"Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and birds that fly above the earth across the expanse of sky" in Sunday Morning Transport, Something else I've been writing
Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and birds that fly above the earth across the expanse of sky in Sunday Morning Transport
My story Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and birds that fly above the earth across the expanse of sky is live in Sunday Morning Transport. It’s about a happily married selkie and her complex feelings about the sea, Christianity, and a magical princess.
One of my persistent fascinations in fantasy is the lives of comparatively ordinary people. Of course, the protagonist of this story is not exactly ordinary— she is a seal who has decided to live as a human woman— but the life that she has chosen for herself is simple. Often, in the fantasy genre, such things only come at the end of long adventures. One of the nice things about short fiction is that it can be a space to tell stories about people who have plain and ordinary lives, without needing to add undue elaboration for plot purposes.
I am extremely grateful to Fran Wilde and Julian Yap for buying this weird, introspective story, for letting me keep the title (Genesis 1:20, fyi), and for being flexible with their word count restrictions.
The story is behind a paywall. If you’re not a subscriber to Sunday Morning Transport—which is excellent and I recommend it highly— you can use this link to get a free 60 day subscription.
For All The Love Within an Orange-Fruit, or, Two Stories With Happy Endings
Two or three years ago I made the decision to focus on book-length work (novels and novellas) which I don’t regret. But one of the things about transitioning to writing longer work is that I can spend years on a single project and then it may or may not ever see the light of day. Which is sad, because I do really love these stories and I want to share them with you!
Anyway, I just finished revisions on a novel that took me several years to write, and another year to revise, and I have decided that I should tell you all a little bit about it, because who knows how long it will take to see the light of day?
The novel is called For All The Love Within an Orange-Fruit, or, Two Stories With Happy Endings. It is a multi-generational fantasy epic about love, beauty, stories, religion, and how fantasies of perfect love can end up stifling or destroying real feelings and relationships. It shares a broad setting, but not a storyteller, with my Great Sweet Sea stories in Lightspeed Magazine.
Once upon a time, in a tiny mountain kingdom just to the north of the Enumerated Lands, there was a prince who was noble and beautiful and true. Everyone said that he was just like a prince out of a story. Because of this—and certainly not to spare themselves to expense of a royal dowry—his people gathered into parliament and decreed that he must marry a princess like out of a story, as beautiful as the sun or at the very least the moon.
Unwilling to oppose the edicts of his parliament, and accompanied by only a plain-faced shepherdess, the prince set out into the to find just such a bride. And thus begins a story that will carry them to enchanted isles and republican cities, to the courts of kings and Witch-Queens, to oliphants and lionesses and what remains of goddesses, fables and stories and prayers, and then, at last, to war and the cold truth of Reason Absolute.
It is, as the title suggests, split into two parts, each of which is roughly 50,000 words. In my opinion, it contains some of the best writing I’ve ever done, and some of my most likeable characters. Despite the title, I cannot promise that it has a happy ending. But that is the way of stories, I think. They are a strange bitter root that we take, not knowing whether it will heal or poison us.
The novel is on submission to editors right now. I hope that someday I will be able to share the rest of it with you.
Until next time
As before, I don’t know when my next newsletter will be, because I don’t have any publications in the pipeline right now. Might do one soon with some of the things I’ve been reading and enjoying lately. Regardless, thank you all for reading, and I hope to have something for you again soon.