Another post so soon? I know, it’s almost like this website is active again or something.
Another thing I’m back to doing after a long hiatus? Book reviews.
Specifically one for Kate Alice Marshall’s What Lies in the Woods, over on the Patreon. There’s a partial preview available to everyone at https://www.patreon.com/posts/book-review-what-88961951. With the full review available to Patrons.
There’ll be another book review up on there in a couple of weeks. What’ll that one be? Well, you’ll get to see in a couple weeks.
But in the meantime, consider finding a copy of What Lies in the Woods to read It’s an exceptional book, definitely worth picking up. I haven’t stopped thinking about it since I read it earlier this year.
And that’s me out. I hope everyone’s September has started well, and continues so. See you all again soon.
All right, let’s get the basics out of the way first:
No, I’m not dead. Yes, it’s been almost two years since I last posted anything on the blog. Hard couple years there. Will I be talking about the absence? Probably not.
So why bring the blog back after kind of abandoning it? (I’ve been updating the Bibliography page in the background off and on.) Because publishing and freelancing is a gig economy, and a few things have happened in the last few months that have led me to need to widen my avenues for letting people know I need work. And hence returning here even though I have mixed feelings about maintaining the blog. Some of you know why.
But what work am I talking about needing?
–
Freelance Writing and Editing
Those of you who already know me know the drill: I run my freelancing out of the Matheson Freelancing website. The rates have gone up slightly since I last posted about it a couple years ago. But then so has the cost of living.
End of the day, freelancing has for a long time been how I make the majority of my money. For those who don’t know much about me as a freelancer (maybe you’re here looking up something from the author side?), I do copywriting, ghostwriting, fiction/tie-in writing, and sometimes writing for TTRPGs and board games; as an editor I do substantive/developmental, copy, and line editing, alongside proofreading and critical assessments. A little bit of everything, really.
Need writing or editing work done, or know someone who does? Feel free to use the link above or share it, all the rates for the most common types of work I do are covered there. Anything you don’t see, feel free to ask about.
But what else have I been up to, you ask? Well.
But what else have I been up to, you ask? Well.-
A New Patreon Account, and a New Story from me (on Patreon)
It’s been a long time since I was last on Patreon, and a good deal’s changed there. Though I’m approaching it a little bit like my first go round with them.
I’m posting the aforementioned stories and essays once a month for each, so you get something new to read every couple weeks. And while I’m writing all the essays newly for the Patreon, the stories are all right now things that never quite found homes — the ones that ran out of markets that were right for them, or just never clicked with editors. Stories I care about, but couldn’t share.
Including more of the Titan and Serpent stories, which I used to get a lot of questions about. Primarily when more were coming. And while there’s a whole mosaic novel of them pulled together from many of the existing stories in that world, it needs a lot of rewriting, and the ones I’ll be posting on Patreon are the standalone versions that also never found homes.
So, technically, I’ve got a new story out in the world as of this morning, it’s just me releasing it rather than pointing you to another publisher.
Still, it’s been five years since the last of the Titan and Serpent stories that got published, “And at its Heart, Such Depths,” was out with Augur. It feels good to be sharing something from that world again.
–
And that covers a lot of what’s up with me right now. Still freelancing, need more work pretty much asap, and trying to get more of my fiction out into the world.
Will there be other life updates?
Yes. Off and on. I’m undecided about how much I’ll be back to posting on this website in any kind of regular fashion. Partly because with the new back end editor for WordPress writing on here is a huge pain in the ass. And also partly because putting together a blog takes me quite a while, and most of my time right now is bound up in job hunting, applying for grants, trying to get back to writing fiction more generally, and also the craft essays for the Patreon.
To that last point: come join me on the Patreon. It’ll be fun. Good stories and essays coming up. With more stuff planned for it if things pick up over there.
A blog post at the beginning of the year, and a blog post at the end of the year. Nice symmetry, isn’t it?
As the year winds down and we head earnestly toward winter, I find myself thinking back on a year where creative work has proved difficult. Of any kind, really. Writing. Blogging. Even the editorial work on Anathema has proved a challenge to keep up with this year. And running a fundraiser for the mag (yay for being funded again!) may be many things, but a creatively fulfilling endeavour it is not.
