C.S.E. Cooney's Blog, page 12

Nettle Threads

Image of a skein of nettle threads on a very large stickers illustrated by Kathleen Jennings.

This is a skein of NETTLE THREAD. Yes, NETTLE THREAD. (I bought it from Etsy.) I was researching it a lot for my book, because… well. You’ll see. It all makes sense, if you know your fairytales, or even if you don’t, I’ll MAKE it make sense!

But I was thinking, after the bracelets Francesca Forrest showed me that she made from milkweed fibers, that I might try my hand at braiding some bracelets/bookmarks over the next year or so. I could learn something interesting to do with my hands, and then have all these little nettle objects I could give away with ARCS of my book, or signed author copies or something.

MAYBE IT’S A TERRIBLE IDEA! But it seems so ROMANTIC AND MAGICAL to have NETTLE BRAIDS. Ooh, maybe with little glass beads or something. Wouldn’t those be GREAT ENDOWED OBJECTS for all you awesome fantasy readers out there?

Also, I hope it doesn’t just sit around on my desk looking at me accusingly. That’s partly why I’m telling you this in the first place.

NEGOCIOS INFERNALES: The Kaleidocast Playthrough!

Today is September 13th! And that makes me a DAY LATE in posting this!

Here’s a fun play-through of NEGOCIOS INFERNALES (see below!) with some folks from Kaleidocast! It begins after our Pre-Game Trust and Affirmation exercises, after the Invocation (collaboratively telling the backstory of our game), after Character Creation (creating your wizards), and World-Building. We review the characters and the world, but in this playthrough, we jump right into Plot-Generation, Roleplay, and end with the infamous Alien Epilogue.

An especial thank you to the wonderful Rob Cameron, Mimi Mondal, and Liam Burke for permission to use this video!

Kaleidocast is the official podcast of the Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers (BSFW), a “group dedicated to getting writers producing content with a professional polish for publication,” that offers “critique groups and workshops to members with regular guest lectures from those working in the industry today.”

For Kaleidocast’s annual fundraising effort, game designers Carlos Hernandez and C. S. E. Cooney offered to run their TTRPG “Negocios Infernales,” for the Kaleidocast backers, with the participation of some of the celebrated writers and gamers of BSFW.

ROB CAMERON: author of DAYDREAMER, his debut Middle Grade novel forthcoming from Labyrinth Road in 2024. Rob Cameron is a teacher, linguist, and writer. He has poetry, stories, and essays in Star*Line Poetry Magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Foreign Policy Magazine, and Tor.com, among others. Rob is also lead organizer for the Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers, a guest host and curator for the New York Review of Science Fiction Reading Series, and executive producer of Kaleidocast.nyc.

MIMI MONDAL: Mimi is a writer and editor of the fictitious. Her fiction has been nominated twice for the Nebula Award: in 2020 with her novelette His Footsteps, Through Darkness and Light, and in 2022 for ancient-Bengal-inspired setting titled Shankhabhumi and the adventure “In the Mists of Manivarsha” in the Dungeons & Dragons anthology Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel. In 2018 she received nominations for the Hugo, British Fantasy and Ditmar Awards, and was awarded the Locus Award for Non-fiction for co-editing the anthology Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia E. Butler with Alexandra Pierce.

LIAM BURKE: an independent author with a penchant for a variety of speculative fiction. His main passion is for juxtaposing biting humor along with the sharp teeth of horror, razor code of cyberpunk, and back alley deals of urban fantasy.

With a background in theatre and the arts, he has brought his flair for the dramatically macabre to various works including his Moments series of short horror compilations, an illustrated fairy tale for his son, his Cyberpunk flash fiction featured on multiple podcasts, and a novelette about urban wizards set in his favorite tabletop RPG.

C. S. E. COONEY (co-designer of NEGOCIOS INFERNALES) is a World Fantasy Award-winning author. Her books include The Twice-Drowned Saint, Saint Death’s Daughter (nominated for the World Fantasy Award, on Kirkus Review’s list of Year’s Science Fiction and Best Fantasy 2022), Dark Breakers (nominated for the World Fantasy Award, Locus Award finalist), Desdemona and the Deep (nominated for the World Fantasy Award), and Bone Swans: Stories.

