Tuesday Toot is a semi-regular feature here at The Word. An invite-only series of short posts where writers, editors, booksellers and other creatives have been asked to share their stuff and toot their own horn. It’s hard to be seen in the digital morass and hopefully this occasional segment will help some of the quality stuff out there get noticed. It should all be things that readers of The Word will find edifying.
Today, it’s Angela Slatter:
Who is Angela?
Some (okay, many) will say I’m a force for chaotic evil or chaotic good. It all depends on the day. I like to think of myself as a writer of speculative fiction (with two collections under my belt thus far), mostly on the side of dark fantasy and horror … with occasional patches of über-light science fiction (an ‘I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-butter’ kind of science fiction). My short fiction has appeared in venues such as Dreaming Again, Steampunk Reloaded, A Book of Horrors, Strange Tales II & III, 2012, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet and Shimmer, and has had Honorable Mentions in the Datlow, Link, Grant Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror anthologies.
I’m a graduate of Tin House 2006 and Clarion South 2009. I’ve been shortlisted for Aurealis Awards and Australian Shadows Awards. In 2011 my collection The Girl with No Hands & Other Tales (Ticonderoga Publications) won the Aurealis Award for Best Collection, and the story Lisa Hannett and I co-authored, “The February Dragon” (from Ticonderoga’s Scary Kisses anthology), won the Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Short Story. My other collection, Sourdough & Other Stories (Tartarus Press), was shortlisted for a World Fantasy Award for Best Collection in 2011.
I blog here www.angelaslatter.com about shiny things that catch my eye.
What are you tooting about?
Well, I guess the reprinting of my collection Sourdough & Other Stories by Tartarus Press. They originally did a limited edition hard cover version in 2010 – a gorgeous book with amazing cover art by Stephen J Clark. When that sold out, Ray asked if I was interested in having a paperback reprint. The cool, professional author response was ‘Oh, yes’. The author response one does at home alone is to Snoopy Dance in one’s underpants, throwing in a few jetés and pliés for good measure. No, really, it’s an essential part of appeasing the Gods of Writing (also known as Fear, Famine and Fuck-you).
The book is a mosaic of grown-up fairy tales, with links between them so that the work can be viewed as more than just a series of unrelated stories. It’s not a linear book and time shifts around in it (bit like a malfunctioning vortex manipulator), but I think it’s a book of surprises and I’m very proud of it. The lovely Robert Shearman wrote the Introduction and the equally lovely Jeff VanderMeer wrote the Afterword, which is like a total bonus!
Don’t read it to children though, the therapy bills will be through the roof.
What’s in store for Angela:
Well, first and foremost there’s Midnight and Moonshine, co-authored with Lisa Hannett, which is, depending on your point of view, either a collection of interlinked short stories or a mosaic novel. M & M will be published in November 2012 under the aegis of Ticonderoga Publications. The blurb reads:
Midnight and Moonshine traces the origins of the icy and dangerous Fae and explores their interactions over the centuries with the Laveaux and Beaufort families. Driven from their realm, the Fae come to America with Viking raiders in the 10th century; when the Vikings discover the nature of their stowaways, they desert them in the new land. Left to their own devices the Fae worm their way through history, largely keeping apart from humanity, but occasionally making connections that come to have long-term effects in America’s alternative Deep South.
This year there’s also: “Winter Children”, which will be appearing in PS Publishing’s Postscripts anthology; “Sun Falls” (originally in Ticonderoga’s Dead Red Heart) will be reprinted in Prime’s Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror; and “Prohibition Blues” (part of the Midnight and Moonshine suite), will make a cameo in Ticonderoga’s Damnation and Dames. In 2013, “Cuckoo” will appear in the Dark Prints Press anthology, A Killer Among Demons. In 2014, Simon Marshall-Jones’s Spectral Press will publish “Hearth and Home” as part of its chapbook series.
I’m also working a follow-up collection to Sourdough and Other Stories, called The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings, and a novel, Brisneyland by Night (with a sequel, Vigil).
You can get a copy of Sourdough and Other Stories here: http://www.tartaruspress.com/sourdough.htm, and a copy of The Girl with No Hands & Other Tales at www.indiebooksonline.com (or Book Depository, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online retailers).
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Seriously, talk about prolific. Just reading that makes me feel inadequate. Regular readers will know something of Angela and her work from previous posts here. I reviewed Sourdough & Other Stories here and I’m very proud to have one of the limited edition hardcovers. But seriously, beautiful an artefact the book may be, but absolutely essential are the stories within. Go get your paperback copy of this book now – you won’t regret it. Easily one of the best things I read that year. – Alan
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So glad to see Brisneyland still on the anvil! And indeedy, great that Sourdough is available once more.
Angela is so beautiful