Lots of people putting up beautiful posts about what they’ve accomplished this year, and all the works they’ve published, and thoughts on the year to come. Only a single publication from me in 2021:
And fuck but I was getting morose when I started writing this and just … angry … with a year that has proved extremely difficult on multiple fronts. A lot of good in it, yeah. But because of physical issues (I’ve lived with different instances and causes of chronic pain my entire life, and that’s ramped up in the last year – having thrown my back out four fucking times in 2020 – so if I’ve been slow to reply or keep up with things, that’s why) and working pretty much non-stop and chasing work to be able to pay rent and buy groceries I’ve managed fair little creative work outside of some tie-in and game writing gigs.
And while I quite like doing the latter, after years of trying to keep up a fuller publication schedule of my own intellectual property, it feels a bit like failing to have just that one thing out. Hell, there was a palpable sense of relief when it went live that I had at least that one this year.
Fiction publishing has the same manner of publish or perish mentality that academic writing does, albeit more quietly. The more we produce, the more visible we are. Publish X stories or you’re not trying hard enough. Publish at least a novel a year or you’re not being prolific enough. Write significantly more novels than that per year outside of (and sometimes in) trad pub or you’re not going to make enough money at it to survive.
Writing that quickly – and doing so well – is a very specific skill. I sometimes think we believe it the norm, but it’s not. It’s an acquirable skill, but one we have, I think, made the ideal.
And as I watch people I like and admire talk about their five, ten, fifteen publications in 2021 I find myself thinking about a tie-in novella of mine that was originally going to come out this year and that looks at this point to be travelling into 2022. Such is the nature of publishing, and whenever Bardmageddon comes out is … when it comes out.
One of the differences between tie-in writing and trad pub is being well and truly outside the process. Once the work is out of my hands … there’s little besides promotion and audience engagement I can do. But I think on that novella – the second in the Agents of Mystery … sequence? Series? (It currently consists of a short story, two novellas – one published, Bardmageddon in pipeline – and another novella in-progress, so I’m never quite sure how to refer to it.) Partly because my four fighty, disaster baby central characters are all aspects of … well … me.
We spend a lot of time in this industry divorcing ourselves from our writing, and talking about how work cannot and should not be identified with an author wholesale because we are not the work we make. And the characters we write are not always us – especially not when we are trying to depict something vile or heinous. Thus, what we write is not always what we, the author think. Not that that distinction remains intact once the work finds an audience.
Except I … kind of do process all my stuff on the page? I write mostly about loss and grief and trauma and being haunted (often literally) by the past, and what recovery looks like. When we find the latter at all. And that holds true for my tie-in writing as well. I just also write a lot more comedy when doing tie-in work. Because I like writing comedy and it’s fun and for some reason seems easier in that space.
And so the four, ridiculous queer dumbasses I created for these stories are all very much tied to me:
– Well-meaning fuck-up Jane, who gets knocked down, but gets back up again. And breaks a few things along the way. Sometimes herself. – Self-abnegating, self-medicating Alejandra, living with chronic pain and the aftermath of life-changing injury. Will intentionally break shit along the way. Look, if you didn’t want it broken… – Tiny oblivious Trans nexus of sublimated rage, Kid Necro. Tied to family and cultural legacies they’re not sure how to feel about yet fall back on anyway. Wait, did they just break that? Oh fuck, sorry. – So very, *very* tired of this shit warrior mom ghost, Ilkath. Misses the simpler days of her (living) youth when you could just blow off steam by killing an eldritch god. Equally as likely to fix the broken shit or bury her greataxe in your face.
And each story about the Agents of Mystery (before they were a group, formatively, and during) has been specific to one of them. “Kill Me Baby, One More Time” was Jane’s story. Idol Pursuits was Alejandra’s. And Bardmageddon … well … Bardmageddon is very much Kid’s book.
Which is probably why it opens with a band frontman going up in flames like a Roman Candle on a concert stage. Look it … makes more sense in context. Anyway, that’s not the point.
