of Tabat, where intelligent magical creatures are beginning to question the roles society has allotted them.

“Hoofsore and Weary” precedes “Every Breath a Question” but features one of the previous story’s main characters, involved in the journey that will later bring her to the war hospital. It appeared in the anthology of military fantasy Shattered Shields, edited by Jennifer Brozek and Bryan Thomas Schmidt.

“Rappacini’s Crow” is set in the steampunk world of my Altered America stories and has a trans protagonist who must figure out how to escape not just a malignant crow, but its owner as well. It appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

“How Joyful the Work” appeared in Predators in Petticoats, edited by Emily Leverett and Margaret S. Mcgraw. This theme anthology of 25 original stories focused on “fearsome feminine power”. I chose the figure of Penelope from Homer’s Odyssey, because I’ve always found her an intriguing figure. In this story, told from the POV of a household maid, instead of weaving tapestries, she creates clockwork contraptions.

“Preferences’ was recently reprinted in a special cyberpunk issue of The London Reader but originally appeared in Chasing Shadows, an anthology edited by David Brin and Stephen Potts, stories based on Brin’s book The Transparent World. It’s a short piece about data privacy, and reflects some of my experience working in that industry.

“The Threadbare Magician” is urban fantasy featuring a gay magician and his attempt to evade a particular doom. Seattle denizens will recognize references to a multitude of landmarks, including the Value Village store in Redmond, and you may be surprised what a simple trailer park on the East Side can hold. It originally appeared in Genius Loci, edited by Jaym Gates; you can find the audio version on Podcastle here.

“Call and Answer, Plant and Harvest” is set in the city of Serendib, a location that has for some reason supplied a number of very short pieces set on its streets, including “The Subtler Art” and “The Owlkit, the Candymaker, the Beekeeper, and the Brewer”. This appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies; it was originally written for an anthology but the editor was anti-Chaos Mage. 😉 Luckily editor Scott Andrews was not.

“Elsewhere, Within, Elsewhen” was originally written for Beyond the Sun, an anthology edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt. It features a protagonist trying to come to terms with his husband’s betrayal, on an alien world that presents him with an extraordinary way to escape it.

“Ms. Liberty Gets a Haircut” originally appeared in Strange Horizons but has been reprinted in multiple anthologies. It’s my favorite of all my superhero stories.

Bigfoot, reprinted on my site here, originally appeared in a feminist fiction issue of literary magazine 13th Moon and features a newly appeared Bigfoot and the reporter covering that appearance.

Want more? My Tabat series features the charismatic Bella Kanto, a bisexual gladiator who finds herself thrust into schemes to overthrow the government — and very structure — of the city she fights for, Tabat.