A phoenix from the closet

by Nick Rowan

A few years ago, I came out trans. I began to make the Change socially, online and professionally. The problem is, I have a substantial body of work under my deadname. So now what?

The first step was to decide what needed to be re-issued. All my publishers had gone belly up, and I had a bunch of novels and shorts, a few self-published collections and a shiny new name with no negative associations.

So I took stock. There is stuff that will never see the light of day again. It was fine for its time, but I am no longer where I was. I am less experimental, less willing to take risks. The stories I want to tell are different.

Some books made the cut. I decided to continue the Roaring 20s, the Dark Future and the Paranormal Memphis series. Since my collaborator was dead, I opted to leave the Cyberpunk universe where it was.

I’ve poked around the edges, done a couple short stories under Nick Rowan. But I haven’t had a major publication.

I am proud to announce the first Phoenix, rising from the ashes of the Closet, the first novel to be re-issued, rewritten and under my real name (or some of it, Nicholas Wyatt Rowan-Sparrow is a little unwieldy) is Curse of the Pharaoh’s Manicurists.

In which Charlie Doyle, the ink barely dry on his degree, takes service as a secretary to World War I flying ace and noted adventurer, Edward Kilsby, Lord Withycombe. He finds himself contending with seasickness, abduction, jilted fiancees and lovers, malaria and mummies, not to mention a side trip to the Egyptian Afterlife (most discomforting for a good Presbyterian boy).

The characters have been made more interesting, the plotting thicker. The sex… has evaporated. The book went from 25 percent sex (by word count) to one scene, done mostly as a religious ritual. Charlie is still hot for Edward. Edward is still a bit of a satyr. But they are interested in other things besides the contents of their trousers.

So enjoy a scene from the rewrite, and keep your eyes on my website for the announcement that Dreaming Big productions has released it.

From Curse of the Pharaoh’s Manicurists:

The reed torches on the wall flared to life. Khnum-ho-tep sat up and looked around with living eyes. There were odd memories of being someone called Charlie or Charles. Beside him, Ni-ankh-khnum—looking much different—shook his head and crawled over to him.

“Are you well, my love?”

“Better than the day they laid me beside you.” Khnum-ho-tep embraced his lover and touched noses in a kiss, just as he had made the tomb artists paint them in the inner chamber.

“I have missed touching you.” Ni-ankh-khnum held him for a long moment, and touched his nose again. “You look so different, love.”

Khnum-ho-tep traced the small mustache above his beloved’s mouth. “As do you. You never had this before.” He stroked the thick, wavy hair. “Yours was always shaved and it was black and curled tightly.” He paused and touched the odd bits of clear stone that sat before his eyes. When he took them off, the world and even his beloved Ni-ankh-khnum went blurry, as if seen through water or a heat shimmer. “And these.” He put them back on and could see clearly again.

“The bodies are only borrowed,” Ni-ankh-khnum reminded him. “I don’t know why or for how long.”

“How do we end this interminable exile? I will have forgotten all of my family’s Book, and not be able to find my path in the afterlife.”

“We must appease the gods, somehow. Khnum and Anubis and perhaps Osiris so he may compel Anubis to let us pass, if he is not inclined.” Ni-ankh-khnum stroked his lover’s new body, shoving away the top layer of clothing, so badly woven from poor cotton, and scowled at a second layer of cloth. “I wish to hold you properly and all I find is another barrier. This clothing is ridiculous.”

Khnum-ho-tep drew a little away. “Time is not our friend. These men will want their bodies back. How do we appease the gods?”

“We need Khnum to hear us again., He turned his face from us at our rash words after death.” Ni-ankh-khnum paced through the tomb chamber.

Khnum-hot-tep remembered he had always been better at the religious rituals than his lover. “We were angry. Time may have soothed his pain, as it has soothed our wrath. Khnum, lord of the water, the uniter.. What better offering could we make to him than water and a union of ourselves?”

Ni-ankh-khnum chuckled. “He is dead for four thousand years and suddenly he is the husband.”

