The Tajji Diaries: A Story of Her Own

This blog was first posed in 2015. Tajji has since gone over the Rainbow Bridge, but her spirit remains with us. I read an excerpt from this story, "Four Paws To Light My Way" at FogCon last year.

Tajji, our elderly German Shepherd Dog, came to live with us a little over a year ago when she retired from seeing eye guide dog work. She learned new behaviors in the process of “being just a dog.” Her behavior also showed us some of the many things dogs who help the blind must learn. Some of these are responses to commands. Tajji knows “Go Right,” “Go Left,” “Easy (slow down),” and “Back,” for instance. She was also able to enter a mall (a chaotic place for a dog) with her blind person and, never having been in this place before, guide him to an elevator, escalator, or rest room.

We also noticed other behaviors from her training. She would remain lying down in the same place after we had stepped over her, touching her. Not moving would allow a blind person to remember where she is (and not trip over her, at least, not twice.) She uses a gentle nose touch as a greeting (as do most dogs; it’s polite) but also to let us know when she has come to sit beside us. She asks for attention by touching an arm, sometimes neatly inserting her nose underneath a hand. In fact, she initiates physical contact so much we suspect she was not only trained to do so, but bred for the predisposition.

All of this got my writer’s imagination started thinking about different ways dogs can be partners with humans. Years ago, I loved watching movies about Zato-ichi, a blind swordsman in Japan. He had preternatural hearing, and his ears would twitch when he heard an enemy approach, undoubtedly a theatrical device to point out to the audience what was happening internally. Since I was preparing to write a story for Sword and Sorceress 30, the idea came to me of a blind swordswoman – and putting Tajji in the story. How would they interact? What could the dog tell my character and how? 

"Many Teeth" in Sword and Sorceress 34.

The last volume of Sword and Sorceress, edited by Elisabeth Waters, is now out (at all the usual venues), and it contains my novelette, "Many Teeth." Like many others, I am sad to see this series end, although 34 issues of an anthology demonstrates extraordinary staying power. My very first professional sale was to the debut issue, and I've been in almost every one since (except the overflow volume, the year I lived in France and the year my younger daughter was born -- a month after the deadline). I co-edited Sword and Sorceress 33, which was a delight and allowed me to work with a number of splendid authors who were new to me.

Much has been said about this series and its importance in the genre. That first volume, edited by Marion Zimmer Bradley, came out in 1984, a tidal surge of women's voices in science fiction and fantasy. Sword and Sorceress extended that inclusion to the romantic, action-adventure style of "sword and sorcery." Bradley wanted strong, resourceful women characters who were more than cardboard copies of the male heroes ("Conan in drag"). To this end, she sought out writers like C. J. Cherryh, Mercedes Lackey, Elizabeth Moon, Pat Murphy, Rachel Pollack, Laurell K. Hamilton, Charles de Lint, Diana L. Paxson, Emma Bull, and Jennifer Roberson.

As I contemplated what I might submit to this final volume, I returned to an image that had come to me after watching a well-known movie with animated dinosaurs: a swordswoman wielding a katana, facing down a velociraptor.* As with most inspirations, that scene didn't exactly feature in the story...but close.

*Yes, I know the critters in the movies are paleontologically inaccurate...

Here's a snippet from the story:

The inner door swung open and a young woman entered. Karan’s first impression was of a lioness suddenly finding herself in the midst of a fancy dress ball. The gown was of silk, the hair set with pearls and tiny winking gems. But the skin was sun-browned, the cheeks innocent of rouge powder, and the expression one of determination. 

“Leave us,” the young woman said to her attendant. Once they were alone, she approached Karan. “Please, let us sit together.”   

Karan lowered herself into a chair, choosing one that put her back to the nearest wall.    

“I’m Estelle Rockland, and my father is Sir Henry Rockland.” 

When Karan looked blank, Estelle explained that he was a founding member of the Royal Society of Naturalist Adventurers. 

“Never heard of it,” Karan said.  

“There’s no reason you should. I’m not sure anyone cares who they are or what they do, beyond their own membership and the Lord of the Keys, who supervises the royal charters. For the past twenty-five years, my father has been on a single-minded quest, and now he’s gone missing. I want you to find him.”

Story Sale!

