Category: fiction

It’s a Sale!

Actually, it’s a two-day sale! And the new Seventh Son is part of it! The ebook version is on for US$0.99 (or its equivalent in your currency) all weekend, Saturday and Sunday. The Cozy the Day Away Sale: Over 150 books, all Cozy Fantasy, all on sale!

It’s a great sale again, with so many different authors and books. To mention just a few of my favourites, of course there’s E.L. Bates with Whitney and Davies; there’s Shanna Swendson (through whose newsletter I found the sale in the first place); there’s Victoria Goddard whom I discovered at the first sale I participated in at the end of December and whose books I have since devoured like they’re going out of style (which, thankfully, they’re not – rather the opposite…) – so many good books, so many amazing deals.

So hie thee over to the Promisepress website and check out the Cozy the Day Away sale! But do so right away, because the sale really is only on for those two days; the listings go away after that.

Life, the Universe, and a Cozy Fantasy Sale! Which books will you pick up on sale?

#FridayFragment, 1.12.2023

SPELLS

“Heddle,” she muttered. “Warp. Weft. Raddle. Warping board. Bobbin. Shuttle. Harness. Shed, reed, ratchet. Sett, castle, breast beam, cloth beam. Heddle, warp and weft.”

“Stop!” he shrieked. “Stop throwing curses at me! And put down that, that, that spell book!”

She glanced up at him with a mild, enquiring look, then closed the book in her lap with a finger pinched between its pages and turned it over to look at the spine.

In gold-imprinted letters it said THE BEGINNING WEAVER.

Why Story?

Reading Nook, 2022. Stoneware, 5x5x5″ (SOLD)

The world has become a bad place in the last few years. So many things are going wrong, so much strife, so much floods and fires and earthquakes and wars and rumours of wars.

But Story can set a counterpoint. Story allows us to escape the trap of perceived reality.

And that’s the key, isn’t it—perceived reality.

Story allows us to perceive a different reality. It lets us experience a different world, one in which plots resolve, problems come to a conclusion. Unlike the so-called real world, where everything is just a muddle, Story brings order to the world. As renowned folklorist Max Lüthi says*, the story world shows us not what could be, but what is.

Why do I tell Story? In order to create worlds and places for people to enter into, worlds of truth. Worlds of justice and joy. Worlds not without problems, but worlds where those problems can and will be resolved.

Story is not escapist in the sense of letting us run away from our problems. But is is escapist in the sense of setting us free from the confines of our perceived reality. It allows us to see the bigger picture, opens our eyes to what is actually there. Even when it is Story about ostensibly “unreal” things, about elves and fairies and little dwarfs under the mountain. Maybe especially then.

We need Story—the World needs Story. The world needs Story to make sense of itself, to keep from sinking into a morass of muddle and chaos.

And that is why I tell Story. Unabashedly and unapologetically, I tell stories of joy and pleasure and home and warmth and family, where tiny people live in tiny homes and big ones get whirled away into other worlds where they find belonging.

Because in entering into these worlds, entering into Story, we can step out of the bondage of perceived reality, and we can find what is really real.

The world needs Story. That is why.

[*Lüthi, The European Folktale: Form and Nature (Philadelphia: ISHI, 1982), p.89. I quoted the full piece in a post on my research blog some ten years ago, here.]

And Two More Announcements!

And here are two more exciting announcements about this week’s literary releases! (Must be the season…) Neither of them are my own publications, but I had a part in both of them.

#1: The March issue of The Fairy Tale Magazine with a story by Yours Truly

Enchanted Conversation magazine has recently been reborn in a new and utterly gorgeous format as a web magazine under the name The Fairy Tale Magazine. I was honoured by having one of my stories that EC had published in 2018 included in the “Best of Enchanted Conversation” section in the March edition, which is now out. So “Red Stone, Black Crow” is now available to read in the illustrious company of 70(!) pages worth of original fairy tale stories, with stunning illustrations that Amanda Bergloff created from public domain art (mine got an Arthur Rackham image! I mean, Arthur Rackham!). Check it out – it’s well worth the price of US$5.99 for the issue, or even better, $16 for the whole year (4 issues). (Also, the mag features an ad for Martin Millerson – how cool is that, an ad for my book in a real magazine!)

