Tag: updates

anthology, books, collaboration, daily life, politics, prague, professional life, reading, Uncategorized, updates, wandering grove press, writing

Letters from Sunday: Muffins, Gloom, and a New Anthology

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Public-domain image of a hand holding a pen, apparently writing, at a sunlit desk with papers and a white coffee mug on it. The sleeve of a cozy gray sweater is visible.

(Thought I’d try writing here today. Maybe it would help to have a day to do it?)

It’s damp and chilly here in Prague. We breakfasted on English muffins with lemon curd, both bought from Marks & Spencer (I’m not sure, in retrospect, that lemon curd goes well with English muffins). We were at Václavské náměstí, where Marks & Spencer is, on an attempt to see Lucy and Selam at the National Museum. Tickets were unfortunately sold out, so we’ll have to go another day. We did pick up two shiny black pumpkin mugs, two Magic the Gathering packs, and a copy of Mona Awad’s Rouge, which I read about a year ago and have been thinking about.

Things are slipping back into their school-year usual. I was sick a couple of weeks ago and had to spend a few days at home, which seems like it will be the norm; I take public transit everywhere, and clients always bring something back with them from summer vacation. I’m trying to get a bit more writing done in the gaps between lessons, but the siren song of YouTube ghost stories is always very strong. (I’ve been enjoying Into the Fog with Peter Laws lately. I think I most enjoy the storytime videos, though, where people talk about being haunted by mimics or seeing phantom hands outside their windows.) I have no interest in inviting spooky things into my house, but I love hearing about the spooky things in other people’s houses.

News from home is, obviously, a horror show. It’s hard not to give up on the whole country in disgust. I never thought this could happen this easily in the USA. I thought there were at least a few more people in leadership positions who would be guided by their consciences to do the right thing, but it feels like the entire government is full of cowards. It would feel different if the whole country had been occupied by a foreign power: then, at least, you’d know that most people wanted them gone. It’s the ignorance and malice that get to me: so many people, it seems, have bellies full of hate. I’ve been trying not to post about it too much on social media, because I can see that hate growing in myself, too: I feel so much disgust and anger that it’s coming out my ears. I guess the only safe response to evil is compassionate resolution, because fear, disgust, and despair will twist you into someone you don’t want to be. Anyway, just take it as read, if I’m not posting about politics, that these feelings are all there, bubbling.

On a lighter subject, our antho collective, Wandering Grove Press, is starting work on our second anthology! My piece is a supervillain caper my sister described as a cross between Dr. Horrible and The Tick. I’ve been working on it all summer and am excited to see what others think (and I hope they’ll forgive me for going 40% over the word-count limit). (If you missed our first anthology, The Ceaseless Way, you can find it here. 😉 ) Now that that story’s done, I’m back to working on THE VOID AND THE RAVEN, my fantasy epic. This will be the penultimate chapter of book 2, and I’m really looking forward to it. I’m also working on expanding and editing a short story I wrote back in 2020, which is very… COVID… but in a fantasy way. Hopefully enough time has passed that people can stomach quarantine stories now.

It’s October now, and my mood has been a little quiet. I’ve been tooling with a personal reinterpretation of the seasons based loosely on the Wheel of the Year. It’s Hallows now. The weather is gray and sad, and the trees are folding up to sleep for the winter. There’s not a lot of “spooky, scary Halloween fun” here in the Czech Republic; things are just gloomy and cold. This is the time to stay close to your loved ones, cuddle up, and batten yourself against the coming winter.

Take care, and stay warm,
KT

anthology, books, collaboration, fairy tales, fantasy, fiction, flash, horror, long stories, professional life, reading, science fiction, short stories, slipstream, updates, wandering grove press, writing

Anthology Release: The Ceaseless Way

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Cover image for The Ceaseless Way: An Anthology of Wanderers' Tales. Cover shows an androgynous figure with a backpack starting to walk onto a winding road that leads through a rocky desert.

Hello, all! I’m happy to report that after three years, our collaborative anthology, The Ceaseless Way, is now on sale in ebook and paperback formats. A lot of work has gone into this project, and though there have been bumps in the road, we’re really proud of the project we came out with.

