I adore fairy tales, but it occurred to me not so long ago, that a remarkably large number of fairy tales don’t actually have fairies in them. I want to bring more fairy stories, modern fairy stories, to the world and that goal is the heart of my latest anthology project: Fae.

Historically speaking fairies have been mischievous or malignant. They’ve dwelt in forests, collected teeth or crafted shoes. In Fae, we want stories that honor that rich history but explore new and interesting takes on fairies as well. We want urban fairies and arctic fairies, steampunk fairies, time-traveling and digital fairies. We want stories that bridge traditional and modern styles and while we’re at it, we want stories about fairy-like creatures too. Bring us your sprites, your pixies, your seelies and unseelies, silkies, goblins or gnomes, brownies and imps. We want them all. We’re looking for lush settings, beautiful prose and complex characters.

This anthology will be published by World Weaver Press.

Rights and compensation: Payment: $10 and paperback copy of the anthology from World Weaver Press. We are looking for previously unpublished works in English. Seeking first world rights in English and exclusive right to publish in print and electronic format for six months after publication date, after which publisher retains nonexclusive right to continue to publish for life of the anthology.

About the anthologist: Rhonda Parrish is a master procrastinator and nap connoisseur but despite that she somehow manages a full professional life. She has been the publisher and editor-in-chief of Niteblade Magazine for over five years now (which is like 25 years in internet time) and is the editor of the forthcoming benefit anthology, Metastasis. In addition, Rhonda is a writer whose work has been included or is forthcoming in dozens of publications including Tesseracts 17: Speculating Canada from Coast to Coast and Imaginarium: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing. Her website, updated weekly, is at http://www.rhondaparrish.com

Open submission period: September 1 – November 30, 2013

Length: Under 7,500 words.

Submission method: Email story to fae [at] worldweaverpress[dot] com.

Simultaneous submissions = okay. Multiple submissions = no.

Please note, for this anthology I am looking for stories aimed at an adult audience. Not adult as in erotic, but adult as in not children.

Also, I prefer to receive stories as a .doc or .rtf attachment rather than in the body of your email, but I won’t turn away the latter so if you’ve already submitted, don’t panic.

Updates:

September 3, 2013 – Submissions are Open!
September 4, 2013 – Edited to add note requesting submissions be aimed at adults & specifying that I prefer stories as attachments rather than in the body of the email.
October 1, 2013 – Blog post “Update from the Slush Pile: Fae Anthology”
November 12, 2013 – Blog post “Editor’s Update from the Slush Pile”
December 1, 2013:

Submissions are currently closed.

I am reading through all the stories I received. I hope to have passed on or shortlisted all the stories submitted by December 14th and have a final table of contents to send to my publisher by December 21st. If you don’t hear from me before Christmas, please query.

In October Milo James Fowler hosted ‘Creepy Freebies’ in which I gave away issues of Niteblade as well as a Halloween-themed goodie bag. This month he’s back with a holiday themed giveaway and I’m participating again.

And have I got goodies for you!

First there is Niteblade. Our issue #23, Blodeuwedd is available for you to download completely free. Pick your preferred format and enjoy:

Blodeuwedd in .mobi

Blodeuwedd in .ePub

Blodeuwedd in .pdf

But wait! There’s more!

I had so much fun putting together the last goodie bag that I’m going to raffle off another one. Where the first was Halloween themed this one is going to have a secular Christmas (I like to call it Giftmas) theme. All things considered it is unlikely to reach the winner before December 25th, but hopefully it will provide a smile and some fun when it does arrive anyway

The goodie bag will definitely include a physical copy of Niteblade’s special poetry issue (.pdf and print) as well as a proof copy of my book, Aphanasian Stories. Beyond that it’s a mystery. The goodies may include contributor copies of publications I’ve been included in (publishers often send two, I only need one), bookmarks, crafty bits, candy or… well, anything I think is awesome that will fit in the envelope.

I will also give away some copies of the latest issue of Niteblade. That would be Issue #26: A Fixer-Upper. Which is also known as our ghost story issue I’ll draw the name of one winner of a copy of Niteblade for every 5 people who enter the draw (people, not entries). The more people who enter, the more will win, so please spread the word.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This raffle will run for just over a week, and you can earn entries for tweeting everyday (and if you don’t like my preset tweet go ahead and change it, just leave the #TisMoreBlessed hashtag in).

Once you’ve entered head on over to Milo James Fowler’s website to find out who else is giving away goodies this Friday, and every Friday this month!

(I’m posting this a bit early because reasons)

For the entire month of December, Wolfsinger Publications is offering you 25% off Metastasis (and all their other titles too).

If you already have a copy, well, books make great presents, amirite?

Metastasis:

Paperback – Use code 3XFTQXKK
ePub – Use code LM63L
Mobi / Kindle – Use code LM63L
.pdf – Use code LM63L

Don’t forget over 60% of the proceeds from Metastasis are being donated to the American Cancer Society to benefit cancer research.

