C.S.E. Cooney's Blog, page 23
March 17, 2021
March 15, 2021
Elevators: A Pantoum(ish)
by C. S. E. Cooney
in my dreams, the elevators have no doorsthey're merry-go-rounds, roller coasters
too many buttons, none of them work
they move like trains through cities we're roller coasters, merry-go-roundswe cross the street when we see each otherhalf-empty trains moving through cities it's no longer polite to hold the elevator doorwe cross the street when we see each other
like in dreams, our pacing's off
touch nothing, rush to close the elevator door
cover your masked mouth to coughour pacing's off, like in dreams
time feels like flying, or quicksand, or static
cover your masked mouth to cough
murmuring not "Excuse me," but "Not Covid!"time feels static, or like quicksand, or fallingboundary-less, kaleidoscopic free-rangeno excuses--but the ubiquitous corvid perched on my fire escape, inked like a headline"boundary-less, kaleidoscopic free-range"
is how I dress these days, pajamas and ball gowns
nail polish chipped like my fire escape, ink for eyeliner
a door closes between me and the household voices "I love your ball gown!" shouts the stranger in pajamaswe wait for the elevator, she with laundry, me with groceriesone goes first, one waits; a door closes between usin my dreams, the elevators have no doors
March 11, 2021
Diamond Sharks
Really fine mermaid story! Loved!
by Floris M. Kleijne
This story originally appeared in Leading Edge Magazine in 2008
“Has anyone explained the anatomical details to you yet?” the surgeon said, as the two gowned and masked assistants shaved and disinfected my entire body. Turning my head to my right, I could see her through the reinforced glass, but her mouth was open to the water on the other side of the glass and her lips weren’t moving. Instead, her voice—or rather a synthesized approximation—came from the teletransponder mounted over the glass. She was floating in a vertical position, her perfunctory white coat billowing with each rush of exhaled water. Because I was lying on my back and looking to my right, my whole perspective was tilted by ninety degrees, and her voice seemed to come from the transponder mounted to her left. The effect was disorienting.
I shook my head. I didn’t care about…
View original post 5,038 more words
March 10, 2021
In which Carlos Hernandez and I Narrate “The Book of May” on Podcastle!
Carlos and I met at Readercon in 2014 and became friendly Internet acquaintances. Then, in January 2015, Carlos accepted my Facebook challenge to collaborate on a short story.
We wrote “Book of May” over a series of VERY early mornings, and lo! Mike and Anita Allen at Mythic Delirium published it in Clockwork Phoenix 5.
Shortly after this, dear Reader, I married Carlos. (Well, relatively shortly after. Other stuff happened first. But this is where it all began.)
And now, six years later, “The Book of May” is live at Podcastle.org! This is the first time it exists in audio form, and Carlos and I do the narrations.
PodCastle 669: The Book of May
Fun Fact I: Setsu Uzume mentions This Is How You Lose the Time War in their “Book of May” outro. At the time I was first becoming friends with Carlos, exchanging letters with him and collaborating on this story, my dear friend Amal El-Mohtar was also first becoming friends with Max Gladstone… with whom she later wrote This is How You Lose the Time War. She and I would write letters to each other about our new correspondents/collaborators/friends.
Fun Fact II: Carlos and I were chatting about how we’d love for “Book of May” to have a second life in reprints somehow. I proposed us sending it to Podcastle, even though it is a leeetle long for their guidelines. But their guidelines also say to query in that case. So I did. Funnily enough, the editor Jen Albert had recently been given our story to read by mutual friend, poet and essayist Dominik Parisien. She was just about to write to us about it!
Other Places To Find Our Narrated WorkIf you enjoyed “Book of May” on Podcastle.org want to hear me narrate a few of my erotic fairy tales and/or ghost stories, there’s always my collection THE WITCH IN THE ALMOND TREE: AND OTHER STORIES/
I also narrated my Tor.com novella DESDEMONA AND THE DEEP for Recorded Books, and my World Fantasy Award-winning collections BONE SWANS for Tantor Media.
If you loved listening to Carlos read “Book of May” for Podcastle, I gotta tell you about the Story Seeds Podcast. Carlos collaborated with two young writers (Zarana and Siri, age 10) to create a new story together. Hear him narrate their “The Paintbrush of Doom” here!
Last summer (2020), he also did this great “Volcanic Writing” vlog as a creative writing exercise for kids! (And the rest of us.)
Don’t forget, if you want to hear another WONDERFUL Carlos Hernandez short story narrated by a LEGENDARY narrator, Levar Burton narrates “Fantaisie Impromptu No. 4 in C#min, Op. 66” for Levar Burton Reads.
And last but not least, I want to mention Carlos’s two middle-grade novels for Rick Riordan Presents: SAL AND GABI BREAK THE UNIVERSE, and SAL AND GABI FIX THE UNIVERSE. (Spoiler, they don’t. They just break it some more.) They are narrated by Anthony Rey Perez, both Editors’ Picks on Amazon, both winners of the Earphones Award in AudioFile Magazine.
