Hello friends and readers,
Last week we talked about Firefly, and I do mean we talked. I've rarely received so many responses to an email. Love it. Thanks! (I am still trying to catch up!)
This week is a little more about what brought that subject up. A very talented and successful writer I met at the Smarter Artists Summit in Austin, Texas last spring queried me about a collaborative series he has been wanting to start but got too busy to move forward. Part of that conversation was that it had a Firefly feel to it.
Over the last several months I've been asked to do a lot of short story anthologies. At first, I'm like, "No problem! I can bang out a short story a lot faster than a novel."
One invitation becomes two; two becomes four; then there is an avalanche of great new projects complete with deadlines! The invitations are very flattering and I am not sure how I went from submitting manuscripts that get rejected to being invited to more than I can do. I hope the truth is that I can write a good story and turn it in on time.
EXPLORATIONS: WAR
One of these word parties is the third book in the Explorations anthology series: Explorations: War. I submitted The Hand of Empyrean, which is one of the best shorts stories I've written for a while. Think space opera meets action adventure. The protagonist is an assassin named Pyr who has made a deal with ... well let’s just say a really bad, nearly god-like power, and it is coming back to bite her. Thinking she is the last of her race, she finds a young girl named Eva and her father – who she needs to manipulate and / kill in order to complete her mission. The choice she makes has long term consequences (and I think sets me up for future stand alone stories or novels with her as the protagonist.). Please check it out and give the anthology some love. There are a bunch of talented writers in this one (and many of them write significantly "harder" science fiction than I do if that your thing. They're a lot smarter than I am.)
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