Clarity

Queer Sci Fi’s annual anthology is out, and I have a story in it for the fourth year running. This year’s theme is Clarity, and my story is entitled Male Female Nonbinary Other.

Clarity (noun)

Four definitions to inspire writers around the world and an unlimited number of possible stories to tell:

1) Coherent and intelligible
2) Transparent or pure
3) Attaining certainty about something
4) Easy to see or hear

Clarity features 300-word speculative flash fiction stories from across the rainbow spectrum, from the minds of the writers of Queer Sci Fi.

You can buy a print book or an ebook on most platforms here.

Pride and Passion

The rich tapestry of the LGBTQIA+ community is celebrated annually at Pride Festivals and Parades across the globe. For its first ever Queer Romance Anthology, the Rainbow Romance Writers chose to highlight these magical celebrations through the vehicle of the “meet cute”.

Five stories, from California to the UK with a few stops in between, showcase the love stories of those celebrating their identities and finding love on the way. A Pair of Aces find each other on a parade float. Two rival professional women come together over The Booth at the Pride Festival. Opposites attract when two men meet at the Pride Paddle on the Yukon River A chance meeting between two women leads to a romantic dance in Swing with Pride. And a Halloween Kiss results in something much more years later when a trans woman runs into her high school friend at Pride.

Get Pride and Passion today and explore these authors. All proceeds from the sale are donated to LGBTQIA+ charities.

Ink

Queer SciFi’s annual Flash Fiction Anthology is out, and the theme this year is:

INK (Noun)

Five definitions to inspire writers around the world and an unlimited number of possible stories to tell:

1) A colored fluid used for writing

2) The action of signing a deal

3) A black liquid ejected by squid

4) Publicity in the written media

5) A slang word for tattoos

Innovation features 300-word speculative flash fiction stories from across the rainbow spectrum, from the minds of the writers of Queer Sci Fi.

My story The Skinchanger’s Art won an Honorable Mention.

Innovation

Queer SciFi has released their annual anthology – this year’s theme is Innovation – and my story A Spell for Leila is included.

Book Blurb:

IN-NO-VA-TION (Noun)

1) A new idea, method, or device.

2) The introduction of something new.

3) The application of better solutions to meet unarticulated needs.

Three definitions to inspire writers around the world and an unlimited number of possible stories to tell. Here are 120 of our favorites.

Innovation features 300-word speculative flash fiction stories from across the rainbow spectrum, from the minds of the writers of Queer Sci Fi.

Migration

MigrationQueer Sci Fi has just released the annual QSF Flash Fiction anthology. This year, the theme is “Migration.”

MI-GRA-TION (noun)

1) Seasonal movement of animals from one region to another.

2) Movement of people to a new area or country in order to find work or better living conditions.

3) Movement from one part of something to another.

Three definitions to inspire writers around the world and an unlimited number of possible stories to tell. Here are 120 of our favorites.

Migration feaures 300 word speculative flash fiction stories from across the rainbow spectrum, from the minds of the writers of Queer Sci Fi.

Other Worlds Ink | Amazon | iBooks | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | QueeRomance Ink | Goodreads


Giveaway

Queer Sci Fi is giving away a $20 gift Amazon certificate with this tour – enter via Rafflecopter for a chance to win:

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Excerpt

MemeEach year, hundreds of writers send in stories for the Queer Sci Fi flash fiction anthology. Here are the opening lines from some of the stories chosen for the 2019 edition – Migration:

“Darkness has substance. It is tangible; different shades within the black, sounds, a taste. It is accompanied by self-awareness of time and thoughts, even when other senses fail.” —Hope for Charity, by Robyn Walker

“The sky has been screaming for five straight days when the shrimps come to take us away. They’ve been boxing up the others and hauling them off. Now they’re here for us, soaking wet, dragging cords and crates behind them.” —Shrimpanzee, Sionnain Bailey

“Allister always had faultless hair. He’d comb and gel it to perfection while gazing in the mirror. One day a pair of eyes stared back.” —Zulu Finds a Home, by Kevin Klehr

“On her sister’s wedding day Ari noticed that one of her ears had migrated to her hand. It was right after her high school crush, Emily, arrived with Cousin Matt.” —Playing It By Ear, Aidee Ladnier