I've sold a novelette, "Many Teeth," to Sword and Sorceress 34. Since this will be the final volume in that series, I considered what I've always wanted to put into a story involving swordswomen and/or sorceresses. So many elements and permutations have already been done many times, but I've always wanted to stick a dinosaur into a sword and sorcery story. (Maybe that's been done many times, but not by me.) I remembered an image that came to me while watching the first Jurassic Park movie, as the humans are menaced from several directions by velociraptors (never mind that the real velociraptors were turkey-sized). I thought, "I wonder what a skilled swordswoman wielding a katana could do in that situation."

I jokingly called this story, "Red Sonja in The Land That Time Forgot." Its real title during  writing was, "The Rescue of One-Eyed Wanda, or Many Teeth." That got shortened.

I should add that when my husband, who is often my first reader, finished, he wanted more-more-more. So perhaps, in my copious spare time, I will enlarge it into a novel...

New Story on Curious Fictions

"Storm God," a short, fun story from Sword and Sorceress is now available free on Curious Fictions.

This was one of my first professional short story sales and a delight to write. Ideas for horrible things that might lay in wait for anyone foolish enough to cross a swamp just kept popping into my head. And of course, who could resist putting an iconic tale into a new setting?

A tidbit:

Dov made good time through the morning, keeping to the threadwork of game trails that laced the Marshes. She had no difficulty avoiding the patches of quicksand with their coats of light earth and certain, sucking death. The sun rose higher, pale through thickening clouds. Desolate though the swamp might appear, it teemed with subtle, carnivorous life, no place for the unwary.

She glimpsed a werefox curled near some brierbushes. Its whimpering, pitched to lure a predator to its end, aroused her pity at first. It looked exactly like a small wounded animal as it regarded her with bright, pleading eyes, its poison sucker-pads carefully hidden beneath furry sides. She laughed at its pretentious vulnerability and went on her way.

The whip-plants were another matter. She had just finished eating her midday meal, sitting on a patch of salt-grass and congratulating herself on the excellent time she had made. Descending from the hummock, her ankle turned on the slippery grass, and she stumbled into a tangle of branches. It took her a moment to realize the grip on her arms and hair was not accidental. By then she was firmly held.

Dov lashed out at the bramble with a booted food.

“You idiot plant, let go of me!” The pliant vines curled around her, tough and resilient, well beyond her strength to break. She felt a slight, irresistible pull toward the central trunk.

“Of all the stupid –” she gasped. Just when things were going so well, to be eaten by a plant!

Sword and Sorceress 33 Author Interviews: Dave Smeds

Enter a wondrous universe…the latest volume of Sword and Sorceress, featuring stories from new and seasoned authors. Herein you will find tales of fantasy with strong female characters, with some version of either martial skill or magic. Not all the protagonists will be human, and sometimes the magic will take highly original forms, but the emotional satisfaction in each story and in the anthology as a whole, remains true to the original vision. The release date will be November 2, 2018.

ePub: https://www.books2read.com/u/b62gG6

Kindle: https://amzn.to/2NitlHH

Deborah J. Ross: Tell us a little about yourself. How did you come to be a writer?

Dave Smeds: I loved fiction from an early age. I was particularly drawn to stories of imaginary worlds, or at least by settings that were in effect imaginary, such as Mars as depicted by Edgar Rice Burroughs. At age fifteen, it occurred to me I might be able to write a short story or two. I did that. The result was crap, of course, but every time I did another story or fragment of a novel, I could see how to improve. (It was, as you might imagine, REALLY OBVIOUS how I could improve.) I felt driven to eventually write something at a level I'd want to read if someone else had written it.

DJR: What inspired your story in Sword and Sorceress 33?
DS: Six years ago, when pondering what I would write for Sword and Sorceress 27, I decided it was the right time to initiate a story sequence. A number of S&S contributors have resorted to the series format. I had not done so, other than my gullrider tales in S&S 4 and S&S 5. In my teens I very much enjoyed the Conan stories. Part of the joy of those -- speaking now of Howard’s original eighteen tales, not of the scads of pastiches that have been added to the canon over the seventy years -- is that he skipped around, presenting views of his character at various stages of life, in all sorts of settings. I also greatly appreciated the economy and focus of a sequence made up of short-fiction installments. It’s so much work to devour a series made up of four or six or eight novels, but four or six or eight short stories? Great from an author perspective, and hopefully great from a reader perspective as well. Somehow the image of my characters making a getaway on a flying carpet came to me, and that led to the first outing of my characters Coil and Azure. I like coming up with original worlds too much to limit my S&S contributions to nothing but Coil and Azure stories, but I had not featured them since S&S 29 and I missed them, so here we go for at least one more time with “The Citadel in the Ice.” At this point I have no idea how soon I’ll do another installment. I promised myself to do them only when the muse is really nagging me.

