The Falling Marionette - re-printed

Boy howdy. The world is a mess and it's terrifying and we're all just doing what we can to survive. Personally, I have decided to start saying "Boy howdy" a lot more often, and boy howdy is it fun.

It might not be the ideal time to be promoting books, when money is tight and everything feels like the beginning of a Twilight Zone episode, but art is always important. Science will get us through physically, but art is what makes survival life. Art is what keeps us going.

Disabled Voices is a collection of fiction, memoirs, and poems about, by, and for disabled people. And it's probably out of print everywhere because *gestures vaguely at the world* but if you can, I would encourage you to order it. Disabled people are getting the worst treatment in this apocalypse. We are more susceptible to illness, usually, but we are also more susceptible to people being (excuse the cursing please; I try not to swear much on my blog because that's what Twitter is for, but sometimes you just have to) assholes. We are seen as less deserving of treatment and resources because we are a drain on society, or our lives have no purpose, or we are not productive.

Well look at this. This book is full of disabled people contributing to society, giving our lives purpose, producing art. We matter.

My contribution to this book is The Falling Marionette. It is a story about a girl with spinal muscular atrophy who finds out that a high tech "cure" doesn't solve all her problems.

This  is the third time this story has been published, and I don't link to the first two anymore. Not because of anything the publishers did, they were all lovely people, but because I am not proud of the way I wrote the story. Ableism and ableist ideas are so ingrained in our society, so internalized in the minds of disabled people, that we don't realize all the time when we are speaking about one person's disability in such a way that accidentally perpetuates another person's stereotypes. There wasn't anything very bad in my story, but it has been a few years since I wrote it, and part of it made me less than proud. I don't know if it is perfect now, I don't know if it can ever be perfect, but right now I am pretty damn proud of it.


https://books.google.com/books/about/Disabled_Voices_Anthology.html?id=ji5eyQEACAAJ

Chen D'Angelo and the Chinese-Italian Dragon

Still working through the backlog of stories that were published but never properly announced. Today's offering: Chen D'Angelo and the Chinese-Italian Dragon!

It's the future, and everyone and everything that mattered on earth is on a generation ship headed toward a new planet. There are forests, and sometimes plants and animals from different areas of the world get along and create new ecosystems, but sometimes they don't. The city is the same way. Everyone mixes and mingles, but there are still places like Little Italy and Chinatown. And where Little Italy and Chinatown meet, there is a Chinese-Italian pizzeria.

The pizzeria is going to be sold if they can't raise enough money, but the owners' daughter has other ideas. She just needs to find the one thing people forgot back on earth: belief. And maybe a dragon.

This story and many others is available in Dragon Bike. https://microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/books/10155

The Doll In The Ripped Universe

Some of my characters are more like me than others. The ones that are the most like me tends to be the autistic ones. I don't know if there's more freedom to describe things the way I think, or if the struggles of autistic characters match the resonant frequency of my heart, or what. They just tend to be my favorite.

The Doll In The Ripped Universe is one of those stories.

The main character is not actually much like me. Autistic and likes dinosaurs. But the story itself is not my story and I'm being purposely vague because I don't want to spoil the ending but for some reason I just very much connected with the main character. Our thought processes run on the same wavelength, and that made writing this incredibly easy for once.

Well, one very small part of the story is mine. The specific, neurotic way I experienced fear and anxiety over the smallest and most insignificant things in my childhood.

The Doll In The Ripped Universe is a story about autism and gender and finding yourself. It is also about what happens when you pick at a hole in the universe.

It is available now in Spoon Knife 4
https://www.amazon.com/Spoon-Knife-Neurodivergent-Spacetime-Anthology-ebook/dp/B08263JH7M

Space Opera Libretti author interview: Dawn Vogel

Good evening, passengers of the good spaceship Space Opera Libretti! This is the part where I usually make an airplane joke, but surely I won't do that this time. Except I will, so don't call me Shirley. (and that, my dears, is what we call a joke for old people!)
We invite one of our authors up to the cockpit every Monday to discuss their story available now in Space Opera Libretti.

Today's guest is Dawn Vogel!

In 10 words or less, how would you describe your story?

Intergalactic pop group saves the day!

What was the inspiration for this story? Be as brief or detailed as you want.

Not quite a year ago now, my husband finally got me to watch some Korean pop videos. He had been interested in K-pop for a while, but he had to find just the right groups in order to get me hooked. K-pop videos are visual spectacles, and some of them are even more spectacular (and weird) than others. Specifically, one of the groups he really likes, Brown-Eyed Girls, has a song called "Brave New World," and the video for that was the first inspiration for "Earworm." I reluctantly moved my band out of a space-travelling car and into an actual spaceship, but I envision the opening sequence of the story as beginning similarly to how the video for "Brave New World" starts. One of my favorite groups, Twice, has a song called "BDZ" (it's short for bulldozer), which also has a sort of odd video, and that inspired the later scenes of the story.

