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C.S.E. Cooney's Blog, page 13
July 25, 2023
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 NovellaThe 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)
“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)
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)
Kinuko Y. Craft Y. Craft
Galen Dara
Matt Ottley
Lauren Raye Snow
Charles Vess
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)
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.
July 18, 2023
Updated Narration Page
This was a little mind-clearing project I did yesterday and today: listing all the books (in series order, categorized by genre) that I’ve narrated–including my own!
Narration
It’s funny–I know I’ve narrated more than these, but I don’t know if they’re extant anymore. I could probably go digging for the titles, but if they’re not available anywhere, I’m not sure how useful that would be.
…Also, maybe the authors took them down because they loathed the narration. (If that’s true… just don’t tell me, please!) But here’s the Narration page on my website.
If I ever need another mind-clearing project, I’ll add hot links to all the titles. You can find all of these on Audible, but not in any particular order, so I thought I’d organize that.
Just in case, you know, you’re DYING for the sound of my voice.
I think I’ve grown a lot as a narrator since I started in audiobooks in 2015. I don’t really… want… to listen to myself, even now–I like the sound of my voice, but there comes a point, after a project is done, that there’s no fixing the errors. There’s just moving on.
The bravest narrators I know listen to their own work and give themselves notes. The smartest narrators I know color-code their prep-scripts with voices, and mark the breaths, the rhythm, the peaks and crescendos. But one of my favorite narrators, now passed away, never read the prep script at all before he recorded. He wanted it fresh for his readers–and for himself–as if telling the story for the first time.
So, really, it takes all sorts. And I’m one of them.
And I do so love the work. I never don’t look forward to a recording day.
July 17, 2023
GenCon Schedule!
2:00-2:50 Panel GCWS – Game Narrative: Writing for Tabletop Roleplaying Games
Carlos Hernandez (mod), C. S. E. Cooney, James Lowder, Mostafa Haque
Marriott Ballroom 1
Thursday 6:00 PM EDT Meet the Pros of Writers’ Symposium
Marriott Wabash 1
6:00-10:00 PM Play-Through of Negocios Infernales
Carlos Hernandez, C. S. E. Cooney
JW: 107: 3
Saturday10:00-11:50 Panel GCWS – Special Event: An “Infernal” Salon—A Fun, Low-Stakes Writing Workshop
C. S. E. Cooney, Carlos Hernandez
Marriott Ballroom 1
2:00-2:50 Panel GCWS – Multimedia: Speculative Poetry in Roleplaying Games
Marie Bilodeau (mod), Brandon O’Brien, C. S. E. Cooney, Bryan Thao Worra
Marriott Ballroom 4
4:00-4:50 Panel GCWS – Signing: Carlos Hernandez and C. S. E. Cooney
Carlos Hernandez, C. S. E. Cooney
ICC
6:00-10:00 PM Play-Through of Negocios Infernales
Carlos Hernandez, C. S. E. Cooney
JW: 107: 1
Thursday 10:00 AM EDT Playing TTRPGs with Writers Feeds Your Craft!
(Session A)
Marriott Ballroom 4
Thursday 11:00 AM EDT Quiet Doesn’t Mean Cozy!
Marriott Ballroom 3
Thursday 2:00 PM EDT Writing for Tabletop Roleplaying Games
Marriott Ballroom 1
Thursday 6:00 PM EDT Meet the Pros of Writers’ Symposium
Marriott Wabash 1
Friday 10:00 AM EDT Portfolio Review: Tabletop Games
Marriott Atlanta
Friday 1:00 PM EDT Writing Comic Books for Marvel-From a Guy Who Just Broke In!