As a voice actor, Cooney has narrated over 120 audiobooks, as well as short fiction for podcasts such as Uncanny Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Podcastle.

CARLOS HERNANDEZ (co-designer of NEGOCIOS INFERNALES): New York Times best-selling author Carlos Hernandez wrote the critically acclaimed short story collection The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria (Rosarium, 2016), the novel Sal and Gabi Break the Universe (Disney Hyperion, 2019), which won the 2020 Pura Belpré Award, and its sequel, Sal and Gabi Fix the Universe. For Marvel Comics, he’s written stories about America Chavez, Spiderman, Spiderpunk, Miles Morales, and the Strange Academy. He’s also written dozens of short stories, poems, and works of drama, usually in the SFF mode.

He has served as lead writer and a game designer on the CRPG Meriwether, as a writer and designer for the installation art of Mary Miss, and as literary curator on the Apple Arcade game Dear Reader, among other video games. As a co-founder of the CUNY Games Network and of the Board Game Designers Group of New York, he’s contributed to the development of many board and card games, both educational and commercial.

The 7 Suits of Destino

Lágrimas: The Tears of Life
Carne: The Meat Of Life
Sangre: The Blood of Life
Hueso: The Bones of Life
Aire: The Breath of Life
Rayo: The Spark of Life
Espacio: The Spaces Between and Beyond

#NegociosInfernales forthcoming from @outlandentertainment!

Follow our Kickstarter Upcoming Projects page at: negociosinfernales.com!

NEGOCIOS INFERNALES: An Interview with Carlos Herandez and Yours Truly, by Alana Abbot

On making Negocios Infernales, failing forward for fun, and creating a “gateway game” for those of us who ACTIVELY RESISTED role-playing games for so so very long.

Saint Death’s Herald: Drafting a Combat Scene

Okay, am writing. Obviously. To deadline. This won’t mean anything to you, but I’m in the Witch Queen’s City section of SAINT DEATH’S HERALD.

It’s getting weird. We’ve had a lot of character-depth moments and stranger-in-a-strange-land moments, and now we have come to a sort of ALTERCATION moment.

I have been writing and re-writing this chapter for weeks. I finally have the first part right, structurally and tonally. But when it came to the altercation, I… hand-waved, a bit.

COMBAT IS NOT EASY. I don’t have a very good internal aerial view of objects in space, and it’s easier for me to think poetically and emotionally than ACTIVELY.

The last book? That battle? With Duantri and Cracchen? Do you know how many Ip Man and Jackie Chan clips on YouTube I had to watch to even get a sense of bodies in motion??? ARG!

But the time has come for Duantri to fight again. And so, I asked Carlos to help me simulate a combat. He helped make me a map. We used meeples, and dice, and some D&D figurines my brother Jeremy Cooney made us.

The final written combat won’t really be a round-by-round D&D regurgitation. When that works, that really works (as in the case of most Ilona Andrews books. I suspect they are master gamers and their fight scenes are CHEF KISS, but definitely seem to lean on things like stats, by-the-book spells, hit points, lair actions, that sort of thing), but the point is, I’m not that good.

But creating this fun combat simulation really did help me not DREAD writing this scene. I have notes! I have OPTIONS! It gave me a starting point.

And, most importantly, Carlos and I had so much fun setting it up. And it was surprising.

So now… I just have to re-draft the chapter. Again.

But it will be better than the chapter it was.

“Skinning” Negocios Infernales!

Game design comes with its own bespoke vocabulary, and I love learning new terms! One of the terms that Carlos taught me is “skinning.”

SKINNING! Isn’t it delicious? So visceral!

According to IGI, “Skinning is a term that comes from the online video game genre, and it refers to changing the look and feel (which includes the game characters, artwork, background, theme and story etc.) but not the game play.”

For example, Carlos and I co-designed NEGOCIOS INFERNALES (oh, yes, I’ve talked about it MANY TIMES BEFORE, and I will do so again), a TTRPG about “Aliens and Inquisition.”

Our game takes place on a world called “Gloriana,” in the country of “Espada”–our fantasy proxy for 15th-century Spain. All our Worldbuilding cards and Plot-generating cards are geared specifically towards Espada.

