Tag: short stories

Two Publication Updates & Some Writerly Silliness

1) My story "God’s Gift to Women" is now up on Daily Science Fiction’s website for your reading pleasure/critical dismemberment. It’s flash length, so it’s a quick read. In other words, if you haven’t read it already, what’s the holdup?

2) Over the weekend I got a look at the TOC for Wilde Stories 2011: The Year’s Best Gay Speculative Fiction, which puts me in some rather fine company:

"Love Will Tear us Apart" by Alaya Dawn Johnson
"Map of Seventeen" by Chris Barzak
"How to Make Friends in Seventh Grade" by Nick Poniatowski
"Mortis Persona" by Barbara A. Barnett
"Mysterium Tremendum" by Laird Barron
"Oneirica" by Hal Duncan
"Lifeblood" by Jeffrey Ricker
"Waiting for the Phone to Ring" by Richard Bowes
"Blazon" by Peter Dubé
"All the Shadows" by Joel Lane
"The Noise" by Richard Larson
"How to Make a Clown" by Jeremy C. Shipp
"Beach Blanket Spaceship" by Sandra McDonald
"Hothouse Flowers: or The Discreet Boys of Dr. Barnabas" by Chaz Brenchley

Of the short stories I’ve read over the past year, Alaya Dawn Johnson’s "Love Will Tear Us Apart" was one of my absolute favorites, so getting to appear alongside it adds an extra dollop of awesome to the awesome sauce that was being included in this book in the first place.

3) As I’ve mentioned before, my muse is a surly plumber named Jim Bob. A friend recently posted a link to this comic, which makes Jim Bob look like quite the charmer in comparison. (potentially NSFW, especially if you go poking around the rest of the website)

Four Things Make an Undercaffeinated Post

1) After another once over and some fine-tuning on Saturday, I was able to declare “Demon Dreams” ready for other people to actually look at. It even slimmed down to a mere 6,500 words.

2) Next up on the short story writing front is a story inspired by this article: Why dying is forbidden in the Arctic

3) On the non-writing front, it was a fun concert-going weekend. For both Christmas and his birthday, I got AsYouKnowBob tickets for concerts that happened to fall right on top of one another.  Saturday night we saw Vienna Teng and Alex Wong at World Cafe Live in Philly. The concert was awesome. Not so awesome was me turning into a dorktastic fangirl when getting them to sign a songbook afterwards. And Sunday night we saw Randy Newman, which was a lot of fun, though I could have done without the guy behind me wanting to sing along (badly) with everything. I paid to hear the guy on the stage, dude, not you.

4) I need more coffee. Stat.

I’m Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover

I’m pleased to report that my short story “Unlucky Clover” has been accepted for the July 2011 issue of Beyond Centauri. “Unlucky Clover” is a sequel of sorts to my story “Lucky Clover” (Flash Fiction Online, March 2008), following the son of that story’s leprechaun protagonist (who also makes an appearance in the sequel).

Two Quick & Shiny Things

First, my story “Dumping the Dead” was selected for inclusion in The Best of Every Day Fiction Three.

And second, a review of “Mortis Persona” at Tangent Online says, among other things, “Barnett’s lush prose does a fantastic job of building this world.”  I don’t think I’ve ever had my prose described as lush before, but it’s a description I’ll happily accept.

The FUBAR is strong with this one

2011 and I do not seem to have gotten off on the right foot.  These last two days have been rather strong with the FUBAR side of the Force, but it’s all stupid trivial crap which has the added annoyance of making me feel bad for wanting to complain because it’s, well, stupid trivial crap.

Trying to look to the positive: this week will likely continue to be all manner of FUBAR, but next week I’ll be a part-time, working-from-home gal again.  Hopefully that will mean some time to start a new short story.  My silly poll for which idea I should tackle next ended in a tie between the My Big Fat Epic Fantasy Novel prequel and the town where dying is forbidden.  That means my muse, Jim Bob, has the tie-breaking vote.  He just glanced at his tool belt, belched, and told me we’ve got the tools and materials already set out for the MBFEFN story, so we should work on that.  And then he belched again.

Shiny New Stuff for the (Almost) New Year

1) Shiny new website look here at http://www.babarnett.com. The previous version was adequate, but limited in what I could add to it and not particularly interesting. This version is much more fun.

2) Daily Science Fiction‘s January line-up has been announced, and my story “A Song Never Tasted” is slated for January 14. If you’d like to see the story in your inbox that morning (and receive lots of other fiction on a daily basis to boot), you can subscribe to DSF for free. If you’d rather read it later, you can wait a week until the story’s up on DSF’s website. And if you don’t want to read it at all, then fine, be that way. Make me cry.

3) Shiny new reviews! (Oh, Google Alerts, what would my ego do without you?) “The Wounded House” is called “remarkably well-written” in D.F. Lewis’ real-time review of Black Static 20, and a review by Nicole McClain at The Portal has many lovely things to say about “Mortis Persona.”

Turning Personal Experience Into Fiction: “The Wounded House”

Black Static 20, which includes my story “The Wounded House,” is now out. I’m thrilled to be included in an awesome publication with awesome company, and it gives me a good excuse to babble about the story’s evolution. (For anyone planning to read the issue, I am obliged to warn that there are slight spoilers ahead for my story.)

Continue reading “Turning Personal Experience Into Fiction: “The Wounded House”” →