Solarpunk Creatures and Equity Assurance

Today is the book birthday of the Solarpunk Creatures anthology by World Weaver Press. You can learn more about it here. The eBook is currently $4.99 and will be at that price until the end of January. Special credit should go out to the editors:

Christoph Rupprecht Mastodon: @focx@scholar.social Twitter: @focx
Deborah Cleland Bluesky: @patchworkdeb@bsky.social Mastodon: @debisda@aus.social
Melissa Ingaruca Moreno Instagram: mel_ingaruca
Norie Tamura Twitter: @tamura_norie
Rajat Chaudhuri Bluesky: @rajatchaudhuri@bsky.social Instagram: @rajatchaudhuri Twitter: @rajatchaudhuri

I have a short story in this anthology called "The Colorful Crow of Web-of-Life Park." The story is about the relationship between an escaped parrot and the crow that freed him, as the parrot is accepted as part of the crow's family. The parrot's former owner is a biologist who helps create and administer a bird flu vaccine. One of the people she speaks to during the story is an equity assurer, which is a new job I created for the solarpunk genre. Hopefully this is a concept that can be applied in real life.

My day job is in quality assurance. Specifically, I work for an enzyme company that produces food-grade enzymes, and I help implement our food safety system. Although enzymes are used in small amounts during food production, it's important that they not contain any pathogens, undeclared allergens, or foreign material that may harm the consumer. We follow a food safety code that is the basis of our policies and procedures. We keep many records to prove that that we are following our procedures, and we also have corrective and preventative actions we take when there is a problem. Every year, an outside auditor comes to our facility to review our system and make sure we meet the requirements of the code we follow. (This year, it will be an unannounced audit, meaning it can happen any time in a two-month period.) By passing this audit, my company obtains a certificate demonstrating to our customers that our product is safe. It's a lot of work, but it's worth it to prevent food-related illnesses.

I think we need a similar system to insure everyone has the resources they need to not just survive, but thrive. Income equality in the United States has grown dramatically in the past few decades while our social safety nets have been removed or made less helpful. This isn't good for the long-term survival of our society or our environment. We need to transition away from exploitative capitalism and toward doughnut economics. (Basically, we have to work within the boundaries of our resources to eliminate poverty while not exceeding the capacity of our environment.)

Equity assurance would have two major components: a collection of codes or guidelines communities (ranging from an apartment complex to towns or even nations) would follow for equitable resource distribution, and local equity assurers who are responsible for making sure that people get the resources they need. (I use "equity" instead of "equality" because everyone has different needs. Sometimes distributing resources equally doesn't help everyone equally. See here for a more complete discussion of this issue.) This could mean obtaining gluten-free food for someone with celiac disease; education, assistance, and baby supplies for a family with a newborn; or the right medicine or equipment to help sick, elderly, or disabled individuals. It can mean helping children get a good education and opportunities to develop their talents as well as people getting the right amount of social interaction.

These two branches of equity assurance aren't new. We have examples of people throughout history who have sought to help others meet their needs, and we have systems like Medicare and Social Security to give resources to those who need it. What I want to emphasize with a term like "equity assurance" is the need to make this care for others a core value of our society. When you adopt a food safety system at a company, it becomes the basis for everything you do. We need this for our society. We also need to maintain this system. Without people to monitor the day-to-day aspects of this system, things can go wrong. We need to make sure this system works and figure out ways to fix it when it doesn't.

Anyway, I plan to make equity assurance a theme in any more solarpunk stories I write. I did write another short story last year that featured equity assurance, but I haven't found a home for it yet. Establishing equity assurance for the world is certainly a long-term project, but one we need to pursue.

Solarpunk Creatures Cover Reveal!

I'm blogging early this week to participate in the cover reveal for the Solarpunk Creatures anthology by Worldweaver Press. (I'll update this post with more information once their blog announcement goes live.) 

I have a short story being published in this anthology; it's call "The Colorful Crow of Web-of-Life Park." It's about an escaped parrot that joins a murder of crows while its former owner develops a bird flu vaccine for wild birds. 

The anthology will be available January 16th, 2024. You can preorder it through the following links: 

Universal Amazon/Apple Link: https://mybook.to/solarpunkcreatures 

World Weaver Press Product Page: https://www.worldweaverpress.com/store/p186/Solarpunk_Creatures.html

 Paperback pages will take a few more days to appear, but the book will eventually be available in paperback from Amazon, Book-a-Million, Barnes & Noble, etc.