This is a speculative fiction anthology (mostly science fiction and fantasy, with a little bit of horror), and each of the participating writers contributed two stories. Besides myself, the writers involved are Fraser Sherman, Ada Milenkovic Brown, Secily Luker, Allegra Gulino, Arden Brooks, and Rich Matrunick. “Wandering Grove Press” is the name we’ve given to what’s essentially an online writing co-op. The book is self-published, but a lot of time and work went into it.

The paperback version will be on sale for $9.99 until the new year, at which point it will go up to $12.99, so if you’re interested in purchasing a hard copy this is the best time to do it. The ebook version will remain at $5.99. If you’d like to follow our group for updates, you can find us on Facebook here or on Bluesky here.

I’m a little behind on my publicity posts, but check this space for the next couple of weeks for interviews with some fellow authors and a couple of insights into my own stories in the antho, “We Go Hiking” and “Jenny and the Fairy Queen.”

Cover image by GetCovers; original cover concept by Arden Brooks.

books, fantasy, fiction, old work, science fiction, short stories, Uncategorized, writing

Upcoming Projects: Haunted Houses Collection, Baubles from Bones, and Journeys Anthology

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Hello! Sorry to have left you hanging for months and months. I’m not great at blogging regularly, but I guess you know that by now.

Here’s what I’ve been up to lately:

My largest ongoing project (besides my ever-in-progress fantasy series THE VOID AND THE RAVEN) is a collection of ghost stories, tentatively titled HAUNTED HOUSES. This is a long-term project I’m hoping to finish and self-publish in the next five years, or possibly sooner if I’m able. It will include new editions of older stories like “Wake Your Ghost” (which you can read here) and “Spirits in the Dark” (a novelette first published by JMS Books, which unfortunately didn’t get much attention although I was really fond of it). I also hope to include stories like “The Angel,” which you can currently see in Literally Dead: Tales of Holiday Hauntings by Alienhead press, and about fifteen other stories now in various stages of development. I’m currently editing another novelette called “The Woman at the Top of the Stairs,” which is a gothic romance story set in Prague, and hope to start sending it out soon.

On the subject of publications, I have an announcement to make! A very cool new magazine called Baubles from Bones has chosen my story “The Feast of the Changes” for publication in its inaugural issue. “Feast,” inspired by Where the Wild Things Are, is a soft, dreamy fantasy story about a boy traveling the world with his best friend: a large, furry monster. I had a great time writing it, and I’m really happy that it found a home with this venue. You can read the magazine (or purchase a copy) here.

Cover image for Baubles from Bones, issue 1

There’s one more project I wanted to let you know about: some friends and I are putting an anthology together. It’s a collaborative project on the theme of “Journeys,” and it’s been in the works for a few years now. Everyone involved is a writer friend and occasional critique partner (including several from the Durham Writers’ Group), and all of us write speculative fiction of one stripe or another. Since late 2020, we’ve been batting things back and forth on Discord, deciding the anthology’s theme and parameters and editing each other’s contributions. Given that coordinating with other writers is like herding cats under the best of circumstances, and adding the specific complications of having to play chat-tag across disparate time zones, we had some trouble keeping things going, and there’s been a lot of trial and error involved in this process. But we’ve kept going, and we’re almost finished, and we’re pretty excited about it.

We’re hoping to publish the anthology in September. It will probably be released as an ebook first and then in hard copy. I’ll let you know about preorders as soon as they’re available. If you’d like to receive updates, you can join our Facebook group here.

Contributor Allegra Gulino has also created a Facebook page where you can see promotional artwork she’s created for this project.

We’re really looking forward to telling you more about this project as we get closer to publication time. In the meantime, thank you for tuning in, and have a great month!

books, daily life, family, fiction, short stories, Uncategorized, updates

I’m back

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Hello, all! Sorry I went so long without an update. I was a bit busy GETTING MARRIED!

Photograph by Denise Cerniglia. The picture shows two women in lacy floor-length gowns standing by the shore of a lake near dusk. The woman on the left is slim and has light skin, short brown hair, and glasses. She is wearing a short-sleeved, high-necked black gown with a small train. The woman on the right is heavier, with light skin and long reddish-purple hair. She is wearing a lacy blue dress with a low neckline. On her head is a small silver headpiece or tiara. Her arms are around the other woman's waist. The women are looking at each other and look happy. In the background is a wooded hillside. The leaves on the trees are beginning to turn yellow and red.
Photo by Denise Cerniglia

In late October, Fran and I went to the US with her mom and two cousins for our wedding, which was held at the home of my mom and stepfather with a lot of our friends and family attending. We had a wonderful time and are really happy. I wish more of Fran’s family could have been with us, but we’re hoping to go to Sicily as soon as possible and have a reception with her friends and family there.

