Angela Slatter's Blog, page 90

The Bitterwood Posts: The Coffin-maker’s Daughter

I thought I might do a post on each of the stories in The Bitterwood Bible, for anyone who’s interested in the story backgrounds.

Today, it’s “The Coffin-Maker’s Daughter”, my British Fantasy Award-winning tale, which originally appeared in the beautiful Fearie Tales anthology edited by Steve Jones and published by Jo Fletcher Books.

“The Coffin-Maker’s Daughter”

When Steve emailed me asking for a submission for this anthology that needed to be ‘more horror than fantasy’, I was casting about for ideas with a bit of personal terror. I don’t really think of myself as a horror writer. My first effort was deemed ‘Good, but I think you can do better’. After some fist shaking and howling (on my part), I went back to work. I was listening to Florence and the Machine’s Lungs for the first time … when “My Boy Builds Coffins” came on, I started to think about a society that regarded coffin-making not simply as a necessary service, but also as an art form. On top of that, it was an eldritch art form required to keep the dead beneath the earth. I wanted a story that had layers of unspoken secrets – and also different sorts of ghosts.

When I heard “Girl with One Eye”, I got a picture of Hepsibah in my mind’s eye: this thin girl standing in front of this heavy door, with a short gamine haircut that had started to grow out and curl a bit because she wasn’t overly given to worrying about her appearance. She was wearing a brown woollen dress, a bit Jane Eyre-like, with long sleeves, buttons up the front and long skirts, and she had on a kind of baker boy’s cap. At her shoulder was the ghost of her father, and Hector is a nasty piece of work. I could hear his voice and knew how adversarial their relationship was, but that no matter how much Hepsibah hated her father, she shared some characteristics with him and that’s why he was still hanging around. The society was a kind of Victorian setting but mixed with some elements similar to the world of Sourdough and Other Stories.

Hepsibah is one of my favourite characters – she’s a terrible mess of a human, but really fascinating. I wanted to give a reader one picture of her and then twist that around at the end, show that she wasn’t as well-adjusted as she at first appeared. That she and her dreadful father had more in common than anyone might think. And she was very important because as soon as I’d written this story, I knew I had the start of a new collection – The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings – because she wasn’t the sort of character who would just quietly go away.

 

Owning Your Face

This is probably one of the most important things you’ll ever watch.

For more of Rob’s story, read Ugly.

Locus Recommended Reading List

Am absolutely delighted to see The Bitterwood Bible has made it onto the Locus Recommended Reading List, alongside works by some thoroughly awesome folks, like Helen Marshall, Robert Shearman, Rjurik Davidson, Kathleen Jennings … for ze full list, go here.

Now that’s service!

The dress

I ordered a dress from an online story called That Crazy Place (the one on the left, in case you’re curious) and I received the most awesome confirmation email ever. Based on that alone I will be ordering more from them:

“We just want to let you know that your item has been meticulously gathered, placed on a red velvet pillow, and delicately escorted by 25 of our finest employees to our shipping department. Our master shipper has dutifully performed her craft, lovingly packing your order in the finest materials known to man . . or woman.

Our team gathered to give your package the proper send-off it deserved. Tears of joy were shed, speeches were given, and there was even a farewell cake! Mmmmm, cake . . ..

Following the festivities, the whole group, led by our local high school marching band playing the song Leaving on a Jet Plane, ushered your order through our warehouse doors. No, we don’t own a Jet Plane, but your package will be placed in the care of a roguishly handsome man who is riding in a majestic horse-drawn carriage which has set off on its way to your address.

Although the item you’ve ordered will be sorely missed here at That Crazy Place!, we are overjoyed that it has found a good home. Take care of it, treasure it, and make sure you share it with us on facebook, twitter, or just send us an email, we love to see our items in action!”

New to Amazon: The Burning Circus

The Burning Circus is now available at Amazon.

Semiramis hasn’t been to the circus in such a long time.

Other circuses, yes. The circus, no.

Above the stand of trees, over to the left where the road curves around to encircle the big park, the striped canvas of the Big Top can be seen, the flame-red pennants waving in the breeze. While she’s pinning her eyes there as though it might disappear if not watched, she’s not paying attention her feet, and she stumbles, trips, does a kind of progressive dance but doesn’t fall. The heel of her right Mary Jane, though, gives up the ghost – the shoes were old before she got them – and she tries to hammer it back to the sole with nothing but her calloused hands. About as effective as using spit for glue. She surrenders, and sets off once again, her gait now the strange staccato roll of a woman with unequal leg lengths.

When she goes up on the left foot it feels, just a little, like flying. Just a little like the old days, that sense of ascending without a tether, then the downswing onto the right, down further than you know you should go, just like that too. Just like wondering if someone was going to catch you. Semiramis knows now only she can catch herself.

Go here to purchase.

 

 

Project Dragon continues

More of Kathleen’s art!

The Dark: Bearskin

The latest issue of The Dark Magazine contains my tale Bearskin, as well as work by Patricia Russo, Sandra McDonald, and Brooke Wonders.

Torben knows he has only one shot. The crossbow shakes in his grip. There is a single bolt and even if there were more he has not the strength to reload for the weapon belongs to Uther, the woodsman, who has left the boy to wait in the small, smelly blind set between the trunks of three ailing alders. The walls are of woven rushes and withy. The flimsy roof fell in who knows when and Torben feels the drip-drip-drip of snow-melt from above—not that the weather’s warming up, but it seems the unhealthy branches won’t allow the ice to remain on their limbs much past daybreak.

Go here!

More dragons

Kathleen Jennings has been working her fingers to the bone!

Over at The Place of Marianne De Pierres

There’s a lovely review of The Bitterwood Bible by Joelene Pynonnen!

A group of girls study at a school for assassins, preparing for their wedding nights when they will kill their grooms. A lonely coffin maker finds company with the dead when she cannot have the living. Travelling holy women hunt down and capture all of the knowledge and stories in the world. These are just a few tales in the The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings.

Set in the same world as that of Sourdough and Other Stories, The Bitterwood Bible is a prequel comprised of thirteen short stories. Not all of them correlate to each other, but many of them have intersecting places, characters, or objects. As each piece of the story comes together, it creates a rich, vibrant world as compelling as any novel.

The rest is here.

QWC Writer’s Surgery

This year I’ll be doing Writer’s Surgeries with the Queensland Writers Centre once again.

QWC’s Writer’s Surgery is a member’s only, writing ‘check up’ to help you overcome hurdles and achieve your writing goals. You’ll submit 20 pages of your work (be it a novel, short story collection, non-fiction work or poetry) for review and comment, then engage in a 90-minute conversation with your mentor, who will provide advice according to your goals.

For more information, go here.