The point is that it’s a book about my love of Metal music, and how we drift away from our past and ourselves, and how the longer we don’t address what’s going on under the surface the sicker it makes us until the darkness festering there starts coming out all on its own. All set in a nice, quiet, totally-not-Occult-haven College that every Autumn just before the semester gets going is host to a Metal music festival called … Bardmageddon. And this year’s murders at said music festival. And shenanigans. Because if there’s one thing this team does well, it’s shenanigans. Solving mysteries? Ehh … 50-50? But unintentionally destructive dumbassery? There they’ve got you covered.
And even though the book isn’t out, and I don’t know when it will be, I like talking about it, so we’re gonna talk about one thing more: the chapter titles. Because it’s a book about music, so all the chapter titles are somewhat specific song titles, and I’m going to link videos for those songs below.
These chapter titles could technically (?) qualify as spoilers for the book’s trajectory, so if you want to go in all unknowing, maybe stop here and come back once the book is out.
The Videos/Chapter Titles
Let the Bodies Hit the Floor (“Bodies”, Drowning Pool – strong epilepsy warning for this one)
The Gathering of the Accursed Artifacts (Ibid, Hoth)
Summon the Warrior (Ibid, Tengger Cavalry)
Layers of Time (Ibid, Lacuna Coil)
In the Labyrinth (Ibid, Bridear – this one has gone locked behind a paywall on YouTube or Spotify access, so no link for this one. Apologies.)
Who Is Gonna Be The One (Ibid, Jinjer)
Sweet, Sweet Lies (Ibid, Infected Rain)
(Don’t Fear) The Reaper (Ibid, Blue Oyster Cult)
The Deep & The Dark (Ibid, Visions of Atlantis)
Daughters of Darkness (Ibid, Halestorm)
Machi Bhasad (Expect a Riot) (Ibid, Bloodywood)
The Day is My Enemy (Ibid, Prodigy – yes, there is an official video for this, but it would require another epileptic seizure warning, and this video is just better)
Into the Infernal Domains (Ibid, Dracena)
From the Grave (Ibid, Eleine)
When Worlds Collide (Ibid, Powerman 5000 – just going to put an epilepsy seizure warning here as well…)
The Reckoning (Ibid, Within Temptation)
Some of these section titles were chosen more for the title than the song, others because I love the song. Still others just meshed perfectly on both fronts.
And there was one additional song title that was going to feature, but the Epilogue (rightly) got cut, so here, have the deleted track as well:
Sleep Now in the Fire (Ibid, Rage Against the Machine)
Because we don’t talk about the good Metal music without Rage Against the Machine, thank you very much.
And that’s where my head is as we look to the end of 2021. Looking toward the future that is whenever this novella gets published. Well, also working on the final issue of Anathema for the year, which will be coming out sometime before year’s end. It’s a beautiful one. But that is a post for another time.
In the meantime, will there be more blogging from me down the line? I mean at some point, sure. But fuck knows when.
And hey, if you want to see how the Agents of Mystery weirdness began and continued, you can pick up a copy of “Kill Me Baby, One More Time” in Nisaba Journal, Issue 4.
In the meantime, I’m going to go listen to that track list again. And hopefully get back to writing the third novella in that sequence at some point. Always do love playing around in that world. It helps when the writing’s has some more personal overtones. Even when everything else about can verge into the ridiculous.
May you find your way into, or back into depending on where you stand, creative work of your own in 2022.
I think we can universally agree that, no matter how good any of our individual 2020s were (and I do hope you were all as safe and well as able throughout the endless shitstorm that was last year), it’s bloody fantastic to be over and done with what was a fucking awful year for so many. And yes, the world continues chatoic, but it is so good to have the hope of better things that comes with this particular calendrical reset.
So on that note: Happy New Year to one and all!
Yes, it’s a day or two (or a few…) late when posting this, to be sure. But the celebratory spirit remains true and untarnished for some mild tardiness.