But then, we have our friend Greg Wilson–professor, writer, gamer, and Twitchcaster–author of The Gray Assassin trilogy, published by Atthis Arts. We love Greg, and we love supporting indie publishers like Atthis Arts, and we love playing games on Twitch! So we decided to bring Negocios Infernales to the world of Grayshade.

During the Atthis Arts Kickstarter, in order to crowdfund for the Gray Assassin campaign, Carlos and I “skinned” Negocios Infernales, so that the game mechanics–specifically, our “Deck of Destiny”–would suit Greg’s setting, theme, ambiences, and characters.

I wrote about it here, where we posted a little video at the time to support the Kickstarter!

The game play of Negocios Infernales comes in 7 parts, not including the Trust and Affirmation pre-game. Some of those parts we had to tweak more than others to make this new skin.

We thought it might be useful for those of you who are DMs, GMs, fantasy writers, or just game-lovers with worlds of your own that you love to play in, to have an idea about how we skinned our game to fit into another world. Maybe you’ll want to do the same one day!

Much of this will make more sense when you have a copy of our rulebook and are familiar with all the mechanics of NEGOCIOS INFERNALES–especially our DECK OF DESTINY–so keep an eye out for our Kickstarter coming this October!

Here’s a run-down of what we did!

The Gray Assassins Skin of NEGOCIOS INFERNALESPhase 0: Trust and Affirmation

In the Gray Assassins skin, this remains identical to any Negocios Infernales game. There is no change to the Trust or Affirmation cards, which all players take turns reading aloud.

This part of the game is basically setting up “lines and veils” to make gameplay safe and fun, and declaring our support for each other in the gaming circle.

Phase 1: Invocation

Here is the first big tweak for the new skin.

In this beginning phase, instead of using the short deck of narrative cards that sets up our Negocios Infernales world of “Gloriana” and the background about alien invasion, we took the text from the back copy of the first book of Greg’s trilogy, Grayshade.

Then we tweaked the text to decenter the protagonist, whose name is Grayshade. This opens up the Gray Assassins world for all the new characters whom the players collaboratively create.

The new text, which all of the players take turns reading, is thus:

CARD ONE: In the city of Cohrelle, the Acolytes of Argoth assassinate threats to their Order.

CARD TWO: They serve the Order of Argoth, and the Order serves The Just God.

CARD THREE: All the city of Cohrelle bows to the Order’s authority, even while city officials publicly distance themselves from its actions.

CARD FOUR: And those actions require the Acolytes of Argoth to dispatch targets: with protocol and with precision. 

CARD FIVE: But when an assignment goes sideways, what core values does an Acolyte of Argoth cling to?  

CARD SIX: We are all Acolytes who have served the Order without question. 

CARD SEVEN: Until now.

CARD EIGHT: Grayshade is a novel of violent faith and shifting loyalties, a story about whether we can rise above our pasts to craft new futures.

Phase 2: Character Creation

As per this same section in Negocios Infernales, we draw four cards from the Deck of Destiny to help inspire us and generate our Gray Assassin characters on the fly. Mechanically, these four cards need to be of four different suits on each player’s Character Sheet.

Here is the tweak!

Instead of the four attributes that make a Wizard’s character in Negocios Infernales (Motivation, Role in Court, Magic, Doom), we used the worldbuilding in Greg’s book to create a new set of four attributes for players to create their Assassin.

Motivation: What makes your character tick

Backstory: Where your character came from and how they came to serve the Order

Speciality: What they’re best at in the assassination game. (Greg sent us a short list of common specialities)

–Soundshifting
–Hand to hand (use of the cucuri in particular)
–Thrown weapons (the reshtar, kushuri darts)
–Aerial infiltration/acrobatics
–Information gathering

Fatal Flaw: What may one day bring your character down?

Phase 3: Relationships

This works exactly the way it does in Negocios Infernales.

Each player character has a relationship with at least one other player character.

We draw one card from the Deck of Destiny and match its suit to one card in the Relationships deck to help inspire this relationship.

Phase 4: Worldbuilding

Maps are very important. They help ground characters in place, and make the strange feel familiar and navigable. For Negocios Infernales, we have a glorious map of, well, Gloriana! It was designed for us by the magnificent Shannon Potratz.

