Goodbye, Snow Child: Story Background

Goodbye, Snow Child came out this week, so here’s some background from my preliminary notes:

Publishing Details

Goodbye, Snow Child is a novellette-length story hosted by The Future Fire [External Link] as part of issue 50 (direct link here: [External Link]). It came out on Sunday 11th August 2019.

Themes & Inspirations

This is another one of those stories with multiple starting points with four … Continue reading

The Knight’s Daughter: Story Background

I’ve talked about The Knight’s Daughter a number of times and the particular stand out time is part of an interview on Hannah’s Book Shelf, which you can listen to here: [External Link]

(If you don’t want to sit through 2 hours of music and me talking, you need to skip to about 1 hour in.)

However, if you want a written rundown of what I was aiming for, carry on … Continue reading

Let’s Stay Together: Story Background

Let’s Stay Together has been out for some time but I was lax and forgot to write anything about it. So here’s your reminder that it exists:

Publishing Details

Let’s Stay Together is a short story published by The Other Side Books [External Link] in their anthology, the First Christmas Book Of Ghosts. It initially came out in December 2015 (pre- The Other Side Books) but has been available from … Continue reading

An Invisible Tide: Story Background

An Invisible Tide came out last week and I was a little delayed in getting around to writing up the some background from my preliminary notes. However, without further ado, here we go:

Publishing Details

An Invisible Tide is a short story hosted by The Future Fire [External Link] as part of issue 32 (direct link here: [External Link]). It came out in March 2015.

Inspiration

There are three strands of … Continue reading

The Lost Kingdom: Story Background

I have a confession to make: The Lost Kingdom was inspired by the call for submissions for an anthology other than the one it actually ended up in. here’s a litte bit more about that.

Publishing Details

The Lost Kindom is one fo the short stories in Missing Monarchs (Fox Pockets #4) from Fox Spirit Books [External Link], which came out in December 2014. So far, its available on Amazon as a Kindle … Continue reading

A Granted Wish: Story Background

Here’s the background for a story inspired in part by pack living but mainly by fairy stories.

Publishing Details

A Granted Wish is actually a novella (at 15,800 words) hosted by Fox Spirit Books [External Link] as part of their free fiction selection, as of November 2014. All their free fiction can be found here: [External Link].

Inspirations

A Granted Wish is an overlap of several things. The first and possibly … Continue reading

Accessing The Future: A Personal Action Plan

So, we’ve established that starting the “Accessing The Future Fiction” blog hop got me thinking. In the context of the science fiction anthology that kicked this all off, it’s about writing futures that make room for the different people that are part of our world. For all of my fictional worlds, though, it’s about making dis/ability more obvious.

Inclusivity is something that I ought to work on, … Continue reading

Accessing The Future: The Story Audit

Well, writing my edition of the “Accessing The Future Fiction” blog hop got me thinking. I’m not doing a lot to get dis/ability issues into my fiction (along with considering race, nationality, gender, sexuality, age, etc.) The inclusivity is something that I ought to work on, even if I do it with my usual, privileged, white + British + cis-gendered + heterosexual + able bodied + not … Continue reading

Accessing The Future Fiction, The Journeymouse Edition

The Future Fire [External Link] are crowdfunding another (bound to be excellent) science fiction anthology, this time focussing on the issues that come with disability – and the intersections with other issues such as race, gender, sexuality, class, etc, as our friendly socio-politcal sf magazine are wont to do. There’s a blog about it here: [External Link]

In order to help explain why such an sf discussion is necessary, … Continue reading

Beaumains: Story Background

It has been suggested that I ought to do background posts on all of my stories that have been accepted (in venues other than here, obviously). Partly because it gives readers an insight into my thinking and partly because the person who suggested it is a completist.

So, without further ado, here’s some background on Beaumains, a stand-alone science fiction short story.

Publishing Details

Beaumains was published in 2011 by Crossed Genres [External … Continue reading