And, honestly, it took a couple days to come down from last year. Not least of all because it was, for me, a full one in work terms (as well as pretty much every other regard). So much so that there were things I meant to blog about last year and they all just went by the wayside while I was frantically trying to get things done.
Given that there is now time to blog about a few things, let’s do an announcement dump! A few things from last year, and one upcoming:
–
A New Blue Rose Short Story
–
–
Back in November of last year, Nisaba Press put out an original Blue Rose fiction anthology, Tales from the Mount — tied to the Envoys to the Mount adventure path. It features all-original content from a small but excellent host of names. Yours truly included.
My own piece follows Korre and Atla from “In That Fire, All the Voices of Your Dead,” that appeared in Nisaba Journal Vol. 1. “Whispers in Shadow and Bone” takes place about a year or so after that prior tale. This one told from Korre’s perspective and set in the Shadow Barrens, chasing a bounty of a different kind from her usual fare…
–
A New (Giant, Showcase) Edition of Anathema
–
–
December 2020’s edition of Anathema just released with a day or two to spare before year’s end. But this time round we created a Showcase Edition in place of a standard issue — a 400+ page eBook retrospective of our first four years, with 21 reprints and an original cover.
We’ll be back to our usual format come April. But in the meantime, come see what we’ve published that’s spoken to us most deeply these last four years. And, hey, if you’re new to the mag, this is an excellent way to acquaint yourself with what we publish. :)
–
A New Mutants & Masterminds Novella on the Horizon
–
Looking ahead to this year’s output, I have a new tie-in novella coming: Bardmaggedon, the sequel to Idol Pursuits, will be out this winter/spring. Like Idol Pursuits before it, Bardmaggedon follows the Agents of Mystery — my four queer, stabby, supernatural disaster babies.
Where Idol Pursuits drew heavily from The Maltese Falcon, Bardmaggedon is a love letter to both Gaudy Night and metal music across its many subgenres. Also maybe a little bit heavy metal horror movies… Look, there’s a lot going on with this one. And yes, I will be posting a playlist for the novella. Hell, I’ve already kind of done that work ahead of time because said playlist is also the novella’s chapter titles. :)
–
More General Housekeeping (Writing, Freelancing)
–
I’m considering putting together a year in writing post for 2020. It was a full year on that front, in various respects. And I enjoy doing them, even if it’s been a while since the last one. Though given my largely infrequent blogging as of late, we’ll see when that ends up happening.
On the freelancing front, I’ve got a lot of open slots these next few months, and could abolsutley do with more work. So if you’re looking for editing, critique/assessment, copywriting, or ghostwriting work from me, now is an excellent time to do so. Most questions relating to that answered here on the Matheson Freelancing website. Questions not answered by the info found there should be addressed to the Contact form on that site.
And here, friends, is where we temporarily part ways again until the next blog, whenever that finds us. Because 2021 is already shaping up to be … interesting.
For now, keep safe as you can. And may things go well with all of you.
So I play MTG Arena. Which is the online version of the Magic the Gathering collectible card game for those who have no idea what I’m talking about; ignore the neepery that follows as desired. I play Arena to relax.
But the other day I wandered into a match in the regular play queue and found myself across the virtual table from a streamer I like and whose videos I sometimes watch: HelloGoodGame. I watch a few different Arena streamers from time to time. Mostly Merchant, as well as AliasV, the aforementioned HelloGoodGame, and CovertGoBlue, alongside others.
I’ve been dreading the possibility of facing a streamer I watch since I started playing Arena back in February. It’s possible I’ve fought streamers whose names I don’t recognize immediately, but I’d have no way of knowing that, so what are you gonna do? But here my immediate instinct was to just quit out before I embarrassed myself on a livestream. Which is usually what happens in stressful matches for me. Because ever since I was in high school I’ve been having … sequencing and transposition issues. I used to think it might be some kind of dyslexia, but I’ve never had any trouble reading. Instead:
I transpose or replace words when talking to people — if you’ve ever seen me hitch in a conversation where a pause doesn’t belong, it’s because I’m trying to get my brain to make the intended word come out. I’ve gotten fast enough at it over the years that I think most people probably don’t catch it, but I can’t be sure.
