Month: March 2016

Here’s our latest speculative fiction treat for authors and readers alike!

Our first Steampunk anthology, Holly and Ivy, was such a rousing success that we are putting together a summertime steampunk collection!

Write your tale of High Victorian highjinks with a summertime bent: how to beat the heat in the Raj; a very midsummer mystery- let your imagination and gears soar!

Stories must be between 3000-9000 words, sent in .odt or .doc format. Please include an author bio and links to your sites, so our readers can get to know you more!

Contest closes June 18, 2016.

Outermost Volume 1 Issue 5 is available on Scribd. Follow Outermost as it investigates the connection between humans and monsters.

William Norton grew up in Vancouver B.C. And has spent the past few years working in the oil industry north of Fort Saint John. He usually writes stories that are uniquely and specifically from his perspective, his characters often share his name. He writes when he has time but spends most of his time working and being filthy. His hobbies include sleeping to catch up with sleep when he’s not working. Based off the current trend he suspects he will soon have more time for writing and social media than in the past which would be great if he didn’t have truck payments.

Here’s an excerpt from Will’s most Irish of stories, about a young man in Boston in the 1950s who teams up with a canny leprechaun:

He watched me turn away from him. I walked crouched over, leaning against the line of houses. I had nicked something when I had stood up. Frothy pinkish blood dripped onto the cobbles from my mouth that gasped, never seeming to be able to capture enough air.

I heard his light footfalls behind me, “You still could have tried to capture me. It wouldn’t take more than a minute and it looks to me like you’re going to die.”

I rested while he approached me and regained my breath. I managed to speak again, “When I was a boy I dreamed of Ireland. I thought it was Ireland, but later on my Ma and my Da told me that all the trees in Ireland were gone now. Chopped down to grow potato crops so they’d get the blight and we’d all end up in Amerikay. That wasn’t where I dreamed of, the place I dreamed had trees. Beautiful trees of emerald green.”

I continued, I was dying now and I could see the pictures in front of me more clearly than the rows of housing and the cobbles of Boston, “There were ladies done up in miniature but with wings and flowers in their hair, there were the men who were taller than me and had eyes the color of the sea and fair hair and pointed ears, and there were the little people. Some of them like you, some of them less like you, but all belonging to that place and to that world. What’s the point in hanging on here another day if I have to make a slave out of one of those from that land. I’d rather die and go there, see my Da again, see the little ones who didn’t make it then be a slave master. I won’t try to catch you. Not even my own Ma’s life or the life of little Grace is worth that to me, that’s not the way I want to be.”

Will took the time to tell us a bit about his St. Patrick’s Day experiences:

1. What’s your most prominent memory of St. Patrick’s Day?

   Green beer. Someone said something and we got into a fight. Black out. Abstaining from alcohol for about a month as a favour to my liver. My girlfriend at the time was convinced that raw steak would fix black eyes and bruises but we only had hamburger so she covered me in that and I think I got e-coli or something. Maybe it was the DT’s. Whatever happened that I don’t remember, it was memorable.
   2. Name the part of Irish culture you are most happy to lay claim to and why- is it Guinness? Irish music? The Book of Kells? The Fighting Irish?

   I like hitting things and getting drunk. I also like kissing. I’m not sure how much Irish I have in me, I think I’m a complete North American mongrel but I’m willing to commit some cultural appropriation for the hitting and the drinking and the kissing.
   3. What are your thoughts on working with this sort of writing exercise, fueled by prompts? How did seeing the prompts of your fellow authors and chatting online together with them about the work affect your process?

I was working most of the time and didn’t get much time to talk. I had a lot of radio silence on my end when I was out of internet range. When I was in touch it was fun. The authors are cool people, there was no negative crap, no stupid games. Everyone was always posting these fun Irish memes and even a dancing parrot at one point. Fun was had.

Leanne Caine is one of the edgiest authors at StarkLight Press. For Shamrocks, Saints and Standing Stones, she was given the prompts of 2075, St. Patrick himself and ‘in space’. She has written us a truly chilling tale of how magic and technology can combine to wreak a pagan revenge. Here’s an excerpt:

The space he was in was small. He sat in a comfortable chair and he could touch the walls on either side of him by spreading his arms wide. The front of his floating crypt was even closer and it seemed the point of the chair he was in was for examining the stones. Behind him there was room to lie down if he moved the jumble of equipment that was completely mysterious to him.

He touched another button and he was pushed backwards against the soft seat, the stars moved more quickly outside. He pushed another and the ship started to turn, gently spinning in the great infinity of space that he found himself in. But how?

He remembered the ring of faces over him. They had tied him to one of their great stone alters. They had spoken their prayers, raising their hands above their heads, overlapping their palms. Then the King Ryan and come forth.