Sword and Sorceress 33 Author Interview: Marella Sands

Enter a wondrous universe…the latest volume of Sword and Sorceress, featuring stories from new and seasoned authors. Herein you will find tales of fantasy with strong female characters, with some version of either martial skill or magic. Not all the protagonists will be human, and sometimes the magic will take highly original forms, but the emotional satisfaction in each story and in the anthology as a whole, remains true to the original vision. The release date will be November 2, 2018.

ePub: https://www.books2read.com/u/b62gG6

Kindle: https://amzn.to/2NitlHH

Marella has a multitude of pets who are slowing destroying her carpeting but are too cute to be angry with. When she is not feeding the furry bottomless pits or taking them to the vet, she is more-or-less methodically making her way through her Netflix watchlist. Currently, she is watching The Great Interior Design Challenge, which has proven to her that she has absolutely no ambition to become an interior designer. This is her second story in Sword and Sorceress; the previous story, “Tortoise Weeps,” was in Sword and Sorceress XIII.

Deborah J. Ross: What have you written recently?
Marella Sands: I'm finishing up revisions on an alternate history novel with a tangled real-life backstory. I belong to a writers group called the Alternate Historians, none of whom write alternate history. The name was chosen in the early days of the group, and the people who voted for the name left soon after, so the group name has never matched what anyone in the group actually writes. Another member (Mark Sumner) and I decided to change that around 1994, because Mark wanted to produce a cable-access show that would be a fantasy/alternate history. We wrote a script, but by the time we finished it, the cable-access idea had faded, and we tried to market it through our agent instead. That didn't work out, so the script was mothballed. Then, in 2017, I was asked if I'd like to submit an alternate history novel to a small press, and so the idea was un-mothballed. Mark wasn't interested in pursuing the project, but gave me his blessing, so I've been working on that. A few more scene changes and it should be ready to go. Hopefully, it will be what the editor is looking for!

DJR: What lies ahead?
MS: Like many writers, I have too many projects that I want to get to. I want to take another

look at a novel I wrote ten years ago that got glowing rejections. There are more short stories that want to get told, and I am still trying to get back to my series of novellas about a bartender caught up in a war between fallen angels. I wanted to have six or seven of those done by now, but short stories like the one in this anthology, and the alternate history novel, have meant I am only on the third at this point.

Sword and Sorceress 33 Author Interviews: Deirdre M. Murphy

Enter a wondrous universe…the latest volume of Sword and Sorceress, featuring stories from new and seasoned authors. Herein you will find tales of fantasy with strong female characters, with some version of either martial skill or magic. Not all the protagonists will be human, and sometimes the magic will take highly original forms, but the emotional satisfaction in each story and in the anthology as a whole, remains true to the original vision. The release date will be November 2, 2018.

ePub: https://www.books2read.com/u/b62gG6

Kindle: https://amzn.to/2NitlHH

Deborah J. Ross: Tell us a little about yourself.  How did you come to be a writer?

Deirdre M. Murphy: When I was a kid, I felt like books were my best friends.  They brought me a lot of joy and led, in the end, to me being less lonely in real life and finding human friends who understood me.  I wanted to be one of the storytellers, to give those gifts forward, in part, and to, in a sense, play with the storytellers I’d admired for so long, whether or not I got to meet them in person.

DJR: What inspired your story in Sword and Sorceress 33?

DMM: A panel at a science fiction convention.  We were discussing monsters as metaphor, and there was one pretty obvious metaphor that hadn’t been used much, which combined with the thought that dysfunctional behaviors are often functional behaviors done wrong, or occasionally the function is just misunderstood.

DJR: What authors have most influenced your writing?  What about them do you find inspiring?

DMM: This question is too big for a short interview!  I love stories that surprise me, that make me think, that give me a window into a different world or into understanding people who are unlike me in some fundamental way. 