Khnum-ho-tep gestured to the painting of him offering Ni-ankh-khnum a lotus., Many wives were painted the same way in the tombs they shared with their husbands. “Water, prayers, and then sacred loving, that Khnum may hear us and lift the curse.”

“Can he do so when Anubis laid it upon us?”

“He can at least gain us hearing with Anubis. Perhaps, after four thousand years, even the Lord of the Embalming Chamber can forgive.”

“We can hope.” Ni-ankh-khnum held up a waterskin. “Some things have not changed.” He took a drink. “Sweet, if a bit warm.”

Khnum-ho-tep found a pot and a bowl. He knelt before a painting of the potter god, the ram’s -headed man, seated at his wheel, making pots and small children of the clay, with stacks of both beside him. Ni-ankh-khnum brought him the waterskin and filled the pot.

Khnum-ho-tep poured water from the pot into the bowl and chanted the Morning Hymn to Khnum, which seemed quite appropriate. It might not be morning, but he and Ni-ankh-khnum were just awakening. Given the millennia they had slept, it was possible that Khnum needed to be awakened too.

NICK ROWAN is a bus driver who lives quietly in the mid-south. He writes and crafts to support his yarn habit, You can follow him on Facebook (NickRowan) or Patreon (NickRowan) or Twitter (@NickRowan16) or Tumblr (nicholasrowan) or blogger (NicholasRowanSp) or Etsy (thecarpenterswyfe). Nick has been writing professionally since 2004 as Angelia Sparrow. Check out his website here.

Writers die of exposure

“If you want to take an author’s hard work, and then use it to generate a profit, but you are not willing to pay that author in any way, shape, or form besides allowing them to sign their name to the piece, then you are exploiting that author. Pay them by the word, share your ad revenue, and by all means try to get a good deal on the work, but do not simply swipe it, post it online, and then roll around in the money like some kind of political cartoon.”

This terrific quote comes from Neal Litherland’s blog The Literary Mercenary, which is an awesome blog name I wish I’d thought of using. It’s drawn, of course, from the ongoing discussion about paying authors, as if that’s such a radically bizarre concept that we just started questioning whether people should be paid for their work.

I’ve seen Uncle Harlan’s famous “Pay the Writer” clip from Dreams With Sharp Teeth about twenty times in these discussions, because it’s exactly on point. As Harlan says: do you pay the cameraman? Do you pay the guys who schlep the merchandise on and off the trucks? Then you also need to pay the writer, because that’s where your whole project starts. We never question whether a book should cost money, or whether the paper and printing of that book should be a cost of doing business for that publisher… so why do we think the words on the page should magically appear for free?

And writers need to stop giving it away. As Harlan says, the amateurs make it hard for the professionals, because they’ll do it all for free, and then no one can make a living. Why should HuffPo pay Wil Wheaton for his excellent column, when they can get some desperate sad sack to do write a lesser column “for the exposure”?

And they will have no difficulty finding that sad sack, because we have been conditioned to think that words mean nothing and the writer’s talent is worthless, so just be happy someone wants to read you. We are conditioned to think that writing is free, and thus writers die of exposure.

I’ll add this to it, because I think there are some well-meaning (if naive) people creating anthologies and magazine projects “for the love” who are not cartoon villains. They see “for the love” anthos posted everywhere, they may have been published in a few themselves, and they truly believe in their project and want it to fly. They may feel defensive, even attacked by this discussion of paying writers, simply because the state of the industry has devolved to such an extent it never occurred to them that paying the authors was not optional. Hell, I’ve done it myself, and regret it.

You’ve seen the posts, folks. You’re on Facebook, cruising through a number of antho calls for dark fantasy noir thrillers about unicorns in a neo-Gothic setting and you see a terrific story call, one that perfectly fits your unicorn story. “This is a For The Love project, but we hope to be in a position to start paying our authors really soon!”

Skip.

To be fair, there’s a good bit of this in nonfiction, too. I’ve gotten offers to write a regular column in line with my day job, and I’ve turned them down because it’s always, “We can start with two columns a week, and if it develops an audience, then we can see about paying you.”

No. I don’t work for free, and neither should you.

