Embarrassment is a poor motivation for writing, so I won’t be ashamed about how little readers have seen of me over the past few years. I haven’t been wasting my time – I’ve edited dozens of amazing novels, helped to plan two Waukesha County Sustainability Fairs, and found out this online dating thing might be all it’s cracked up to be (even if it means off-line interactions require an hour-long drive. I’m taking audiobook recommendations, by the way!).
All that said, I agree that it’s high time I published some fiction.
And now I am!
This December, I’m putting together three ebooks of re-released short fiction – a great opportunity to revisit old stories (some of which I’ve revised) and to discover new ones. They’re currently available from Amazon, iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and more, and I’m so excited to share their cover art:
Six stories explore the ways and the price of survival when everything seems lost:
An astrologer loses her stars but not her faith in them. A woman watches as her lover and her planet transform with new life—or die with it. A young man seeks revenge for unwelcome mercy granted in a world where every breath is agony. A group of artists discovers the strange loveliness which is all that remains of all the other worlds.
At the end of things, people display selfishness, exhaustion, but also connection. Friendships are betrayed and nurtured. If hope is gone, there is still determination, curiosity, and beauty.
Available on Amazon (including Kindle Unlimited)
Four stories of courage, compassion, and endurance celebrate:
The young man chosen to die in the place of a hero who can never lose
The secret at the core of a marriage society approves
The woman who built a forbidden flying machine, and the woman who loved her
Resilience under terrible odds
These are the things no regime can entirely repress—and they can make anyone a hero.
Available on Amazon and wider distributors through Draft2Digital
An epic, tragic, bewitching tale of strange spells and unexpected loyalties.
To Hethan A’Manth, it seemed like a routine enough mission: one more message to deliver. Certainly, this time it was to a rebel queen, but he knew to keep his head down as he passed through the affairs of monarchs, armies, and sorcerers.
Yet he becomes beguiled, entangled in the last stand of southern kingdom against the most puissant Empress—and in the friendship he forms with Asmadene the Halcyon, which might yet change the shape of history.
Available on Amazon and wider distributors through Draft2Digital
About Therese
Therese Arkenberg's first short story was accepted for publication on January 2, 2008, and her second acceptance came a few hours later. Since then they haven't always been in such a rush, yet her work appears in places like Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Analog, Daily Science Fiction, and the anthology Sword & Sorceress XXIV. Aqua Vitae, her science fiction novella, was released by WolfSinger Publications in December 2011.
She works as a freelance editor and writer in Wisconsin, where she returned after a brief but unforgettable time in Washington, D.C. When she isn't reading, writing, or editing (it's true!) she serves on the board of the Plowshare Center of Waukesha, which works for social, economic, and environmental justice.