I’m posting a bit more frequently here than I’d planned but I got a surprise acceptance/sale over at Kaleidotrope and thought I would announce it here since the editor gave me the green light now that the contract is settled! Kaleidotrope is a wonderful semi-pro magazine and I’ve been previously published there (a short story and a poem). I think we should support those independent fiction editors and publishers who have toiled for the sake of the genre for years and Fred Coppersmith is one of those awesome editors!
The short story will be published sometime between 2027-2028 (based on the contract) and is a savage, second person POV retelling of King Thrushbeard. King Thrushbeard of the Aarne-Thompson-Uther (ATU) type 900 was a tale that enraged me even as a kid. To be fair, I was a very intense and opinionated kid who grew up to be a very intense and opinionated adult. But my main thought was that the punishment was disproprotionate and that this Thrushbeard fellow was far more monstrous than the haughty princess. So I decided to revisit that story in this retelling I did sometime between 2018-2019, and set it in the ancient empires of the North of Malaysia. It’s got one of my favourite lines that I’ve ever written, and many literary/popular culture references. Those just seemed to happen and was a function of the narrative so I went with the flow. Also including a reference to one of my most favourite musicals ever but I shan’t tell you which one so that it can be a surprise for people who also love that musical.
So all up, that’s two monstrous feminine stories that are forthcoming. This has been a pretty good year for me with three semipro fiction acceptances (one now published!) and one pro poetry (Strange Horizons!) acceptance. I did have three good acceptances last year but two of those were reprints, although I was really happy to be back at Podcastle. So, this is serious progress.
Alright. I’m done for this week on this blog. Unless another surprise acceptance comes in, lol.
Till the next blog post,
xx
Anita