Review for Daughters of Icarus

Well here we are, at the very beginning of the month, and already it's shaping up to be a good one! First thing after waking up at a grouch-inducing hour the other day, I opened my email to find a link to a review of Daughters of Icarus, my first publication. And I was more than a little thrilled to find this summary of my tale:

"More folktale than fantasy, ‘Ancestors Enthroned’ by Marissa James is the story of a young woman who revives the long-lost tradition of embalming the dead in order to mount them high on an inaccessible cliff overlooking her village. Kherlaji becomes renowned after embalming her father, and steadily becomes a world-famous and undying tender of the dead. A piece that is sweet rather than punchy, an ending more inevitable than twisted, but moving, memorable, convincing and potent. Lovely stuff."

If you would like to read the full review by Djibrl al-Ayad, you can find it at Future Fire Reviews. For me, it was nice to have someone read my story and appreciate it the way I'd intended. As a writer, you never know that you've done the whole story-telling thing properly until someone tells you so, be it an editor, reader, or reviewer. So I guess I did something right this time! Warm fuzzies going on here!

I would say a lot of other things as well but I don't know what else to talk about that's as cool as that, actually. It is perhaps the hottest week of the year and our refrigerator has decided to give up the ghost--how about that? Not as exciting at all, though it forced me to eat a bunch of ice cream at once. Our back yard garden has been overrun by gourd plants that I can't imagine why anyone in this house planted--I mean, what are we going to do with them? I have a lot of writing to do, not only on the fiction side but also on the side of proposals and thesis papers, and I'm not even officially in school right now! Well! With all that happening, a humble little fiction writer needs a nice review or two for encouragement!

An Easter Miracle!

Seeing as it marked the end of Spring Break, freedom, writing, and even the sunshine we'd been experiencing for a few days, I wasn't all that excited about Easter in the days leading up to it. Then, on Saturday, my car decided to approach death's door as I drove to work. Meaning that I had to wait for my family to get out of church (after I was done working) so they could drive behind me just in case the poor thing breathed its last on the way home.

It did stall a few times, but we made it home. A veritable Easter miracle!

Once home, we all sat down and had some Easter candy--you know, taste-testing to make sure it was good for the next day. And that's when my brother said, "Oh, and this came for you in the mail today," and gave me a package.

Which turned out to be this:

My copy of Daughters of Icarus--my first publication! Woohoo! Best Easter present ever!

Naturally I've read about half of the book since then--and it's all pretty awesome! I'm surprised at the wide array of stories, settings, and themes; but then, that's what they were going for in this anthology, I do believe. You should get a copy. Which you can, here: http://pinknarc.com/books.htm.

Reading my own story again, which I originally wrote 3-4 years ago and haven't reread since sending it out 8 months ago, I'm sort of surprised at how good it sounds. And, also, at how much my writing has changed, even in subtle things like sentence structure, since this. And yet, somehow, it was likable enough to go in the anthology alongside previously published authors. Which makes for a good bit of encouragement to keep on writing and improving all the time.

Huzzah! Cheers! Now, on to the next publication!

And in the meantime, I'll read the rest of this and get down to some homework. Yes indeedy, school is back in session!

The Saga Begins!

So aside from living under a rock recently, cool and exciting things have been happening to me. I had two stories accepted for publication last year, meaning that they'll soon be coming to a bookstore/e-Reader near you! Whether or not this is exciting to anyone else, it's a huge step toward authorship for this little green bean. Details shall be forthcoming as I obtain them, but this is what I can share now:

The awesomeness that is Narcissus Press will be publishing "Ancestors Enthroned" soon--this SPRING, I do believe, in an anthology entitled Daughters of Icarus. The blurb on the website explains the theme thusly:

"What can women tell us about the world? In this new collection of science fiction, a stunning assembly of authors explore the work laid before the daughters of Icarus, left behind after the prideful fall. Whether the worlds they imagine are hopeful or desolate, each sheds new light on the possibilities of feminism. Daughters of Icarus is a bold exploration of the present, past and future."

http://pinknarc.com/books.htm

Did you see that? Whether or not they meant to, Pink Narcissus called me "stunning" (You can tell we haven't met in person). Knowing my own story backward and forward, I'm curious about what the other writers contributed. And I love the cover art.

Maybe I shouldn't admit it but this is one of those stories I sent out on a lark, my overall thinking being: "What the hey, it's gathering dust, I'll throw it at somebody's wall and see if it sticks!" Which it did, crazy enough.

If the idea of feminist SF gives you pause, I can promise you there are mummies. Trust me, mummies.

My second acceptance was from the lovely folks over at Crossed Genres Press, who picked up my novella (short novel) "The Second Wife" for a collection called Winter Well. Here is their stunning cover art:

























http://crossedgenres.com/titles/winter-well/


They summarize "The Second Wife" thusly: Enslaved by a monstrous lord, a sage seeks answers in the stars and finds more… desirable problems.

Coming in MAY!!!

I can also promise Mayanesque bloodshed and awesomeness, though if I say anything else it'll probably be a spoiler.

I banged this story out solely for the anthology, just barely scraping by the deadline. Happy that it found a home because I got quite attached to Lady Akam as I wrote her. Hopefully you'll come to like her, too.

It comes as a surprise to me (maybe to no one else in the world) that my two acceptances thus far have been of stories featuring female protagonists although I'm a writer who feels uncomfortable writing women. Does this just mean I subconsciously try harder to make them believable? Or, does it mean that I shouldn't be so uncomfortable with female characters and should just embrace my inner warrior woman/sorceress/mummification artist? After all, it's not like there's some trick to being a woman in a world where I make up all the rules.

Never mind all that--just get ready for these awesome anthologies to become available soon, so you can tell me how many typos you found! Enjoy!