Leanne took some time to answer our interview questions below:

1. What’s your most prominent memory of St. Patrick’s Day?Drunk off my butt at a party at college wearing a sexy leprechaun outfit that was so short I had to wear little lycra green shorts to save some of my dignity. Obscurely at midnight we all did a countdown. I don’t know, I was that drunk, we got confused between new years and St. Patrick’s day.
   2. Name the part of Irish culture you are most happy to lay claim to and why- is it Guinness? Irish music? The Book of Kells? The Fighting Irish?

   I like the ‘Kiss Me, I’m Irish’ t-shirts. I like to wear them and then ‘forget’ that I’m wearing them and whallop anyone who tries to kiss me. Then I act like it was a big misunderstanding and laugh it off.
   3. What are your thoughts on working with this sort of writing exercise, fueled by prompts? How did seeing the prompts of your fellow authors and chatting online together with them about the work affect your process?

   I was happy with my prompt. I loved giving St. Patrick a rough time. I was the first one to post so I didn’t get a lot of time to chat or watch other people work off of their prompts but I enjoyed all the Irish memes that everyone posted. Everyone clearly had a ton of fun and it’s clear when you read these stories that we all had a blast.

Van Fleming is an author from Texas who is in the middle of a fascinating novel based on his short stories, Knights Loss and Mercenary’s Loss, published in our StarkLight Anthology series. His first novel is set for release in 2017; in the meantime, Van has taken some time out to write for Shamrocks, Saints and Standing Stones.

Van’s prompts were 1880s, old west saloon and lollipop :-0 He wrote a truly original tale based on these very evocative prompts!

Here’s an excerpt from Van’s story, Time Clover:

He dug into the meal with gusto having not eaten in 15 hours. He hated such quick mission turnarounds. They never gave him time to fully recover so that he was fit and ready to take on the next. As he devoured the food, he looked up to see the curtain on stage opening and a young woman wearing a tight green corset tinged in darker green and differing shades of green skirts flowing from her thin waist swayed onto stage. Her skin looked slightly tan and long black hair fell down her back. All eyes followed her slender yet shapely form as she moved across the stage to the center. On the belly of her corset, a four leaf clover had been sewn into the cloth, yet is merged into a pattern so that it wasn’t very noticeable to most. Darien only saw it because the pattern software picked it out and highlighted it as something that was not common to this era. Her legs were lightly tanned and showed off to great effect by the green playing around and behind them as her skirts swayed. From her calves down, her legs and feet were hugged by a pair of boots so dark a green they appeared black until hit by the light in the right way.

Van took some time to answer our interview questions:

1. What’s your most prominent memory of St. Patrick’s Day? 

   I really have never cared much for St Patties day except to ensure I wore green. No pinching here.
   2. Name the part of Irish culture you are most happy to lay claim to and why- is it Guinness? Irish music? The Book of Kells? The Fighting Irish? 

   My mother always claimed there was no greater temper than that of an Irishman bred indian woman. And believe me, that temper breeds true!
   3. What are your thoughts on working with this sort of writing exercise, fueled by prompts? How did seeing the prompts of your fellow authors and chatting online together with them about the work affect your process?

   We actually had quite a lengthy conversation on line with the prompt I was given. It turned quite hilarious and I almost went with it. But as I sat to my keyboard and words poured out, the story you see before you developed and the rest faded to a very memorable and somewhat hilarious conversation.

Kathrin Hutson adds a story to Shamrocks, Saints and Standing Stones based on her prompt of 1918, a ship and a mirror. With her usual flair, she has penned us a great tale!

Kathrin  has been writing fiction for fifteen years, editing for five, and plunging in and out of reality since she first became aware of the concept. Kathrin specializes in Dark Fantasy and Sci-fi, and the first novel in her Fantasy series, Daughter of the Drackan, was published in 2015 and is available on Amazon and in the Kindle store. The sequel, Mother of the Drackan, is due to be out Spring 2016.

Kathrin runs her own independent editing company, KLH CreateWorks, for Indie Authors of all genres. She also serves as Story Coordinator and Chief Editor for Collaborative Writing Challenge. Needless to say, she doesn’t have time to do anything she doesn’t enjoy.

www.kathrinhutsonfiction.com

www.facebook.com/kathrinhutsonfiction

www.klhcreateworks.com

www.facebook.com/klhcreateworks

Twitter: @KLHCreateWorks

The old woman grinned, showing maybe only four teeth amidst the black, gaping hole, and held out a crooked finger toward Nuala. “Ye heard me, lass. And I can help ye see him, I can. But I be needin’ something from ye in exchange.”

“I have hardly a thing to offer,” Nuala said, wondering now if this was some parlor trick meant to scam her out of her hard-earned wages—though the woman had known her Georgie’s name and seemed to read the inside of Nuala’s heart like a book.

