Posts tagged ‘Catherynne M. Valente’

Sharp & Sugar Tooth

Ebook (978-1-937794-89-7): Amazon (mobi) or Kobo (epub).

Print (978-1-937794-88-0): Indiebound keeps money in your community. Also available at Amazon, B&N, Wordery (which ships free worldwide), and links in the dropdowns.

Go to: About | Reviews | Goodreads
Released 26 March 2019.

About

Sharp & Sugar Tooth: Women Up To No Good is a horror anthology of dark fiction and darker appetites, edited by Octavia Cade. Containing 22 stories of “bad” women, and “good” women who just haven’t been caught yet, it features 22 fearless writers who identify as female, non-binary, or a marginalized sex or gender identity. It’s the third in the Women Up To No Good series, which can be read in any order. It’s forthcoming on 26 March 2019.

Our contributors are based in or hailing from Australia, Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, Nigeria, Singapore, the UK, and all over the United States. Between them, they have won the Andre Norton, Eugie Foster Memorial, Hugo, Lambda, Locus, Mythopoeic, Nebula, Prix Imaginales, Rhysling, Romantic Times’ Critics Choice, This Is Horror, James Tiptree Jr., and World Fantasy Awards, and been shortlisted for the Bram Stoker, John W. Campbell, and Shirley Jackson Awards!

Table of Contents

  • Kathleen Alcalá, “The Doll’s Eye”
  • Betsy Aoki, “And When We Die They Will Consume Us”
  • Joyce Chng, “Dear Son”
  • Katharine Duckett, “Gimme Sugar”
  • Anahita Eftekhari, “The Fool’s Feast”
  • Chikodili Emelumadu, “Candy Girl” (first published in Apex Magazine, issue 66, November 2014)
  • Amelia Gorman, “She Makes the Deep Boil”
  • Jasmyne J. Harris, “What the Bees Know About Discarded Girlish Organs”
  • A. R. Henle, “Strong Meat”
  • Crystal Lynn Hilbert, “Soul of Soup Bones” (first published in Apex Magazine, issue 61, June 2014)
  • Erin Horáková, “A Year Without the Taste of Meat”
  • Kathryn McMahon, “The Honey Witch”
  • H. Pueyo, “I Eat”
  • D. A. Xiaolin Spires, “Bristling Skim”
  • Rachael Sterling, “Alice Underground”
  • Penny Stirling, “Red, From the Heartwood”
  • Catherynne M. Valente, “The Lily and the Horn” (first published in Fantasy Magazine, issue 59, Queers Destroy Fantasy!, 2015)
  • Sabrina Vourvoulias, “A Fish Tale”
  • Damien Angelica Walters, “A Lie You Give, And Thus I Take” (first published in Lightspeed, issue 55, December 2014)
  • Rem Wigmore, “Who Watches”
  • Alyssa Wong, “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers” (first published in Nightmare, issue 37, Queers Destroy Horror!, 2015)
  • Caroline M. Yoachim, “The Carnival Was Eaten, All Except the Clown” (first published in Electric Velocipede, issue 27, 2013 and republished at Drabblecast)

Contributors

“The Doll’s Eye” (original) is by Kathleen Alcalá, the author of six books of fiction and nonfiction, from a collection of magical realism called Mrs. Vargas and the Dead Naturalist, to The Deepest Roots: Finding Food and Community on a Pacific Northwest Island.

“And When We Die They Will Consume Us” (original) is by Betsy Aoki. This is her first speculative fiction publication, though her poems have appeared in Uncanny, Southern Humanities Review, Hunger Mountain, and Calyx, among others.

“Dear Son” (original) is by Singaporean Joyce Chng. Her fiction has appeared in The Apex Book of World SF II, We See A Different Frontier, Cranky Ladies of History, and Accessing The Future. Joyce also co-edited THE SEA IS OURS: Tales of Steampunk Southeast Asia with Jaymee Goh. Her alter-ego is J. Damask.

“Gimme Sugar” (original) by Katharine Duckett, whose stories have appeared in Apex and Interzone, and been reprinted in Wilde Stories 2015 and The Best of Apex: Volume I. She works in publishing and lives in Brooklyn with her wife.

“The Fool’s Feast” (original) is by Iranian-Canadian Anahita Eftekhari. She has a background in genetics and half a decade of experience teaching ESL in Asia and Europe.

Chikodili Emelumadu is a Nigerian writer currently residing in Cambridge, MA. Her work has been published in Eclectica, One Throne, Omenana, and various other magazines and anthologies. Her “Candy Girl” first appeared in Apex Magazine and was nominated for the Shirley Jackson prize.

“She Makes the Deep Boil” (original) is by Minnesotan Amelia Gorman. Her other monstrous-themed writing appears in the Lovecraftian anthology She Walks in Shadows, and her poetry in Liminality Magazine, Star*Line, and Eternal Haunted Summer.

