Tag Archives: poetry

My Award Eligible publications for 2017

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2017 is almost over. These past twelve months were filled with landmarks for my writing career: My first professional publication, getting two pro sales under my belt for SFWA qualification, a Rhysling nomination for my poetry, my first ever pro sale being on the Nebula Suggested Reading List…
…and without further ado, dear readers/followers, the obligatory Awards Eligible List of my works for 2017…!

  1. “Through Dreams She Moves”, longlisted for the 2015 Carter V Cooper (Vanderbilt)/Exile $15,000 Short Fiction Competition; appearing in the UnCommon Minds anthology, January 2017
  2. “Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig”, “Mondays Are Murder” Series, Akashic Books, Feb 6th, 2017
  3. “A Question Of Faith“, BookSmugglers, July 11th, 2017.
    (On the The Nebula Awards Suggested Reading List)
  4. “To Have And To Hold” (flash fiction),  Polar Borealis Magazine,  July/August 2017
  5.  “Strange Ink” (poem), Polar Borealis Magazine, July/August 2017
  6. “Let Me In” (poem), “ALLIGATORS IN THE SEWERS” Unnerving Magazine chapbook

My short story and poems, for your consideration, for the 2017 Aurora and Rhysling Awards

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My short story’s called “Shoe Man”, is unanimously (if I may say so myself) loved, short and sweet, and can be read online here over at the July issue of Expanded Horizons.

“Contemplation” was originally published in the Cascadia Subduction Zone in July of 2016:-

One African night,

Worn of living, tired of not dying,

feeling deep within my heart

the absolute certainty I did not fit

into the grand scheme,

I raised my face skyward,

regarded the black-skinned sky,

the black-skinned universe,

black-skinned me,

and dug myself an early  grave.

She laughed at me, her lips luscious

red as blood,

red as the blood we drank,

red as the blood we need,

…She laughed at me then

And told me all I would find if I buried myself

was that Mother Earth had not abandoned me,

Undead child of the moon that I was.

In the grave, I turned my face

from sky, from moon, from her,

to the earth,

and waited on eternity

for the answer.

Meanwhile, as human civilization went on and on,

Trees’ roots embraced me, surrounding my arms, legs,

rich loam attached to my eyelashes.

Peace whispered secrets, leaching, into my bones,

filling my emptiness, and I knew

this was the answer.

At length I rose with the African moon, empowered

with what I was – a creature of the Earth like any other.

She was nowhere to be found, but black-skinned men

pounded spikes, hammered tracks

intended to cross the continent, they told me

everything controlled by pale-skinned men, who miser’d knowledge

and had guns.

One approached me, deferring to me, elder to eldest.

I lifted my head to the black-skinned sky,

the black-skinned universe, child of the moon that I was,

a new purpose bestowed,

and set out to give oppressors terror, and to men, freedom.

 

The Architect of Bonfires was originally published in 2016 in Space and Time Magazine, Issue #127 (also nominated for a Rhysling Award):-

The Architect of Bonfires

Weaves magic to and fro

He knows the art of fire

Makes one for cooking just so.

The Architect of Bonfires

Is a “witch doctor”, a Wise Man

And sees the same potential

In a scared, approaching woman…

The Architect of Bonfires

Divines her tale without being told

He comforts her with soup –

A remedy of old

He admires her midnight skin

Putting his darkness to shame

Marvels at her stark white hair

He knows exactly what’s her fear –

The chaos, the destruction that ensues

When she creates fire out of thin air

She comes now requesting aid

And aid he will gladly give

Yet she will return for magical skills

Not just to survive but to thrive, live

Suspense, danger,

coming to terms with her magic,

personal tests – all that lies in her future

– but for now, some hearty soup will suit her

Just fine

From the Architect of Bonfires

My award eligible work for 2016

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These are the things I’ve had published this year.

Fiction:-

“Shoe Man”, July 2016 issue, Expanded Horizons

Nonfiction:-

“The Sweater”, The Malahat Review, issue #193, “Elusive Boundaries: Mapping Creative Nonfiction in Canada.”

Microfiction:-

@7×20 Magazine:- “White Tail”,  “Bible-Black Joe”, “Contemplation”,  “Surprise Visitor”, “The Meat Puppet Strings”, “Escape” parts one, two, three

“Still Life”,  Grievous Angel (Urban Fantasist),  July 17th 2016

Poetry:-

“Contemplation”, July 2016 Cascadia Subduction Zone

“The Architect of Bonfires”, Winter 2017, Space and Time Magazine

Well, whadaya know…

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… Where was it I heard a good way to get a story out of your mind

(so as to come at it with fresh eyes, editing, self- critiquing and all that)

… was to work on something else?

Tobias Buckell, maybe, talking on how he works…?

Eh.

Gaming doesn’t… really do it for me. I can still feel it… percolating in the back there… while the game’s sensory info fills up my eyeballs and ears.

In my attempt to get this novelette out of mind, I inadvertently finished a poem I had spontaneously started.

It’s also my first ever speculative fiction poem:- titled, “The Architect of Bonfires”

Up until now, my poems have been literary.

And strangely enough, I saw a Red Pyro named that while playing on the second stage of Dustbowl map on Team Fortress 2.

What a place to get inspiration for a bit of (non-gaming) poetry, eh?

Well, here’s hoping I find it a home…