So… what haven’t I talked about while I was shopping and making moodboards?

The main thing is that I have another anthology publication to announce! Very belatedly, too. My story “The Angel” appeared in Literally Dead: Tales of Holiday Hauntings, edited by Gaby Triana and published by Alienhead Press. The book came out in late September (sorry, I was busy! see above) and can be purchased in paperback or Kindle edition here.

Book cover for 'Literally Dead: Tales of Holiday Hauntings.'

This is a horror anthology, but I did not have my horror boots on while I was writing this piece. My story features a lingering ghost who doesn’t approve of a family member’s life choices and starts to make problems around the holidays. A reader close to me described the tone as “warm.” But I loved writing it, and I hope you’ll love it, too.

Promotional image featuring a short author bio for Katherine Traylor, a headshot of the author backlit and smiling at the camera, and two copies of the anthology's cover (one in paperback and one displayed ona tablet).
Look, it’s me! I feel very professional.

By the way, I mentioned this before but didn’t give you a link: another of my stories, “Sea People,” was recently published in the anthology Fish Gather to Listen by Horns & Rattles Press.

Cover image for 'Fish Gather to Listen.'

This is a horror anthology based around the sea, and my story is a slightly futuristic flash piece set in a seaside town. I’d love it if you’d check it out. I haven’t quite gotten through all the other stories, but the ones I’ve read have been terrific.

Have a lovely weekend, and dream of ghosts and spooky things–

Kate

books, fiction, horror, music, old work, poetry, professional life, short stories, Uncategorized, updates, writing

Slightly Sweetly, Slightly Creepy

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I’ve been listening much more to Spotify lately. What’s most fun for me is making playlists, which reminds me of burning mix CDs when I was in college. Here’s one I made of songs that felt longing or wistful, including a lot of old favorites and others that just came up on shuffle.

I’ve been submitting a lot of stories lately, which slowed down progress on my novel but was a lot of fun. For some reason there’s a big market currently for short stories about evil mermaids, so I’ve written three in the last few months. One of them, “In the Nevergo,” was recently published in Dangerous Waters: Deadly Women of the Sea, an entire anthology of evil mermaid tales I was delighted to take part in. The others were a bit different in subject matter, and I hope to tell you more about them later.

I’ve also been dipping my toe back into poetry in the last year or so, with mixed results. I used to write poems quite a lot in high school, but they were very strange and I never shared them with anyone. Lately I wrote sets of poems for two different calls for submissions. None of them were accepted, but I’ll keep practicing.

Here are some very strange ones I’d forgotten I wrote last year. The project was called “The Unquiet Nursery,” with the idea being that each poem would be structurally based on a famous nursery rhyme but have much darker subject matter. About half of them were terrible, but I kind of liked these. I wonder if you can guess which nursery rhymes they’re based on.

1 I am not going to sleep.
The lines have gone too deep.
There’s whispering sin
Upon my skin
And something is starting to weep.

2 My little love
Is up above,
Pretending she is an angel.
But in her wings,
Unholy things
Are burning like a candle.

3 My little dumpling
Really is something,
Sunning herself to sleep.
She cannot be killed
She cannot be held
She only can rattle and weep.

4 Go to school,
Little fool.
See what they do
Before they come for you.
They’ll take your home and they’ll take your lands,
They’ll crush your heart and they’ll cut off your hands.
The strongest house is the one that stands,
So go to school.

5 Something in the atmosphere
Has made me very cold.
The sun is full of cinders
And the stars have all been sold.
I cannot look away from it.
I cannot break the spell
That echoes in the twilight
Like the tolling of a bell.

6 Into the dark!
Into the night!
Sing with the nightingales!
Drink delight!

Out of the dark.
Back from the night.
Gone are the nightingales.
All is quiet.

7 Mary Artless,
Vain and heartless,
How did you sink so low?
The sons you should have cared about
Are running like wolves in the snow.