I reverse or transpose travel directions even when I’ve taken a route for years. Much to the woe of anyone who’s ever had to have me navigate because I’m the one who “knows the way.”
I sometimes freeze as I lose a thought entirely mid-sentence and have to reconstruct that train of thought from scratch. That pause is harder to hide.
And in games like MTG I flip required sequencing, or think in the moment that a sequence works differently or in the reverse of how it does despite knowing, from years of experience, exactly how it actually works.
I did end up playing that match against HGG I mentioned above, and you can see it in this embedded video:
I go by “Sekisetsu” on Arena as in several other places online, and that match starts at about the 15-minute mark. And therein you can see good examples of the things I’m talking about in this post when I play the pair of Corridor Monitors before attacking with the Arcanist Owls I’d been intending to untap and have on defence by playing those Monitors, or when I let the remaining mana in my pool accrued from a Nyx Lotus tap dissipate between phases instead of playing the pair of Brazen Borrowers before that disappeared as intended, and so on.
I’ve been playing MTG in paper form on and off, mostly casually, since ’94. Admittedly with about a decade-long hiatus in there. Anyway, point is: I’ve been doing this long enough that I know what I’m doing, and when the stress gets bad and the transposition issues worsen I still can’t play properly for shit. If you’ve played against me in the Ranked queues on Arena, you’ve probably seen what I’m talking about happen. It’s not as bad outside of Ranked, where there’s less stress. But against a professional streamer? I’m surprised there were so relatively few misplays in the end. Which is why I mostly stick to unranked matches and play primarily in Festivals or Drafts these days.
Because the pandemic has massively ramped up these long-standing issues. They get worse with stress, remember? And what is this pandemic but an endless refrain of uncertainty and anxiety.
Even at the best of times my brain just jumbles information, to no real rhyme or reason. Which is hilarious, because I have an excellent memory, but it’s like a ransacked filing cabinet in here — it’s all there, but good luck finding what you need in the right moment. :D
And it’s not really the kind of thing I generally talk about publicly, because you don’t want freelancing clients knowing that particular issue when the bulk of your business relies on precision writing and editing. (So much for that now, *cough*.) But I make it work, it just means I spend a lot longer double checking my work. Hell, I reread every email I send multiple times, and things still slip through every once in a while.
Honestly, it’s the sheer shame of not wanting people to think you’re a fool because they can’t see what goes on behind the scenes, or sometimes just don’t care, that keeps me from engaging where I want to in a lot of cases. Or it can rob the joy of engaging in something like MTG because you know you’re going to routinely fuck up with that stress in a pandemic at an all-time high.
It’s why I tend to prefer listening over talking in group settings, and to observe more than interact. I’ve had numerous people tell me over the years that they think I like moving through spaces like a ghost. I think it’s meant as a compliment? Does’t land that way because I actively fucking hate ghosting through a space. But it’s been a necessity over the years because I’m constantly afraid of embarrassing myself.
And it’s one of two reasons I don’t blog as much anymore, despite wanting to. The other reason is a conversation for another post. But in so many ways it’s easier to just not put yourself out there when the fear of failure is super high.
So I almost didn’t take the match against HGG. I hovered over the Concede button during hand selection for what felt like an interminable time.
I was so panicked because I was terrified that I was going to get made fun of on stream — and then if/when that video went live on YouTube I wasn’t going to be able to keep myself from watching it and see that happening. Which is ridiculous, HGG doesn’t do that, he always seems like a lovely person. But the reality of that didn’t matter, because in my head everyone immediately sees my failures and is waiting to pounce on them. I also have OCD and Anxiety, that’s just the resulting expectation of that combination.
And then I watched the video, after checking for days if it was going to go up and beating myself up mentally at length.
And it wasn’t so bad. Because, yeah, I definitely fucked up multiple plays, but while piloting an intermediate-difficulty deck I still managed to hold my own against a much better player than me. I won’t spoil the outcome, you should go watch it yourself if you’re so inclined. It’s a good match, and HGG’s videos are always fun to watch.