Sword and Sorceress 33 Author Interviews: Melissa Mead

Enter a wondrous universe…the latest volume of Sword and Sorceress, featuring stories from new and seasoned authors. Herein you will find tales of fantasy with strong female characters, with some version of either martial skill or magic. Not all the protagonists will be human, and sometimes the magic will take highly original forms, but the emotional satisfaction in each story and in the anthology as a whole, remains true to the original vision. The release date will be November 2, 2018.

ePub: https://www.books2read.com/u/b62gG6

Kindle: https://amzn.to/2NitlHH

Deborah J. Ross: Tell us a little about yourself.  How did you come to be a writer?

Melissa Mead:  I don't remember when I wasn't telling stories, even before I could write them.

My first attempt to write a story for publication actually came about when my then-husband suggested that I write a story for Sword and Sorceress, but they weren't open to general submissions at that time. My first submissions (and rejections) were in 1997. My first publication was in The First Line, in 1999.

DJR: What inspired your story in Sword and Sorceress 33?

Mm: Thinking that it's kinda creepy how so many girls in fairy tales end up marrying "Prince Charming" without knowing anything about him, or him knowing anything about her. And why WOULD the rulers of a kingdom need to invite every eligible maiden in the kingdom to a ball to get the heir to the throne married off, anyway?

DJR: What authors have most influenced your writing?  What about them do you find inspiring?

Mm: Gosh, probably more than I realize. I wish I had Terry Pratchett's wisdom and humor, Robin McKinley's gift for making familiar fairy tales come alive in new ways, and Lois McMaster Bujold's general brilliance. She writes the way I wish I did. And Gail Carson Levine inspires me not only with her work, but the wise and kind advice she gives to new writers in her blog. I'm sure I'm missing many more.

Sword and Sorceress 33 Author Interviews: Jennifer Linnea

Enter a wondrous universe…the latest volume of Sword and Sorceress, featuring stories from new and seasoned authors. Herein you will find tales of fantasy with strong female characters, with some version of either martial skill or magic. Not all the protagonists will be human, and sometimes the magic will take highly original forms, but the emotional satisfaction in each story and in the anthology as a whole, remains true to the original vision. The release date will be November 2, 2018.

ePub: https://www.books2read.com/u/b62gG6

Kindle: https://amzn.to/2NitlHH

Deborah J. Ross: How does your writing process work?

Jennifer Linnea: I have a day job, so I write for a few hours every morning before work. Sometimes I write in coffee shops, alone or with other writers, but most of the time I write in my home office. It’s a tiny room decorated with images from stories that have inspired me throughout my life – Jim Henson’s Labyrinth and Dark Crystal, R.A. Salvatore’s Drizzt novels, and Star Wars, to name a few. I also keep a shelf with my favorite speculative fiction novels, and another with books about writing. Everything else is pretty loose: some days I compose on a computer, other times I write longhand; sometimes I start with a writing exercise or journalling, sometimes I jump right in. But there’s always tea. Lots of tea in iron teapots and gaiwans and mugs with tigers on them. And once in a while, if I’m trying to finish a project, I set aside an entire day. Days spent writing are some of my favorite days. 

DJR: What advice would you give an aspiring writer? 

JL: Find people who can critique your work, and whose work you can critique. If the critiques all say the same thing – listen! Then rewrite. It will make your writing better, and help you self-correct in time. As a beginning writer, I thought a story had to be working in the first draft or it was a failure, but that’s not true. Rewriting critiqued manuscripts and helping other writers improve theirs was how I went from aspiring writer to published writer. (Incidentally, “The Secret Army” was critiqued by about six people and then rewritten into the draft I submitted to Sword and Sorceress.)

Sword and Sorceress 33 Author Interviews: Pauline J. Alama

Enter a wondrous universe…the latest volume of Sword and Sorceress, featuring stories from new and seasoned authors. Herein you will find tales of fantasy with strong female characters, with some version of either martial skill or magic. Not all the protagonists will be human, and sometimes the magic will take highly original forms, but the emotional satisfaction in each story and in the anthology as a whole, remains true to the original vision. The release date will be November 2, 2018.

ePub: https://www.books2read.com/u/b62gG6

Kindle: https://amzn.to/2NitlHH

Deborah J. Ross: Tell us a little about yourself.  How did you come to be a writer?

