Tag: Written Backwards

The names, the names!

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Other Writers, Writing

The names, the names! So many names.

Prepare yourselves.

The prodigious publisher, Written Backwards, will welcome Qualia Nous to print in the following month (released by early September). I am purely giddy to be a part of this anthology, sharing pages with writerlings I call my friends, as well as names I have admired from afar, and new authors to enjoy.

And it’s going to be huge. Not just because the Table of Contents is topped by Stephen King himself, but we look forward to a 454 page delight of science fiction / horror. I am so ready.

From the official announcement, here is the final line-up.

Michael Bailey with the introduction “0-1”
Stephen King, with a novelette titled “The Jaunt”
Usman T. Malik, with “The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family”
Gene O’Neill, with “The Shaking Man”
My own story, “Dyscrasia”
Emily B. Cataneo, with “The Rondelium Girl of Rue Marseilles”
Erik T. Johnson, with “The Angel Chaser”
Ian Shoebridge, with “Psychic Shock”
D.J. Cockburn, with “Peppermint Tea in Electronic Limbo”
John R. Little, with “Second Chance”
Jon Michael Kelley, with “The Effigies of Tamber Square”
Lori Michelle, with “Shades of Naught”
James Chambers, with “The Price of Faces”
Jason V Brock, with a novelette titled “Simulacrum”
Marge Simon, with the poem “Shutdown”
Peter Hagelslag, with a novelette titled “Lead Me To Multiplicity”
Christian A. Larsen, with “Cataldo’s Copy”
Max Booth III, with “The Neighborhood Has a Barbeque”
Marge Simon, with the second poem “Tomorrow’s Femme”
Richard Thomas, with “The Jenny Store”
Erinn L. Kemper, with “Night Guard”
William F. Nolan, with “A New Man”
John Everson, with “Voyeur”
Pat R. Steiner, with “Kilroy Wasn’t There”
Paul Anderson, with “In the Nothing-Space, I Am What You Made Me”
Lucy A. Snyder, with “Dura Mater”
Rena Mason, with “Ruminations”
Thomas F. Monteleone, with “Good and Faithful Servant”
Patrick Freivald, with “Twelve Kilos”
Mason Ian Bundschuh, with “Breathe You In Me”
Elizabeth Massie, with “18P37-C, After Andrea Was Arrested”
and Gary A. Braunbeck, with a novelle titled “No Fixed Address”

Wow. Yeah. Wow.

~A

Advertisement

Cross a name off the list

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Other Writers, Writing

Publisher Written Backwards has been responsible for some of my all-time favourite anthologies. Which makes me all the more amazed to be included in the next one…!

A short story happened one day, a strange little piece indeed. Inspired by reading about cutting edge medical breakthroughs in cancer treatment, at the same time as ancient Greek medical theories, and finding myself in a strange overlapping territory – “dyscrasia” being both the old Greek term of health imbalance, and now used in naming plasma cell cancer.

The music I happened to be listening to topped off the whole event. Somehow, I had a complete story on my hands, without being sure what to do with it.

I determined after sitting, reading, editing the whole thing that it was probably cyberpunk, a sub-genre of science fiction. And then I waited, and read, and re-read, still uncertain. What was this piece? What would I do with it? There was something very appealing in the story for me, but I don’t normally write sci-fi, and I spent a lot of time glaring at my computer screen. I edited a touch more here and there before throwing Dyscrasia at my beta readers. They got back to me, expressing opposite opinions. Add in another beta reader. Another day. Another reaction.

A new thought tickling at the back of my mind.

Editor Michael Bailey had mentioned his next anthology, Qualia Nous, was not entirely invite-only. The door might still be unlocked for those willing to knock. A great coming together of sci-fi and horror, guaranteed to be as epic as the previous Written Backwards anthologies, and here I figured, why not submit? I don’t know what else to do with Dyscrasia. Almost as if… I was passing the time. So submission goes off, I sleep, then head out for work, life goes on.

I get home again, see an email in my inbox.

It hasn’t even been 24 hours.

I’ve been formally accepted into Qualia Nous.

Dyscrasia is exactly what the editor was waiting for.

That weird cyberpunk story which bubbled up on its own accord, truthfully when I was procrastinating away from writing other novels, had landed me a place beside some amazing authors in one of the most exciting new markets out there. I can’t wait to hold a copy of Qualia Nous in my hands and see how this anthology has come together, with me, somehow, a part of it.

~A