Publication: The Courtship Dance

I'm not going to post the cover of the book because it has a spider on it and I don't want to trigger any phobias, but my story The Courtship Dance is now available in The Tangled Web anthology! https://www.purpleturkeypress.com/thetangledweb


　

So my go-to plotting method is apparently to add "in spaaaaaace" to the end of the anthology theme. Thus we have a story about spiders. IN. SPAAAAAAACE.

　

Let me tell you a little about spiders. Terrifying things that snuck out of Hell when Satan was doing spring cleaning, right? Hey, I have arachnophobia - no argument here. (I can't guarantee the content of any other story in this anthology, but mine is sweet and the spider is not scary at all.)

But did you know they can dance?

　
Enter the peacock spiders, teeny little colorful dudes that shake their iridescent groove thangs to attract a mate. (Link shows photos and video of spiders up close but they are freaking adorable and fuzzy wuzzy and don't trigger anxiety from me.) https://www.livescience.com/39052-peacock-spider-mating-dance.html


　
And did you know spiders have been to space? (Link shows photos of spiders -- some are not close-ups, and the ones that are show spiders preserved in jars. No extreme close-ups of anything meant to look scary, but I know that doesn't always matter if your phobia is severe.) https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/objects-of-intrigue-the-spiders-who-spun-in-space


　

So naturally I had to combine these fun facts into a story about dancing, romance, and Newtonian physics. The spiders play a very small part in the actual story, but have a big impact on the plot.

　

Judith lives in a spaceship, and like all of my romantic leads, she's dorky and awkward and doesn't know how to tell the pretty boy with the glittery prosthetic arm that she fancies him. So naturally, she turns to her spider friend Anita for advice on choreographing a courtship dance.

　

When I submitted this story, the editors asked me to add more 80s references, specifically Dirty Dancing. Now, I'd never seen Dirty Dancing. It never felt like my kind of thing. It's a girly, not sci-fi movie. But I have seen it and let me tell you, I LOVED IT. Like, I knew how it ended but I got so into it that I was like "BUT DO THEY DO THE LIFT?????"