8 First comes the matter of the monster,
Next comes the matter of the nun,
Then comes the matter of the long walk
Into the valley of the sun,
And last is the matter of the silver star
And how the world was won.

9 Pretty little Mabel,
Sitting at the table,
Softly tells me,
“Life is like a fable.
But I don’t know the lesson
I was meant to learn
When I left my homeland,
Never to return.”

I guess they’re basically doggerel. But so are the originals they’re based on. Anyway, it was fun writing them.

One more thing to tell you about: I have an upcoming publication in a friend’s anthology! My friend Sonya Lano has been working tirelessly on Slightly Sweetly, Slightly Creepy, an anthology of gothic romance, and the book will be out on April 29. My story, “The Wind Chimes,” is probably more “romantic gothic” than “gothic romance,” but I had a lot of fun writing it. The book is available for preorder here, and I’d love it if you checked it out.

Lots of love to all of you. I hope you’re doing well.

Best,
Kate

Public-domain image of a hand holding a pen, apparently writing, at a sunlit desk with papers and a white coffee mug on it. The sleeve of a cozy gray sweater is visible.
fantasy, fiction, professional life, Uncategorized, updates, writing

Writing updates

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Stayed up late last night finishing edits on two stories, which I wanted to submit to two different anthologies both due the same day. Thanks to the feline ballet that started as soon as I got in bed, I got about four hours of sleep, but there was a very nice sense of accomplishment in getting those stories done and submitted. Of course, I received a very flippant rejection note only a few hours after sending one in, but at least it gave me the opportunity to slide the story under the wire for another submission call due today.

Back to work now on THE VOID AND THE RAVEN, my ongoing fantasy epic that was meant to be a single novel and is now looking at at least six parts. Two volumes are done. I could submit them for publication, but I’d rather get to the end and edit the whole series together for the sake of cohesion. I’ve been working on this story in different incarnations since about 2010, and I’m about three years into this particular try. I’m guessing at least another three to five years until the whole series is completed. (Of course, if someone wants to give me several hundred thousand dollars, I can stop doing other paid work and start writing full-time, which should speed up the process immensely.)

Public-domain image of a hand holding a pen, apparently writing, at a sunlit desk with papers and a white coffee mug on it. The sleeve of a cozy gray sweater is visible.
daily life, fairy tales, fantasy, fiction, short stories, Uncategorized, writing

Life update, March 2023

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It snowed off and on all day today, which felt like a bit of a joke with all the flowers blooming. The Easter Market is set up in our square, and all the trees are covered in blossoms. I had a fairly busy day, but the kids weren’t too rambunctious, and Fran and Donut and I had a nice walk in the evening.

I’ve had the very pleasant problem of a thousand different projects to work on. I’ve been hard at work hammering out two different stories, both of which are due for submission on Thursday. These are open calls, so it’s a wait-and-see game once they’re turned in, but I’m pretty happy with both of them. The one I’m still drafting is a nautical fairy tale based on a sea shanty, and the other deals with ominous snowflakes.

Meanwhile, I’m still plotting the next scene of VOID, which has been startlingly complicated to manage: it’s essentially a long complication between two characters, but it’s unfolded some questions about the magical system that I never took the time to answer before, and I’ve spend weeks already just mulling them over in my head. I think I’ve got the answers more or less settled now, but chapter is still in the planning stage, and every turn of the planned conversation is surprising me. I’ve been working with these characters for more than three years (or thirteen, depending on how you count), and it’s lovely to settle into the world again after spending lots of time on other projects.

Fran and I have been watching Parks and Rec, and I’m trying to channel April and Andy just a bit more in my approach to life. It’s great to be a Leslie if you’re passionate about something, but devoting 100% of your energy to everything you do (and losing sleep in the process) is a quick way to make yourself sick. Taking more time for fun, couple time, and sleep is making me feel a lot better, and after I spent a few days trying to complete a “must-do checklist” of writing projects, I realized that if I tried to maintain a full-time writing schedule on top of all the other work I do I would never have time for anything else. And when you’re well rested, it’s much easier to work quickly and with full energy, so it’s a win-win situation in the end.