“Even the poor have something useful,” the crone replied, wheezing for a few seconds when her words cut off in a fit of choking hacks. She shuffled a few steps closer, if that was even possible, and reached out a bony finger to tap Nuala three times in the hollow of her throat, right between her collarbones. “Ye have a bonnie voice, dearie, and I’d like to borrow it from ye for a while, if I may.”

The noxious stink of rotting cabbage overwhelmed Nuala’s senses for a minute, and she parted her lips only a little to breathe through her mouth. The woman seemed insane, but she wasn’t about to be rude. “How in the world could you borrow my voice?” she asked.

“Ye just have to say the word and accept my gifts.” The old woman brought her hands out from the folds of her putrid rags and held them up to Nuala. In one hand she held a brass hand-mirror, her other hand poised above it a few inches. “I promise ye it works.” She tapped a ragged fingernail on the glass of the mirror three times, and a muted flash of light reflected off the mirror’s surface.

1. What’s your most prominent memory of St. Patrick’s Day? 

I always remember elementary school during St. Patrick’s Day. I spent grades 1-7 in a Catholic school, where we went to church every morning and had to wear uniforms every day—the whole shebang. So holidays like St. Patrick’s Day were pretty awesome just for the fact that we got to wear anything other than our boring navy and khaki uniform, as long as it was green. So everybody took advantage of that.

I also thought for the longest time that the basement of our tiny little catholic school was haunted by leprechauns every March. My friends and I would find those gold-wrapped chocolate coins in the strangest places in the basement, where we’d get to hang out after Girl Scouts or when we stayed after school in daycare.

2. Name the part of Irish culture you are most happy to lay claim to and why- is it Guinness? Irish music? The Book of Kells? The Fighting Irish?

I’m not sure there’s any part of Irish culture I can ‘lay claim to’, other than the fact that it’s in my blood. My family names on my mom’s side are Dougherty and Kuebel…there’s a lot of Irish there. I got the red hair, glowing white skin, and freckles—plus a little bit of the Celtic mysticism, I think. My second tattoo (out of the gobs I now have) is an entirely green rendition of the symbol or Cerridwen, the Celtic goddess of creativity and inspiration. She’s also known as a pretty tricky, powerful witch-woman, which is a little ironic, both for my own personality and for the characters I’ve written into this anthology story, Nuala’s Mirror.

 
3. What are your thoughts on working with this sort of writing exercise, fueled by prompts? How did seeing the prompts of your fellow authors and chatting online together with them about the work affect your process?

I love getting prompts like this. It’s a lot easier for me to work with prompts that have extreme specifics—mine were 1918, magic mirror, and a ship. That’s it. The possibilities are endless on that one, but it’s narrowed down a little bit because I have to incorporate all these things. It’s a lot better than getting a prompt with a super generalized theme. I think that lacks the larger spark of inspiration and how to ‘work around’ said prompt.

It was incredibly fun to watch all the other authors in this anthology discussing what they were thinking about their stories and their own prompts, about how the stories took on completely different personalities and lives of their own. I know I wasn’t the only author who ended up with a story completely different than what I’d originally planned. I’m a firm believer in a ‘writing community’. Yes, most of us write complete pieces on our own, and writing itself can be very isolated. But the simple exposure to other writers who like to discuss their work—their difficulties and successes—is a huge tool for my own motivation and inspiration with my own work.

Jennifer Spaulding is an author, mother, scientist, and scholar. She has penned four books of poetry, numerous short stories, and she is currently writing articles for Outermost: A Journal of the Paranormal. She is also currently busy with several top-secret collaborations for StarkLight Press and other publishing houses. Look for her poetry on Amazon under J.L. Estes. Her poem “Shattered” was selected to be in the 2012 International Who’s Who in Poetry. Jennifer was also a participant of the 2014 Poetry Marathon. Her poems are featured in In My Mind’s Eye along with many other internationally diverse poets.

For Shamrocks, Saints and Standing Stones, Jenn had the prompts of selkie, 1990s, Britain. Here’s an excerpt from her story:

A week had passed since her strange encounter with the nameless man, and Eilidh had convinced herself she had made it up. That it had never happened. Eilidh was in the bath and was sipping her tea. She suddenly remembered that tomorrow was Saint Patrick’s Day, not like it made a difference anyway. Every day was the same on Sanday and it wasn’t like she was going to take a ferry to Kirkwall for the annual celebration. That’s something that she did with her parents and she couldn’t imagine making the journey alone. She decided to spend the day at the bluffs where, it is said her mother jumped. Whenever she went there she felt close to her parents again.

St. Patrick’s Day brought a bright sunshiny morning. The air shot in by the Gulf Stream was unusually warm and had burned off the fog that usually covered Sanday. Eilidh hurried through her daily chores so she could enjoy the beautiful day. She packed a basket full with a jar of moonshine, homemade goat cheese, saltines, grapes, smoked sausage, a notebook, and a blanket. At the last minute she remembered to grab her cloak, knowing that one could experience all four seasons in one day in Sanday. At any time the heavens could open up and a thick sea-haar would roll in.