Here is the hard truth, folks: if you care about the project you’re developing, if you care about the art, you are ethically required to work author pay into your budget from the start. Don’t say “we hope to start paying authors as our project grows.” Don’t say “we will pay authors a share of the profits after we make back our expenses.” Start from the philosophy that you have to pay the authors and artists, just as you have to pay for the printing, layout, ebook conversion, web hosting service, postage, ad space and anything else that comes with producing your project. 

Authors come first, not last. If you don’t have the money to pay the authors, you don’t have the money to do the project. 

That doesn’t mean it’s dead. It means you have to work harder. Kickstart that baby, create a Patreon or some other preorder/crowdfunding mechanism. Raise the cash for upfront payments and plan to pay royalties to your writers. It doesn’t have to be a lot – no one ever paid a mortgage solely on short story revenue. SFWA pro rate is 8c a word for fiction; HWA rate is 5c, but flat fees still count as payment, albeit token.

The simple fact of paying the writer for their words shows that you deem those words to be of value. If you don’t value the words enough to pay their creators, how can you expect anyone else to value your project? And if you, the writer, give away your work for nothing, how can you expect the next editor will decide you’re worth paying? 

Value yourself, value the work. Pay for what you get, and insist on the same in return.

Elizabeth Donald is a freelance journalist, editor, author, photographer, grad student and instructor, as well as the manager/zookeeper of the Literary Underworld. In her spare time, she has no spare time. Find out more at donaldmedia.com or elizabethdonald.com.

The ‘Empire’ Challenge: Writing the second book in a trilogy

Trilogies and books in a series have become standard mode-of-operandi for authors in recent years. A trilogy is born when the story is too big to complete in just one novel, whereas books in a series simply continue the adventures of the characters established in the first book, introducing new plot-lines for each installment. The Night Flyer Trilogy is an example of the first.

I chose to pattern the three-novel arc on my two favorite trilogies–the Lord of the Rings and the original Star Wars Trilogy. In both of those celebrated works, there existed one over-arching plot, villain, and mission for the heroes to accomplish while being broken into three self-contained acts. Rather than employ impossible cliff-hangers to lure readers to the next book, I chose to follow the examples of Tolkien and Lucas by ending books one and two with a satisfactory wrap of the crisis at hand while still leaving the ultimate goal unfulfilled.

Some readers and movie goers are disappointed when a sequel does not live up to the original; much of my focus in writing Secrets of Milan was to ensure this was not the case. Thus far I have been relieved to read reviews stating the reader thought it was even better than Merchants of Milan.

The main plot line had already been laid out before I even started to write Secrets, but details emerged as I went along. One example is the heart-to-heart conversation between Madelena and her sister-in-law, Portia. Such an intimate scene was not part of the original conception, whereas big things like the church bombing was; but as I wrote Maddie’s story and saw that she longed so much to have someone to share the secret of who she loved with, I considered Portia–an older woman who shared the same household and was thoroughly in love with her husband, Alessandro (Maddie’s doting brother). If anyone in the cast of characters would be sympathetic to Maddie’s dilemma, it would be the pretty, petite Portia. I tried to broach the subject as organically as possible and hope it came across as such.

This book is somewhat longer than the first, but in the same basic word count range. One challenge was to keep the word count near to that of Merchants of Milan without skimping on anything important. Another decision that vexed me was how long to keep up the separation between Maddie and Florentina in the first segment of the novel. I wanted it to be long enough to create the desired tension and release, but not so long that it became tedious.

If anyone noticed, this book had its own internal trilogy, or three acts. The first was solving the romantic problem between the two lead characters while following some dead ends in the investigation. This culminated in the church bombing and Maddie resolving her issues. In the second act, the Night Flyer hunts down the man responsible for the church bombing while they work together on solving the mystery of the secret society which may have claimed another victim in one of Maddie’s friends. The third and final act is their trip to Rome for the exciting climax. As in the first book, this one ends with one villain defeated while the illusive mastermind is still at large.

