Category Archives: My Short Stories

Posts about my published short fiction and any works underway.

What did I actually publish this year?

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imageAs the year wraps up, we tend to start counting our various accomplishments. I’ve got a Books Read list coming your way soon, but in the meantime, here’s all the new Alyx fiction that saw release in 2014.

Naturally, my big publication news this year was the release of Child of a Hidden Sea, the first book in the Hidden Sea Tales trilogy about Sophie Hansa, her brother Bramwell, and the delectable Captain Garland Parrish of the sailing vessel Nightjar. The sequel, Daughter of No Nation, will be out in November of 2015.

I also had three short stories… well, novelettes, actually, published this year:

Short Fiction:
“Snow Angels,” Fractured: Tales of the Canadian Post-Apocalypse, edited by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, September, 2014.

“The Color of Paradox,” TOR.COM, June 2014.

“The Ugly Woman of Castello di Putti,” TOR.COM, March 2014. This story is one of two Child of a Hidden Sea prequels currently in print.

Color of Paradox review, plus cinemancy

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imageThere’s a nice, short review here at Exploring Worlds for my story “The Color of Paradox,” which is a time travel story set in 1920s Seattle. You can read the story for free at Tor.com.

Meanwhile I’ve been previewing – having a look at what might be in the theaters during the holiday season, trying to figure out if there are any upcoming film releases that won’t give Kelly and me hives and a bad case of cineloathing (that special feeling of self-hatred you get after sitting through a terrible movie, especially if you kinda suspected it’d be bad). To that end I’ve watched previews for A Most Violent Year and Unbroken. Both looked tedious, unpleasant and predictable. Into the Woods might be a possibility if someone we trust tells us it’s not too bad. I’m interested in the U.S. Civil Rights movement, so Selma‘s a possibility for me. Big Eyes sounds interesting, but  Tim Burton has made soooooooo many disappointing films.

Mr. Turner looks great, though, and I may see Rosewater with my sister. Maybe Two Days, One Night?

What have you seen lately that was worth the time?

Fracture Launch Tuesday Night

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imageTomorrow evening there will be a dual launch for two Exile Editions anthologies: Dead North: Canadian Zombie Fiction, and Fractured: Tales of the Canadian Post-Apocalypse, both edited by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. The latter features my story “Snow Angels,” and I’ll be reading a snippet of it there. Other readers for the evening include: David Huebert, John Jantunen, Michael Matheson, Christine Ottoni, Tessa Brown and Frank Westcott.

This will be my third reading this week. I was at Inspire! courtesy of SFWA, on Friday and on Sunday I participated in the SFContario reading series, Hydra’s Hearth, with the gracious support of the Toronto Arts Council.

Child of a Hidden Sea has been getting a bit of press here and there: Kirkus mentioned it in conjunction with Inspire! . I had an interview in The Province with Peter Darbyshire http://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/11/12/catching-up-with-vancouver-er-toronto-writer-alyx-dellamonica/, and the delightful and excellent Nisi Shawl featured it in the Seattle Times, in an article about fictional adventuresses.

Hydra’s Hearth – Hear Your Fave Authors Read!

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ugly woman smallI am excited to announce that I am one of a number of local SF authors who will be appearing this weekend in the Hydra’s Hearth Reading Series, at the Ramada Plaza Hotel, 300 Jarvis Street. I’m closing out the series on Sunday, at 1:00 p.m.

These readings are long–an hour long, in fact. This means that for the first time in ages, you can hear me read a whole story instead of just a tantalizing beginning. The piece I’ve chosen is called “The Boy Who Would Not Be Enchanted.” It’s set on Stormwrack, the same world as Child of a Hidden Sea and “Among the Silvering Herd”; like the latter, it features Gale Feliachild, Garland Parrish of the sailing vessel Nightjar, along with the ship’s starry-eyed first mate, Tonio from Erinth. (Tonio’s first appearance is in “The Ugly Woman of Castello di Putti”“)

 

Though this reading series is tied into SFContario 5 and happening under its umbrella, by the grace of the Toronto Arts Council all readings are free and open to the public. So come, hear us! Here’s the whole schedule.
 
Fri 7 PM David Nickle
Fri 8 PM Douglas Smith
Fri 9 PM Derwin Mak
Sat 11 AM Madeline Ashby
Sat 12 PM Karl Schroeder
Sat 2 PM Hugh Spencer
Sat 3 PM Eric Choi
Sat 4 PM Robert J. Sawyer
Sat 5 PM Peter Watts
Sun 11 AM Michelle Sagara West
Sun 12 PM Lesley Livingstone
Sun 1 PM Me!

And if you’re wondering about my convention schedule and my Toronto Book Fair events, I’ll be posting those soon too.

What Are You Working On This Autumn?

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photo by Kelly Robson

photo by Kelly Robson

Today I am shaving 260 words from one of the squid stories*, so I can send it to a market with a firm 7.5K word limit. I can tell I’ve been through the story before. There’s not much to trim. It’s tempting to simply change the word count at the top of the page and assume they don’t really care about that extra half page or so.

But that would be errant smart-assery, not to mention unprofessional. Even if I weren’t generally rule-abiding, I know it makes me nuts when my students blithely ignore my guidelines. So–a sentence here, an adjective there. Nip, tuck, smooth.

Next weekend I am one of a bunch of Tor authors heading off to the New York Comicon, so I’ll continue working on these little bits and bobs for awhile yet. I’ll shoot a few stories off to market, push paper on a grant application, comb through the files looking for reprint opportunities, that kind of thing.

But this Saturday is my (so far) favorite Toronto event, Nuit Blanche Last year we made our way through the throngs to Nathan Phillips Square, and back, and saw many awesome things. Then we were home, in bed and exhausted, just as the party was properly starting.

Nuit Blanche Toronto 2013

This year we are practically at City Hall the minute we step out our front door. So I hope to see even more incredible sights and performances before thronging home to collapse at some ludicrous hour like ten.

How about all of you–what’s on the boards for October?

*Squid Stories
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“Five Good Things about Meghan Sheedy,” in Strange Horizons, and “The Town on Blighted Sea.” (The latter is also in The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fourth Annual Collection)
“The Sweet Spot,” in Lightspeed and Imaginarium 2013: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing.
“Time of the Snake,” in Fast Forward 1: Future Fiction from the Cutting Edge.