Marriott Ballroom 4
Friday 3:00 PM EDT New Directions in Story-Driven Games
Marriott Ballroom 3
Friday 18:00-22:00 PM Play-Through of Negocios Infernales
Carlos Hernandez, C. S. E. Cooney
JW: 107: 3
Saturday 10:00 AM EDT An “Infernal” Salon–A Fun. Low-Stakes Writing Workshop
Marriott Ballroom 1
Saturday 4:00 PM EDT Signing with Carlos Hernandez and C. S. E. Cooney
Exhibit Hall: Author Signing Table
Saturday 18:00-22:00 PM Play-Through of Negocios Infernales
Carlos Hernandez, C. S. E. Cooney
JW: 107: 1
July 11, 2023
Casa Hernandooney: Our Readercon Schedule
C. S. E. CooneyFriday, July 14, 2023
11:00 AM
Devils, Aliens, Poets, Oh My! A Speculative Performance
Salon A, Duration: 60 mins
Narrative speculative poetry, music from SF concept album-in-the-making “Ballads from a Distant Star,” and maybe even a scene or two from a new musical podcast in development “The Devil and Lady Midnight! Let C.S.E. Cooney and Carlos Hernandez (and possibly friends!) entertain you.
1:00 PM
Cooney and Hernandez Joint Reading
Salon C, Duration: 60 mins
Award-winning writers C. S. E. Cooney and Carlos Hernandez will read from new prose and poetry and/or old favorites and/or anything if you tip well enough.
***Now, the following is NOT on the Readercon schedule under my name, but to Friday’s schedule, I happily add this***
3:00 PM
Group Reading: Why Didn’t You Just Leave?
Salon C, Duration: 60 mins
Editors Julia Rios and Nadia Bulkin will lead a group reading from their forthcoming horror anthology about the reasons people might choose—or be forced—to stay in haunted places.
Now, I’m not in this anthology, but my friend Christa Carmen is, and my friend Julia Rios is one of the editors.
Christa can’t make it to Readercon, so she asked me to read an excerpt from her story. And then Julia asked me to read another excerpt from a different story! So I get to read some stories for you!
6:00 PM Reading Audio
Salon B, Duration: 60 mins
How does the experience of reading a book differ between listening to audio and looking at text? What kinds of stylistic choices work better in audio or better on paper, and how do writers navigate knowing they’re often writing for both at once? And how does a narrator’s performance affect the style of the work?
Saturday, July 15, 2023
11:00 AM
Kaffeeklatsch: C.S.E. Cooney
Concierge Lounge, Duration: 60 mins
1:00 PM
Ritual as Boundary and Transformation
Salon 3, Duration: 60 mins
In the Readercon 31 panel, “Everywhere a Boundary,” panelists discussed how boundaries can divide a concrete, present “here” from an imagined, theoretical, or less present “there.” A central function of ritual can be to create boundaries, separating between then and now, here and there, orderly and disorderly, appropriate and taboo. This holds true for rituals both secular and religious, such as swearing in witnesses, following rules of order in a meeting, or practicing the personal care routines that create boundaries between different parts of the day. How does ritual perform these functions in SFF? Who is doing interesting work with these concepts?
2:00 PM Autographs: C.S.E. Cooney
Autographs Table, Duration: 60 mins
Carlos Hernandez’s Schedule(You might see some repeats, because we like doing things together!
Thursday, July 13, 2023
9:00 PM
Worldbuilding: From the Mundane to the Fantastic
Some of the most beloved speculative fiction worlds have foundations based in the mundane. Examples include Stephen King’s horror fiction, Harry Potter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and works by William Gibson. These worlds are both recognizable and Other. What makes them so successful and memorable? Are there similar worlds that tried and failed? What can authors learn from these worlds when creating their own?
Friday, July 14, 2023
11:00 AM
Devils, Aliens, Poets, Oh My! A Speculative Performance
Narrative speculative poetry, music from SF concept album-in-the-making “Ballads from a Distant Star,” and maybe even a scene or two from a new musical podcast in development “The Devil and Lady Midnight! Let C.S.E. Cooney and Carlos Hernandez (and possibly friends!) entertain you.
1:00 PM
Cooney and Hernandez Joint Reading
Award-winning writers C. S. E. Cooney and Carlos Hernandez will read from new prose and poetry and/or old favorites and/or anything if you tip well enough.
Saturday, July 15, 2023
3:00 PM
More Than Human: Animals in Speculative Fiction
Salon A, Duration: 60 mins
Stories that move animals close to the center open up valuable perspectives. For instance, using written language for beings without their own written language—at least in ways that humans might recognize—both poses ethical challenges and offers gifts. How do fiction and nonfiction writers who write about animals think about their projects?
