Returning to Bordertown

It's not as if I don't have enough work to do already. There's new confrontations for Zizola to negotiate on the road in the sequel to The Innamorati. There's revision and preparation of all the out of print novels for release in e-books this fall. There's working with Terri Windling on the new archival home for all of the Endicott Studio for Mythic Arts and Journal of Mythic Arts contents. And then there is this...the irresistible pull back to Bordertown.

So I now find myself working on a Gordian knot of four novellas (the length I always felt belonged best to Bordertown stories). Each one, when completed will stand alone, but in usual Bordertown fashion when taken together, will intertwine at some molecular level. I will be offering each of them as inexpensive digital editions -- but will probably at some point pull them all together into a single volume as a book. (I should note here, that I will submit the stories to Terri for approval and then pay for the license to publish works on Bordertown.)

I have the kernels of the stories: A few
new characters and new martial arts. A boxing gym for youth at risk,
(aren't they all in Bordertown?), a charmed and cursed roda (the circle
in which Capoeira fighters meet), a Bordetown version of the "Hunters
Tale" -- a traditional Afghani folk tale involving complex relationships between hunters, demons, and Peri, and I think in the last one -- a reprise tale involving Laura and Koga -- especially now as I have returned to training Shotokan.

And because the city of Bordertown for me has always been the most important character in the tales, I think a new neighborhood is in order--maybe something tucked in one of its already known neighborhoods -- or a new accretion to the map (if Terri approves). We will see. Writing to discover what is in Bordertown is as close to living there as I can get...and sometimes, that's pretty damn close.

And because I like collecting images of people and places that just might show up in the story -- or at least lend their energy to the details, here is my Bordertown Dreams pinterest board.

Art: Street Art by Just Cobe in Runzmattenweg, Freiburg, Germany and Matthew Woodson/Ghostco.