But for our new Gray Assassins skin, Greg sent us his own bespoke map of the city of Cohrelle. It’s divided into four cardinal districts.

Map of Cohrelle

North: Church District; South: Mercantile District; West: Government District; East: Residential District. (Rich folk leave south/west, merchants who are closest to the government.) North District is overshadowed by the Order of Argoth, though there are many cathedrals to many gods.

Greg also sent us a list of known gods and their functions, so that we could tweak the cards in our Worldbuilding deck to feature Cohrelle much more prominently.

Sect of Rael–an heretofore minor religion/cult, aggressive in its denouncements of other religions, but not violent until recently. Rael himself claimed to be a minor deity who aspired to greater godhood until he was put down. Few take the Sect seriously, but there are rumors it conceals a greater and more ambitious orderSerren the Plague-Giver–a god of wasting disease. Her adherents were fanatics who willingly infected themselves with fatal diseases to grow closer to their god, and as a result, the religion has been essentially extinct for years now.Varda–a goddess of peace and prosperity, whose people are simple and comfortable despite the shabby-looking nature of their church. Until Grayshade discovers more, the people of Varda seem to be of little threat to anyone.Argoth–the Just God, and the deity which the Order of Argoth worships. Easily the most powerful religion in Cohrelle, disciplined, focused, and ruthless. The Rites of Devotion are critical for all adherents to the faith, and the mantra “Justice is Balance” is the Order’s (and its Service) watchword.The Concordat–an organization as much as a religion, this secretive group studies demons and their like–though many suggest demons don’t even exist. Led by Ezel Colabon, the Concordat tries to stay out of city affairs as much as it can, though it has had run-ins with the Order of Argoth in the past.

WORLDBUILDING QUESTIONS SPECIFIC TO GRAY ASSASSIN BOOKS

In Negocios Infernales, we have a Worldbuilding deck of 40 cards. In any given game, players only draw 4-8 of these cards, which means there is plenty of room for replayability and surprise.

But since we were only going to play one game of this Grayshade skin, made especially for the Atthis Arts Kickstarter, we created a total of just 6 new Worldbuilding cards.

Each player draws one Worldbuilding card, and one card from our Deck of Destiny to inspire their answer.

A new church is being erected in the North District of Cohrelle. Who is this upstart god that threatens the power of Argoth, the Just God?  The Governor of Cohrelle and the Prelate of Argoth’s Order recently had a public disagreement over policy. What was the disagreement over? A parvenu merchant family is gaining wealth, if not prestige, in Cohrelle. What are they selling? Recently, the Acolytes of Argoth were tasked with quelling a riot in the slums, in the way only the Order can. Who is unhappy about the way the Order handled it? Recently, an Acolyte of Argoth purposefully defied an order handed down directly from the Prelate. What was the fallout of that defiance? What new assassination technology has the Order recently acquired? Phase 5: The Plot

In Negocios Infernales, we offer players 7 Adventure Plots to choose from, each with their own deck of six Story cards, and six Question cards. Each of the adventures are a slightly different genre: Romance, Gothic, Mystery, Monsters, War, SciFi, and Weird. This way, there is a great deal of replayability!

But for the purpose of this skin, we created a unique Adventure plot deck, with six new Story cards, and six new Question cards. As in Phase 1, The Invocation, players take turns reading the Story cards aloud to immerse themselves in the game.

Adventure Name: “Tempered in the Forge of Faith”

CARD ONE: The Prelate has called all three of us to come before him.

CARD TWO: “The three of you,” he says, “have recently displayed a subtle yet notable lack of faith. This, of course, is unacceptable in the Order.”

CARD THREE: “Therefore,” the Prelate continues, “the three of you must earn back the Order’s trust. Argoth has granted me a vision of a special mission you must complete.” 

CARD FOUR: “Though usually Acolytes work alone, on this mission, you will work together to complete it.”

CARD FIVE: The Prelate throws three scrolls tied together. “All the details of the mission are included here. Do your research and reconnaissance, but move with haste. You have one week in which to complete this mission.”

