Don't Cry For Me Argentinosaurus

 I am very happy to announce that my story "Don't Cry For Me Argentinosaurus" is now available in volume one of The Mesozoic Reader!

This story is part of what I am jokingly calling the Jennifer Lee Rossman Cinematic Universe, a shared universe where several of my stories take place in different time periods.

There are two other stories published in this universe: The Good, The Bad, And The Utahraptor, and Joan Of Archaeopteryx. And I am planning, in the very distant future, to put together these stories with a bunch of others to more completely tell the full story of this world.

Argentinosaurus is very loosely based on the musical Evita. Very very loosely. I want to stress that I have never seen Evita. Mostly I just based the story on the Madonna song and added dinosaurs.

Set The Night To Music

 Set The Night To Music, also known as the reason Spotify keeps suggesting I listen to Starship, is now available in Triangulation: Energy!

This is a cyberpunk story based on the song "We Built This City," which I listened to over and over again while writing it, to the point that I totally messed up my Spotify algorithm. But it's also a story that made me realize some common themes in my work.

Music.

Reluctant heroes.

The little people rising up to defeat the big corporations.

And it's hard to know where these recurring ideas come from, why they’re so important to us that they keep showing up. A lot of my work is directly inspired by the lessons about life and science that I absorbed from Jurassic Park. But that last one, little people rising up to defeat big corporations?

Well… as I was writing this story, I found myself humming a little tune. No, not We Built This City. I couldn't identify it at first, I only remember the words "You can't fight corporate America."

So I looked it up, and it was this song from Rocko’s Modern Life, a cartoon I watched when I was little. I can't say for sure that that song is the only reason the idea of getting together a big unruly mob and fighting against corporations has become such a big part of who I am, but it's definitely one of them.

Seven Things I Learned Traveling Through Space With A Genetically Engineered Lesbian Peahen

 I’m so honored to say that my story "Seven Things I Learned Traveling Through Space With A Genetically Engineered Lesbian Peahen" has been published alongside a shipload (wink wink) of other spaceship-set stories in Bridge To Elsewhere!

The story was inspired by Real Science! According to this article, peafowl can sense each other’s tail vibrations with the lil doodlebopper feathers on their heads.

So naturally, I'm using them as long range communication in space.

I do not understand how that would work, do not ask me.

Also do not ask my character.

I used one of my favorite literary techniques for this story: the main character who has no idea how the science works so I don't have to explain anything.

This character in particular is best imagined as Darcy Lewis, Kat Denning’s character from the Thor movies.