March 9, 2021
New Dark Breakers collection, poetry in Ghoul Vol. 2, et al
I finished second-drafting a new story for my new(ish) Dark Breakers collection yesterday. I think I’m changing the title to “Longergreen.” It’s a Gideon and Analise story, essentially.
It’s 1000 words more than I wanted it to be (8500 instead of 7500), but I haven’t even attempted an edit yet.
First, this afternoon, I will read the RIGHTEOUS MESS to my mama, Sita. Then I send it to Patty, who asked for it. Maybe read it to Carlos tonight, and email it to him for his BIG RED MARKS. Maybe read it to Caitlyn, if our mutual mood is right. (It’s a story melancholic in its aspect. BUT QUITE LOVELY, if I say it myself.)
By the time ALL THAT IS DONE, I think I’ll have a working story!
In the meantime, later today, I will start again on the first draft of “Salissay’s Laundries,” modeled somewhat in structure after Nellie Bly’s famous exposé, and kindled in fury and sadness by the horrors I read about in several articles regarding the Magdalene Laundries. This was a topic of interest that started with Joni Mitchell’s song of the same name, and later with the movie The Magdalene Sisters.
But the story will be set in my imaginary city of Seafall. So, like, with goblins.
That, too, is gonna go in the collection.
After that, I’m going to finish revising and expanding the original The Breaker Queen and The Two Paupers novellas, both of which I previously self-published, and then went on to have second lives in Lightspeed Magazine and Rich Horton’s Year’s Best respectively.
My deadline to turn the manuscript in to Mike at Mythic Delirium is the end of April. Eep!
So. Yeah. Watch out, world. >.>
Also, I cannot WAIT to show you the new Brett Massé cover.
If you don’t know Brett Massé’s work… WELL!
Here is his website. He did my cover for the new Witch in the Almond Tree and other Stories (both the ebook and audiobook). And he did the interior design work for A Sinister Quartet, giving all of our stories individual black and white illustrations for our title pages. MINE HAS EYEBALLS. And DIAMONDS. For Alizar. And for Bellisaar. He’s VERY CLEVER.
What’s more, a new issue of his zine Ghoul—Ghoul Vol. 2!–is forthcoming, and pre-orders are available, and I have THREE POEMS IN IT!
Draft 1, plus source materials: The Complete Works of Nellie Bly
February 12, 2021
Boskone 58: Distant Stars Concert (2)
Model Carla Kissane for “Strange Babes”
Boskone 58: Distant Stars Concert
LYRICS
Jenny’s Song for John
By C. S. E. Cooney
1.
My love, his name is John Fitzgibbon
Strong as oak and tall as yew
Soft as pine and so sweet-smelling
Ne’er was any man so true
Down he went with lamp and hammer
Down into the blackest seam
Where the rock burns bright as diamond
Daylight’s but a dead man’s dream
Oh, they came in flame and thunder
Oh, they came in ice and steel
Came and snatched my John Fitzgibbon
Bound him to a silver wheel
Where’d you go, my John Fitzgibbon?
Johnny, would you leave me so?
John, I’m cryin’, John, I’m dyin’
John, you’re gone and I’m brought low
2.
My love he shouted loud as lightning
Broke his chain and smote his foe
Ran those halls of pearl and sapphire
Where no mortal man may go
“Turn this ship, O turn it back now!”
Shouted John, so bold and brash
“Bring me to my love, my Jenny
Lest I burn this ship to ash!”
Oh, they laughed like flame and thunder
Oh, they laughed like steel and ice
“John,” said they, “she must be dandy
“You’ll not need to ask us twice.”
Down they drove their iron casket
Down through darkness wide and deep
Found me stretched across my bower
Sore with grief and fast asleep
3.
My love, he spake to me so softly
“Jenny, rise, we must away
If we do not go this instant
We’ll not live to see the day.”
“John,” said I, “I love you dearly
Johnny, whither thou wouldst trod
There will I put down my footprints
This I swear by Holy God.”
Oh, I wept like flood and river
Oh, I wept like sea and rain
Wept and left my bower forsaken
There to ne’er return again
Down we flew, in night and starlight
Down into abyssal gleam
Down into the vast forever
Where no mortal maid has been
4.
For the love I bore for John Fitzgibbon
I gave up the world I’d known
Sought those distant stars forbidden
That I could not call my own
Far we flew, and rough we landed
Cracked the sky and cracked the hull
Cracked our ship of ice and silver
Spilled out from our prison walls
Oh, they wept like flame and thunder
Oh, they wept like molten ore
Even Johnny couldn’t save them
And their proud race is no more
Down we delve with lamp and hammer
Bearing children on the way
As we dig, we sing forever:
“We’ll fly homeward bound one day.”
February 10, 2021
The Twice-Drowned Saint on Locus’s Recommended Reading List: 1st Novel Category
My short novel The Twice-Drowned Saint (found with three other works of fiction by Jessica P. Wick, Amanda J. McGee, and Mike Allen in Mythic Delirium’s The Sinister Quartet) is recommended by Locus Magazine FIRST NOVELS category!