Pauline J. Alama: I had great teachers.  My second-grade teacher, Mrs. Dorothy Mutch, assigned a lot of creative writing, which led me to the life-changing discovery that writing stories was like playing pretend, except better, because I got to keep my pretend game, show it to other people, sometimes even see it light them up the way it lit me up to create it. What could be better than that?

DJR: What inspired your story in Sword and Sorceress 33?

PJA: I love the ocean, so I decided that was where my sword-and-sorcery buddies Ursula and Isabeau should go next. I think I also had in mind a poem by James Joyce that I sort of vaguely remembered, “I Hear an Army,” with images of riders coming up out of the sea. Now I look back at the poem and I think I may have misunderstood it as well as misremembering it, but that’s all right: I gathered what I needed from it, like a bee from a flower. Sometimes only half-remembering a source is best for creativity. The landscape of the story is partly Rhode Island, where I spent some time musing over different forms of seaweed, and partly Normandy, where I visited Arromanches, one of the D-Day beaches, walking barefoot in the sand beside my history teacher husband, listening to him talk about a very different sort of army coming out of the sea.

Sword and Sorceress 33 Author Interviews: Margaret L. Carter

Enter a wondrous universe…the latest volume of Sword and Sorceress, featuring stories from new and seasoned authors. Herein you will find tales of fantasy with strong female characters, with some version of either martial skill or magic. Not all the protagonists will be human, and sometimes the magic will take highly original forms, but the emotional satisfaction in each story and in the anthology as a whole, remains true to the original vision. The release date will be November 2, 2018.

ePub: https://www.books2read.com/u/b62gG6

Kindle: https://amzn.to/2NitlHH

Deborah J. Ross: Tell us a little about yourself.  How did you come to be a writer?

Margaret L. Carter: Reading Dracula at the age of twelve lured me into classic horror, then fantasy and “soft” science fiction. Especially in the horror genre, I read everything I could find, mainly in the public library, because I didn’t have much money for books at that age. I started writing to get more of the kinds of stories I wanted to read. I particularly wanted fiction sympathetic to or from the viewpoint of the “monster.” Those stories were hard to find in the 1960s, so I created my own. My first publications, in my early twenties, were a pair of horror anthologies I edited, Curse of the Undead and Demon Lovers and Strange Seductions (which go to show how much easier it was to break into mass market paperback at that time than it is now). Soon afterward, I wrote a book on vampirism in literature, which was released by an obscure small press, the first non-subsidy publisher I could find to accept it, not a good experience overall. My first professional fiction sale was a story in a Marion Zimmer Bradley anthology, Free Amazons of Darkover!

Sword and Sorceress 33 Author Interviews: Evey Brett

Enter a wondrous universe…the latest volume of Sword and Sorceress featuring stories from new and seasoned authors. Herein you will find tales of fantasy with strong female characters, with some version of either martial skill or magic. Not all the protagonists will be human, and sometimes the magic will take highly original forms, but the emotional satisfaction in each story and in the anthology as a whole, remains true to the original vision. The release date will be November 2, 2018.

ePub: https://www.books2read.com/u/b62gG6

Kindle: https://amzn.to/2NitlHH

Deborah J. Ross: Tell us a little about yourself.  How did you come to be a writer?

Evey Brett: I wrote stories when I was a kid and through high school, then I went to music school and stopped reading or writing anything that wasn’t college-related. Toward the end of my degree, I was having a hard time with music and needed a different creative outlet, so I started writing a bit of fan fiction. My first trunk novel started as a Star Trek TNG/DS9 crossover. I soon realized that would never sell, so I transposed the plot into a fantasy world and went to the library for writing books so I could learn how to write better. I took some community college classes with some very good writing teachers, and got into Clarion, and eventually started selling stories.

DJR: What inspired your story in Sword and Sorceress 33?

EB: I actually wrote this story for a different editor who asked for something from me but eventually turned it down. Since then it’s been through a couple overhauls and I’m glad it found a home.

Sword and Sorceress 33 Author Interviews: Lorie Calkins

Enter a wondrous universe…the latest volume of Sword and Sorceress, featuring stories from new and seasoned authors. Herein you will find tales of fantasy with strong female characters, with some version of either martial skill or magic. Not all the protagonists will be human, and sometimes the magic will take highly original forms, but the emotional satisfaction in each story and in the anthology as a whole, remains true to the original vision. The release date will be November 2, 2018.

ePub: https://www.books2read.com/u/b62gG6

Kindle: https://amzn.to/2NitlHH

Deborah J. Ross: Tell us a little about yourself. How did you come to be a writer?

