Posts Tagged ‘ short stories ’

The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2012

years-best-fantasy-and-horror-v3-slideI am so excited and pleased to announce that I have a story in Ticonderoga Publications’ upcoming The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2012, edited by Liz Grzyb and Talie Helene.

Stalemate, first published in my collection Showtime by Twelfth Planet Press, will appear alongside some of Australia and New Zealand”s very best writers of horror and fantasy.  The  collection contains 34 stories and poems:

  • Joanne Anderton, “Tied To The Waste”, Tales Of Talisman
  • R.J.Astruc, “The Cook of Pearl House, A Malay Sailor by the Name of Maurice”, Dark Edifice 2
  • Lee Battersby, “Comfort Ghost”, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine 56
  • Alan Baxter, “Tiny Lives”, Daily Science Fiction
  • Jenny Blackford, “A Moveable Feast”, Bloodstones
  • Eddy Burger, “The Witch’s Wardrobe”, Dark Edifice 3
  • Isobelle Carmody, “The Stone Witch”, Under My Hat
  • Jay Caselberg, “Beautiful”, The Washington Pastime
  • Stephen Dedman, “The Fall”, Exotic Gothic 4, Postscripts
  • Felicity Dowker, “To Wish On A Clockwork Heart”, Bread And Circuses
  • Terry Dowling, “Nightside Eye”, Cemetary Dance
  • Tom Dullemond, “Population Management”, Danse Macabre
  • Thoraiya Dyer, “Sleeping Beauty”, Epilogue
  • Will Elliot, “Hungry Man”, The Apex Book Of World SF
  • Jason Fischer, “Pigroot Flat”, Midnight Echo 8
  • Dirk Flinthart, “The Bull In Winter”, Bloodstones
  • Lisa L. Hannett, “Sweet Subtleties”, Clarkesworld
  • Lisa L. Hannett & Angela Slatter, “Bella Beaufort Goes To War”, Midnight And Moonshine
  • Narrelle M Harris, “Stalemate”, Showtime
  • Kathleen Jennings, “Kindling”, Light Touch Paper, Stand Clear
  • Gary Kemble, “Saturday Night at the Milkbar”, Midnight Echo 7
  • Margo Lanagan, “Crow And Caper, Caper And Crow”, Under My Hat
  • Martin Livings, “You Ain’t Heard Nothing Yet”, Living With The Dead
  • Penelope Love, “A Small Bad Thing”, Bloodstones
  • Andrew J. McKiernan, “Torch Song”, From Stage Door Shadows
  • Karen Maric, “Anvil Of The Sun”, Aurealis
  • Faith Mudge, “Oracle’s Tower”, To Spin A Darker Stair
  • Nicole Murphy, “The Black Star Killer”, Damnation And Dames
  • Jason Nahrung, “The Last Boat To Eden”, Surviving The End
  • Tansy Rayner Roberts, “What Books Survive”, Epilogue
  • Angela Slatter, “Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean”, This Is Horror Webzine
  • Anna Tambour, “The Dog Who Wished He’d Never Heard Of Lovecraft”, Lovecraft Zine
  • Kyla Ward, “The Loquacious Cadaver”, The Lion And The Aardvark: Aesop’s Modern Fables
  • Kaaron Warren, “River Of Memory”, Zombies Vs. Robots

Look at my name right there, surrounded by the likes of Isobelle Carmody, Alan Baxter, Stephen Dedman, Margo Lanagan, Jason Nahrung, Tansy Rayner Roberts and Felicty Dowker. Just look! I’m in a  book with Kaaron Warren, people! And Terry Dowling! And all those fine, fine writers! LOOK! (Can you tell I’m excited, and proud, and pleased as punch? Can you?)

Alongside these stories, The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2012 will contain a 2012 round-up and a list of recommended reading.

The book is due out in July in hardback, paperback and ebook editions, and you can pre-order it at Indiebooks Online.

And so, in conclusion: SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Narrelle M Harris is a Melbourne-based writer. Find out more about her books, smartphone apps, public speaking and other activities at www.narrellemharris.com.

2013
04/22
CATEGORY
short stories
writing
4 comments

It’s Showtime!!

This week on International Women’s Day (8 March), Twelfth Planet Press announced the official release of my new short story collection, Showtime!

I’m so excited to be part of TPP’s Twelve Planets series. I’m also excited to bring you four domestic (but not domesticated) horror stories.

  • Stalemate
    - a kitchen ghost story
  • Thrall
    - a Hungarian vampire finds the 21st Century doesn’t agree with him, and all he has to help him remedy the situation is a dowdy middle aged mum. With allergies.
  • The Truth About Brains
    - a teenage girl’s little brother gets turned into a zombie, and she’s trying to fix him before mum finds out.
  • Showtime
    - Gary the vampire and Lissa the librarian from The Opposite of Life go to the Royal Melbourne Show. Lissa is annoyed to discover vampires up to No Good at the Haunted House. Terrified, but mostly really annoyed.

US Author Seanan Maguire wrote a magnificent introduction to the collection that makes me feel amazed that someone could like something I wrote so much, and see so much in it.

An e-version will be available in due course, but in the meantime buy Showtime from Twelfth Planet Press.

Some bookstores stock TPP books, too, including Embiggen Books on Little Lonsdale Street and Notions Unlimited in Chelsea, so check with them. If you want your own local bookstore to order it in, the details are: Showtime by Narrelle M Harris, published by Twelfth Planet Press, ISBN 978-0-9872162-0-5.

The official blurb:

Family drama can be found anywhere: in kitchens, in cafes. Derelict hotels, showground rides. Even dungeons far below ruined Hungarian castles. (Okay, especially in Hungarian dungeons.)

