Having introduced myself and pontificated on the successes and failures of the human imagination, I thought I’d give you a whirlwind tour of some projects I’ve been working on and plan to talk about.
What’s Happening Now
Pet
The first in a set of romances (sort of) between teens and bodiless aliens. Being wants teen artist Elinor to be her pet, but is just a little too controlling. A novel in verse and a self-conscious retelling of “East of the Sun, West of the Moon.” LGBT. Completed manuscript. Aspires to land somewhere between Octavia Butler and Stephenie Meyer.
Evernost
An ever-shifting novel or collection of novellas, which might (or might not) in turn be interconnected flash fiction. Possibly about the nexus of the multiverse. Possibly about “heaven that isn’t boring.” Almost certainly about five people who might be aspects of one person waking up in Nexus Heaven and coming up with human metaphors for what happens to them there. Might aspire to be Literature. Might be illustrated. Will take even more years to create than it already has.
Starry and the Wish Bush
The picture book my mom wrote me when I was young. I want to illustrate it and possibly a) self-publish it, b) print a few copies for friends and family and bind them myself, or c) try to get it published, depending on how it turns out.
What I Want to Work on Soon
Memoirs of a Hare
Cartoon memoirs of Harey, the literate European brown hare.
Amalie
Girl travels the City of Humanity trying to get her father back from the dead. The City of Humanity is where not just humanity but all the things and ideas that humanity lives for live. Our grayish shades wander from house to house, serving one abstraction or the other. The abstractions live on the time we give them.
Other Paranormals in Verse
The series that Pet would, theoretically, be a part of. Including Toy, whose heroine must cope with a being who just likes screwing around with humans; Beast, where that being is shoved into a human body as punishment and falls in love; and Disciple, where the being who was the historical Jesus reluctantly befriends (reluctantly because he is constantly answering prayers to the best of his ability and doing anything else means that thousands of prayers go unanswered) a useless human.
Projects I Want to Work on Someday
Betrothed
Short story I wrote in college featuring a loner named Tessa and half-real, half-metaphorical Godlike Fairy Lover, on whom a blog post to come. Want to expand it into a novel. Also a bit based on East of the Sun West of the Moon.
Christopher
Science fiction about genetically engineered telepaths. Using telepathy is illegal in this society, because privacy, but Christopher uses it anyway to be a small-scale superhero of sorts.
Nanotopia
Nanotechnology has enabled people to modify themselves into pretty much whatever they want to be. From the perspective of a couple of Luddite Christian kids who fall into the hands of a transhuman woman (well, she’s okay with female pronouns and pretending to be female around people who don’t get transhuman gender or lack thereof) who designs simulations for other people. How they all cope with each other.
Victorian Fairy Tale Retellings
Modern but magical retellings of obscure original fairy tales. George MacDonald’s, perhaps, and others (there’s one by Sophie May that I fell in love with as a kid called “The Lost Sylphid”).
Bringing Learning to Life Series
Series of books about kids who get magically sucked into their schoolwork, based on stuff I wrote as a kid. Potentially educational. The Math Curse for preteens.
Nikki
Adventures in a hectic apartment building full of genius children, witches, aliens, and other excitement.
Other Completed First Drafts
Dear Angus
Awkward high school freshman tries to defeat literally soul-sucking school administrators and cope with Greek gods. Does not go well. Possibly the first in a series.
The Motje
Sixteen-year-old Madeline fights the twisted ghost of her cult-leader great aunt as her own animate shadow struggles to escape the ghost’s creepy netherworld.
I’ll be writing about all of these at times, I hope, so I thought I’d tell you a bit of what you were getting into.
Of Elsewhere 