In the third act, my researched paved the way for details to take form as I learned something new. Before writing Secrets of Milan, I had never heard of the Church of Quo Vadis south of Rome along the Appian Way. Upon discovering this unique landmark, I went back and included a reference to it in the clues so that Florentina would think of it when trying to find the suspected meeting place of the clandestine organization they sought to uncover. It is a small chapel built on the supposed site where Jesus appeared to St. Peter and told him to go back to Rome. Inside is on display a stone that has the impression of a set of human footprints that they claim belong to the risen Christ. The area near that chapel is home to one of many catacombs of Rome. From the original book outline, Florentina would seek out the shadowy cadre in catacombs, but discovering this tidbit provided me with the means by which she would find them. The catacombs dated back well over a thousand years in 1503, but had fallen out of use hundreds of years earlier and were not officially rediscovered until the mid-1500s, so Florentina needed another way to learn of an entrance. Enter the fascinating Church of Quo Vadis.

I have enjoyed researching and writing Secrets of Milan and hope readers think it lives up to my expectations for the second book of a trilogy. Characters and relationships grow and transform while we inch closer to uncovering the mysteries that lie hidden in the shadows. Look for lots of action in the final installment, Chaos in Milan! 

Edale Lane is the author of an award-winning 2019 debut novel, Heart of Sherwood. She is the alter-ego of author Melodie Romeo, (Vlad a Novel, Terror in Time, and others) who founded Past and Prologue Press. Both identities are qualified to write historical fiction by virtue of an MA in history and 24 years spent as a teacher, along with skill and dedication in regard to research. She is a successful author who also currently drives a tractor-trailer across the United States. A native of Vicksburg, Miss., Edale (or Melodie as the case may be) is also a musician who loves animals, gardening, and nature. Follow her on Twitter at @edalelane or on her website!

While Florentina as the Night Flyer searches for a mysterious underworld organization that has attempted to murder the woman she loves, Maddie struggles to deal with the danger Florentina is courting. Her brother, Alessandro, has become the most prominent merchant of Milan, but the Night Flyer uncovers a secret so shocking it could destroy them all.

Secrets of Milan is the second book in Edale Lane’s Night Flyer Trilogy, a tale of power, passion, and payback in Renaissance Italy. If you like drama and suspense, rich historical background, three-dimensional characters, and a romance that deepens into true love, then you’ll want to continue the Night Flyer saga.

Follow the rest of the Secrets of Milan blog tour!

Buy it now! Kindle Version or Print!

Bringing the stories together

Today’s guest voice is Michael Williams of Seventh Star Press, one of our partners here at Literary Underworld. Over the past 25 years, Michael Williams has written a number of strange novels, from the early “Weasel’s Luck” and “Galen Beknighted” in the best-selling DRAGONLANCE series to the more recent lyrical and experimental “Arcady,” singled out for praise by Locus and Asimov’s magazines.

Michael Williams

Williams’ highly anticipated City Quartet was completed by the publication of Tattered Men in October 2019. The four volumes may be read in any order–four stories that intertwine, centered in the same city, where minor characters in one novel become central in another:

  • “Vine: An Urban Legend” is the story of an amateur stage production In Louisville’s Central Park, gone darkly and divinely wrong.
  • “Dominic’s Ghosts” takes up the story of a son in search of his father in the midst of a murky conspiracy involving a suspicious scholar, a Himalayan legend, and subliminal clues from a silent film festival.
  • “Tattered Men” is the account of a disheveled biographer, writing the life story of a homeless man who may have been more than he ever seemed.
  • And “Trajan’s Arch” is a coming-of-age story replete with ghosts, a testimony to hauntings both natural and supernatural.

Bringing the stories together

It’s no great wisdom to say that setting is character.  Most writers know this implicitly, especially if you’re writing fiction that resides in alternate, changed, or parallel worlds.  Tolkien’s Middle Earth is as much an actor in the epic story as Frodo or Gandalf: it shapes events, uncovers mysteries, guides possibilities.  The same for Martin’s Westeros, Le Guin’s Earthsea, Ray Bradbury’s Mars.

But also Garcia Marquez’s Macondo, Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria, William Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County.  Place is a factor not only in speculative fiction, but in many of the other stories that shape our reading.