Infernal Bargains: Our Summer in Play
I wrote a new newsletter for Substack. This space won’t JUST be for reposting newsletter news, I promise. This is much more for poetry and random bloggy thoughts and whatever else occurs to me.
In fact! I will be posting our Readercon schedule up here shortly.
But… since I did in fact write a newsletter… *big eyes*
Go on and give it a read, why dontcha?
June 21, 2023
New Newsletter for the Solstice!
Come and read all about it, over on my Substack!
June 3, 2023
Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song
I’ve been meaning to watch this documentary for over a year. I kept a poster I saw about a showing in New York on my desktop to remind me.
So… here are things I loved so much I stopped the documentary to write them down. There was a lot more that I didn’t write down. And yes, I cried.
“I think the borders have faded between a lot of endeavors. Like the poet, or the singer… It’s just a matter of what your hand falls on. And if you can make what your hand falls on sing, then you can just do it.”
“Sometimes I would go with the old Beat philosophy: ‘First thought, best thought,’ but it never worked for me. There hardly is a first thought. It’s all sweat… The experience is the experience of work. And of failure. You’re just trying to lay it out as accurately as you can.”
“I visited the Chief Executive of Columbia Records… First of all, he reviewed my suit. Then he said, ‘Leonard, we know you’re great. But we don’t know if you’re any good.'”
“I feel as if I have huge posthumous career ahead of me.”
“If I knew where songs came from, I would go there more often.”
“It’s a rigorous life. It’s designed to overthrow you… It’s a very careful and precise investigation into the self that was urgent for me. If you’re sitting in a meditation hall for four or five hours a day you kinda get straight with yourself. So this is not on the level of a religious conversion. It’s closer to science than religion.”
“You keep discarding the stuff that is too easy, or too much of a slogan.”
“But I really am a writer, and a writer is deeply conflicted. And it’s in his work that his reconciles those deep conflicts. And it doesn’t set the world in order. It doesn’t really change anything. It just is a kind of harbor.”
“One is always trying to write a good song. Like everything else, you put in your best effort, but you can’t command the consequences.”
“Nothing’s over till it’s over, but I find myself in a graceful moment… It’s not so much that I got what I was looking for, but the search itself dissolved.”
“70 is indisputably not youth. I don’t say that it’s extreme old age, but it’s the foothills of old age, and that urgent invitation to complete one’s work is very much in my life.”
– Are you gonna tour?
– I may. Because, you know, it’s a good solution to old age and death. Just play till you drop.
“The only way you can sell a concert is if you put yourself at risk. And if you don’t do that, people know. And they go home with the feeling that, well, they like the songs, but you know, they prefer to listen to them at home. But if you can really stand at the center of your song, if you can inhabit that space, and really stand for the complexity of your own emotions, then everybody feels good. The musicians feel good, and you feel good, and the people who’ve come feel good.”
His text to his frend at the end:
“Ducking away to write and write feverishly, if two words a day constitutes a fever. Many pressing concerns, but ignoring most of them in favor of a finished lyric. Not interested in anything else, and this interest fairly fragile also. Another beautiful day.”
“You look around and you see a world that is impenetrable, that cannot be made sense of. You either raise your fist, or you say Hallelujah. I try to do both.”
Other raw emotions besides awe:
I got the angriest at the artist’s assholery (at least assholery as I perceived it from the outside, out of context, knowing nothing but what I was told) was during the John Lissauer narrative. The cultivation, collaboration, and then abandonment of a younger artist. And eight years later, a new call for collaboration, after complete silence–and the forgiveness Cohen received. Just… shocking. How understanding Lissauer was… how relieved, even grateful at the warmth. And then, how they went on to keep working together. I loved that in the credits, we were shown Lissauer inducted into the Hall of Fame for his work on the original Hallelujah.
Also, the whole part when the rabbi talks about the bat kol! I wish I’d written everything down. But then, there’s always Wikipeida.
