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[cover art by Natalia Pierandrei]

“Particular Friends” has gone live at Red Penny Papers, offered in bite-sized chunks for greater online readability and suspense.  From Episode 1:

And so I–who loved my mother more at the age of six than any boy the age of seven or eight or ten would ever own to–I nodded, and dried my child-tears on the hem of her dress (widow-black bombazine providing not quite so much drying as one might wish), held my child-chin aloft, and waited for her smile and her kiss.

Oh, how I loved her! And when she left me on the steps of St. Barnaby’s Academy for Younger Gentlemen that day ten years ago in Londinium, I would not have let her go had I known I should never see her again . . . .

Art!  Adventure!  Gender-flip Victoriana!  Yay!

Full link: http://redpennypapers.com/2010/10/29/particular-friends-by-camille-alexa-episode-1/

The publishers are hoping to make Tuesday October 26 a big day for Machine of Death,  which includes my short story “Flaming Marshmallow and Other Deaths.”

From the MoD site:
This was Camille Alexa‘s first published story. She has since gone on to an illustrious writing career; her short story collection Push of the Sky (which includes her MOD story) is a finalist for the Endeavour Award, given annually to Pacific Northwest authors of science fiction & fantasy.

Since this (gorgeous!) anthology was years in the making, I’d argue the story–the first I ever wrote and submitted for publication–can’t quite claim the title of first published.  But there’s no doubt it would never have been written if not for this project.

• buy Machine of Death
• listen to Flaming Marshmallow & Other Deaths  at Escape Pod
• check out Shannon Wheeler, illustrator of “Flaming Marshmallow” in MoD and of Too Much Coffee Man

table of contents:

• Introduction, Tiffany Trent
• Introduction: Phyllis Irene Radford
• “In England in the Fifties,” Ursula K. Le Guin
• “A Little Song, A Little Dance,” David D. Levine and Andrine de la Rocha
• “A Modest Proposal for the Perfection of Nature,” Vonda N. McIntyre
• “Site 14,” Laura Anne Gilman
• “The House That We Built, ” David  Gessner
• “Black Gold,”  Tiffany Trent
• “Autumn Leaves, ” James Sallis
• “My Mother’s People,” Elaine Isaak
• “The Blue Curtain,” Brenda Cooper
• “Christmas Count,” David B. Coe
• “Eternal Return to the City of New Orleans,” James Sallis
• “Javier Dying in the Land of Flowers,” Deborah J. Ross, writing as Deborah Wheeler
• “Origami Action Heroes of Singing River,” Sandra McDonald
• “The Power to Change the Shape of the Land,” Dayle A. Dermatis
• “The Girl Who Dreamed of the Sea,” Judith Tarr
• “The Sea Around Us,” Rachel Carson
• “Terra Incognita,” Camille Alexa
• “Suicide Note,” Mario Milosevic
• “Serpent Singer,” M.H. Bonham
• “Emergency,” Nancy Jane Moore
• “Preparing for the Hurricane,” James Sallis
• “After the Dragon,” Sarah Monette
• “Comet Summer,” Jennifer Stevenson
• “Backtiming, ” Randy Tatano
• “Rescue Work, ” Pati Nagle
• “Candace,” Judith Tarr
• “I Sing a Song of Mourning,” Dayle A. Dermatis
• “Galveston,” P. G. Nagle
• “Indigo Bunting,” Lyda Morehouse
• “Paradise,” Vonda N. McIntyre
  Photographs: Carolyn McIntyre
• “Shark Attack,” Sue Lange
• “Disaster Relief,” Kristine Kathryn Rusch
• “A Field Guide to Ugly Places,” Patrick Samphire
• “Troubled Water,” Kelly Ramsdell Fineman

 “every fashion-conscious girl knows
zombie boyfriends are
totally in for spring

I’ve had mine for nearly a month
—a whole month! my longest relationship ever!—
and it’s really dreamy in so many ways,
if not so hot in a couple others…”

My short piece of weirdness, “Zombie Boyfriends are Totally in for Spring,” is up today at Everyday Weirdness.

[zombie pic credits here]