I’ve been asked to comment on how my City Quartet is put together, how it addresses the primary task of writing interrelated novels that stand alone—an odd tactic in a publishing industry that is fond of the series.  Because the City Quartet is by no means a series: instead it is an arrangement of books, a world of four worlds that the reader can enter from any of its four volumes, can read in any order.  I like to think that in some ways it is like a musical quartet, in which four parts commingle and interweave, forming a work that is larger than the sum of its components.

And it starts with setting.

The City Quartet takes place in a modern Midwestern city that is and is not my native Louisville.  Composed of the streets and neighborhoods, the suburbs and the sites that would be recognizable to any native or visitor, the fictional city is nonetheless a bending of the actual one, layered in time and in alternative versions, but ultimately anchored in the very real city I remember, work in, and visit.  And as every city has its lore, from history to urban legend, so does mine, and it intersects with that of the actual Louisville, draws from the stories I heard in childhood and read about in newspapers and local chronicles; nevertheless, a lot of my city is invented, made up by and around the characters I put in the books.

Each of the books is a self-contained novel.  Each has a narrative arc that I hope is successful.  Whether you read Trajan’s Arch or Tattered Men, Dominic’s Ghosts or Vine: An Urban Legend, you get a beginning, middle, and end to a story; you have characters who change and grow because of what happens to them; I hope you turn the pages eager to find out what those changes are.

You get that if you read only one of the novels.

If you read a second, and a third or fourth, you get the design and pattern and weaving of the books.  Primary characters in one book appear in secondary roles in another, perhaps about the business of one of the stories you are not reading at the time, glimpsed in an excerpt or a cameo.  Or perhaps they’re on an adventure only implied in a third book, or you see the same scene from a different point of view: an encounter you saw in Trajan’s Arch you will see again in Dominic’s Ghosts, but from a different point of view, so that it feels differently and means a different thing, and the meaning of that encounter complicates and deepens.

But if you see the encounter only once, only in one book, it should still make sense.  You should understand it in terms of one version without needing to refer to another novel to find out what the hell is going on.  The novels relate to each other more than they depend on each other: their connection is more textural and musical than linear and causal.

So you can enjoy each by itself; taken together, however, you get more of the jokes, see more connections, and slowly come to the conclusion, I hope, that our stories, like ourselves, are part of each other.

Follow the rest of Williams’ blog tour through Tomorrow Comes Media!

Dominic’s Ghosts

Dominic’s Ghosts is a mythic novel set in the contemporary Midwest. Returning to the hometown of his missing father on a search for his own origins, Dominic Rackett is swept up in a murky conspiracy involving a suspicious scholar, a Himalayan legend, and subliminal clues from a silent film festival. As those around him fall prey to rising fear and shrill fanaticism, he follows the branching trails of cinema monsters and figures from a very real past, as phantoms invade the streets of his once-familiar city and one of them, glimpsed in distorted shadows of alleys and urban parks, begins to look uncannily familiar.

Vine: An Urban Legend

Amateur theatre director Stephen Thorne plots a sensational production of a Greek tragedy in order to ruffle feathers in the small city where he lives. Accompanied by an eccentric and fly-by-night cast and crew, he prepares for opening night, unaware that as he unleashes the play, he has drawn the attention of ancient and powerful forces.

Michael Williams’ VINE: AN URBAN LEGEND weds Greek Tragedy and urban legend with dangerous intoxication, as the drama rushes to its dark and inevitable conclusion.

Trajan’s Arch

Gabriel Rackett stands at the threshold of middle age. He lives north of Chicago and teaches at a small community college. He has written one novel and has no prospects of writing another, his powers stagnated by drink and loss. Into his possession comes a manuscript, written by a childhood friend and neighbor, which ignites his memory and takes him back to his mysterious mentor and the ghosts that haunted his own coming of age. Now, at the ebb of his resources, Gabriel returns to his old haunts through a series of fantastic stories spilling dangerously off the page–tales that will preoccupy and pursue him back to their dark and secret sources.