AND THE WHOLE TOWER OF SONG SEQUENCE TOWARDS THE END! When the audience member yells, “Leonard Cohen, I love your voice!” And he smiles and says, “You’re the only one that does,” before launching into that verse, “I was born like this, I had no choice/ I was born with the gift of a golden voice,” with such irony, and appreciation, and camp, and sinking into his own septuagenarian sexiness, all to please the audience. And they lapped it up.
I loved how, in the beginning of the documentary, he announces that really wants to be an Elder. And by the end, we see exactly that that is what he became. Globally.
May 30, 2023
I Dreamed a City Like a Woman on Her Side
I dreamed a city like a woman on her side
her boundaries silver-lined
a gray wall with glass atop, or tinsel
bright-edged,
to keep birds and bounders away.
her hair flowed into a great lake
her tears flowed into a great lake
she lay upon her side, and wept,
her hair in her face,
her verges sun-tipped, jagged.
was the lake her wound?
the city lived in her, yet she wept.
her walls were fortified,
her outline strong to anyone
watching with a bird’s eye.
did they know they lived inside her,
her citizens in their scurry?
did they let the lake crawl into their laps
stroke its waves and whisper:
don’t cry, don’t cry?
was she sore at her stony boundaries?
close to rupture?
groaning under glass, or tinsel?
did she bleed every time they closed
or opened
her doors?
May 30th, 2023
C. S. E. Cooney
May 19, 2023
Bonus Scene (cut from Saint Death’s Herald wip) plus deep-cut BONUS SONG “Master Jack”)
The cover for Jack o’ the Hills, published by Papaveria Press. Artwork by Rebecca Huston.Ah, writing a novel.
My current cut file is longer than my actual, you know, publishable draft. Which is still in process.
So, in this present section of Saint Death’s Herald (the sequel to Saint Death’s Daughter), I’ve brought Lanie and a few of her allies (well, one of them is a dubious ally at best) to the kingdom of Leech: particularly, the capital, Witch Queen’s City.
All I know about Leech was what I wrote in some very early work, these being: “Stone Shoes” my first professional publication ever, which appeared in Subterranean Press Magazine; and “Oubliette’s Egg,” its sequel, which appeared along with “Stone Shoes” in a slender volume called Jack of the Hills, published by Papaveria Press.
Rights have since reverted to me, and you can get the ebook online at Amazon still, and I may have a handful of paperbacks left, but… there you have it.
In the present day, I’m worldbuilding a much larger idea of Leech, in the far more complex world of Athe, where most of my writing takes place. (Or… it does–sort of–but all over the timeline, across the mythos, and on many different continents.) (And, including, of course, the uncanny worlds folded into mundane spaces).
So as I write, I’m trying to remember, explore, and expand on some of the ideas I had before.
In the section I’m working on, I was rereading Jack o’ the Hills to refresh myself on the details, and I wrote this sort of fairy-tale retelling section, where Lanie is, in a flashback, telling the story of “Oubliette’s Egg”–the second half of Jack–to Datu.
(FYI: there’s a third, unfinished Jack tale, which I always had in mind as being part of Havoc Dreadnought’s backstory, for those of you who like tidbits and read footnotes. If you’ve read Saint Death’s Daughter, you’ll probably know and love Havoc. I have PLANS for her.)
The long-ago, original cover art for the (never-released) (indie) (DYI) audiobook for “Oubliette’s Egg.” Art by Rebecca Huston.But… as is often the way of these tales…
I woke up yesterday morning knowing what I should have already known: this scene doesn’t really belong in the novel. It was just for me, telling the story to myself.
But since I spent a few days writing it, I thought I might as well show you the process at. Some of you who are familiar with my early writing might get a kick out of it, and others of you who already love Lanie and Datu might get a different sort of kick out of it.
I give you, the excised chapter, “Oubliette’s Garden.”
Yours truly,
C. S. E. Cooney
P.S. Oh! And if you want a bonus song, here’s “Master Jack,” which my brother Jeremy Cooney and I wrote together. That’s him on vocals and guitar. I still think the tune is VERY CATCHY.
