The dedication for Of Echoes Born is to all the editors I've ever worked with, especially in short fiction, and two people in specific: Becky Cochrane and Timothy J. Lambert. They're wonderful authors (and also one-half of a wonderful quartet of authors who write under the pseudonym Timothy James Beck), and they gave me my … Continue reading Ian
Today's Friday Flash Fics image came from desperately wanting the snow and ice to go away. It snowed again yesterday. But, at least we can travel somewhere warm in our heads, no? Treading Water After the weeks of snow, and ice—not to mention his only view of those being from a hospital bed—the glory of … Continue reading Friday Flash Fics — Treading Water
I’m loving this new series of posts from the Spoonie Author’s Network.
I recently finished watching Season 2 of Dirk Gently and have been reflecting on the huge number of problematic disability tropes in the show, particularly around the invented disability “Pararibulitis,” but for this post, I want to focus on one particular trope that frequently appears in representations of disability, what I call the Karmically Disabled Trope. In the Dirk Gently TV show, the character Todd fakes having a disease called Pararibulitis, an invented nerve disease where the affected person experiences hallucinations that feel completely real to him/her/them. Todd pretended to have the disease throughout his childhood to gain sympathy and money from his parents, but later his sister Amanda actually developed the disability and couldn’t get access to all of the supports she needed because Todd had used up all of his parents’ resources. At the end of the first season of Dirk Gently, Todd gets the disease as…
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Yesterday, I was having a kind of off day. It was snowing (still, again, relentlessly) and I realized just how many books I needed to finish reading, and soon. I'm lucky enough to get ARCs for a lot of titles, but I'm falling behind, and it makes me feel guilty when I've agreed to read … Continue reading First Echo
I’m over at the Bold Strokes Books UK blog today, talking about the magic that is short stories, found families, and the upcoming Of Echoes Born.
In one of the stories in my upcoming collection of short fiction, I have a man, Martin, sewing squares for a quilt. The cloth for those squares comes from various pieces of fashion he designed over his career; he’s putting together a blanket that he can take with him to a care home and feel like he brought something tangible from his past with him.
The theme of the past, of making things from the past, and of looking forward with those pieces of the past in hand is all throughout Of Echoes Born, and even in the format of the book itself.
I love short stories. They’re my first, best, and favourite way to write. That I can release a collection is a huge moment for me, and I’m so excited to be able to open up a copy and read from it at the upcoming festival.
When I…
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For Friday Flash Fics this week, given the date in question—Friday the 13th—I found an image that was a bit darker than usual. And while I pondered it throughout the week, it struck me as another chance to visit André from "Negative Space" (a short story that'll appear in the upcoming Of Echoes Born). There … Continue reading Friday Flash Fics — Guilts