The screenshot of my story. If you want to see the rest, get the magazine!

#2: Louise Bates’ Pauline Gray mysteries are now available in a beautiful omnibus edition!

My very good friend Louise, aka E.L. Bates, has just put together her excellent Pauline Gray mystery novellas into an omnibus edition. I got to beta read those stories, and then copyedit them before release, and I can wholeheartedly recommend them.

From the series description:

Welcome to Canton, NY, a small farming town nestled in the northern foothills of the Adirondack mountains. It’s the 1930s, and to an outsider’s eye, this looks like an idyllic village mostly untouched by the Great Depression that is ravaging so much of the nation. But even the most idyllic towns and villages have their dark sides. When trouble comes to Canton, the folk there rely on each other to help out. And that includes one young woman in particular …

Meet Pauline Gray. A graduate of the prestigious St. Lawrence University, she fell in love with the town while in college and has never left. A journalist by day and a secret novelist by night, Pauline’s compassion and drive for justice pull her into mysteries that are too small or too peculiar for the police. She would really prefer a quieter life, but when people need her help, she can’t turn them away.

Canton, NY, is, of course, Louise’s own home town, so the historic and geographic details in this series are absolutely spot-on. But more to the point, Pauline Gray and the people she meets are drawn with a deftness and sensitivity that makes the stories a delight to read. Go get a copy of the books – either the omnibus or the individual novellas – you won’t regret it!

And that’s Life, the Universe, and TWO new releases this week! Get yourself some good new reads!

#FridayFragment: 29.04.2022

They came around the corner, and there it was in front of them. The blossom, enormous like a vast bowl, more than six men could span. The soft pink of the petals had a velvet sheen to it; in the centre, the golden richness of the stamens beckoned.

“The Giant Water Lily of Medulisan!” Mardrom breathed, once again exercising his proclivity for stating the obvious.

#FridayFragment: 11.03.2022

She took the lid off the sugar bowl and absentmindedly reached in for a sugar cube. She’d really have to get herself some sugar tongs.

“Oy!” cried an indignant little voice from the bowl. “Do you mind?”

She gave a startled glance into the sugar bowl. A tiny man stared up at her from under a pointy blue hat, clutching a sugar cube in front of him which was unsuccessful at hiding the fact that he was butt naked.

“I beg your pardon!” she said politely. “I didn’t realize you were using my sugar bowl for… for… What are you using it for?”

#FridayFragment: 04.03.2022

“I’m too tired,” the witch said.
“Aw, c’mon!” the wizard wheedled. “Just once? Just one teeny, tiny time?”
“No.”
“Pleeeeease?” He batted his long, silky eyelashes.
The witch sighed.
“Oh, fine.” She raised her short, stubby black wand. “Bibbety-boppety-booh!”
Sparkles shot out of the end of the wand and rained down on the wizard’s hat.
“Wheee!” he trilled, clapping his fingers together and spinning in the glittering shower.
Reluctantly, the witch gave a smile.

#FridayFragment, 04.02.2022

The little boy came running into the room, coat tails flapping.

“Quick!” he cried, “hide me! They’re after me!”

Olive put down her embroidery.

“Who is after you?”

“Them!” the little boy wailed ungrammatically as he wiggled his way under the sofa. “The chief mages!”

“Watch out for the cookabon—“ Olive broke off as a loud yelp came from under the sofa. The chief mages, huh? If they were after that boy, that might explain the proliferation of such creatures as the cookabonna dragon under the sofa. They never could figure out how much of an effect their promiscuous spellcasting had on the whole community. Or perhaps they just didn’t care.

Olive hung her head upside down in front of the sofa.

“Tell the cookabonna there’ll be some biscuits available presently,” she said to the vague shapes scuffling around beneath. “And don’t worry about the mages. They know better than to come in here.”