“What the Bees Know About Discarded Girlish Organs” (original) is by Jasmyne J. Harris, who lives in Washington, DC. Her work is forthcoming in Bayou Magazine.

“Strong Meat” (original) is by archivist, historian, and librarian A. R. Henle.

Crystal Lynn Hilbert lives in the forgotten backwaters of Western Pennsylvania. Her latest stories appear in Betwixt Magazine. Her “Soul of Soup Bones” was first published in Apex Magazine in June 2014.

“A Year Without the Taste of Meat” (original) is by Erin Horáková, a southern American writer who lives in London. She’s working towards her literature PhD, which focuses on how charm evolves over time.

“The Honey Witch” (original) is by Kathryn McMahon, an American writer living abroad with her British wife and dog. Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The Baltimore Review, Crack the Spine, and Necessary Fiction, among others.

“I Eat” (original) is by H. Pueyo (@hachepueyo on Twitter), an Argentine-Brazilian writer of comics and speculative fiction. Her work has appeared before in print and online venues like Clarkesworld, The Dark, and Broken Metropolis, among others. She currently lives in Brazil with her boyfriend and their interminable piles of work to do.

“Bristling Skim” (original) is by D.A. Xiaolin Spires who stares at skies and wonders what there is to eat out there in the cosmos.

“Alice Underground” (original) is by Rachael Sterling, who lives in sunny Santa Monica, California, teaching music to preschoolers most mornings and writing most afternoons. You can find her talking about books on YouTube under the name Rae Sterling.

“Red, From the Heartwood” (original) is by Penny Stirling, who edits and embroiders in Western Australia. Their speculative fiction and poetry can be found in Lackington’s, Interfictions, Strange Horizons, and other venues.

Catherynne M. Valente is the New York Times bestselling author of over two dozen works of fiction and poetry, including Space Opera, the Orphan’s Tales series, and The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. She is the winner of the Andre Norton, Eugie Foster Memorial, Hugo, Lambda, Locus, Mythopoeic, Prix Imaginales, Rhysling, Romantic Times’ Critics Choice, and Tiptree awards. Her “The Lily and the Horn” was first published in Fantasy Magazine‘s 2015 Queers Destroy Fantasy! issue.

“A Fish Tale” (original) is by Sabrina Vourvoulias, the author of Ink, which was named to Latinidad’s Best Books of 2012. Her fiction can be found in Uncanny, Tor.com, Strange Horizons, and Crossed Genres.

Damien Angelica Walters wrote Sing Me Your Scars, Paper Tigers, and Cry Your Way Home. Her short fiction has been nominated twice for a Bram Stoker Award and reprinted in The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror and The Year’s Best Weird Fiction. She lives in Maryland with her husband and two rescued pit bulls. Her “A Lie You Give, And Thus I Take” was first published in Lightspeed in December 2014.

“Who Watches” (original) is by Wellington-based Rem Wigmore, who also published under Summer Wigmore. Their first novel The Wind City was published in 2013 by Steam Press and they had a short story in the 2016 At the Edge anthology.

Alyssa Wong was a finalist for the 2016 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Her fiction has been shortlisted for the Hugo Award, the Bram Stoker Award, the Locus Award, and the Shirley Jackson Award. Her “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers” was first published in the 2015 Queers Destroy Horror! issue of Nightmare, and won the 2015 Nebula Award for Best Short Story and the 2016 World Fantasy Award for Short Fiction.

Caroline M. Yoachim has written dozens of short stories, appearing in Asimov’s, Clarkesworld, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Lightspeed, and her short story collection, Seven Wonders of a Once and Future World & Other Stories. Her “The Carnival Was Eaten, All Except the Clown” was first published in Electric Velocipede in 2013 and was featured in The Drabblecast.

Editor Octavia Cade is a New Zealand writer with a PhD in science communication and a particular interest in science history and marine studies. She has most recently been researching the reproductive strategies of Zostera muelleri seagrass. She has had around 30 short stories published, in places like Clarkesworld, Asimov’s, and Apex Magazine, amongst others. Her poetry collection on the periodic table, Chemical Letters, was published by Popcorn Press and her novellas have been published by Masque Books, Paper Road Press, and The Book Smugglers. She has been nominated for BSFA and Elgin awards, and has won three Sir Julius Vogels, twice for best novella (The Ghost of Matter and The Convergence of Fairy Tales) and once for best fan writing, for a series of columns on food and horror, which became Food and Horror: Essays on Ravenous Souls, Toothsome Monsters, and Vicious Cravings (Book Smugglers, 2017).

Reviews & Mentions

Mentioned in:

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There are fairy tales, horrible murders, and romances, straight, lesbian and …complicated. Some are sexy, some are disturbing, and some are both. I devoured this collection quickly and eagerly.

—”Sharp and Sugar Tooth: Women Up To No Good – Book Review,” Jennifer Muirhead, Weekend Notes, 16 June 2019.

