Published again.

While I was away,  got published in an anthology. You can read more at: http://lapalma-island.com/2014/08/local-author-anthology-fairy-tales/ and buy a copy (ebook or paperback) at http://alfiedog.com/products-page/sheila-crosby/thrice-upon-a-time-fairytale-collection-47000-words-fairytale/

A Review of "The Seer's Stone"

Janice Clark is an American children's writer, author of "The Hall of Doors" series. She's written a very nice review of "The Seer's Stone" on her blog, Tea With the Black Dragon.

I'm extra chuffed, because I really enjoy her books too.

Returning my Sister's Face

My friend and talented fellow writer, Eugie Foster has a launch party today on Facebook and LiveJournal for her collection of short stories, "Returning my Sister's Face." She's part Chinese, and her stories are often set in the orient. More importantly, they tend to hang around in your subconscious long after you put the book down, which is probably why they've been into Greek, Hungarian, Polish, and French. She hasn't won any major awards yet, but it's only a matter of time. She's already been nominated for the British Fantasy, Bram Stoker, Southeastern Science Fiction, Parsec, and Pushcart Awards. Definitely a name to watch.

The Sock Drawer

Just belatedly realised that my story's up at Reflection's Edge. I thought I'd missed the deadline and was going in next month.

It's a free e-zine, so head on over and enjoy.

The Mummy's Curse

Flash Fiction Online want to buy my Feghoot, "The Mummy's Curse" for the April 2009 issue. It's a long wait, but a great market, so I'm chuffed.

What's a Feghoot? It's a very short story ending in a groan-worthy pun. I've got three on my website: "Caught in the Oort", "Oh Baby!" and "Conan the Librarian"

The editor of Flash Fiction Online described "The Mummy's Curse" as "pretty funny, in a painful may-I-please-poke-my-eyeballs-out sort of way".

You have been warned. Proceed at your own risk.

The drive belt on the washing machine broke on Saturday lunchtime, just after the shops shut for the weekend. This left me with a load of washing to rinse by hand, which was rather a pain.

Yesterday was nice.

The clocks went back on Saturday night, but I just slept later and missed an hour of day rather than an hour of sleep.

After a solid month of writing only non-fiction, I decided to treat myself. I absolutely didn't have time, but I wrote some fluff about a secret agent doing James Bond-type stuff, only he's a hamster. Deathless art it ain't, but it was fun to write. And I felt much better afterwards: something like having your first shower for three days. I need fiction to stay sane.

Or what approximately passes for sane.

But this morning the hour change really hit me. Lucky me, I could go back to bed. And now I'm catching up on little jobs, plus one not-so-little one. I really must write the promised review of "Interspex".

GUD magazine

I got a freebie from GUD magazine. GUD stands for Greatest Uncommon Denominator, "a print/pdf magazine with two hundred pages of literary and genre fiction, poetry, art, and articles".

I love freebies - don't we all.

In this case the freebie was a story, "Baby Edward", and it was weird.

I like weird. The baby is kipt locked up in a VW Bus in the yard, but he's growing - and carnivorous. And the narrator's girlfriend wants a picnic in the yard, near the bus. Of course she doesn't know about Edward. How do you start to explain a thing like that to your girlfriend?

This sounds odd, but it's hard to say whether I enjoyed the story. Certainly I never got the urge to get out an editing pen - you wouldn't expect that at GUD anyway. I didn't have any strong feelings about it either way. Only I can't forget it.

I suppose that makes it good.

Rainbows

It's been raining a lot lately.

Yesterday the Classroom assistants had a meeting in Santa Cruz, so I decided to do my errands in town and see my old collegues when they broke for coffee.

In spite of the Canaries's reputation for endless sunshine, it poured. The first thing I bought was an umbrella. Then I had breakfast and went to the bank. I met Helen, who was also in town since Theresa was at the meeting, and we did some paperwork for her bank account and driving license.

It was still raining, and you can only drink so much coffee in bars, so we squelched up the hill to see my friend Ana, whom I'd been neglecting, and then squlched right across the top end of town to the bar near the teacher's centre.

We timed it just right, and I had a happy fifteen minutes catching up with old friends, plus collecting Theresa's signature for yet more paperwork.

At that point, Helen agreed with me that it didn't really make sense for her to stay soggily in town, so she came back with me (via the gestoría and post office, just in time to tidy up the kitchen (bless her) while I fetched my son from school. By the time I got back, Theresa was there too, and we all had lunch.

Today the rain is easing off, and I caught this shot of a rainbow over the ridge int he centre of the island.

Oh, and the novel's at 69,800 words.

The Inferior

I just finished reading "The Inferior" by Peadar Ó Guilín.



I loved it.

This is Peadar's first novel, but I've admired his short stories for a long time. They stick in my memory them for years.

Although the novel's SF, it begins like standard fantasy dystopia, with the protagonist, Stopmouth running for his life, chased by intelligent animals who want to eat him. Then he turns back to help his brother, who escapes, leaving Stopmouth in mortal danger. When Stopmouth finally makes it home, he finds that his brother has grabbed all the credit.

Ó Guilín keeps up this pace all the way, with the surpises jumping out at you like marauding Bloodskins.

Stopmouth is my kind of hero. He doesn't think he's special - just the reverse - because he has a stutter and a charismatic older brother. But he's not stupid, and he has one plausible talent - he runs fast. He has to win through by his own efforts, so I cared. The other main characters are distinct and plausible too, from the brutal Crunchfist to the enigmatic Varaha.

It turns out that in Stopmouth's world there is no plant food. Apart from the insects, there are many intelligent species, and everything hunts everything else for survival. At this point I started thinking, "Hang, on, this ecosystem doesn't work," but this is indeed SF, and Stopmouth's world isn't what he (and we) thought at all. The truth is much nastier than that.

My only real problem with this novel is that it's the first of a trilogy, and I'm going to have to wait far too long for the next installment. No wonder it's coming out in eight (count 'em!) languages.

Making some Noise

Last night I went to the inaugaral party for the island's new cultural magazine, Ruido. My husband had hoped to go, but we couldn't get a babysitter so he stayed home.

I had a good time. There was the inevitable speech to begin with, about the magazine, its aims and the contents of the first issue. I wasn't mentioned, so I assumed I'd been bumped into issue two. Fair enough - they probably have enough egos to deal with. Then someone read some of the contents, and to my surprise, this included my micro fiction, "Dream On" (Sigue Soñando), so I'm in after all. I don't get paid, but I got paid when the English version was published in Chat. It'll be the first time I've been published in Spanish, and it's the first time I've done my own translation. Best of all, people laughed aloud at the end, which felt GREAT!

Then we had music from a funk group. At the interval there was free beer (Thank you Dorada) and exhibitions to look at. I briefly helped out at the desk collecting signatures on a petition for a concert hall. There isn't a single one on an island of 80,000 inhabitants. Can you believe it?

After the interval, we were supposed to see a documentary about local groups, but that was cancelled due to a technical hitch. On the other hand, the best jazz group on the island played for longer than planned to compensate, so we were all happy.

I'm also pleased to say that the concert raised enough money to pay for printing Issue 1. It's early days, but I think this baby is going to survive. And like any baby, who knows what the future holds?