Eilidh sat on her blanket in the grassy knoll that lay near the cliff. The wind blew a few tendrils of hair loose from the coiffed bun at the base of her neck tickling her nose, causing her to sneeze. As she recovered and her eyes cleared she spotted a figure crouched behind a rock below her, three hundred yards away. Whoever was there didn’t want to be seen, that much was clear. She decided to investigate, heck she might even make a new friend. She carefully made her way down to the beach and clung to the rock wall behind her to avoid being seen. As she neared the rock she could see that a huge seal had come up onto the beach. She walked slowly over to the creature and realized it had seen her. It was watching her intensely as she got closer, then it quickly skittered back into the sea. How odd that seal looked at me like he recognized me, she thought.

Jenn answered our interview questions as well- here are her answers:

1. What’s your most prominent memory of St. Patrick’s Day?

Syracuse, New York has a rich Irish heritage. Every year the St. Patrick’s Day celebration kicks off the last Sunday in February at Coleman’s Authentic Irish Pub on Tipperary Hill where the traffic light is green over red and Coleman’s tanker truck rolls in with 10,000 gallons of green beer. Dubbed ‘Green Beer Sunday’ fifty-two years ago when it first began because Mr. Coleman had too much business on St. Patrick’s Day to celebrate. Hence, Green Beer Sunday was born.

Green Beer Sunday is only a prelude to the St. Patrick’s Day fun in Syracuse. On the second Saturday in March for the past thirty-three years the St. Patrick’s Day Parade begins at noon on Salina Street. On Friday a green stripe replaces the normal yellow stripe down the road. It even has been named one of the top ten St. Patrick’s Day Parades in the United States. My most memorable time occurred on the St. Patrick’s Day Parade of 2012. To get a good viewing spot of the parade and a free parking spot requires you to arrive at 8 am so needless to say it is a long day. I went with my fiancé Todd, our children, our friends Jessica, Chris, and their daughters Lilly and Michelle. We were all dressed in our green t-shirts with shamrocks and had all our St. Paddy’s Day shenanigans on hand. Since we got there early we had a spot right by the road behind the barricades. Everyone is walking around with green beer, smoking cigarettes, and generally having a good time. Well not everyone. My friends and fiancé were smoking a cigarette, I was watching the kids while they waited for the parade to get underway and apparently a woman with a baby came up to stand behind them. I still do not understand till this day why you would go stand behind someone that was smoking a cigarette if you were holding a baby. Suddenly this woman’s friend started screaming in my fiancé’s and friend’s faces. My friend Jess came over to watch the kids, before she got to me this woman dove through the crowd and spit in my face! Meanwhile I had three little girls sitting below me on the curb. I was powerless to act upon my anger, even though I was madder than a cornered raccoon and could do nothing to appease the irate God that they had awoken in me. Luckily Lady Karma had my back. Not only did the woman spit on me, but she spat on a woman that was behind me as well. Instead of a war erupting in front of the children, the group continued bickering as they moved down the block and out of my view.

The rest of the day went on without a hitch. I even got a nice emerald green scarf woven with silk made in Ireland! It turned out to be one of the most memorable days of my life.

2. Name the part of Irish Culture you are most happy to lay claim to? Why?

The Irish Culture that I am most happy to lay claim to is the Irish’s fighting spirit. I think that the Irish blood boils in my veins and is the reason I do not ever give up. When I fall down I get right back up and brush the dirt from my shoulders. I am very grateful and thankful for my Irish Heritage. I have often contemplated changing my last name permanently to my maternal grandmother’s maiden name which is Meagher. It is pronounced as Mahar and if I lived in Ireland it would be O Meachair. It is of Gaelic origin and means ‘hospitable’. Those who have this surname live in Laois, Kilkenny, and Tipperary.

3. What are your thoughts on working with this sort of exercise, fueled by prompts? How did seeing the prompts of your fellow authors and chatting online together with them about the work affect your process?

I love when I have writing projects that are fueled by prompts. It sparks a creative energy within me and my imagination just runs wild. Take for example this anthology our publisher Virginia Carraway Stark gathered a group of awesome writers, put years, an Irish symbol; such as a leprechaun, and places into a hat. She drew each author’s name and then drew each of us a relic, year, and place. I was lucky and got Britain, Selkie, and the 90s. Britain is huge so I had a plethora of places to choose from. I really enjoyed writing this story. I also proved some things to myself and overcame a few obstacles. Thank you to Tony and Virginia Stark for creating this platform for authors to explore, expand, and share their work. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing some of the other author’s prompts and got quite a kick out of all of the ideas that were thrown around. This has been a marvelously, delightful adventure. I look forward to many more.