I'm excited to be part of this anthology and look forward to reading the stories by the other authors.  

Solarpunk Short Story Sale!

I posted about this on Facebook last week, but I sold a short story to the forthcoming Solarpunk Creatures anthology by Worldweaver Press. My short story is called "The Colorful Crow of Web-of-Life Park," and it's about an escaped parrot, the parrot's former owner, and the crow that freed the parrot. The anthology will be published sometime between November and next February. I'll share additional details as they become available.

The Allure of Anthologies

I've been posting here regularly about how slow my writing progress has been on my main projects: writing a Season Avatars short story collection, revising Restaurants and Revenge, and writing the first draft of Bubble Tea and a Body. As if I don't have enough to work on, I recently found out about a couple of anthologies that I want to submit stories too, but I don't have anything ready that I want to use. So now I'm busy drafting a new story that's due next month and thinking about two more anthologies that have December deadlines. 

Why do I do this to myself? I can think of several reasons. The themes are intriguing, and it's especially challenging to write to a specific topic under deadline. Sometimes it can be inspirational to work on a fresh topic for a while, especially when you're struggling with something else. Plus, if your work is accepted, there's a guaranteed payout and recognition from others for your achievement. (Self-publishing something is an achievement too, but not everyone sees it that way.)

If you like to write short stories, do you prefer to write for anthologies or magazines? What topics would you want to read about in an anthology. Feel free to answer in the comments. In the meantime, it's back to my current short story.

Pushcart Prize Nomination

 

I'm thrilled to announce that World Weaver Press has nominated my short story, "A Shawl for Janice," for the Pushcart Prize. "A Shawl for Janice" was published in Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Winters in January. (Anyone still remember January 2020? It seems so long ago....) The Pushcart Prize honors writers of poetry, short stories, and essays. Each small press can nominate up to six entries per year. I'm honored that World Weaver Press not only chose to publish my short story in their anthology but decided it was among the best stories they published this year. You can see the announcement on their blog here.

Third Flatiron Best of 2019 Now Available!

I mentioned a couple of months ago that my short story, "Specimen 1842," had been selected for Third Flatiron's Best of 2019 anthology. This anthology is finally available, though currently only as an ebook on Amazon. It's free if you're in Kindle Unlimited or only $2.99 if you're not. Here's the cover, and below is the description from Amazon:

Third Flatiron Anthologies presents fourteen of its best speculative fiction stories from the year 2019. Contributors include Tom Pappalardo, J. D. Blackrose, Brian Trent, Bruce Golden, Mack Moyer, Arthur Carey, Maureen Bowden, Edwina Shaw, Elizabeth Beechwood, Evan A Davis, K. G. Anderson, Philip John Schweitzer, Sandra Ulbrich Almazan, and Samson Stormcrow Hayes. Edited by Juliana Rew.

I'm still waiting to get my copy, but I'm looking forward to reading it. Here's hoping you check it out too.

Interview with Across the Universe Editor Randee Dawn

Today I have an interview with Randee Dawn, a member of Broad Universe and the editor of Across the Universe: Tales of Alternative Beatles. The book is available on Amazon and Barnes&Noble. Across the Universe will also be available for sale at the Broad Universe and Fantastic Books tables at Arisia in Boston, from January 17-20. Randee will be appearing on several panels during the yearly convention, and her schedule can be found here: https://randeedawn.com/appearances/ For more about Randee, visit her website, Facebook page, Twitter, or Instagram.

Sorcerers, superheroes, and zombies.

Out of work, out of luck, out of practice.

Gods, clods, or four simple lads.

Here are the Beatles as you've never known them before: singing for their supper, singing for their souls, and singing to save the world.

Join 25 remarkable authors as they take you Across the Universe.

Featuring the stories of: Spider Robinson, Gregory Benford, David Gerrold, Allen M. Steele, Pat Cadigan, Lawrence Watt-Evans, Jody Lynn Nye, Gregory Frost, Cat Rambo, Keith R.A. DeCandido, Gail Z. Martin, Bev Vincent, Brenda W. Clough, Alan Goldsher, Gordon Linzner, Beth W. Patterson, Christian H. Smith, Sally Wiener Grotta, Kenneth Schneyer, Charles Barouch, Carol Gyzander, Patrick Barb, R. Jean Mathieu, Eric Avedissian, and Matthew F. Amati.

Here are some of the questions I had for Randee:

Please tell us about yourself.