Tattered Men

When a body washes ashore downstream from the city, the discovery saddens the small neighborhood south of Broadway. A homeless man, T. Tommy Briscoe, whose life had intertwined with a bookstore, a bar, and the city’s outdoor theater had touched many lives at an angle. One was that of Mickey Walsh, a fly-by-night academic and historian, who becomes fascinated with the circumstances surrounding the drowning.

From the beginning there seems to be foul play regarding Briscoe’s death, and, goaded on by his own curiosity and the urging of two old friends, Walsh begins to examine the case when the police give it up. His journey will take him into the long biography of a man who might have turned out otherwise and glorious, but instead fell into and through the underside of history, finding harsh magic and an even harsher world. Despite the story of Tommy’s sad and shortened life, Walsh begins to discover curious patterns, ancient and mythic, in its events—patterns that lead him to secrets surrounding the life and death of Tommy Briscoe and reveal his own mysteries in the searching.

Denny Upkins on “The Perfect Storm”

Congratulations to Underlord Denny Upkins, who has recently joined PEN America! PEN stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression, both in the U.S. and worldwide. “We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world,” reads their mission statement. Denny is their newest professional member, and we’re looking forward to what that cooperation may bring!

Denny also has a new piece up on 30up.tv, analyzing “Marvel’s most important superhero.” “The Perfect Storm” went live last month, and begins thus:

“Nine years old. That was the age of this Catholic Altar Boy when he saw God… or one of her manifestations, to be more precise.”

Read “The Perfect Storm” here.

Of course, if you’re interested in more of Mr. Upkins’ work, you can snag his novel West of Sunset from Literary Underworld!

 For Brecken Everett, there’s never a dull moment. When he’s not dealing with a demanding course load and honing his magic as top student at Lightmage University, he’s working as a private investigator and using his skills to protect the innocent from the darkest forest.

In two action-packed adventures, Breck demonstrates that outnumbered and outgunned is when he’s at his best. In Keepers, Brecken is enlisted to aid Jacob and Joshua Phoenix; twins, the last Pyrians, the last of an ancient race. The Brothers Phoenix are on a quest to uncover clues to their past. When they find a lost relic, a pair of demons claim it. With Brecken’s aid, the twins are determined to not only stop the threat, but have some fun in the process.

West of Sunset takes place a year after Keepers. All Brecken wants to do is get out of Atlanta. Heading to Los Angeles with his best friend, he plans a vacation of surf, sun, partying and relaxation… until the boys stumble upon a museum heist connected to a biker gang of vampires with plans to raise a most dark power. Matters get even more complicated with the involvement of a mysterious and powerful witch. Witches, museum heists, arising malevolent forces, vampire biker gangs, even Brecken’s vacations are just another day at the office.

Still open!

If you’re running low on reading material, rest assured that the Literary Underworld is open and shipping on time. We have the luxury of sheltering in place and reliable postal pickup, so we can continue to ship any product in stock.

We have also put a large number of products at a significant discount, including out-of-print first editions you won’t find anywhere else. Keep in mind that these books come from the personal stock of the author or small press, so your purchase here directly benefits the creators who are suffering right now from the cancellations of cons and book tours and release events.

We hope you are all safe and not yet fantastically sick of your house. Stay healthy as best you can, and we will all see each other again soon.

Mgmt.

Help out Apex Books!

The following is a missive from one of our member small presses, Apex Books. In the time of coronavirus, all book publishers are suffering and so are booksellers. If you have the means, do give them a hand.

Support Apex Books Company

As every small business can attest to sales have slowed to a trickle what with *gestures at the world* everything going on. But hope is not lost.

The wonderful folks at GoFundMe, Yelp, and Intuit Quickbooks created the Small Business Relief Initiative to aid small businesses affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. They’ve committed to matching $500 of any small business campaign that can raise at least $500. 

This initiative is a ray of hope for many small businesses, including us. A potential $1,000 would help us fill the gaps caused from recent sluggish sales, allow us to keep our production plans for future publications on track, and provide a bit of cushion for the coming months.