One last thing? If you’ve read Metastasis, please take a moment to leave an honest review of it at your favourite website for that, Goodreads, Amazon, LibraryThing… Reviews are like cookies for writers and editors, we really, really appreciate them.

Yay! I *won* NaNoWriMo again this year (this makes my 8th victory). Of course, the novel I was working on isn’t finished. I think it still needs another 20-30,000 more words, but I’ve got a good start on it and I feel like I know where it’s going from here. I’m going to keep working on it at a bit of a slower pace (I have to focus the bulk of my time on Fae for a while now) but I look forward to having a complete workable first draft sometime in January.

I’ve just come home from my the Christmas party at my husband’s work, and I’m sleepy and my head is a little foggy from wine, but I was reminded that I haven’t posted my excerpt for this week for the NaNo Excerpt Blog Chain. So now I’m doing that. And just because I feel like celebrating the fact that first drafts are supposed to be shit, I picked this excerpt. Yeup, this is how I write LOL

“Well,” Sevren laughed. “I’m not sure we can go that far, but I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Just like you gave me back in grade two when I was sure SOMETHING WAS SOMETHING INSTEAD OF SOMETHING ELSE.”

Morgan laughed and pushed Sevren back by his shoulder. “This is not like that.”

“This is exactly like that,” Sevren said. “And do you remember what you did back then?”

Morgan did. They’d hidden in the cloak room of the classroom every recess for a whole week DOING SOMETHING TO DISPROVE WHATEVER IT WAS THAT SEVREN BELIEVED. EVENTUALLY SOMETHING EXCITING HAPPENED THAT PROVED TO THEM WHATEVER HE THOUGHT WASN’T REAL AND THEY’D BEEN FILLED WITH RELIEF AND LAUGHED AND LAUGHED. OR SOMETHING.

“Perhaps, but do you have a better plan?”

“No–” Morgan admitted. “But that’s not much of a plan.”

“Sorry Scoob, but we’re going back to the haunted mansion.”

“Rut-roh, Raggy,” Morgan said in a terrible impersonation of Scooby Doo. “Rut-roh.”

Wheee! For the record, I write my NaNoWriMo novels almost exclusively with the Write or Die desktop app. I turn it on Kamikaze with the tolerance level set very low. That means if I stop typing it starts erasing my words. It’s motivating, but it does mean I haven’t time to sit there and think about things like this so I rely on a lot on placeholders. Whatever gets the words on the page, right?

Great news!

My poem Hereditary Delusions, which I wrote after being inspired by a NaNoLJers prompt from Beth Cato, has been accepted for publication by Every Day Poets. I will definitely update again once I know its publication date and one of the great things about EDP is that you can always read it for free.

One of the most amazing things about this poem’s acceptance is the timeline, I have to say. I submitted it yesterday and received a response today. EDP is always a quick responder, but that is pretty amaze-tastic. I must now submit something else there to find out of this is a new trend or an aberration. I’ll let you know

ETA: I don’t actually have a poem appropriate to submit to EDP today. I’ll have to write something. So I’ll get back to you about the response rate thing whenever that happens. Regardless of how that turns out — I’m a happy camper today

Remember back in August when I shared a screenshot of my desktop, just because I could? Well, I’m doing it again. Because I can.

(Click to make bigger)

I saw that picture when Wil Wheaton blogged about it and it took my breath away, so it became my desktop (Google image search is not being super helpful in telling me who the photographer is >_<). I know that the image you use (or not) is probably the primary focus of any desktop, but I also really like looking at the icons on the desktop, the things in the quick launch bar.

Mine, for example, includes Internet Explorer which I *never* use but can’t freaking get rid of, and then the things I actually do use regularly: Firefox, Thunderbird, World of Warcraft, Dropbox, Write or Die… I’m not sure why Chrome is on there, since I don’t use it either, but maybe it’s from when Dani borrows my computer (it’s hooked up to a printer, hers is not). Steam is a much more recent addition to my quick launch bar, it’s there primarily for the Batman game I bought the other day. I really ought to play that more…

What does your desktop look like? Last time a few people shared with me and I really liked looking at them — show me more

Marcus Romer tweeted this:

The Creative Process

1. This is awesome

2. This is tricky

3. This is shit

4. I am shit

5. This might be ok

6. This is awesome

— Marcus Romer (@MarcusRomer) October 23, 2013

And yeah… that pretty much sums up my freaking creative process. Right now I’m at #3 and sliding pretty quickly toward #4. This is actually happening much earlier into this book than it usually does. I usually hit the ‘This is shit’ point when I’m about halfway done something, and ‘I am shit’ follows behind that. Things turn around into ‘This might be okay’ somewhere around 2/3rds done… usually.