Lorie Calkins: I’ve been writing since I was about three. I would scribble in a blank notebook, trying to make lines that looked like my parents’ handwriting.Then I’d “read” it back and tell my stuffed animals what the “story” said. Sure wish I had recorded those tales in a more reproducible manner. My stuffed animals thought they were Really Good.

The writing comes pretty easily for me, actually. The two things that are absolute hell for me are determining whether the stuff I wrote is worth showing to anyone,and trying to sell it.

 DJR: What inspired your story in Sword and Sorceress 33?

 LC: I like to turn things inside out and see what color the lining is. You never know what you’ll find. Fairy tales are fun like that, because everyone already thinks they know how the story goes.

Sword and Sorceress 33 Author Interviews: Jessie Eaker

Enter a wondrous universe…the latest volume of Sword and Sorceress, featuring stories from new and seasoned authors. Herein you will find tales of fantasy with strong female characters, with some version of either martial skill or magic. Not all the protagonists will be human, and sometimes the magic will take highly original forms, but the emotional satisfaction in each story and in the anthology as a whole, remains true to the original vision. The release date will be November 2, 2018.

ePub: https://www.books2read.com/u/b62gG6

Kindle: https://amzn.to/2NitlHH

Deborah J. Ross: Tell us a little about yourself.  How did you come to be a writer?

Jessie Eaker: When I was in elementary school, I would painstakingly write out my thoughts and stories, along with accompanying illustrations, and keep them in a special binder which I fantasized about publishing.  I loved making up stories about rockets, robots and dragons.  (I didn't much care for unicorns--they were too hard to draw.)  When I hit middle school and on into high school, I entered what I now consider my great input phase--I read everything I could get my hands on.  And out of that I began to craft my first stories.  But as fate would have it, one of my high school English teachers gave a very harsh criticism of one of my works.   I was devastated--my fantasy of being published evaporating in a moment.  But then I got angry.  My story couldn't be that bad.  I resolved right then and there that I was going to prove to that I could be a published author.   Of course, it took me another fifteen years to actually develop enough to pull it off.

DJR: What inspired your story in Sword and Sorceress 33?

JE: "All In a Name" was inspired by my youngest daughter's pregnancy and their search for a suitable name for the baby.While they offered us hints as to what it might be, she and her husband had decided they would keep the name secret until the baby was born.  It nearly drove us crazy not knowing and we feared it would be some off-the-wall name that would permanently scar the child. 

Sword and Sorceress 33 Author Interviews: M P Erickson

Enter a wondrous universe…the latest volume of Sword and Sorceress, featuring stories from new and seasoned authors. Herein you will find tales of fantasy with strong female characters, with some version of either martial skill or magic. Not all the protagonists will be human, and sometimes the magic will take highly original forms, but the emotional satisfaction in each story and in the anthology as a whole, remains true to the original vision. The release date will be November 2, 2018.

ePub: https://www.books2read.com/u/b62gG6

Kindle: https://amzn.to/2NitlHH

Deborah J. Ross: Tell us a little about yourself.  How did you come to be a writer?

M P Ericson: I've been writing stories since I could hold a crayon. Somewhere I still have one I wrote when I was four. Also I was read to a lot, and taught myself to read. There were always plenty of books around. My grandmother owned a bookshop, and I pretty much lived there as a young child. I read everything I could reach. It was my dream to get my own stories up on the shelves with all the others.

DJR: What inspired your story in Sword and Sorceress 33?

MPE: I'd written a story from Katti's point of view (Crossing the Dead Line) and got interested in the relationship between her and Elyse. I've studied law and trained in martial arts, so exploring the contrast between the two was fun. Liane turned up at the practice ring, and the story grew from there.

DJR: What authors have most influenced your writing?  What about them do you find inspiring?

MPE: Tolkien is my biggest influence – I read The Lord of the Rings as a child, and it blew me away. The sense of a new world taking shape in the ruins of an old one resonated with me. I grew up in Sweden, where Viking Age rune stones and Bronze Age rock carvings are part of the landscape. Most of my stories have traces of an older and deeper story somewhere in the background, which the characters aren't quite aware of.