If your story had a theme song, what would it be?

The obvious choices would be "Brave New World" and "BDZ," but I imagine Hafsa's sound as a bit more like "The Diva Dance" from The Fifth Element.

Tell me a little bit about yourself.

I'm an author and editor of short and long speculative fiction (and, recently, poetry). I have a background in history and work with historians and archaeologists as an editor and office manager. My husband and I live in Seattle, where we are owned by five very demanding cats. I also game, craft (mostly crochet and cross-stitch), and attend a lot of local conventions. I have a ridiculously large collection of Funko Pops that prevent me from using a real desk, and I love watching bad historical TV shows.

Do you have anything you want to promote? Other stories or books, your Etsy shop, a cool video you found online of dancing llamas that you think the world needs to see?

The third book in my steampunk trilogy, Brass and Glass 3: The Boiling Sea, came out in October of this year, and can be found on Amazon and through other online booksellers. I've sold a relatively large number of stories and poems in 2019, with some coming out later this year and some coming out next year. I blog weekdays at http://historythatneverwas.com. And you can find my crafty stuff at http://scarywhitegirl.etsy.com.

Every story in the paperback edition of Space Opera Libretti is accompanied by a title page. Earworm's features a mysterious soundwave beaming out into space.

Dawn Vogel’s academic background is in history, so it’s not surprising that much of her fiction is set in earlier times. By day, she edits reports for historians and archaeologists. In her alleged spare time, she runs a craft business, co-edits Mad Scientist Journal, and tries to find time for writing. Her steampunk series, Brass and Glass, is published by DefCon One Publishing. She is a member of Broad Universe, Codex Writers, and SFWA. She lives in Seattle with her

awesome husband (and fellow author), Jeremy Zimmerman, and their herd of cats. Visit her at     or on Twitter @historyneverwas.  

Read Earworm and 19 other comedic sci-fi stories in Space Opera Libretti, now available in paperback and digital.

And don't forget to check us out on Goodreads!

The House Of Lonely Vines

Good morning! Or. Afternoon. Whatever.

My story, The House Of Lonely Vines, is available in Cryptgnats, a horror anthology about graveyards and mausoleums and other places for the dead.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1948899051/ref=ox_sc_act_image_4?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

I have not read the rest of the anthology yet so I can't give specific content warnings, but here are the warnings for my story:
Fire, death, bad things happening to children.

My story is a flash fiction piece about a lonely little girl and a lonelier little house that grew itself from the ashes of tragedy.

It's based on a real house my mom and I used to drive past on the way to our friends'. As far as I know, there's no tragedy involved with the house, but it was built so fast. Every time we went past, it seemed to have grown without us ever seeing people working on it. One day an empty lot, the next day a house. Then, suddenly a family living in it.

Space Opera Libretti author interview: Jennifer Lee Rossman

Good evening, passengers of the good spaceship Space Opera Libretti! We hope you are enjoying your flight. Brian will be around with snacks shortly. Meanwhile, it's Monday, and Mondays are when we invite one of our authors up to the cockpit every Monday to discuss their story available now in Space Opera Libretti.

Today's guest is Jennifer Lee Rossman!

Wait. That can't be right. I can't interview myself.

Brian. Brian, where are you going. No, the snacks can wait. Brian! Come back and interview me!

Um.

Okey-dokey. I guess I'm interviewing myself this week. My story, Jukebox Ga Ga, involves two siblings on an intergalactic road trip that gets interrupted by invisible bears made of black holes.

In 10 words or less, how would you describe your story?

Bohemian Rhapsody sing-along saves the day.

What was the inspiration for this story? Be as brief or detailed as you want.

When I was younger, my dad went to Egypt with my uncle and came back with a wild story. Briefly…
Tour guide: we can't go any further down this river
Dad: OK but what if we did
[police boat shows up. There are guns. Tour guide and uncle think they are going to die]
Dad, who knows very little Arabic: i'll handle this
[10 minutes later, dad is in the police boat, smoking cigarettes and wearing the captain's hat]

There were pictures to prove this, but no one could tell me what happened in those 10 minutes. I finally got the full story this year, but it always stuck in my head because of the dynamic between my father and his brother. What was my introverted uncle thanking while my used car salesman dad was confidently charming the egyptian police?
And what if it was in space?

If your story had a theme song, what would it be?

Bohemian Rhapsody. Although I reference quite a few Queen songs in the story.

Tell me a little bit about yourself.

What if Dr. Temperance Brennan from Bones was a Disney princess?
I'm autistic, i'm disabled, i'm queer, and I like dinosaurs, dammit.

What was the last book you read? Did you like it?

Solarpunk Winters. I'm actually in the middle of it right now, but I am greatly enjoying it. Not every story is catching my attention, but that's the beauty of anthologies.
(my story Oil And Ivory, basically the movie Ferngully but with narwhals, is in it. And yes, I am shamelessly promoting my own work in this interview. I'm allowed. My blog.) 