I found that after each story I had to put the book aside so that I could process and ponder what I had just read. Even after a few weeks, I find my mind wandering back to an idea, a character, a situation from the stories and I just sit and think. Sometimes its because it was shocking, sometimes because the situation was heart-breaking, other times its the particular twist of a well-known idea or theme that strikes me. There wasn’t a single story that I hated — and most I really liked. Sharp & Sugar Tooth is definitely a book that I am recommending to my friends – it is a very worthwhile read.

—”Review: Sharp & Sugar Tooth: Women Up to No Good,” A Book Geek, 11 July 2018.

~~~

Our Kickstarter was mentioned, promoted, or reviewed in:

26 March 2019

“You should go to the doctor,” she chirped at him, buoyed by the absolute certainty that he would not listen to her.

In Octavia Cade’s introduction to Sharp & Sugar Tooth, she writes, “Both Kathleen Alcalá (in The Dolls Eye) and Catherynne M. Valente (in The Lily and the Horn) take a look at how society changes when poison becomes the conflict resolution of choice within a community.”

Today we feature excerpts from both stories, as well as “Your Life Will Look Perfect From Afar” by Audrey R. Hollis, from Broad Knowledge (and from which our title comes), which features a more personal poisoning, one that our society definitely wouldn’t approve.

Kathleen Alcalá’s story features a poison-taster:

and Catherynne M. Valente’s a poison-maker:

Valente’s “The Lily and the Horn” was first published in Fantasy Magazine‘s 2015 Queers Destroy Fantasy! issue.

In “Your Life Will Look Perfect From Afar,” the poison comes from an everyday object that nobody would suspect.

Go to the kickstarter campaign to donate to support these authors and pre-order your copies!

We’d also like to draw your attention today to a pledge level that isn’t getting as much attention as we think it deserves: the Personalized Paperback, which allows artists to get a copy of one of the books with their own custom cover art (or their friends to get it for them) and a custom dedication—or for people to get a copy with a photograph of themselves or their giftee as part of the cover art (also with a custom dedication)!

 

About the Authors

Kathleen Alcalá is the author of six books including Mrs. Vargas and the Dead Naturalist and Spirits of the Ordinary. Both a graduate of and instructor in the Clarion West Science Fiction and Fantasy Workshop, she has had the good fortune to study with notables such as Joanna Russ, Ursula K. Le Guin, Samuel Delany, and Connie Willis. With an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of New Orleans, Kathleen teaches all levels of fiction and nonfiction.

Of her first collection of stories, Ursula Le Guin said:

This is a book of wonders. Each story unfolds with humor and simplicity and perfect naturalness into something original and totally unpredictable. Not one tale is like another, yet all together they form a beautiful whole, a world where one would like to stay forever. The kingdoms of Borges and Garcia Marquez lie just over the horizon, but this landscape of desert towns and dreaming hearts, of lost sisters and ghost scientists, canary singers and road readers, is Alcalá-land. It lies across the border between the living and the dead, across all the borders—a true new world.

Audrey R. Hollis is a writer based in Los Angeles. Her work has been in several publications, including Leading Edge, Lunch Ticket, and Autostraddle. She is devoted to oddities, medieval history, and things that glitter. You can follow her on Instagram or Twitter at @audreyrhollis.

Catherynne M. Valente is the New York Times-bestselling author of over two dozen works of fiction and poetry, including the Orphan’s Tales series, Deathless, Radiance, and the crowdfunded phenomenon The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (and the four books that followed it). She is the winner of the Andre Norton, Tiptree, Prix Imaginales, Eugie Foster Memorial, Mythopoeic, Rhysling, Lambda, Locus, Romantic Times’ Critics Choice and Hugo awards. She has been a finalist for the Nebula and World Fantasy Awards. Her most recent book, Space Opera, has just been optioned by Universal Pictures for a movie produced by Marc Platt (La La Land) and Colin Trevorrow (Safety Not Guaranteed). She lives on an island off the coast of Maine with a small but growing menagerie of beasts, some of which are human.

11 June 2018

Kickstarting Women Up To No Good!

 

Projects like the VIDA Count have demonstrated that women account for startlingly less than half of those published, and writers of marginalized sex and gender identities account for much less than their presence in the general population.

To help counteract that—and also because we thought it would be fun—we started the Women Up To No Good series, which focuses on “bad” women, and “good” women who just haven’t been caught yet.

There are other imbalances too, most notably race, and while we have no formal requirement for inclusion of writers of color, we strive for diversity in all of our anthologies.

Broad Knowledge: 35 Women Up To No Good and Sharp & Sugar Tooth: Women Up To No Good are anthologies of writing by women and authors of marginalized sex and gender identities, about female protagonists whose knowledge or appetites are critical to their stories.

We’re raising money to be able to pay our authors professional rates, and to properly promote the anthologies so they get the attention they deserve. Our hope is to get the Women Up To No Good series on a solid enough footing that sales of the books will support all future anthologies.

 

Broad Knowledge authors

Sharp & Sugar Tooth authors

Check out our Kickstarter here.

1 April 2018

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