CARD SIX: The moment you are excused from the Prelate’s presence, you unfurl the scrolls and begin to read about the assassination you must perform.

Thus, we set up the lot.

Each player then chooses a Question Card from a deck of 6 questions, and then draws a card from the Deck of Destiny to help answer it.

Once all questions are answered, each player turns their answer to that question into a direct Order that the Prelate wants us to accomplish.

Just like in a regular game of Negocios Infernales, accomplishing all the Orders before your token gets buried to the hilt of the Sword of Doom means you win the game!

The specialty Questions we created for this skin’s Adventure, which the assassin characters must answer for the Prelate of the Order, were thus:

Who is/are the target(s)?Where is/are the target(s) located in Cohrelle? How well-defended will they be?What is so difficult for you, personally, about assassinating this/these particular target(s)?How does this assassination benefit the Order? What might be a political repercussion of this mission? Why did the Prelate doubt your faith?Phase 6: Roleplay

This follows the same structure of Negocios Infernales. Every player has to take their turn being Protagonist, every player has to play an NPC, and every playing needs to use their Specialty at least once in a scene.

(In Negocios Infernales, the wizard characters have to use their Magic, but in this skin, it’s the assassin’s SPECIALITY!)

Each time an assassin uses their Speciality, they make a check to see if they succeed. They draw a card from the Deck of Destiny.

If that card’s suit matches one of the four suits on their Character Sheet, the check succeeds! If it doesn’t, the check fails–and the player uses the image and phrase on the Destiny card to narrate how awesomely and bodaciously epic their failure is!

Each failed check moves the token down the Sword of Doom. If the token is ever buried to the hilt, the game is lost. (And losing is equally hilarious, if not more so, as winning.)

Phase 7: The Prelate’s Epilogue

In Negocios Infernales, our final phase is called “the Alien Epilogue.”

It’s a time for the aliens (the players) to consult with each other and decide if giving the people of Espada phenomenal wizarding powers was a good decision and if humanity is ready to join the Cosmic Consciousness? Or if it was a really, really bad decision, and humanity needs to mature a bit more first? Say, for a few more millenia.

In the Gray Assassin skin, all surviving members of the mission come before the Prelate one more time and debrief.

We hope this is helpful. You can view the whole Grayshade game on Greg’s awesome Twitch channel Twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/arvaneleron

Prototypes and Rubber Roaches

As we are getting our “process diaries” together for our Negocios Infernales Kickstarter, and trying to imagine how best to do them—vlog with transcript? Written word and gifs?—we have been digging out the early prototypes.

When Carlos first conceived of an inspiration deck of words and images to power an RPG game through card pulls rather than dice, he used public domain art from Earth’s history. You can see some of the phrases that remain, even now, on our NI cards on this early art history deck—though the art by Rebecca Huston remains a core vitality of our Negocios Infernales game.

One of our prototypes had a hidden “alien agenda” that the players knew but the characters didn’t. I found the envelope! I can’t remember what we put INSIDE though.

Funny story about searching for prototypes…

Once upon a time, yesterday, as we were looking through our mountains of games, prototypes, components, card sleeves, and “empty boxes wot might someday be useful” (in order to find this very particular early prototype), Carlos kept looking under the bookshelves, certain it was under there.

Long after he gave up and went back to prioritizing writing, as I should have done, I kept looking. Because, well, looking is easier than writing!

Anyway, after scrounging around various shelves and drawers for a long time, I returned to the dusty shadow realm under our bookshelves. I found a prototype-sized box! I opened it excitedly!

It was full of life-like rubber cockroaches! AAAUGHHHH!!!

They were a gift to Carlos from my brother Declan sometime in 2020. He presented them in the hopes that one day Carlos might find them useful.

We did use them—once—to prank a friend who liked to BEG us to prank her. She liked when we left her chocolate in strange places…

Well. You can imagine.

Little did we know that roaches were not… as funny as we’d hoped. Much apologies and chocolate bars later, and a lot of nervous laughter, she forgave us, like a darling.

Anyway! I GOT MY OWN BACK!

I yelped! I laughed! I told Carlos!

And then? Behind the box of fake roaches, I found…

The prototype.

And we all lived happily ever after that Monday, until midnight came, and it was Tuesday.

