More Wrestling With Gods: 18 Days of Tesseracts interview

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Corey Redekop has undertaken the Herculean feat (like that Greco-Roman mythic metaphor there? I’m so subtle) of interviewing the contributors to Tesseracts 18: Wrestling With Gods as part of the 18 Days of Tesseracts event, on now. I have the honour of being interview number seven.  Here’s a taste of the thought-provoking questions he had, and my best attempts at provoked-thought answers. You can see the entire series as it unfolds at Corey’s site.

What is it about so-called “genre” writing that makes it such an effective avenue for theological discussions?

I think genre stories can tap into what we now call myth. Modern audiences maybe need that little lever to get us out of literalist thinking—as if any fiction, genre or otherwise, is absolutely realistic. I don’t think people treated stories in such a fragmented way in the past; we didn’t have to distinguish between the historical or factual or fantastic to get enjoyment and value out of a story. But since religion and faith necessarily deal with questions of meaning, as I think the really old stories do, and aren’t bounded by what we conceive of as the natural world, I think speculative fiction is aptly suited to tackle similar questions.

Who’s your favourite god?

My favourite is Thor, but I think the best stories in the Norse tales we still have access to are about Loki. If you take them as a whole, you see how problematic but also necessary the Trickster figure is. Loki is at times helpful, indispensable, foolish, spiteful or disastrous. We’re much poorer for all the Norse myths that went unrecorded and were lost.

If you were a god for one day, what would you do?

I’d visit the bottom of the ocean and wrestle with krakens.

You can read the entire interview here.

They Don’t Stand For That: Symbols, Vampires, and Faith

fright-night-1985-w-roddy-mcdowall-and-william-ragsdaleI have a guest post up at the Tesseracts 18 blog on the story seed for my vampire story “The Harsh Light of Morning” in Tesseracts 18: Wrestling With Gods — here’s a brief excerpt. The whole post can be seen here.

It’s funny how an idea can get stuck in your mind and stay there.

For me, the concept of what a symbol is wasn’t something I bothered thinking about until two separate times in my life. One, watching Fright Night in high school. Two, trying to understand what a theatre prof in university meant when he went on a tangent about the difference between a metaphor and a symbol.

But first: some backstory.

Vampires have always creeped me out. I do enjoy the fun recent incarnations (hello Angel, Blade, et. al.) but when you get right down to it, at their core they speak to a certain dread — usually, that people are prey.

But there is always hope — folklore gives us tools to strike back at the monster. The sign of the cross is one of them. A powerful symbol of Christ, and therefore, of good; it can drive back the vampire, an incarnation of evil if there ever was one.

Full post here.

Wolves of the Muddy Waters — a chronology

For those interested in lycanthropic continuity, I decided to write a short post about the linked werewolf stories I’ve been working on.  I’d started focusing on short fiction between the last two drafts of my novel, which is now in the query trenches, and started building up a lot of tales about other characters in the world I’ve been working on.

I’m not sure what to call it as a series yet — though I’m leaning toward “Wolves of the Muddy Waters “ — but here’s the timeline for any readers interested in getting the whole picture. (This is not including finished stories that are out there on submission but haven’t found a home yet.)

If you prefer to avoid SPOILERS, then skip this and look at my writing credits here instead.

Wrestling With Gods on sale Feb. 2, TOC reveal

If you like speculative fiction that grapples with faith, religion and spirituality, and want to get it for a steal, there’s a sale on right now for Tesseracts 18: Wrestling With Gods. On Feb. 2 on Amazon, you can get it for 99 cents for the Kindle edition, readable on a Kindle or through the Kindle app.

Tesseracts 18 event

Feb. 2 is also the date of the online table of contents reveal via Facebook. Janice Shoults from EDGE Publishing explains: “This is a very informal event where you can drop by and post a question, and learn more about the stories that are in this anthology. Authors will be there on and off during the day to take your questions about their stories, and about faith in science fiction. Everyone who posts will be entered into a draw.”

Wrestling With Gods early release and cover reveal

Although Tesseracts Eighteen: Wresting with Gods won’t be officially released in print until March 2015, you can buy it for your Kindle on Amazon as of today.

T-18-Cover-110x170-100dpi-C8If your thoughts are taking on a spiritual bent at this time of year — or if they do as a matter of course, anyway — take a look at this anthology of speculative fiction that explores belief, faith and religion.

The beautiful cover was also revealed today. Fantastic stuff.

There will be more to come on the Tesseracts Eighteen: Wrestling With Gods anthology in the new year, with interviews and more. Stay tuned for more details. But if you can’t wait to read the stories and (unlike me) have a Kindle , you’re in luck.

Pleased to have a story in Tesseracts 18

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WP Religion (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Well, the word is official: Edge Books has released the table of contents for Tesseracts 18: Wrestling With Gods, and a story of mine is among them. It’s always an honour to be included in Tesseracts, but especially so for me since Tesseracts 17 saw my first professional sale, and I’d submitted to previous incarnations of the anthology without success over the years.