“The wound was fatal. Their vessel wouldn’t live much longer. This is what came from leaving loose ends. Frantically they sought out a new vessel to migrate to. “ —The Essence, by L.M. Brown

“That night, we were sitting in the bed of her daddy’s old pickup truck and the radio was playing the best song. We had a pack of cigarettes between us and her hand was almost touching mine. The wheat field was silver in the moonlight. When they came, we weren’t surprised, just disappointed that our time was up already.” —Our Song, by Lauren Ring

“Willow said she was my wife, but I knew it wasn’t her, not the right her, anyway. Sure she looked like her with olive skin and bright pink hair. She even smelled of mango flowers, just like I remembered, but there was something about her smile that was slightly off, something about when she said she loved me that didn’t sit well in my old heart.” — They Said It Would Be Her, by Elizabeth Andre

“Agnes is eight when she first sees the river. Cutting its way through town, the only thing she knows not coated in coal dust. She sticks her toes in, comes home with wet socks and a secret. See, the river hadn’t been there yesterday.” —Stream of Consciousness, by Ziggy Schutz

“Terry twirled in her green synthsilk dress, looked at her reflection, liked what she saw. She felt good in her own skin, for maybe the first time.” —Altball, by RE Andeen

“The thing was in the corner. It had come through the window and had slid down the wall. Scratch went the sound. The noise of a hundred nails clawing at the wood. Nails of white bone. Alex pulled the sheets up quickly, covering every inch of skin and hair in a warm darkness.” —Whose Nightmare, by Jamie Bonomi


 

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Coronation

Just because a story ends, readers don’t stop caring about what happens next. Sometimes they have to wait for another book to find out, but they usually just have to wonder. For Kiv and Tallas of Love and Magic, I had a more definite answer in mind, in the form of a story that takes place many years later. Here it is.

Love and Magic

Love and Magic - Click Image to CloseLove and Magic exists because I can’t follow directions.

Earlier this year, I came across Torquere Press, and they had a call out for stories for their Theory of Love anthology, which they released in April. I admired Robin Watergrove, one of the authors they published, and the theme of the anthology got me thinking. I had a few ideas, including a story about a captain of a Mars Emergency Response squad, but nothing really gelled.

Sometime later, I thought of a story about two battlemages on opposite sides of a civil war, and a story came together. It wasn’t really science fiction (but, hey, SF/F are usually lumped together, right?), and it was at the outer limit of the word count they were looking for, but I submitted it anyway.

I got a very nice rejection letter telling me the story would not work for the anthology, but that Torquere wanted to publish it as a standalone novelette.  It took me about thirty seconds to say yes.

With some great editing by Deelylah Mullin and a gorgeous cover by Kris Norris, it’s now out there for the world to read.

It’s available directly from Torquere, from Amazon for the Kindle, and from other ebook retailers.

Chemical Moments

I never expected to be a writer. I grew up studying science and math and went on to a career in software development. I got kicked out of honors English after the ninth grade, and I got a D in English 102 in college. Writing was definitely not my thing.

Then, about two years ago, I was reading amateur romance fiction on the internet. Most of it was not great, as is the case with any user-generated content site, but some of it was excellent. And while I was reading one particularly good story, I thought to myself, “Well, heck. I can do that.” So I did.

I pulled together a bunch of ideas in my head, from the wonderful play Stop! Kiss! by Diana Son to a brief, abandoned storyline in a web comic I used to read, and a moment took shape. It was a first kiss in the middle of an evergreen forest between a straight(?) woman and her lesbian best friend. That moment was the core of the story, and the rest grew around it, both the before and the after. The characters got names and families and histories and friends, and then those characters got the same, and so on.

The result was Evergreen Kiss. I published it on the site where I had been reading, and I got amazingly positive feedback. Internet comments may generally be a cesspool of hate, but the community there was nothing but supportive. I wrote another, and then another, and over two years, I amassed a collection of six full-length romance novellas, with a cast of characters that appear across the different stories. I also wrote four smaller pieces illustrating life outside the big romance, including one that ties all the characters together at the end.

I’ve published all ten stories as a collection called Chemical Moments, and it’s now available on Amazon.com. Happy reading.


Chemical Moments: Stories of Love, Art, Cooking, Chemistry, and Code


Chemical Moments: Stories of Love, Art, Cooking, Chemistry, and Code

by RE Andeen