A few musings…

I’ve released my September newsletter into the wild! This is a hodgepodge of delights. I was sort of thinking, October’s gonna be ALL NEGOCIOS INFERNALES ALL THE TIME, so I thought I’d do things like, I don’t know, books and shows and games I’ve been liking, and thoughts about my hair, and fundraisers that are awesome and worthy, that sort of thing.

If you’re interested, hop on over to my Substack!

Rx of Enchantment, prescribed by the Doctors of Carterhaugh

I love the work being done by Sara Cleto and Brittany Warman of the Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic. Ah, I knew them when they were young poetesses of Goblin Fruit Magazine and Mythic Delirium.

And now, behold them!

Brittany Warman, Sara Cleto: the Good Doctors of the Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic

They’re still poets. But now they’re also DOCTORS OF FOLKLORE! They have an incredible Patreon (with monthly book clubs and fairy tale salons!), a great Facebook community, and lively presences elsewhere on social media.

Right now, the Doctors of Carterhaugh (that’s what I always call them in my head, because it’s so FANCY, and I think Janet from Tam Lin would get a kick out of it)) are ramping up for a course called ENCHANT, which they’ve been preparing for about 4 years.

And one of the lovely, community-driven things they are doing this week, for those who cannot afford the course fees for Enchant, is running a 3-day “Everyday Magic Challenge” on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

I SIGNED UP! I’m on a writing retreat this week, so I thought, why not?

And I not only signed up, I’ve been participating. I’ve done the first two so far, showing up on Crowdcast at the appointed hour and hurling myself into the chat–and I’m looking forward to Friday, which I’m promised will be “whimsical.”

I wanted to share a few of my responses to the “Everyday Magic Challenge” so far, with a likely follow-up on Friday, but first I wanted to tell you about the “Enchant” course coming up, because Carterhaugh School’s early-bird pricing ends Friday, and I didn’t want you to miss it.

If the course sounds like something you’d like, but you’re feeling shy, I just want to tell you: the community I’ve seen this week is so stellar, so generous, so hungry to share and participate, to be helpful, and so willing to be vulnerable for the sake of beauty and renewal.

My husband and I look with admiration and awe upon the deep work with fairy tales the Doctors of Carterhaugh are constantly doing, the many ways in which they do outreach, and the fact that, a few years out of grad school (or “PhD college,” as I called it the other day, much to Carlos’s amusement), they have a thriving small business doing exactly what they love, working hard to add petals to the flower of a life worth living.

Quickly, I’ll tell you the bullet points about their “Enchant” course. But you can read more about it at their website! All the lectures will be pre-recorded, so you can take them at your own pace, but once a week, they’ll have a community chat in person, so you’ll be able to share your experience and ask questions.

If you can’t do the course now, a great way to find out all about their new projects–and free things, like this “Everyday Magic Challenge” is to sign up for their awesome newsletter!

Man, I love newsletters. They’re the LiveJournal of our Roaring Twenties.

About “Enchant”

An empowering five-week course that uses fairy tales, folklore, and a dash of science to help you unlock the magic that can exist in your everyday life.A reminder that enchantment is always at your fingertips through small actions and habits.A powerful way to counter burnout.Brittany Warman and Sara Cleto, the Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic

EVERYDAY MAGIC CHALLENGE – DAY 1 THREAD

Challenge #1: What is the fairy tale of your life? Journal on this prompt for a few minutes. What fairy tale calls to you? What tale motifs seem to pop up in your life? Which character do you most identify with?

Tell us a bit about your journaling on this thread!

I had an interesting and introspective time journaling/poem-ing to the prompt. My life didn’t pop out as one single fairy tale to me, but the scattered iconography and archetypes across a dozen random ones kept blitzing through my mind.

I kept thinking about one of us saying, she’s left the form of Cinderella behind, and taken on the form of Cinderella’s godmother. And thinking… we need more middle-aged heroes of folklore. All those beginnings, just going into the woods. All the elders are witches or queens.

The poem’s in no shape to share, but maybe these lines:

“I take the gown of nettle cloth I wove myself
and feel its luster
Oh, to bind me to my shape
Oh, to keep me in my skin
Oh, a nettle cloth to keep my pigeon wings in.”