Astrid Lindgren and Maria Gripe inspire me with their wistful tone and clarity of style. PG Wodehouse and Terry Pratchett with their offbeat humour and startling use of language. And Jane Austen with her mischievous wit. Those are the other main influences. But I have a magpie mind, I pick things up from all over the place.

DJR: Why do you write what you do, and how does your work differ from others in your genre?

MPE: I'm usually trying to capture an idea. Mood and tone are important to me, like in music or art. Perhaps there's an intensity in my work that's a bit different to most. A mythic quality, if you like. Being a migrant has probably affected me as well. My characters tend to be on the move, travellers in one sense or another. And I'm interested in relationships between people, what they see in each other and how that reflects themselves. Theodora Goss may be the closest in the genre. I'm a great admirer of hers.

DJR: How does your writing process work?

MPE: I start with an image. Something that pings the story circuits at the back of my mind. Then a character shows up, and then an opening line. That's when I start writing. Usually by the time I get to the end of the first page I know what's coming next, and then I carry on until I find the ending. If I go completely off the rails, I start a fresh draft and seldom look back. So by the time I have a complete draft I'm pretty much where I want to be. Revisions tend to be light. Sometimes I realise I'm missing a scene, or have one in the wrong place. Apart from that it's mostly tidying up, correcting typos and so forth.

DJR: What have you written recently? What lies ahead?

MPE: I wrote an underwater story about a shark recently (At the Edge of the Watching Deep), which was interesting. I've got some novel ideas brewing as well. I'd love to get back to the Battlehawk series.

DJR: What advice would you give an aspiring writer?

MPE:  Find your own process. There's so much great advice out there, but most of it probably won't work for you. That's OK. Just keep writing your own stories, and trust them to reach the right readers eventually. And do have an actual real life as well. Everything you experience becomes rich material for fiction, sometimes in the most unexpected ways.

M P Ericson lives on the edge of a moor in Yorkshire, England, with an assortment of spiders and mice. Her stories have been published in magazines and anthologies all over the world.

Sword and Sorceress 33 Author Interviews: Jane Lindskold

Enter a wondrous universe…the latest volume of Sword and Sorceress, featuring stories from new and seasoned authors. Herein you will find tales of fantasy with strong female characters, with some version of either martial skill or magic. Not all the protagonists will be human, and sometimes the magic will take highly original forms, but the emotional satisfaction in each story and in the anthology as a whole, remains true to the original vision. The release date will be November 2, 2018.

ePub: https://www.books2read.com/u/b62gG6

Kindle: https://amzn.to/2NitlHH

Deborah J. Ross: Tell us a little about yourself.  How did you come to be a writer?

Jane Linskold: I’ve been a storyteller since I was very young, but I didn’t really make any sort of focused effort to write those stories down until I was a college undergraduate.  By the time I finished my PhD, I knew that I wanted to be a fiction writer.  Therefore, as soon as my dissertation was completed, I put the time I’d been using to write that into writing fiction.  I had a lot of rejections, but finally started selling.

DJR:  What inspired your story in Sword and Sorceress 33?

JL: As far back as I can remember, I’ve always been interested in the non-human perspective.   For various reasons, I found myself wondering what it would like to be a familiar.  Many Fantasy stories feature familiars, but I couldn’t think of any where they weren’t either sage advisors, flippant commentators on the action, or (worst of all) simply another tool in the wizard’s kit.  I decided to try my hand at writing a story from the familiar’s point of view, and this is what resulted.  I very much like both the (currently nameless) familiar and the people it meets.  I definitely plan to write more about them.

Sword and Sorceress 33 Table of Contents

This year I've joined Elisabeth Waters in editing the newest volume of Sword and Sorceress (#33, which will be released in November). The anthology, which contains some amazing stories, is now complete and here's your first sneak peek -- the lineup! 