But here’s the thing to stress: it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. And I say that as someone who quite literally shakes full-bodied from ramping anxiety.
We spend so much of our lives living in fear. Much of it justified in the face of the state of the world, and longstanding bigotry and hatred and oppression. But fear cannot rule you, or you will not survive it and you will never manage anything. Not exactly news, but always a good thing to remember.
I guess I’m talking to myself as much as anyone else. I usually am with this kind of post. But discussion of “not being afraid to do the thing” seems timely, somehow. Or perhaps it’s always timely and the reminder is just occasionally warranted.
A lot of ramble today. Take from it what you will. Hopefully some of it proves helpful or timely for some of you. And there’ll be more blogging from me when I have the brain for it. Or when I just need to let fly a good rant. As ever. :)
In the meantime, look after yourselves, and each other.
Yes, I know I have not blogged for months. There’s a pandemic on, you may have noticed? Been hunkered down, burning most of my focus on work this last long while. Blogging … can fall by the wayside under those circumstances. And also because of something getting discussed in the next post, which is probably going up later today, provided I finish it. But right now:
It’s August again. Which means a new issue of Anathema is out in the world! Specifically Issue 11, which you can read for free online here, and whose absolutely fucking gorgeous cover you can see below:
Chinelo and Andrew and I are, as ever, excessively fond of the way this one turned out. And I, obviously biased though I am, think you should read it post-haste. I mean you can’t beat exceptional fiction for the reading price of “free,” can you?
So … an announcement to make about two publications within a couple of weeks of each other? Normally, no. Today, yes! Because Nisaba Press just released For Hart and Queen, an anthology of all the previously uncollected Blue Rose tie-in stories from various venues (including Nisaba Journal issues).
Which means that a) you get a boatload of excellent reprints if you want to pick up a copy, b) that you get an original piece in the conclusion of Rhiannon Louve’s Blue Rose story cycle that’s been appearing in bits and pieces (technically a novella in its completed form), and c) if you haven’t already read my story “In That Fire, All the Voices of Your Dead” from Nisaba Journal Issue 1, you can also read that now by picking up the anthology.
My own story is the introduction of the characters Atla and Korre, who you’ll be seeing again soon in another story from the Blue Rose world. I’ll be sharing that other announcement once it goes live. But in the meantime, want to catch up on how a Jarzoni refugee managed not to die in the desert, haunted by the ghosts of her past? And, you know, also found a friend, and maybe even a chance at building a future? Then go grab a copy of For Hart and Queen! :D
Wow. It has been a lot of months since I blogged on here. Been kind of in my head for the most part. Have you seen what this fucking year has been trying to pull with us collectively? Like, wow, in so many ways, fuck 2020.
But today is a busy day of things doing, and thus requires blogging.
Second, it’s also launch day for something of my own:
Idol Pursuits, my Mutants & Masterminds novella is now a thing you can buy and read! You can pick it up from either DriveThruFiction, or the Nisaba Press site directly.
Would you like an excellently-priced novella about four stabby, supernatural, dysfunctional disaster babies? Who, like, might or might not form a team (eventually…), but who will absolutely get into absurd shenanigans in a queer Maltese Falcon-esque detective mystery in the meantime?
Then, friends, have I got a book for you. :D
Grab your copy of Idol Pursuits so you can read about Alejandra, Jane, Kid, and Ilkath (The Revenant, Resurrectionist, Kid Necro, and … uh … Ilkath, respectively) basically being superheroic fuckups.
Those of you who’ve previously read “Kill Me Baby, One More Time,” in Nisaba Journal Issue 4 have already met Jane, (if you haven’t, hey, why not do so now?), and Idol Pursuits is set a couple years after that story. Though it stands alone from those events.
And for those of you who find you really like these ridiculous disaster babies and want to, you know, see what happens after the events of Idol Pursuits, I handed in a sequel novella earlier this year. Some of you may remember me mentioning writing a thing called Bardmaggedon off and on, which is its own set of ridiculousness…
But you’ll have to wait a little longer for that one.