Old family fights can go on forever, especially if you’re undead. If an opportunity came to save someone else’s family, the way you couldn’t save your own, would you take it?

Your family might include ghosts, or zombies, or vampires. Maybe they just have allergies. Nobody’s perfect.

Family history can weigh on the present like a stone.  But the thing about families is, you can’t escape them. Not ever. And mostly, you don’t want to.

It’s a beautiful collection of pieces, each one utterly classic and completely new at the same time… In Narrelle’s hands, everything old is new again, and everything new has the weight of age.  There’s magic in that, and in this book. — Seanan McGuire

These Australians give me hope for the future of female, and even feminist, writers in SF. – Gwyenth Jones

Narrelle M Harris is a Melbourne-based writer. Find out more about her books, iPhone apps, public speaking and other activities at www.narrellemharris.com.

2012
03/09
CATEGORY
Gary and Lissa
short stories
The Opposite of Life
vampires
writing
zombies
4 comments

The Truth About Brains

Best New Zombie Tales vol 2My short zombie story, The Truth About Brains, is now available!! It was published in the Canadian zombie anthology, Best New Zombie Tales (volume 2), edited by James Roy Daley.

This is the story that begins:

“My little brother Dylan is dead, but that doesn’t stop him from being a pest. He still follows me everywhere, and Mum still makes me take him with me when I go to the shops.  It wouldn’t be so bad, except he’s always trying to bite people. He tried to bite me the first few days, but I hit him across the nose with a rolled up newspaper and he gave it up.”

Those of you who came to my reading of the story at Continuum 5 know what the truth about brains really is, but the rest of you can find out by picking up the anthology as a paperback or a Kindle book from Amazon.com:

Best New Zombie Tales (Vol. 2) (Paperback)

Best New Zombie Tales (vol. 2) (Kindle)

Best New Zombie Tales vol 1You can also, of course, get Volume One, jam packed full of entertaining stories of the undead:

Best New Zombie Tales (Vol. 1) (Paperback)

Best New Zombie Tales, Vol. 1 (Kindle)

Both books are also available as e-books at Smashwords!

And if any Australian booksellers out there want to stock either book, they are distributed via Ingram Content Group.

2010
10/11
CATEGORY
short stories
writing
zombies
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Review: Scary Kisses edited by Liz Grzyb

Cover of Scary Kisses

Cover of Scary Kisses, designed by Amanda Rainey

Another of my Swancon 2010 purchases, Scary Kisses was launched with cupcakes and readings by contributing authors. Not only was there a lot of promise in those snippets, the cover was gorgeous and it promptly went into my stash – and to the top of my very, very, very large to-read pile.

Liz Grzyb has compiled a fabulous collection of paranormal stories about love. Vampires, zombies, ghosts, elder gods, witches, dragons and unnamed evil all get a place to shine, or lurk.  Some of the stories worked better for me than others, as always happens in any anthology, but the whole ensemble is a fine dish of literate goodies!

Standouts for me were:

  • Felicity Dowker’s “Bread and Circuses”, a dark, disturbing, moving story of love after the zombie apocalypse
  • Ian Nichols’ “Fade Away” pleased me by delivering an ending I wasn’t expecting
  • I find I want to read more set in the world created by Angela Slatter and L.L. Hannett in “The February Dragon”
  • Kyla Ward’s “Cursebreaker: The Welsh Widow and the Wandering Wooer” demonstrated a refreshing and lively prose style, and is another one with potential for a whole universe of fascinating stories
  • My fondness for “Date with a Vampire” by Annette Backshall bloomed the instant the heroine refused to play her part, and the Perth setting was nice. Let’s see more paranormal fiction set in Australia, folks!
  • D.C. White’s “Pride and Tentacles” is just the right fluffy bit of fun to round off the collection and for some reason I find I’m not the least bit surprised by Cthulu’s choice of book.

There’s a lot of great work coming out of Australian small presses at the moment, and Western Australian seems to be leading the charge with its SF and fanasy publishers, like Twelfth Planet Press and Triconeroga Publications. The latter has published Scary Kisses and it’s worth checking both publishers out for their back catalogue and upcoming books. In the meantime, buy Scary Kisses and support Australian small press, not because it’s Australian, but because it’s great.

2010
06/15
CATEGORY
Reviews
short stories
vampires
writing
1 comment

One of these things is not like the other one

I’ve just completed the first draft of a new short story, called ‘So hard to find good help’. It’s a vampire story, of course. The trouble is, it started out as a comic horror story, and ended up a gruesome little drama. In the rewrite I will have to find a way to make it sit as a drama, and then change the name. Or maybe I can up the humour, and keep the title. It’s a bit frustrating when stories go and change their sub genre on you without your permission.

It’s fun writing short stories again, though. I haven’t done it in nearly 20 years. My first attempt at it after the long hiatus, a zombie story called ‘The Truth About Brains” was picked up by a Canadian anthology, ‘Best Zombie Tales” and will be published in volume 2 later this year. My current plan is to write another four or so short stories, on horror/humour themes to submit to an Australian small press. I’d really like to work with them, but I don’t really have very long before the deadline, so I’ll have to wait and see if I produce enough material that is good enough to submit to them.

I’m also trying to cover some of the horror monsters I haven’t dealt with yet. I have a werewolf and a mummy story in mind, and I am trying to pull together some ideas for a ghost story of some description. Though I did write a play that was a ghost story once, and perhaps it would lend itself to prose. Hmmm.

2010
06/14
CATEGORY
short stories
vampires
writing
6 comments
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