Poems and short stories!

If you’re a fan of the short story “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, a poem of mine called The Strange Case has just been published in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: The classic tale and an anthology of twists, retellings, and sequels. The Kindle edition is $0.99 and the paperback is $10.99.

If you prefer science fiction tales of multiple universes, my short story “Three Minutes Ahead” is coming out very shortly in Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide Volume 6. This is one of my favorite stories because it’s based very loosely on true events and features a Jack Russell not too different from Chance.

You can preorder the Kindle version now or wait until the paperback comes out.

Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide Volume 6

Two years ago, my story “The Smell of Home,” about an old dog who turned out to be more than he seemed, was published in the 2018 Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide. Last year,  my story “The Ground Shifted”, about a teen with a vestibular disorder discovering the source of her problems, was accepted for publication  in the Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide Volume 5.

This year, “Three Minutes Ahead” about a young girl who gets premonitions of the future, can see into multiple universes, and lost her service dog, was accepted for publication in the Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide Volume 6.

The Young Explorers Adventure Guide series is middle-grade/young adult science fiction aimed to represent a diverse range of characters and situations. I’ve enjoyed writing for it, and as far as I know all the kids who’ve read it have enjoyed reading from it.

The kickstarter for this year’s volume launched recently and you can preorder/pledge for a copy now.

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(OMG that cover is gorgeous!)

The Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide Volume 5 edited by Corie Weaver and Sean Weaver

Disclaimer: as y’all know, I’m one of the 24 authors. So let me tell you a little about the other 23 stories, because damn this is a good book.

First of all, many science fiction subgenres are represented here. There’s steampunk (and wild west steampunk), battles, space ships, hard sci-fi (Main Character against their environment mostly), soft sci-fi (learning to learn, learning to trust, etc.), space dragons, LOTS of robots, and terraforming, just to name a few.

There’s a story based on Oliver Twist in here, people. Middle-grades sci-fi Oliver Twist.

Lest you think it’s all light fun and games, know that while these stories are written for middle-grade readers and up, the collection tackles some universal topics. There are stories that will make you think about long-term effects of racism or ableism. There are stories that will make you think about loneliness, about death of a family member, about working together in the depth of tragedy.

And there’s also a story of a mechanical monkey stealing a valise, so it’s also not a book I’d call gloomy or too heavy.

In fact, one of the things I love about this book is that pretty much every story ends on an up note. There are plenty of things to think about, yes, but our heroes and heroines succeed. (Well maybe not Pluto.) (It’s not a spoiler when the planet was demoted in 2006!)

As always I am honored to be included around such wonderful stories, but believe you me I’d be reading this thing even if I wasn’t published in it. The Young Explorers Adventure Guides are so good a friend’s non-sci-fi kid devours them every year. I took a copy into work and it disappeared off the swap shelf immediately. This is a good book.


How is it the 26th already?

For those keeping track at home, I am totally not going to win NaNoWriMo this year.  There are a lot of reasons, from a trip to Las Vegas for work (it was no fun, I assure you, I’d’ve rather been writing) to a trip to North Carolina (ok that was for pinball and it was fun even if I sucked), to a hospital stay for my husband and a month that just seemed to get away from me.

But I do have the bones of a short story from it, even if it’s not what I expected to be writing, so there’s that.

Writing is important to me but it’s also something I have to work on to do… I imagine a lot of people are like that. Ironically for as much as I hate airports I write really really well on airplanes (because really, what else is there to do?) so if this story hasn’t come to fruition by February I’m flying then…

There is no hobby that doesn’t seem like work sometimes, but the rest of my hobbies don’t wake me up at night going “quick, write this down!”

Good news!

After much hemming and hawing, I have purchased a new laptop. So our adventures for One Among the Dead will be resuming shortly! Sometime after I actually, like, remember what the heck I was doing.

It’s almost tempting to start a new world… might give her a complex though.

Meanwhile a reminder that if you haven’t looked at the Kickstarter for The Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide Volume Five, it’s open for only eight more days. They’re about $500 short of funding so  your $5 pledge gets you a DRM-free e-book and gets a bunch of kids closer to awesome reading material. (And it gets you one of my stories!)

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