Francesca Forrest's Blog, page 40

Short Story: "The Curious Case of the Cave Salamander"

"The Curious Case of the Cave Salamander," by Gwen C. Katz, in the February 2021 issue of Utopia Science Fiction

In this absolutely delightful, funny, and clever story, scientist Jen has discovered** a new species of tiny salamander, and it's completely adorable:

The internet did indeed love the ostolotl. The six-inch salamander had enormous round eyes, a mouth like a puppy, fluorescent blue stripes, and fluffy gills sprouting from the sides of its face. There was fan art. There were uwu ostolotl ...

a coat of arms

The Diocese of Springfield, MA, has a new bishop, and bishops apparently get ecclesiastical coats of arms. ("They are princes of the church," Wakanomori said. "Their residences are called palaces." I wonder if that's even true in Springfield...)

The new bishop's coat of arms, as best as we could tell, seeing it via a televised Mass, looked like it was designed by a very imaginative child.

"Is that a rocket ship on the right?" I asked Wakanomori.

"Maybe it's a very thin castle?" he suggested in r...

Intoxicating fun

Well the reading yesterday was tremendous fun for me, the reader--I think in very large part because I was reading with Claire, who can come to a thing so alight with joy and energy it's impossible not to respond. I fall in love every time I'm around her.

The other very large part of the joy was all the friends I got to see, and who I got to introduce--sort of, as best you can with Zoom--to one another. I got to hear the voices of people I've only ever known through text before! And I got to see ...

Lagoonfire reading excerpts

If you're coming to the reading and want to have a text to follow along with, I've made a PDF of just the readings, and I believe--I hope and think--that you can download it * here *. (If not just let me know and I'll email the PDF to you.)

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a couple of interview links

I promise it won't be all Lagoonfire all the time for that much longer. However! If you want to know more about the world, here are links to two interviews:

~ One with sartorias , here (thank you sartorias !), and...

~ One at Nerds of a Feather, with Andrea Johnson, here .

Both people have been amazingly supportive from the time I (re)started writing as an adult. As a guest editor of a YA zine of brief existence, Sherwood published my first short story, and both she and Andrea helped me reach out to...

book birthday

Today is Lagoonfire's release date, so if you preordered a physical copy, it should be winging its way toward you, and if you preordered an electronic copy, it should have been beamed to your Device. I have posted the cover here plenty, so enjoy instead Flickr user Stephen Bird 's lovely photo of mangroves at twilight, a story-relevant image.



Here is the link for signing up for the reading on Saturday, if you're free at 7 pm EDT!

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woolly

Twitter was tempting me yesterday with a story about an Australian sheep, lost in the wild for a long time, that was encumbered by its huge fleece. It really looked like a **person** in very capacious outerwear. So I drew that:



Really, though, domesticated sheep are no longer like wild sheep--they need to be shorn periodically--and this poor guy was underweight from not being able to eat much because all the fleece around his face interfered with his eating.

Now he's been shorn, and he must feel p...

Faerie Bridges--a reprise

I wrote this brief essay on bridges in Susanna Clarke's faerie for Apex Magazine back in September 2010. How long, long, LONG ago that seems now.

Anyway, there's been some interesting conversations among my DW friends about Clarke's short-story collection The Ladies of Grace Adieu, and on sovay 's suggestion, I thought I'd repost it here:

In “Tom Brightwind, or How the Fairy Bridge Was Built at Thoresby,” a short story of Susanna Clark’s in the collection The Ladies of Grace Adieu, the fairy Tom B...

A launch party!

The breathtaking Claire Cooney has created a launch party for LAGOONFIRE!

It will be a reading and Q&A, and it will be on SATURDAY, MARCH 6, at 7 PM, via Zoom. We're having people register via Eventbrite ( link here ), and then we'll send out the Zoom link. If you're able, I would be thrilled and delighted to have you come.

She also made a poster -- very flattering ^_^



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some short fiction recommendations

I've read some really great short-form (or medium-form) fiction recently.

"Fanfiction for a Grimdark Universe" (Vanessa Fogg, in Translunar Travelers Lounge [free])
"How to Defeat Gravity and Achieve Escape Velocity' (Miyuki Jane Pinckard, on Julia Rios's Patreon [free; accessible to all])
The Badger’s Digestion; or The First First-Hand Description of Deneskan Beastcraft by An Aouwan Researcher" (Malka Older, in Constelación [requires a purchase])
"Imila" (Vania Curidor, in Constelación [requires a ...