author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

At least one post per week: Check. I have not been uniformly On The Ball since last post, but this much I can do.

This week's post will be my "what I had published last year" roundup. It will be fairly short, because 2022 was not a great year for writing new things or submitting regularly. But there were some things published:

New poetry: "On the Limitations of Photographic Evidence in Fairyland," Eternal Haunted Summer, Summer Solstice 2022 (theme: Other-Than-Human Realms).

In fairy folklore, there's a story that turns up now and again involving a human who gets invited into Fairyland to perform some necessary function, and has to have magic ointment applied to their eyes in order that they might see true while they're there. Much later, after their return home, a fairy looks them up in their day-to-day and asks them, "Which eye is it you see me out of?" Turns out they did an imperfect job of removing the magic ointment, which means they've got a loose end to tidy up. Can't be having random humans going around able to see fairies clearly! So the human answers, "The left eye," and the fairy says "Cool, thanks," and immediately puts out the human's left eye. As opposed to dunking them in a handy ditch to just, y'know, wash the ointment out. Because fairies are cruel and capricious and, above all, dramatic.

Anyway, I wanted to play with that trope, such that the "eye" that had to be put out was the photographer's camera (the photographer's services having been engaged for an important fairy wedding). The fairy would smash the camera, and maybe even blind the photographer (see above: cruel and capricious), but of course the photographer still has the negatives, which they would pass down to future generations along with the story of the photographer's adventures.

One day I will actually write that poem. Or story. It could be a story. In any case, it wasn't what I wrote in time for this submission deadline. I wrote this other thing instead.

Reprint poem: "Reasonable Accommodations," The Future Fire issue 2022.62

My poor little corporate weredeer first appeared in Departure Mirror Quarterly Issue 2 (Winter 2021). You can still download that issue, but you'll have to do it from the Internet Archive "Wayback Machine," because the publication sadly had to close its doors before Issue 4 came out. In which issue, incidentally, another poem of mine they'd solicited had been set to appear. Alas. That poem remains unpublished, and not for want of my sending it out. Maybe 2023 will be its year.

Reprint story: "Survival, After," Apex Magazine 2021 (or via Weightless Books)

Originally published and podcast by Apex Magazine in August 2021, this story was included, along with every other story they published in 2021, in the magazine's yearly anthology. I understand it's their biggest table of contents yet! There's lots of amazing stuff in there that quite frankly blows my little tale out of the water, so it's well worth the price. Yes, you could just go read all the stories for free on the website, but the print anthology, in addition to being extremely convenient in providing all the content in one handy codex (no need to click all over the place! Just turn the pages!), is a truly gorgeous artifact. It would look beautiful on your bookshelf or your coffee table.

Reprint story: "First Breath," penumbric speculative fiction mag vol vi issue 4 (December 2k22)

Originally published in Ellen Datlow's vampirism anthology Blood and Other Cravings (Tor Books, September 2011), this is my most reprinted work--less because of its classic staying power, I think, and more because it's the story I keep sending out in hopes of getting it reprinted. But this is its third outing (not counting its debut) so I guess editors like it. (Previous reprintings: Denver Horror Collective and the Tales to Terrify podcast.)

I'm saddened to discover the purchase pages for the original anthology are gone. But I suppose every anthology must go out of print sometime. You can still find copies via that online retailer named for a river in South America, because of course you can, but it's no longer available via Macmillan Publishing or Barnes & Noble that I can see. So instead I've linked the Publisher's Weekly write-up, which actually name-checks me (I was a "newcomer"! I arguably still am) so that's kinda cool.

I suppose that will be one of my 2023 goals: Get "First Breath" reprinted again.

Anyway, that's the 2022 Publications Roundup. As you run off to click the links and check them out, do check out the rest of the relevant issues (or the relevant year, in the case of Apex). There's some great stuff in those tables of contents, written by some enormously skilled wordsmiths, and you need to get your eyeballs on 'em STAT.

Until next week!

In these weeks since Departure Mirror Quarterly Issue 2 went live, they've been publishing a series of Author Spotlight features on their website, focusing on the contributors to that issue. Mine just went up today!

In it, among other things, I reveal a little of how "Reasonable Accommodations" came to be written. I tell probably the briefest version ever of my How I Fell In Love With Roller Derby story. I also give a shout-out to the two teachers who gave me an early education in how freelance writing and publishing works. I didn't name them in the Author Spotlight, probably because I was trying to be brief, but those two wonderful humans are Betsy Petersen and Chet Day. I gave them a shout-out also, nearly ten years ago, in the blog-up to the announcement of my very first pro sale. I really do owe them so much.

