Book giveaway: Resurrection Engines
So, this might seem completely off-topic, but in fact it is not. Bear with me here!
It's perhaps a little-known fact that in addition to writing this blog, I also write loads of other stuff--fiction, essays, poetry, first and foremost for my own amusement but also for publication. I've had essays in journals and literary magazines, poetry and short stories in anthologies, and so forth. To this date i think my most widely circulated short story was a piece featured in the Tachyon Press anthology Steampunk, entitled "Reflected Light."
Thanks to that story, in fact, an editor named Scott Harrison contacted me to ask whether i'd be interested in writing a piece for a new anthology he was assembling, in which authors would take classic 19th century literature and fairytales as a jumping-off point for their stories, which would reinterpret or extrapolate upon or "reload" the original into a steampunk/anachrotechnological universe. The anthology was to be called Resurrection Engines, and would be released by the UK publisher Snowbooks.
I chose Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island as my inspiration work (I love pirates!), and sat down to reread the original, looking for inspiration. You may not recall--I didn't--that the fearsome pirate Long John Silver was married to a nameless woman of color. She's mentioned only twice in Stevenson's book, in passing, but i couldn't stop thinking about her. Who was she?
My piece tells her story, or an alternate-universe version of her story. Celie works as a hatmaker out of a shop on the shores of St. Clement, crafting top-quality hats for the seafaring men whose ships make berth there, including a young master's mate, John Argent. Pirates, sea monsters, and a diabolical conformateur converge to push Celie and John toward a destiny doomed by the sinister Black Spot.
(See, i told you this was relevant! Hatmaking! A conformateur!)
Snowbooks released the anthology at the first of the year, and I've got a copy to give away! If this sort of fiction sounds like it is up your alley, or if you are just intrigued by the prospect of a story with pirates and hatmakers in it, leave a comment here or on the La Bricoleuse Facebook page. A week from today, I'll draw a winner at random and send you the book.
Cover image courtesy of Snowbooks
It's perhaps a little-known fact that in addition to writing this blog, I also write loads of other stuff--fiction, essays, poetry, first and foremost for my own amusement but also for publication. I've had essays in journals and literary magazines, poetry and short stories in anthologies, and so forth. To this date i think my most widely circulated short story was a piece featured in the Tachyon Press anthology Steampunk, entitled "Reflected Light."
Thanks to that story, in fact, an editor named Scott Harrison contacted me to ask whether i'd be interested in writing a piece for a new anthology he was assembling, in which authors would take classic 19th century literature and fairytales as a jumping-off point for their stories, which would reinterpret or extrapolate upon or "reload" the original into a steampunk/anachrotechnological universe. The anthology was to be called Resurrection Engines, and would be released by the UK publisher Snowbooks.
I chose Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island as my inspiration work (I love pirates!), and sat down to reread the original, looking for inspiration. You may not recall--I didn't--that the fearsome pirate Long John Silver was married to a nameless woman of color. She's mentioned only twice in Stevenson's book, in passing, but i couldn't stop thinking about her. Who was she?
My piece tells her story, or an alternate-universe version of her story. Celie works as a hatmaker out of a shop on the shores of St. Clement, crafting top-quality hats for the seafaring men whose ships make berth there, including a young master's mate, John Argent. Pirates, sea monsters, and a diabolical conformateur converge to push Celie and John toward a destiny doomed by the sinister Black Spot.
(See, i told you this was relevant! Hatmaking! A conformateur!)
Snowbooks released the anthology at the first of the year, and I've got a copy to give away! If this sort of fiction sounds like it is up your alley, or if you are just intrigued by the prospect of a story with pirates and hatmakers in it, leave a comment here or on the La Bricoleuse Facebook page. A week from today, I'll draw a winner at random and send you the book.
Cover image courtesy of Snowbooks