Today I am reading my contributor’s copy of Grim Corps’ magazine’s premier issue, which contains a reprint of my psychological horror story and Poe* homage, “Ms Brellin”. Along with of course my own piece (I haven’t yet had the time to read up to the page where it starts yet, so my commentary is on other writer’s stories and thus perfectly unbiased), there’s some quite effective dark fiction here, with chilling lines dropped at just the right places. And the ink illustrations are ominously gorgeous.
Also, my science fiction story “The Astrologer’s Telling” received an Honorable Mention in the Dell Magazines Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing. I’m sorry I waited until my penultimate undergrad semester to discover this contest! My fellow finalists, as we’ve gotten to know each other through email, are some friendly and spectacularly talented people. I’m sorry I won’t be able to meet them in person, as the International Conference on the Fantastic, where the awards ceremony is held, begins in Orlando on the very same day my class flies out to Ghana. Studying abroad is a great reason to miss anything, I suppose. Yet I am sorry to miss this one.
*I keep saying it’s a Poe homage because I wrote it after nobody in my American Lit class agreed to go along with my alternative reading of “The Fall of the House of Usher.” So then I decided, fair enough, I’ll go and write a story that fits with my reading. Readers do seem to agree that “Ms Brellin,” at least, is a contemplation of the horrors of loneliness…and the perhaps worse horrors that can come in attempting to escape it…but I’ve not yet heard any comparisons to Poe. But I thought I’d put it out there, in case anyone wanted to smile and nod and make my day.