I had the pleasure of running into Ms. Petersen on campus, during Alumni Weekend, on the occasion of my high school class's 25-year reunion. (And here I'll pause to acknowledge how very, very lucky the class of 1994 was. If we had been the class of 1995, we couldn't have had our reunion--or worse, we'd have probably gone ahead with it anyway, and become another superspreader statistic.) We watched the high school play together, a performance of Mamma Mia! starring some of her current students, and I got to tell her during the intermission about my recent publications and successes. I felt like such a kid, so needy to show my teacher how I'd done good with what she taught me! I get like that a little around my first roller derby trainers too. Look how good I can skate backwards, y'all! Look how bravely I can do a turn-around toe-stop these days! And without falling down and smashing my face anymore!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy my Author Spotlight interview at Departure Mirror Quarterly. And if you haven't read Issue 2 yet, go download yourself a free ebook copy! Lots of great stuff in there.

It occurs to me that I entirely forgot to promote my blog in that interview. I did mention the Friday Fictionettes Project, and I'm going to mention it here too because finally all the December releases are out. (Jan 1 is out, too, and Jan 8 will probably go up Friday.) So it's time for a Friday Fictionette Round-up:

• December 4, 2020: "Hostage" (ebook, audio) In which extraterrestrial ex-boyfriends are the worst.
• December 11, 2020: "Always Make Sure to Put Your Toys Away" (ebook, audio) In which things don't always stay put in the place you left them.
• December 18, 2020: "Culture Clash" (ebook, audio) In which human social taboos are incomprehensible and also toxic to visitors.
• December 25, 2020: "Good Intentions" (ebook, audio) In which it is, once again, a thoroughly bad idea to try to change history. This is the Fictionette Freebie for December 2020!

My big idea to catch up to schedule is to try to release two fictionettes a week. This has not happened. I am still about four weeks behind. I can get one release completed over three or four days, but then I find it weirdly hard to get any writing done Friday through Sunday. I'll be getting my Sundays back, though, having written this past weekend my fifth and final contest entry story for Weekend Warrior (see previous). Maybe that'll help. Maybe I'll be smart and use the time I had been using for Weekend Warrior stories, for Friday Fictionette production. Maybe!

Tomorrow (assuming I get to blogging tomorrow) - I have thoughts on structure and time management! They aren't brilliant! Also I cooked a thing! Aren't you just in all the suspense? Stay tuned.

I've spent most of October running as fast as I could to stay only marginally behind, which is why blogging didn't happen. Blogging is kinda low priority. Except I really shouldn't let more time pass before announcing this:

"Reasonable Accommodations", my sonnet about a were-deer in corporate hell, will be included in the Winter 2021 issue of Departure Mirror Quarterly. Look for it in January!

Departure Mirror Quarterly is a brand-new magazine of speculative fiction and poetry. Its content is meant to reflect the belief that, in the words of editor Arthur Robert Tracy IV, science fiction and fantasy "is a genre that transports us out of our reality while giving us a medium to reflect on our reality and to consider what can and should change. It’s both a departure from and a mirror on reality. It's a Departure Mirror."

I am honored that they considered my poem a good fit with that philosophy.

The first issue, Fall 2020, is live and available in three ebook formats (PDF, EPUB, MOBI). You can download it for free from this page here. Its table of contents is sparkling with gems, some bittersweet, some uplifting, all well worth your time, eyeballs, and brain-space. And do spread the word! Even in the best of times, brand new publications live or die by word of mouth, and COVID-19 has put its thumb on the "die" side of pretty much every scale (except maybe for Zoom futures, if Zoom futures are a thing). So download yourself a copy and tell all your SF-loving friends to do the same!

Meanwhile, I see by the editor's blog that Dreams & Nightmares #116 (the issue that includes my poem "The Ascent of Inanna") has been printed and subscriber copies have hit the mail. If you are not a subscriber, you might consider becoming one. A six-issue subscription is $25 to North American addresses and $30 elsewhere, and a lifetime subscription is $90 wherever you are.

In other news, I am still two weeks behind on the Friday Fictionette schedule, so there will be no October round-up just yet. I will be scrambling to catch up for the foreseeable future. That notwithstanding, I do plan to participate in National Novel Writing Month, after my fashion; but more on that in another post. Good night!