And:

“I have spat my ring in his soup.
I have worn the skins of my dead.
I have danced in my day. I have danced.
And yes, when the sun is red,
I still wear ribbons.”

EVERYDAY MAGIC CHALLENGE – DAY 2 THREAD

Challenge #2: What is your soul outfit? What favorite pieces of clothing do you put on when you want to feel most like yourself? What accessory lights you up? Today (or tomorrow!), dress so that your childhood self would think you’re the coolest person they ever saw.

Tell us a bit about your outfit in this thread (we’d love to see pictures!)

I am currently cat-sitting in Western Massachusetts, and have a very slim wardrobe to pick from. That said, I remember thinking, as I was packing, what would be both comfortable and feel the most like me, as I take this time as a writing retreat. I brought along a few “normal“ clothes, specifically for traveling and/or hiking. The rest are chemises, short bodices, or simple dresses that, for one reason or another, make me feel lovely and at ease in myself.

Similarly, I only packed one small bag of jewelry. Why? I almost didn’t. I usually pack my jewelry in a travel bag, but I found the black velvet bag appealing this time. I chose just a few pieces that would go with most of whatever I brought. I didn’t know we would be taking this challenge. Very few people will be seeing me in person at all over the next week.

I was just in pajamas today, my hair in a side braid, uncombed. And I thought, I will put off this challenge until tomorrow, when I feel less weary and sore. But then, I thought… that’s the point of the challenge. To do the enchantment FIRST, and THEN let it work its magic on the weary soreness. 

To that end, I actually unpacked all my clothes (I hadn’t yet; I was digging them out grumpily from the suitcase. It’s funny; in a hotel, I ALWAYS unpack all my clothes immediately), and hung them up, and looked at them. And then thought about what felt right today, when I don’t really want any, ahem, you know, undergarments, or things tugging or lolloping or catching. 

So I came up with this outfit I’m calling “Verde que te quiero verde” after the Lorca poem, which is a green chemise (from Holy Clothing, I think, but this one is no longer in stock. There are others though), and a new short bodice in recycled sari silk I got from a vendor called Oh,Jessa! at GenCon. 

When I was choosing jewelry, I found a pair of golden tree earrings from my lovely friend Jess, a piece of amber from my friend Stephanie, and an amber choker recently given to me by my sister in law.

I wrote a fairy tale poem once called “Three Fancies from the Infernal Garden” with this line in it: “piece of amber / copper pot / the north wind tucked up in a knot.“ Wearing amber always puts me in mind of it.

Rapunzel-like, I let down my hair. But I’m fighting a headache today, so I didn’t want to do anything fancy. A black bandana seemed to pick up the interesting pattern on the bodice.

That, with my meteorite-metal wedding band (my husband & I write SFF, so of course we needed outer space wedding rings), and the ouroboros ring that came in a set of two by artist Crystal Hartman, of which I wear the silver and my husband the bronze, my outfit is complete. For you all. And for me. 

I have to say, this exercise gave me a strong memory of the year in Chicago when I put all my stuff in storage and lived with different friends for a whole year, trying to save to move. I lived out of a suitcase, wearing the same clothes for months.

And then I started dreaming of the apocalypse, where everyone in the world died, and I could go into any store I wanted and take whatever clothes I wanted. I told this to my friend, and she said it was time to go to my storage unite and swap out for new clothes.

So we did. And the dreams stopped.

You can see, dear readers, this has been a fruitful week already. I wish the same for you. And I am so happy to introduce you to the Doctors of Carterhaugh and their thoughtful and moving work.

Yours truly,

C. S. E. Cooney

On the glories of fan art, my hearts!

New newsletter up on my free Substack: “From the Felicities of Fan Art, I Shall Never Recover.”

KIND OF A LOVE LETTER. I crammed in some other newsy newsishness at the bottom, but mostly I was just marveling.

Just didn’t want you to miss it!

2 World Fantasy Award Nominations on a Tuesday Night!

So, I was in the laundry room in the basement of our apartment building, after making a mess of some clothes, and then I got the email from Ellen Datlow telling me congratulations.