I'm an author and entertainment journalist based in Brooklyn. My fiction veers wildly around the road like a dog driving a minivan, and can be either icky horror or (hopefully) funny fantasy, and everything in-between. I write what I'd like to read, which may explain a lot. As for the journalism, I write about movies, TV, music and (occasionally) books for the LA Times, Variety, Today.com and Emmy magazine primarily; I've been doing that work since I was in college, and I find it fulfilling – but not nearly as much as being a fiction author.

Please tell us about your latest work.

In early December 2019 I published my first anthology (co-edited with Michael A. Ventrella), Across the Universe: Tales of Alternative Beatles, a speculative fiction collection of tales using the Fab Four as inspiration to tell bigger-picture stories. Fiction-wise, I have a funny fantasy about mythical creatures running a soap opera starring humans called Tune in Tomorrow and am rewriting a draft of my near-future-ecological-disaster-noirish-mystery novel, A Different Light (working title).

What drew you to writing?

Just having stories to tell, I guess. Not everyone finds a creative outlet, and maybe not everybody just spontaneously makes up stories, but I don't know how to do it otherwise. I've always just loved sitting down with characters in my head and finding a way to translate them onto the page – and I've been doing that since elementary school.

Do you have any writing habits, such as writing in a certain location or time of day?

I'm fortunate to work from home as a freelancer. I have a set contract job that takes up my early afternoon, so I get up early and try to write from 7-9am every morning. In the evenings after dinner, while my teacher husband grades papers, I sit down again from 7-9. Not every day is as successful, but I think I get at least 1-2 hours a day to myself.

How do you get the inspiration for your stories?

My husband likes to say, "No one is safe around a writer." Which is to say: from everywhere and everything. Having a bit of a framework helps – last October I wrote 100 word drabbles every day of the month, which gave me a length and a topic – but after that it's up to the subconscious to push my buttons until something comes out.

Of all the stories you’ve written, which one is your favorite and why?

This may sound twee, but my favorite story is always the one I'm still working on. After they've flown the nest and been published, I love them from afar. That said, my first sale, "Home for the Holidays," was one of those magic stories: Two drafts, a sale to a podcast, printed in an anthology and my own short story collection, and a perennial favorite to read.

How did you come up with the idea for an alternative Beatles anthology?

It was one of those great moments of sychronicity. I'd been thinking about it for a couple of years, but not sure how to do it – I'd never edited an anthology – or whether it would be prohibitive for copyright reasons. So I went to my friend Ian Randal Strock, who runs the indie press Fantastic Books, and pitched the idea of stories based around Beatle songs – not using lyrics, per se, but let's hear more about, say, Lucy who lives in the sky with her jewels. He was interested, but I was intimidated and didn't immediately pursue. Meanwhile, another author, Michael A. Ventrella, who'd just finished the Release the Virgins anthology on Fantastic Books, came to Ian with a very similar idea. He put us together at World Fantasy in Baltimore at the end of 2018, and we agreed to work on it together.

What is it about the Beatles, as individuals and a group, that makes them suitable for alternative stories?

The Beatles are in the water. They're part of the shape of our lives, whether we're fans or not. For about 60 years now, their story, their songs, their lives and their music has become part of the fabric of the way we live. And as part of our dreamscapes, they're both people who actually lived – and also archetypes. Like different angles of a mirror, they reflect ourselves back to us, which makes them perfect to tell stories of other worlds, and other ways of thinking.

Have you met any of the Beatles or been to any of their solo concerts? If not, is there a particular song or album of theirs that has had a significant impact on your life? 

Truth: I was not a big Beatles fan growing up. I tend to rebel against anything that the Whole World seems to embrace as The Greatest Thing Ever. (It took me a long time to care about Bruce Springsteen, for example.) But as I noted earlier, they're in the air, impossible to ignore. Over the years, I learned to appreciate what they'd accomplished, and even love lots of their songs. I think Paul's music – solo and for the band – was my gateway drug when I was younger; the goofiness and earnest pop he created was so easy to like. As I've gotten older, John and George's more complicated emotional and musical landscape has had different appeal. So they've grown on me, organically. But I never came to this as the No. 1 Beatles Fan Ever Ever Ever. I don't think I could single out one particular song or album as being most important – but my husband (a major Beatles/George fan) and I did enter our wedding reception to "All You Need Is Love." As for meeting them or going to their concerts: No, and no. The closest I've come to meeting a Beatle is when I interviewed Sean Lennon on the phone probably 20 years ago.