OUBLIETTE’S GARDEN
Lanie had first come across the legend of “Oubliette’s Gardens” in a battered old storybook found on the bookshelves of Stones Nursery, called Spook-Fables and Cradle Tales: Legend and Lore for the Lands Beyond Liriat.
She had read that book to literal pieces, and then, as the years passed, lost the pieces. But later, as Datu was growing up, her bedtime rituals growing ever more elaborate as she demanded stories that would stave off sleep for as long as she could, Lanie recalled all those old beloved stories again from memory, and recited them aloud.
While Datu claimed not to like any stories that were not absolutely true, verified, historical fact, the truth was, she enjoyed spook-fables too much to excise them from her nocturnal diet. The gorier the better—especially when she was around five and six. “Oubliette’s Gardens” was one of her favorite requests, though her didyi found it distasteful, bizarre, and too bloody-minded for a child who was ostensibly on her way to sleep.
But Lanie never put up much resistance when her niece demanded any specific tale of her, and a typical night’s telling of “Oubliette’s Garden” went much like this:
***
In olden days, back when Witch Queen’s City was still called King’s City, ruled by a family of humans who had hunted the local skinchangers to near extinction, there was a princess called Oubliette.
(“Oobly-Goobly.”
“Yes, Datu, Oobly-Goobly is what her brother called her. Brothers can be such pests.”
“You do not have a brother, Auntie Lanie.”
“Your Didyi is kind of like my brother. Don’t tell him I said that.”)
Oubliette was not just a princess; she was also a secret sorceress. Her powers lay in the realm of fascination, granted by the god Aganath, Queen of the Sea. With these powers, the Princess could push and pull a weaker will than hers with the ease of the tides. With these powers, she could bewitch any suitor she did not fancy marrying into doing what she pleased.
Which, it turned out, was all of them.
(“How many is all, Auntie Lanie?”
“Oh. A lot.”
“How many is a lot?”
“At least a six dozen. Suitors come in batches, like eggs.”)
Princess Oubliette knew she was under a curse—to die on the morning following her wedding night. Therefore, she found herself highly motivated to maintain her unmarried state for life.
(“And can you blame her, Datu?”
“That is not a part of the story, Auntie Lanie.”)
Every time an ill-starred suitor arrived at Leech Keep to court Oubliette for his bride, the princess would cast her fascination magic upon him. She would command him to perform some public scandal—as illegal an action as irredeemable and unseemly.
(“What is a scandal?”
“Like, she’d tell him, “Go play with the pigs in the pigpen, and then he’d have to do it.”
“That does not sound bad to me.”
“It was how he played with pigs, Datu.”
“How?”
“Never mind.”)
Princess Oubliette would then “discover” her suitor thus compromised, and denounce him as unfaithful to her hand, and thereby a traitor to the crown.
Such an uproar, every time! Her father, the King of Leech, would summarily execute his daughter’s erstwhile suitor in Gallows Plaza, where all King’s City could watch and cheer.
Then would the Princess Oubliette hang his body in her private gardens, where she could admire his decay and revel in her own continuing survival.
By the time she was sixteen, Princess Oubliette had quite a collection of bodies. She called them her “wind-chimes,” and loved them as other princesses loved fluffy kitties and golden balls and dancing slippers.
(“Auntie Lanie, was Oobly-Goobly a necromancer?”
“I don’t know, Datu. I don’t think so.”
“But she likes bones, like you.”
“Yes, but… liking murder is not the same as loving death. It’s hard to explain. Now, would you like to engage in a theological discussion with your genius aunt, or would you like the rest of the story?”
“Story, please.”)
One morning, upon reading an omen in her tea leaves, Princess Oubliette began to weave a splendid shirt from stinging nettles, and laid upon it an enchantment of fascination. When it was finished, she went riding with her twin brother the prince out into the high ridges beyond King’s City.
There, she lay in wait for her quarry. She did not have to wait long.
Soon came passing by a wild young skinchanger, just recently come of egg-laying age. Princess Oubliette cast her nettle shirt over the skinchanger’s head, and with its magic bound her body between two forms: that of a girl, and that of a swan. Her arms became useless wings, weighing her down till she could neither flee nor fly.