I did a short review round-up for The Twice-Drowned Saint a while ago. To read about it, go here!
This is a great year for Mike Allen and Mythic Delirium. In addition to The Twice-Drowned Saint making the Recommended Reading list, so did Mike Allen’s collection Aftermath of an Industrial Accident, as well as the whole anthology of A Sinister Quartet!
In celebration of this, Mike says:
In celebration of both of our 2020 titles appearing on the 2020 Locus Magazine Recommended Reading List and the Locus Poll, we at Mythic Delirium Books (that is, Anita and I) have put together a special deal on signed paperbacks of both books that we weren’t able to get to in those final frenzied weeks of … 2020!
And this is the deal — and I’m afraid we have to make it U.S. only (though see parenthetical below) — for $25, as long as supplies last, you get signed copies of Aftermath of an Industrial Accident and A Sinister Quartet, as well as the four post cards created by Paula Arwen Owen that illustrate the four stories in Sinister: “The Twice-Drowned Saint” by C.S.E. Cooney; “An Unkindness” by Jessica P. Wick; “Viridian” by Amanda J. McGee; and “The Comforter” by yours truly.
Too participate, please click through to Mythic Delirium!
January 25, 2021
My Schedule for Boskone 58
Epic Fantasy Beyond King & Kingdom Format: Panel
12 Feb 2021, Friday 21:30 – 22:30, Harbor Ballroom (Webinar) (Virtual Westin)
Today’s fantasies include many with contemporary urban settings or Victorian-era steampunk. Must all epic fantasy center upon a rural, pre-industrial world, with medieval societies ruled by kings and plagued by ancient evils (or plagued by kings and ruled by ancient evils)? Sure, we love those tales, but what else is out there? What epic fantasies are reimagining our world of today or tomorrow? Which are exploring interesting alternative social structures? Where is the epic urban fantasy or steampunk?
With: Kwame Mbalia, Christine Taylor-Butler, Alan Dean Foster, Garth Nix
Mythic Poetry Group Reading Format: Panel
13 Feb 2021, Saturday 13:00 – 14:00, Con Suite (Mtg Room) (Virtual Westin)
Accomplished poets of the fantastik intrigue and delight us with selected works.
With: Linda D. Addison, Anne Nydam, Carlos Hernandez, Gerald L. Coleman, Jane Yolen
Storytelling with Audio Format: Panel
13 Feb 2021, Saturday 19:00 – 20:00, Indy C (Mtg Room) (Virtual Westin)
One way to keep readers’ attention to a series of podcasts or hours of an audiobook is to make it episodic, like Winnie-the-Pooh or The Perils of Pauline. How else can you keep the listeners coming back for more? Our panel discusses how it’s done, tricks of the trade, and the wonders of audio as a medium.
With: Robert Kuhn (BK Voice), James Patrick Kelly (writer), Tonia Ransom (NIGHTLIGHT Podcast)
Brimstone Rhine Concert Format: Concert
13 Feb 2021, Saturday 20:30 – 21:30, Marina Ballroom (Webinar) (Virtual Westin)
Brimstone Rhine, alter-ego of fantasy writer C. S. E. Cooney, brings you “Ballads from a Distant Star”: a story of alien abduction, resistance, and revolt across the cosmos, in poetry and folk songs
January 20, 2021
1/20/2021: “Aurora”
AURORA
For Carlos
after the fireworks are ended
[fireworks: joy upended, ordinance
of dedication, starlight confetti
unfettered celebration, the blitz
that is balm, the bombs of bliss]
after I have smelled my husband’s
neck to satisfaction
[there is nothing like it; I can-
not retain it, sunlit heart-
beat, happy soapscent
cleanly, comely, last-homely-houseiness
but ever and above this
the haecceity of him]
after I have announced my
intention to pen
a poem
[this is totally Amanda Gorman’s fault
I blame naught else, nor name no other
nor uphold the goldgleam of
any other queen than she
who is, today,
poetry]
after the nurses and the teachers and
the students and the astronauts and the
soldiers and the grocers and the Legends and
the Foo Fighters and the chefs and the drivers
and the Seamus Heaney-spouting Mirandas making soft eyes at us from Washington Heights
have compelled me cry
[from the other side of Troy]
after all this, yes, I have sat me my fine ass in all its rosy sitzfleisch down, in my cotton nightgown, with my clown-stained fingers, with this pen that only sort of works, and awkward chocolate staining my shirt, on this borrowed table, in this borrowed space that we have for a grace of time, where we have dined in solitary splendor and remembered the revelry of silence, remembered that in isolation there is also solace, and I am stuffed so spiffily with the iconography of dawn, with wine-purple pantsuits and repurposed wool mittens, the nacreous unity of ten thousand pearls, earnest children in their kitchens working to feed the world, that all I can breathe, all I can see, all I can sing at the end of all this is
[aurora]