We know we are not alone in needing help during this global time of crisis. Your support in spreading the word of this campaign and your generosity, even $1, help us keep pushing and fighting to make a difference.

Go here to make a donation.

Thank you lovely readers for being a part of the Apex family! Together we can do anything.

Literary Underworld continues to operate via mail order, so please feel free to buy some plague reading material at any time! Shipments will continue to go out as long as the mail keeps operating and everyone remains healthy here at LitUnd Towers. We hope you stay healthy and safe, and we will all live to make bad jokes about this another day.

New: Coppice and Brake!

A new anthology from Crone Girls Press, including a new story from Literary Underworld director Elizabeth Donald:

I’m really happy to be working with Crone Girls Press for the second time, as they published my story “In Memoriam” in Stories We Tell After Midnight back in October as a reprint. This release, Coppice and Brake, is a little less horror and more dark fantasy, and includes a brand-new short story from me titled “Shiny People.”

“Shiny People” was actually inspired by a panel at Archon 2019, in which we all shared “real-life” ghost stories. I told the stories of Isabel, the woman who was murdered in my house more than 100 years ago, and how we can always blame her when something breaks. Like the living room lamp, the boy’s mattress, the spatula and measuring cup, just in time for the apocalypse. Thanks, Isabel.

But there was a man in the audience who told a story I found so creepy, so fascinating, that I asked him afterward if he would mind if I wrote it as a short story. He said that was fine, as long as I named the little girl after his daughter. I was happy to do so.

I hope you enjoy “Shiny People” and the other stories in Coppice and Brake. It’s $10 from Literary Underworld for a limited time only, and if you prefer the pixel-version, you can get it for $1.99 right now on Amazon.

In the meantime, stay safe, stay home if you can, and wash those hands. Let’s live to make bad jokes about this another day.

— Elizabeth Donald

Blending history and romance with Edale Lane

Edale Lane is the author of the award-winning 2019 debut novel, Heart of Sherwood. She is the alter-ego of author Melodie Romeo, (Vlad a Novel, Terror in Time, and others) who founded Past and Prologue Press. Both identities are qualified to write historical fiction by virtue of a masters degree in history and 24 years spent as a teacher, along with skill and dedication in regard to research. She is a successful author who also currently drives a tractor-trailer across the United States. A native of Vicksburg, Miss., Edale (or Melodie as the case may be) is also a musician who loves animals, gardening, and nature.

Merchants of Milan, Book One of the Night Flyer Trilogy, is a work of alternative history/historical romance. It isn’t entirely historical as there are no accounts that I am aware of after exhaustive hours of research that refer to a flying vigilante in Renaissance Milan. However, the period accuracy in regard to science, culture, art, architecture, political, and military history declare it is not a fantasy composition by any means. The novel falls into that branch of fiction where the author asks the question, “What if?”

What if there had been a 16th century superhero?

Neither is this story a classic formula romance. I like to include romance as an element in my novels because, well, people really do fall in love. There are few universal truths, but one of them is that everyone wants to be loved. Furthermore, most normal people also want to bestow love upon another as well, be it a friend, parent, child, or romantic partner. In Merchants of Milan, all of those expressions of love are realized. 

One initial reader was skeptical, however, about how I would pull off a same-sex relationship in a historical setting. In this case, it was not as difficult as one may think. The Renaissance was first and foremost a “re-birth” of science and learning from the Classical Age. While the Roman Catholic Church still held much power and influence in the Italian city-states, by 1502 the philosophy of Humanism had burst into full bloom. Educated citizens (and Italy boasted more of those than the nations of northern Europe) looked to the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations for knowledge that had been lost during the Dark Ages.

It was noted that these societies placed little emphasis on who one chose to love and same-sex relationships were accepted for those who wished to pursue them. While the masses still engaged in the most fundamental activities of the Church – baptism, paying of tithes, weddings, and funerals – they no longer abided by every directive laid down by the clergy.

As Madelena stated, “The Church has no moral authority to speak to such matters, not while we have a Pope who openly keeps a mistress and has fathered children with her despite his supposed vows of celibacy. The Church can mind its own business and keep its hypocritical nose out of ours.”