Do you have anything you want to promote? Other stories or books, your Etsy shop, a cool video you found online of dancing llamas that you think the world needs to see?

I have a story coming out in Community Of Magic Pens. It's a choose your own adventure short story about the magic of friendship.
And also it's about a pretty girl with sharp teeth. (look. Dark Rey in The Rise Of Skywalker made me realize I have a thing for girls with sharp teeth. Don't judge me) 

The book is available for pre-order now and can I just say… the editor is an amazing person who has put her heart and soul and wallet into making this book as good as it can be. I've read some of the stories and they are just. Fantastic. 

Anything else you want to say?

I am so honored to have worked on this book, and thankful to Brian and our authors.

Every story in the paperback version of Space Opera Libretti is accompanied by a title page. Mine features a jukebox in space… and is that an invisible bear?

Jennifer Lee Rossman lives in a group home for disabled people in Binghamton, New York, and enjoys annoying certain staff members by singing along to Bohemian Rhapsody. She recently colored her hair blue because, you know. She's queer.

Read Jukebox Ga Ga and 19 other comedic sci-fi stories in Space Opera Libretti, now available in paperback and digital.

And don't forget to check us out on Goodreads!

Space Opera Libretti author interview: Lizz Donnelly

Good evening, passengers of the good spaceship Space Opera Libretti! I'm still reeling from last week's trip into the wormhole, so I only briefly forgot that Monday exists. Now, unless you are a stowaway who snuck aboard at our last pitstop, you know that we invite one of our authors up to the cockpit every Monday to discuss their story available now in Space Opera Libretti. (and if you are a stowaway, we're cool with that. We always bring extra snacks.)

Today's guest is Lizz Donnelly. Lizz and I were both published for the first time in Circuits & Slippers, and then we realize that we lived in the same town. I have had the pleasure of meeting her personally and she is lovely and she is a fan of Nikola Tesla, as am I.

Lizz's story Groovy is a, well, groovy tale about aliens, man.

In 10 words or less, how would you describe your story?

First contact meets Woodstock? Or maybe the benefits of arts and humanities curriculum in higher education? 

What was the inspiration for this story? Be as brief or detailed as you want.

I honestly don't remember. It was a prompt of some sort, from one of the writing prompt twitter bots. I wrote the first draft of Groovy in July 2018 when I did Zoetic Press' Write Like You're Alive event. 31 stories in 31 days is the goal so it was all kind of a blur. But I remembered it when I read the call for submissions to this anthology and thought it was a perfect fit.  

If your story had a theme song, what would it be?

I think it would have to be the Beach Boys "Good Vibrations" 

Tell me a little bit about yourself.

I'm so bad at this part. I work for a small town accountant even though I have two english degrees and spend my free time writing, knitting and spoiling my cat. I'm also a little obsessed with the Great British Baking Show and sometimes I try to make things that are waaaay out of my league. They usually turn out edible, but it always requires every dish I own, no less than three hours, and making a huge mess of my kitchen. Also, I am a wealth of information about 80s crime shows and musical theater. 

What was the last book you read? Did you like it?

Wilder Girls by Rory Power. I did like it--the premise was really cool and I liked both the main narrators. My only complaint is that the ending felt super rushed but I'm expecting a sequel since the end was literally open water. 

Do you have anything you want to promote? Other stories or books, your Etsy shop, a cool video you found online of dancing llamas that you think the world needs to see?

Um... check out my Patreon I guess? www.patreon.com/LizzDonnelly 

I'm in the weird limbo of the end of the year right now but 2020 is going to be my Year of Reading (exclusively) Women authors so there should be more interesting content coming soon. 

And to promote something that isn't mine, check out The Octavia Project. www.octaviaproject.org --a friend from grad school started this organization that brings a completely free 4 week writing day camp to teenage girls and nonbinary youth in Brooklyn every summer. It's awesome, and I try to spread the word about it every chance I get. 

Anything else you want to say?

Thank you to Brian and Jennifer for the chance to work with you both! I'm excited for this anthology :)

Every story in Space Opera Libretti is accompanied by a title page. Groovy's features a cute lil alien and a lot of flowers. Too many flowers? Possibly. But definitely not as many flowers I wanted. I restrained myself.

Lizz Donnelly is a writer, knitter, cat lady, baking enthusiast, and occasional actor. She writes speculative fiction of all lengths, essays, and even the odd short play. Her work has been published recently in Speculative City, Brave New Girls Volume 4, and Grimm, Grit and Gasoline, among others. She is the founder of The (K)indred Experiment, an extracurricular writing club for middle school students. You can find her on Twitter @LizzDonnelly and on Patreon, where she blogs monthly about books, shares new fiction, and will be undertaking a year-long project of reading exclusively female authors in 2020.

Read Groovy and 19 other comedic sci-fi stories in Space Opera Libretti, now available in paperback and digital.

And don't forget to check us out on Goodreads!