In the meantime, go buy Idol Pursuits. :p
Oh, and if you like it, leave a review where you can, or shout about it to friends (or enemies, you do you). I’m trying to get people to let me keep writing these, damn it. ;)
We took the Anathema: Spec from the Margins blog off the site back in April, so this year I’m putting up the 2019 award eligible content for the mag here.
The new issue just dropped Tuesday (you can read Issue 9 here) and with our Year 3 run done, we’re both looking back at the past year and thinking about the upcoming 2020 schedule.
2019 was a pretty good year, all things considered: A successful Year 4 IndieGoGo. First year of raised pay rates. First year of running poetry. We got to run two original covers out of our three. And seeing more subs come in across all categories meant less scrambling to put out issues in a timely fashion. :)
And what did we publish this year? We ran 21 pieces of original content: 13 stories, 6 poems, and 2 pieces of non-fiction, totalling just over 63,000 words.
Anathema itself isn’t eligible for any awards that we’re aware of (we don’t publish enough issues annually). But all of our original content absolutely is! :D
“St. Agnes” by Andalah Ali
(Short Story, 2,950 Words)
Need to catch up on our 2019 output? Follow the links above. Already read it and think it’s worth nominating for an award? What a coincidence, so we do we! :D
In all seriousness though, if you love what we’ve published, absolutely nominate the work that spoke to you for awards. Or talk to people about the stories, poems, essays, and art that struck a chord with you. Letting people know we exist and that we’re out here producing content helps us keep bringing you more exceptional, heartfelt, hilarious, terrifying, quiet, bombastic, slice-of-life, and cathartic work from marginalized creators. Because as a fairly small mag, Anathema survives on word of mouth, donations, and the ebooks and subscriptions we sell. (The latter two are available through our Store.)
In the end, the mag doesn’t exist without our content creators, readers, and fans. We just get to be the platform, and to share the wonders that keep coming our way. You all keep this going.
And we’re delighted you keep coming back to be part of this year after year. Thank you for being there, and we’ll have more for you to love in 2020! :)
Given everything going on the last few months (it’s been a busy fall), I might have been remiss in announcing that my story, “Kill Me Baby, One More Time,” came out in Nisaba Journal Issue 4 in late November.
So here, then, is your belated announcement that I have a new tie-in story out in the world!
Specifically one tied to Green Ronin’s Mutants & Masterminds setting: the tale of a queer superhero who can’t stay dead, PTSD, werewolves, white supremacist elder god cultists, and just trying to make your relationship work in the midst of a whole lot of supernatural shit.
You know. The usual superhero fare.
Now, above and beyond my hoping you read the story because I enjoy writing these things and happen to think the Nisaba Journal series is excellent and you should go read all the other volumes as well, there are a couple of other reasons to read this one:
First, as far as I know it’s the first tie-in story set in M&M‘s Mystery, New Hampshire. Which is a delightfully creepy place and doesn’t really get enough love yet. So what better introduction to its wonderfully supernatural storytelling possibilities in fiction than through horror and absurdism, but, like, with an unkillable superhero?
And second, because this story focuses on Jane Dolan (The Resurrectionist), one of the protagonists of my Mutants & Masterminds novella, Idol Pursuits, which will be out next year. (Which is also set in Mystery.) You don’t necessarily need to read this story to read the novella. But this one comes first chronologically, and I’m biased and think you should read both. :)
(The first link in this post takes you to Green Ronin’s Nisaba page, where you should absolutely buy the book and bypass purchasing it through Amazon. But I’m all for people thumbing through the fiction first to see if it’s to their taste.)
And that is me out for now. With Anathema‘s next issue due out this month, I’ll be back on the blog in a bit to talk about other things. But in the meantime, go read the story and enjoy! :D
Herein may be found Author Ramblings, Fortuitous Disasters, and Occasional Dead Bodies. (You have been warned.)
Matheson Freelancing
All of the editorial freelancing information has moved off this website, and over to a dedicated website for the freelancing work I do. You can now find that information on the Matheson Freelancing website.
Michael Matheson | A Dark and Terrible Beauty 