Historians know that some Renaissance artists, members of various noble and royal families, and even clergymen were gay, but there was very little fuss made about it at the time. No one was arrested, beaten, or imprisoned for their sexual orientation, but that didn’t mean nonconformance went without a price. Gossip could ruin reputations, money could be lost if one’s business was boycotted, and if a man persisted in practicing no discretion, he could be excommunicated (which was a big deal). Therefore, Florentina and Madelena determine that it would be in everyone’s best interest to keep their liaison private.

Florentina has a lot of sneaking around to do. First, she can’t let anyone know she is the masked vigilante the whole city is talking about, and then she has to hide her relationship with Maddie from everybody in order to protect her family from any potential backlash. It’s a wonder she gets any sleep at all. But I remember college days when I was twenty; I managed on very little sleep, so I figure Florentina can do the same!

Three powerful merchants, two independent women in love, one masked vigilante.

Florentina, set on revenge for her father’s murder, creates an alter-ego known as the Night Flyer. Madelena, whose husband was also murdered, hires Florentina as a tutor for her children and love blossoms between them. However, Florentina’s vendetta is fraught with danger, and surprising developments threaten both women’s lives.

Merchants of Milan is the first book in Edale Lane’s Night Flyer Trilogy, a tale of power, passion, and payback in Renaissance Italy. If you like gadgets and gismos, rich historical background, three-dimensional characters, and fast-paced action with a slow-boil lesbian romance, then you are sure to love this series. Buy this one of a kind novel today and let the adventure begin!

Twitter:   @EdaleLane

Official Site:  https://pastandprologuepress.lpages.co/

Coming soon: a new anthology featuring Elizabeth Donald

Gently he pushed her onto the bed and tucked the blankets around her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t like to go, but we grownups have to do that sometime.”

“Okay Daddy.” She rubbed her eyes, which was the universal signal for sleepy child, thank God. “The shiny people will keep me company.”

“Shiny people?” That was a new one. “Who are the shiny people?”

Rowen’s eyes were drifting shut even as she spoke. In her sleepiness, her voice sounded more like Debbie on the cold meds. “The shiny people in my room.”

“Okay, you have fun with that,” he said, smiling. He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. “Dream pretty pictures.”

He stood up, his knees popping a little more than he liked. He walked to the door and reached for the knob. Then he caught sight of himself in the large mirror over Rowen’s dresser. “Oops,” he laughed quietly. He was still wearing the silly crown.

He stepped over in front of the dresser and removed the crown, wincing as its plastic curlicues caught in his hair and pulled a couple of strands free. I need to keep the hair I’ve got, thanks, he thought ruefully.

He laid the crown on the dresser. In the mirror, he caught movement behind him.

“Sleep, little lady,” he ordered, turning around.

Rowen was asleep. She lay perfectly still in her toddler bed, the blankets he’d tucked around her undisturbed.

Then who was moving behind him?

Coming soon from Crone Girls Press: Coppice and Brake, an anthology of dark fiction edited by Rachel Brune. This anthology includes an original short story by Literary Underworld founder Elizabeth Donald, who will also see two short stories appear in River Bluff Review this month!

“Shiny People” is a short story inspired by a tale told at a convention last year, and Elizabeth is delighted that it has found a home at Crone Girls Press. River Bluff Review will include two other original stories: “Dear Katrina” and “Sergeant Curious.”

Elizabeth Donald is a dark fiction writer fond of things that go chomp in the night. She is a three-time winner of the Darrell Award for speculative fiction and author of the Nocturne vampire mystery series and Blackfire zombie series, as well as other novels and short stories in the horror, science fiction and fantasy genres. She is the founder of the Literary Underworld author cooperative; an award-winning journalist and instructor; a nature and art photographer; freelance editor and writing coach. She is married to author Jim Gillentine, and their family lives in a haunted house in Illinois. In her spare time, she… has no spare time.

You can preorder a print copy of Coppice and Brake from Literary Underworld for $10! Preorders for the ebook edition are coming soon from Crone Girls Press, and we will have print copies available at conventions throughout the rest of the year.