For a sample of what I’ve been working on, here’s a short clip from the sea-ballad story I’m writing:

“Have you ever thought of going to sea?” I said. “I’m first mate on the Golden Vanity—that lovely galleon there—and we’re leaving for Constantinople in the morning. We need a cabin boy, and you look like a likely fellow. What do you think of signing on with us?”

He tipped his head again, and for a moment there was no sound but the grind and squeak of his auger and the patter of shavings to the ground. I could see him measuring the Vanity with his gleaming gray eyes, judging and weighing it somehow, and in a way he looked much older than a child. Then, finally, he nodded.

It took me aback how easily he’d accepted, and I wasn’t sure he’d understood. “Better think carefully,” I said, “for it’ll be a long time before you see your home again. It’s possible you won’t come back at all. But there’s good pay, and plenty of room for advancement  if you do your work well.”

He nodded again, almost impatiently, and beckoned, as if I were the servant and he the master. Well, I thought, I’ll teach him more deference than that if he signs articles. But I was curious, and I had a bit of time before I needed to see about the cargo, so I followed.

Hope you’re all well! Let me know what you’ve been up to in the comments. ❤

Public-domain image of a hand holding a pen, apparently writing, at a sunlit desk with papers and a white coffee mug on it. The sleeve of a cozy gray sweater is visible.
books, daily life, horror, professional life, reading, updates, writing

Updates January 2023

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I’m working on a short story for an anthology my friend Sonya is putting together. It involves murder, ghosts and other spirits, romance, wind chimes, and a dark forest. I hope you’ll enjoy it when it comes out.

Anthologies are difficult in general. Some other friends and I were trying to put one together, but more than a year on it’s still in limbo because it was so difficult to allocate responsibility. I’m really proud of two stories of mine that were published in recent anthologies, but I’m not sure how they were received because neither book has gotten very many reviews. It can be a little discouraging. But then I realize that I myself haven’t read that many anthologies recently–I haven’t even finished reading the ones I was published in. So maybe everyone’s just busy.

Anyway, anthologies are an incredible way to discover new authors, and I haven’t been doing enough reading lately. Are there any collections you’d recommend?

On a completely different subject, I realized last night that the publication of “In the Nevergo” qualified me for an “Affiliate Writer” membership in the Horror Writers’ Association. I applied and was accepted today. I have a few more dark fantasy pieces in the works, so I’m hopeful that I might be able to upgrade to an “Active Writer” (i.e. full) membership before too long. I’ll see if there’s a badge or something I can put on my website. There aren’t a lot of concrete benefits to joining writers’ associations at this point in my career, but it’s a nice boost in a field where it’s hard to feel like a working professional.

(***I just checked and saw that under the updated membership requirements I also qualify for an Associate Membership in SFWA. I’m not quite ready to pay two sets of dues, though, so I’ll keep working towards a full membership there for now.)

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Bonsai Writing

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My fiancee and I went to a bonsai festival this weekend. Naturally, since then I’ve been watching a lot of videos and reading a lot of articles about bonsai, reassuring myself that yes, I should not become a bonsai hobbyist. For me, the most interesting theme in all these videos is how slow and gradual the work is: artists work every day on their living sculptures, pruning and refining, transplanting and fertilizing, and day by day the average person wouldn’t see any change at all. Only after decades does the mature plant show the vision the artist had in their head all along. If you went to a bonsai nursery, everything under the age of two would look like an unremarkable seedling, and it would be hard to imagine how those twiggy little things could transform into sculpture worth handing down for generations.

So I was thinking about writing, and how it’s slow, incremental work, and how little progress the average author seems to make from day to day (even a prolific day’s writing is only a few minutes’ reading for most people). And so I though I might like to put a little sapling on display, so that no matter how long it takes me to finish a piece of my regular work, there’s always a little window open for anyone who’s interested to see what I’m doing. So I created a document today, and planted a seed, and here it is: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uq1Gd7Z0svfbvOuYisnVZUbSp87TBupnsA8CUabFU68/edit

This is the beginning of what I hope will turn out to be a novel. It’s an actual working document, with notes and scribbles and half-finished sentences and all, and so far only a few words of prose. If you’re ever curious about what I’m doing, you can go and have a look, and leave a comment if you’d like. I’ll try to spend at least a minute on it whenever I tend to my other seedlings.

Image by Ilona Ilyés