The princess, greedy for more power, sold the poor skinchanger to her brother, the prince, in exchange for the sorcery in his blood.
(“What did his sorcery do?”
“It doesn’t say. But I think it was pain. The prince was cruel. I think he could hurt anything he touched.”
“Like Mumyu.”
“Um. Yes. Like your mother. Except your mumyu uses weapons and poisons and things. And all the prince had to do was touch.”
“I wish I had that power.”
“No, you don’t, Datu.”)
The prince thought he had the better end of the bargain. He planned to collect all the skinchanger’s eggs for his own. He would sell the fertilized ones to the highest bidder, for young skinchangers were prized by wealthy human game hunters who wished to chase exotic fare in the field.
But even a skinchanger’s wind eggs were valuable, for even when they carried no precious child inside their empty shells, the shells themselves were made of purest gold. The prince planned to line his household coffers with golden eggs, so that the royal kingdom of Leech would grow in riches and power.
Such would have been the skinchanger’s life, and oh! An awful life it would have been.
But thankfully, wild as she was, she was not without friends.
(“This is my favorite part.”
“Mine too, Datu.”)
It just so happened that the skinchanger was traveling two peasant boys from the hill country of Leech.
The older was strong, but strange and silent, pale and lumbering like a white bear; the younger was small, but cunning and clever, quick as a fox with a fox’s rufous hair.
Years ago, they had found the skinchanger’s egg all lonely in the hills, and raised her from a hatchling. Every day for all her life, they had fed her souls to suck, so that she could learn and grow. She supped on people from the hills, people like the boys themselves, whom nobody would miss.
(“People like us?”
“No. Because, you see, my plumula, your didyi and I would miss you. Very much.”
“But what if a skinchanger was very, very hungry, and I was outside playing in the garden, and they found me and…”)
“Datu. I will not let any skinchanger sup on you. If they ever tried, I’d raise an army of the undead and bury them in a pile of bones. And if they tried to turn into a mouse and scurry away, then your didyi would turn into a falcon and eat them up.”
“Okay.”)
When the boys did not find the skinchanger on the ridge where they left her, they grew frightened. They followed her trail all the way to to King’s City, where they learned she had been stolen by the princess and princess.
The younger disguised himself as an emissary of a foreign king. The older was to the king, his pockets heavy with the skinchanger’s golden eggs. Together, these two brave boys marched upon Castle Leech and requested Princess Oubliette’s hand in marriage.
The princess, thinking to add more fine skeletons to her collection, agreed to marry her new suitor in seven days—provided he would stay faithful to her till the wedding night.
Little did she know that her silent swain was no king at all. He was not even the peasant boy he appeared.
(“What was he?”
“I’m getting to that, Datu! It’s like you’ve never heard this story before.”)
No, his true form was that of a great white bear. He was the natural son of Wykkyrri Ten-Thousand Beasts, a god known to roam the hills of Leech in His many forms, and lay with any willing bird, beast, or fish He met there—including humans.
Because he was the child of a god, none of Princess Oubliette’s powers of fascination had the power to bend him to her will. And so, bound by her word, at the end of seven days, she had to marry him.
On the same night, the Prince of Leech married his captive skinchanger. The kingdom rejoiced, for surely this was a sign that Leech would proper henceforth.
(“No, it was not. They were wrong.”
“Not exactly wrong, Datu. Just… the prospering went in an unexpected direction.”)
But though at night the kingdom rejoiced, by morning’s tide, the kingdom mourned.
(“Told you so.”)
No one knew exactly what had happened during those night-dark hours when King’s City slumbered.
All they knew was that, when dawn broke, the King of Leech was found dead—mauled, they said, by a great white bear, who had disappeared into the heart of the rising sun.
Alas, poor Leech! For the king’s heir, the Prince of Leech, was also dead! His body was strewn across his wedding bed, pierced through and ragged with wounds, his remains wrapped in the bloody rags of a nettle shirt.
(“You should not capture people. You should not trap them and make them marry you. You should not be cruel with your magic when you touch them.”