SWORD AND SORCERESS 33 TABLE OF CONTENTS 

WRESTLING THE OCEAN 

by Pauline J. Alama 

HAUNTED BOOK NOOK 

by Margaret L. Carter 

THE HOOD AND THE WOOD 

by Lorie Calkins 

SINGING TO STONE 

by Catherine Mintz 

THE RIVER LADY’S PALE HANDS 

by M. P. Ericson 

LIN’S HOARD 

by Deirdre M. Murphy 

THE CITADEL IN THE ICE 

by Dave Smeds 

ALL IN A NAME 

by Jessie D. Eaker 

DEATH EVERLASTING 

by Jonathan Shipley 

BALANCING ACT 

by Marella Sands 

FIRST ACT OF SAINT BASTARD 

by T. R. North 

THE FALLEN MAN 

by Deborah J. Ross 

A FAMILIAR’S PREDICAMENT 

by Jane Lindskold 

THE SECRET ARMY 

by Jennifer Linnea 

COMING HOME TO ROOST 

by L. S. Patton 

FROM THE MOUTHS OF SERPENTS 

by Evey Brett 

MAGIC WORDS 

by Alisa Cohen 

CHARMING 

by Melissa Mead     

Cover Reveal: Sword and Sorceress 31

Here's a first peek at the cover by Dave Smeds. This volume, edited by Elisabeth Waters, includes my story, "Sage Mountain," which I describe as Buddhist sword'n'sorcery. With trolls. And a dragon. You can read a snippet here.

The anthology will be out in November 2016.

Short Story Sale!

I just sold "Sage Mountain" to Sword & Sorceress 31. Some of my stories are fluff and some are dark, and this one just took the bit between its teeth and ran away.

Here's a sneak peek:

The troll bent over to peer at her. “What you do here?”

Roseline had heard stories of people eaten by trolls, but she had never heard of a troll who initiated the process by asking a question. Without thinking, she blurted out, “I've come to ask you for help.”

The troll was so startled, it sat on the ground with a loud thump, thereby effectively blocking the entrance to the cave.

For lack of any better idea, Roseline assumed her most trusting expression. That had always worked with her father and, come to think of it, with Audric as well. The troll night be persuaded to sit on Audric and squash him into jelly, and that would solve her problem.

“I'm in terrible trouble,” she said. “There's no one else I can turn to. I have always heard that trolls are fearless,” which was perfectly true, although not necessarily in this context, “and so I came all the way here too beg for your assistance.”

The troll blinked at her. Being begged for assistance was undoubtedly outside its previous experience. “What you want?”

“There's this horrible boy who is forcing me to marry him. He has threatened to tell my father all kinds of lies if I don't. Please help me!” She did not elaborate further, for fear of confusing the troll with too much information.

The troll scratched its head. “Eat boy?”

“That's all very well for you,” she said. “You are big and powerful. I, on the other hand, am only a weakling human girl. Besides, the boy would object to being eaten. He’d much rather kiss me. Can't you do something?”

Sorry, you'll have to wait until November to read the whole thing.

Four Paws To Light My Way (excerpt)

Tajji

Tajji, our retired seeing eye dog, has made such a difference in our (sighted) lives that I wanted to feature a dog like her in a story. Being a fantasy writer, and one who loves strong women characters, I came up with a blind swordswoman and her guide dog. The whole story appears in Sword and Sorceress 30 (in print and ebook editions at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, other venues). Here's the opening:

Four Paws To Light My Way (excerpt)

The curse lay heavy on the Shining City. Jian could smell it in the dust and the sourness of the leaves of the ginkgo trees that lined the approach to the royal palace. They fluttered unseasonably to the ground and crunched under her feet. Here and there, the paving stones, once so level and smoothly joined that she had felt as if she were walking on glass, had buckled. From time to time, Dog nudged her knee in one direction or tugged on the heavy leash in the other, guiding her along the crowded streets.

Dog didn’t like this place. Jian could tell from the stiffness in his muscles, the staccato tapping of his nails on the stones. He preferred bare earth or the windswept hillsides around their home, where wild cattle grazed. Jian did not allow herself the luxury of an opinion; she came when the Emperor commanded, and she would continue to so until he released her from her oath.

The quality of air and sound changed as they passed the outer gates. Here was naked wall, there the many-times-lacquered wood of the gate, here the density of living flesh. Guards would be posted, watchful and still.

Dog slowed, a slackening of the leash. Jian bowed. The guards did not ask her name. How could there be two of her — a blind woman dressed in patched and faded soldier’s garb, a sword in its battered sheath tucked into her sash, a scarf of imperial silk tied around her neck? At least, they were not so foolhardy as to suggest she leave Dog outside the palace.

“Forward,” she said, and Dog guided her inside.

Footsteps on the raked dirt of the courtyard came nearer, then stopped in front of her. She paused, nostrils flaring even though she lacked Dog’s keen sense of smell. There was something familiar about that stride…but she’d been sighted when she’d last heard it.