Right now I’m about a third of the way through and already eyeball deep in ‘This is shit’ which freaking sucks. *sigh* I’m still writing, I’m still plugging away though, because if I quit this story never gets told. If I quit I never get to move past ‘This is shit/I am shit’ and I’ll sit there and wallow indefinitely. If I quit I never get to make it back to ‘This is awesome’. And ya know, I’m a pretty big fan of ‘This is awesome’.

So I’m gritting my teeth (so hard I’m halfway scared they might break) and I’m putting one word in front of the other. Even if they are shit. Because I have to. Because it’s what I do.

…but I also had to take a break to vent/whine a little bit.

Because apparently, that is also what I do.

:-p

I also share excerpts from this novel on Fridays because I signed up to participate in the NaNo Excerpt Blog Chain. This week’s is pretty short, but I like it…

Alone in the white Varenous forged an object from thought and fear. Summoning all his available power he pushed against the walls of his existence, tearing a small hole in the fabric that separated his reality from Morgan’s.

The hole healed itself almost immediately, but not before he shoved the camera from his world into hers. Then, spent, he waited.

If you’ve been following this blog for long enough you may have heard of my story, “Share”, before. “Share” is a short story I wrote in 2009 about a flesh golem*. The story was inspired by a fantastic photograph of one of my Facebook friends. Her name, as you may have guessed, is Share and I wrote the story with the intent of submitting it to an anthology edited by David Sklar and Sarah Avery. The anthology, Trafficking in Magic is actually one of two anthologies which would be paired together. The other was Magicking in Traffic.

My story was accepted in early 2010.

I was *so* excited.

Then life got in the way. To make a long story short, the original publisher had to close down because of health issues. The good news, though, was that David and Sarah were shopping the anthologies around to other publishers, and so there was hope.

That hope was realised a while back when we all signed contracts with a new publisher. Fantastic Books. I held off on announcing this development because after all that this project has been through, I’m a wee bit gun shy, however we now have a release date. A release date! That’s concrete and exciting

So I can now announce, with confidence, that my story, “Share” will be included in the Trafficking in Magic / Magicking in Traffic anthologies, edited by David Sklar and Sarah Avery and set to be released during Balticon May 23-26th.

Yay!

*My auto correct wanted me to change that to Google. Flesh Google. That’s a great story title, don’t you think? Hmm…

ETA: To be super, duper, extra clear, NONE of what happens in my story is based on Share (the real person who was the model in the photograph which inspired it). That is alllll fiction.

Recently the amazing Ms. Colleen Anderson interviewed me about my story, “Bedtime Story” which appears in Tesseracts Seventeen: Speculating Canada from Coast to Coast.

I probably shouldn’t admit this but… I was playing World of Warcraft with some friends when I got Colleen’s email with the interview questions in it. I alt-tabbed from my game when I got the email notification and read them, then popped back into the game and wailed to my friends, “The questions she’s asking are smarter than I am! Or, at least, they assume I’m smarter than I am!”

I was so intimidated. You have no idea. It fell to poor BD to talk me down (the other friends aren’t writers so…). The thing was, once I got all my insecurities in hand, Colleen’s questions really made me think. Hard. Not just about “Bedtime Story” but about all my writing. Thinking that is sure to make my work stronger in the future, and for that I thank you Colleen.

Tesseracts Interview: Rhonda Parrish

(Did I mention she compared “Bedtime Story” to Peter Pan? ZOMG)

A friend of mine, Michelle (who is the brains and the body behind Busy Weekends) asked people on her twitter feed if they wanted to do a fun project where they would create super heroes. I said I’d participate if I was allowed to recruit my family into the process. She was okay with that, and so we began.

Meet Perish:

We decided to create a super villain instead of a hero. Partly just to be contrary, but also partly because we wanted to do a play on our last name, and Perish works far better as a villain’s name, don’t you think?

Both of these images are linked to larger versions of themselves so, as Kyle Cassidy would say, Clickenzee to Embiggen!

As a family we settled on a concept for her, discussed the details of her back story and abilities and talked about her costume. Then Danica drew the picture of Perish and I coloured it (because colouring is cool!)

~*~

Name: Perish

Alter Ego: Cher Nobyl

Super Powers/Abilities:

• Can generate focused beams of electromagnetic radiation.
• Can see outside normal visible ranges (x-ray, ultraviolet, etc.)

Special Weapons: There is a gem in the center of her hood which she can use to super concentrate her radiation beams, effectively making it a ‘death ray’.

Costume: In addition to what you can see, Perish is always armed with irradiated throwing knives which she keeps in her boots.

Enemies:

• Tundra, the Canadian Super hero
• Pirot Guy, the Ukrainian hero of comfort

Background: Perish was born at Chernobyl during the core meltdown. Her mother was far enough from ground zero that Perish, though irradiated, was not killed. Her mother, however, was.

~*~

We had a lot of fun creating our super villain and I’ve already got a story in mind that she figures in. Even if I never get around to writing that one though, this was still time well spent doing something creative as a family. Thank you Michelle!