“That’s, uh, yes, the moral of this story, Datu. Well, um, said.”)
And so, the Princess Oubliette was declared Queen of Leech. Wild she was with happiness, beneath her semblance of grief. Her meddlesome father and brother were gone. Her magical bridegroom was released to his true form. She had survived her wedding night, and her path to the throne was clear.
But in her giddiness, the new queen forgot two things.
(“The younger brother! The younger brother! The fox one!”
“Yes, indeed.”
“I like him.”
“That’s because you’re just like him. Small, but clever and cunning.”)
She forgot the boy from the hills. And she forgot the skinchanger, whom he helped escape in the night.
The skinchanger struck fast as Oubliette passed. She caught the queen in her quicksand gaze, and sucked the soul from her body, and stole her shape for her own.
Now the skinchanger was the queen. She spoke with the queen’s voice, and knew all the queen knew: magic and mathematics, science and sorcery, languages and literature, politics and poetry. The old Oubliette was only a shell; she could not even speak. She had no memory, no words, no self left, for the skinchanger had eaten it all.
So the new queen denounced the old queen as an imposter and caused her to be burned upon a pyre.
(“Did you say something, Datu?”
“No. I was only sucking my thumb.”
“Do you want me to stop?”
“No, you are almost done.”)
And that was how the skinchanger took Oubliette’s title, took her power, and took her country. She became the Witch Queen, who gave Leech back to the skinchangers. All the humans who had hunted her people now became the humans who were hunted down or driven out, never to be heard from again.
And the olden days turned golden days, and were golden ever since.
(“That is a happy ending, Auntie Lanie.”
“I always thought so, Datu.”)
***
Long after the days when her young niece grew tired of those old spook-fables and cradle-tales, Lanie remained fascinated by Leech. One day, she vowed to herself, she would travel there. She would climb the ridge, cross the bridge into the capital, and walk up to the municipal Court of Pneumaphages, and apply for a permit to visit Oubliette’s Gardens.
And then, if she had the chance, she would ask the dead for their side of the story.
But in her wildest imaginings, Lanie had never dreamed to arrive in Witch Queen’s City like this.
***
The original (wraparound) cover art for Jack o’ the Hills, published by Papaveria Press. Artwork by Rebecca Huston.
May 12, 2023
Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Carlotta-B from 1593!
For today’s blog entry, I would love to direct you to Carlotta-B from 1593: the Ultimate Feminist Shakespearean Contemporary Leading Lady!
First of all, because you’re all so dang cute, you should just enjoy yourselves with this wee SIZZLE REEL of Carlotta-B’s! Because once you see her in action, you will want to LAVISH HER with support!
The second thing I would do is BEG YOU to sign up for her NEWSLETTER, which is a hot treat!
And third, this ALL-CONSUMING NEWS REPORT ON THE STATE OF THE SHAKESPEAREAN CABARET CO:
In Carlotta-B’s own words:
Thanks for letting people know about the opportunity to support Carlotta-B in paying all her contributing artists!
Essentially, ANY donation of ANY amount made to Shakespearean Cabaret Co. between May 22nd-26th puts us in the draw to receive $1000 towards the project, which will be spent paying contributing artists (musician/s and dramaturg).
So, if 20 people gave $1 each, there’d be 20 more chances to win. Also that $1 is tax deductible. It’s a win all round!
Thanks to everyone who considers, and for supporting Shakespearean Cabaret Co. in all the ways – was so great to see so many new faces at ‘Unbecoming’ last year!
Here’s our mission statement:
We aim to entertain you in ways that make Shakespeare accessible – by interrogating the language and the structures and systems of thought that pervade our belief systems and cultural landscapes today. Together with our audiences, we strive to reimagine a better, kinder world through a broader understanding of human experience. And we believe Shakespeare can be a bridge to cross over into that new territory. Will you walk with us?
Check us out via our website and Instagram and sign up for updates on our mailing list!
Here’s the fine print on donations: Shakespearean Cabaret Co.is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions for the charitable purposes of Shakespearean Cabaret Co. must be made payable to “Fractured Atlas” only and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.
Here’s the actual link to make a donation!