And I looked at the bottom of the email and I saw that SAINT DEATH’S DAUGHTER was nominated for the World Fantasy Award for Novel, with Nicola Griffith for SPEAR, Alex Jennings for THE BALLAD OF PERILOUS GRAVES, R.F. Kuang for BABLE, and Nghi Vo for SIREN QUEEN.

So I ran upstairs to tell Carlos, who was in the kitchen. So we danced around for a while.

And then he got all dreamy-eyed and beatific-looking, and his cheeks began to glow, and his curls sort of sparked with a bit of St. Elmo’s fire (like it does) (St. Elmo: patron saint of chaos muppets), and he said, “You know, you should check further down the list, just in case.”

And I was like, “What for?” and then I was like, “Nahhh.” And started shaking my head.

And he said, “Just in case!”

So then I checked, very dubious, and I saw that my book DARK BREAKERS was ALSO on the list, under Collections, along with our beloved Cassandra Khaw’s BREAKABLE THINGS, Tim Lebbon’s ALL NIGHTMARE LONG, the wonderful Sam J. Miller’s Boys, Beasts & Men, and Luigi Musolino’s A DIFFERENT DARKNESS AND OTHER ABOMINATIONS.

So then I shrieked a little. And hid my face. And then Carlos got smug as a SAINT and pulchritudinous as a PROPHET, and has been the MOST adorable ever since.

Basically, you get all the CELEBRATION PICS.

My stomach filled with happy-panic-pangs, which is like having a case of butterflies, only the butterflies have fangs. I am very happy and also all the other complicated feelings of FEELINGHOOD, so there you have it. A Tuesday night.

Congratulations to all the other nominees! You can read more at (and stop to support!) Locus Magazine! And then, if you wanna come to the World Fantasy Awards, check out the World Fantasy Convention website!

Best Novella

The Bruising of Qilwa, Naseem Jamnia (Tachyon)
The House of Drought, Dennis Mombauer (Stelliform)
Even Though I Knew the End, C.L. Polk (Tordotcom)
Helpmeet, Naben Ruthnum (Undertow)
Pomegranates, Priya Sharma (Absinthe)

Best Short Fiction

“The Devil Don’t Come with Horns”, Eugen Bacon (Other Terrors: An Inclusive Anthology)
“Incident at Bear Creek Lodge”, Tananarive Due (Other Terrors: An Inclusive Anthology)
“The Morning House”, Kate Heartfield (PodCastle 7/5/22)
“Telling the Bees”, Kat Howard (Sunday Morning Transport 1/30/22)
“Douen”, Suzan Palumbo (The Dark 3/22)

Best Anthology

Screams from the Dark: 29 Tales of Monsters and the Monstrous, Ellen Datlow, ed. (Nightfire)
Other Terrors: An Inclusive Anthology, Vince A. Liaguno & Rena Mason, eds. (Morrow)
Dark Stars: New Tales of Darkest Horror, John F.D. Taff, ed. (Nightfire)
Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction, Sheree Renée Thomas , Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, Zelda Knight, eds. (Tordotcom)
Trouble the Waters: Tales from the Deep Blue, Sheree Renée Thomas, Pan Morigan, Troy L. Wiggins, eds. (Third Man)

Best Artist

Kinuko Y. Craft Y. Craft
Galen Dara
Matt Ottley
Lauren Raye Snow
Charles Vess

Special Award – Professional

Irene Gallo, for Tor.com
Gavin J. Grant & Kelly Link, for Small Beer Press
Tim Lebbon & Daniele Serra, for Without Walls (PS)
Fiona Moore, for Management Lessons from Game of Thrones: Organization Theory and Strategy in Westeros (Edward Elgar)
Matt Ottley, for The Tree of Ecstasy and Unbearable Sadness (Dirt Lane)

Special Award – Non-Professional

Michael Kelly, for Undertow Publications
Cristina Macía, for The Celsius Festival
dave ring, for Neon Hemlock Press
Lynne Marie Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas, for Uncanny Magazine
E. Catherine Tobler, for editing The Deadlands

And thank you to the judges for all your EXCESSIVELY hard work:
Dale Bailey, Kelly Robson, Ginny Smith, A.C. Wise, and Ian Whates.