The Drawer of Shame

Unfinished manuscripts (on right) in my Drawer of Shame

The summer I turned 15, I took my first glimpse into a much vaster universe than the hum-drum world I knew. I decided I was a writer and only wanted to be a writer. Nearly four decades and thousands of published works later, I've stuck to that pledge. I've lived a literary life and loved the process of living for literature. I love this writing life.

Early on -- within a year of that summer -- I read my first issue of Writer's Digest, a gift from my late, great Grandmother Rachel, herself a writer published in the classic Highlights For Children. That issue contained an article about famous writers and their writing spaces. One legendary scribe remarked in that article -- the ancient issue still on a bookshelf in my writing room -- that he'd published some 300 stories but that he easily had three times that number 'moldering away unfinished' in his home office. That math has horrified me since.

From the time I started, I've been what a member of my writers' group refers to as an 'Idea Hoarder'. I've had it in my mind that I should finish all that I start, including the good, the bad, and especially the ugly. Every December on a brisk Sunday afternoon while the elegant propane stove in our living room flickers, I routinely run through all of my old notebooks and notes to see if I've missed anything, if, somehow, a stray story idea has somehow fallen through the cracks. My stories, short and long, are my babies. Last year, I discovered three 'straybies' by performing my annual forensic search.

Ten years ago, that part of my writing space devoted to storing unfinished manuscripts -- the infamous Drawer of Shame -- sat 77 corpses deep. Also at that time, my list of unfinished ideas was a bloated, strangulating 268 titles and concepts long. For a decade now I've been writing like a dervish and bringing characters off ledges they've been left stranded on. I've reached hundreds of THE ENDs and winnowed down that unwritten list to 48 to-be-completed ideas. The Drawer of Shame now holds a paltry 23 started but stalled works-in-progress, and I hope to cut that number in half before the end of 2019.

My unwritten ideas list, all that red indication a project
completed in 2019

Why finish a story I'll never put on the computer following its longhand draft or submit? Because I loved that story enough to envision it and start it, and, yes, bring it to its conclusion. Because of that covenant I made with the Muse when I dared go by the noble sobriquet of 'Writer'. And because that's just how I'm wired.

By year's end, I hope to have my unwritten list down to a svelte 36 ideas, the lowest that number's been since I started this writing adventure in my teen years when I would extend my arms and welcome new ideas en masse into my embrace. As for the Drawer of Shame, it isn't a drawer anymore so much as a tiny plot of real estate, a way station for old friends to congregate for just a little while longer. Next year at this time, my hope is that not a single of my stories will be on that side of the drawer. They'll all have gotten their happy endings.

Writing From Nature

(Early Sunday morning, writing at dawn)

For the first thirteen years of my life, nature and the natural world were constant companions. Apart from Saturday afternoon creature double-features, I spent most of my days outside, exploring and dreaming among the acres of dark pine forest and overgrown fields that surrounded the enchanted cottage where I grew up. I remember the panic when dump trucks and earth movers entered the woods the summer I turned five -- horrified and thinking they were there to bulldoze down the woods, I frantically raced about, digging up pine saplings and transplanting them into our backyard so they would be safe. Once, I watched through a back window in both terror and amazement as a bobcat streaked up one of our trees (it was a sabertooth in my young imagination). The brook that ran through our yard, the lake, and eldritch corners of those woods still haunt my dreams and manifest in my stories.It was this writer's beginning point, and a good one to claim, I think.

This past winter, I read about Writing From Nature, a workshop held at a country house in the wilds near Mount Monadnock, facilitated by editor and powerhouse writer Chris Woodside. 2016 has been a year of wonderful literary adventures -- big book launches, writing awards, and retreats to familiar destinations. It's been a long while since I've hung out in the woods, despite a hilly backyard whose wilderness is home to black bear, raccoon, and silver foxes, who occasionally make visitations. Perhaps it was nostalgia and a nod to those long lost years in Windham, New Hampshire, and equal parts joie de vivre for the Here and Now. I signed up and, on a balmy June Friday, departed for the southern reaches of our fair state.

(Standing outside the retreat house)

I arrived at 3 p.m. -- a bit early, and our wonderful hostess was still in the process of getting ready for the rest of the weekend retreaters. I busied myself reading a copy of Brenda Ueland's If You Want to Write, which was given to us as part of our welcome packet, and absorbing my amazing surroundings. The country retreat house was a wonderland of bookcases crammed to capacity, artwork, and comfortable furniture, presided over by a towering field stone fireplace. Wild tangles of fresh herbs (which found their way into the exquisite cuisine served up by Chef Mac) surrounded the front patio. My imagination prospered as my fellow scribes arrived alone and in twos. Among them, a romance novelist, an airline/former fighter jet pilot, an environmental sciences student, and a passionate writer working on her second novel, all of them quite wonderful and gifted. We enjoyed a welcome meal of cranberry and fresh sage risotto served inside baked acorn squash (unbelievably delicious!), homemade pesto, sauteed Swiss chard, and heritage tomato salad. It was the finest of dining!

On Friday night, forest ecologist Peter A. Palmiotto treated us to a presentation about nearby Mount Monadnock, and why the summit is 2/3rds bare rock. Chris hosted a night hike down to Stone Pond, but I opted out and instead hunkered down in my private room with the Muse and my short story, "The Shut-in". Slept beautifully, and, at sunrise on Saturday morning, I moved into the great room, uncapped my fountain pen, and began work on my second project for that weekend, "The Tree Surgeon." The sun rose higher, and fresh pages flew from my fingertips. Then Chris sent us out on timed hikes, sans notebooks and pens (the horror!). I moseyed down to the little chapel on the lake and dreamed more about my story, "The Shut-In". Upon return, we began a series of timed writing exercises which coincided perfectly with the direction of "The Shut-in".

Saturday afternoon was devoted to another presentation and exercises by famed nature writer Elizabeth Rush, who inspired with tales of her journeys. As Chef Mac worked on an amazing dinner (swordfish, cauliflower crusted in espresso, decadence had in every bite), I wrote some more on my stories, read from the book, and soaked up the creativity. That night, as a homemade apple pie baked, Chris gave a keynote speech on her journey as a writer (she edits Appalachia Journal, which has published since 1876).

(Listening to Elizabeth Rush)

After another fantastic night's sleep, I woke and resumed writing "The Tree Surgeon," opting out of a morning hike up the mountain. Breakfast was bountiful, as was our departure lunch, which included homemade Caprese pizza and rhubarb mint iced tea. The mostly vegetarian-friendly menu was beyond exquisite, and the company first rate. Chris put on a wonderful event, which invigorated body and soul. Throughout, I kept thinking back to my boyhood days, reminded of my many blessings now that I'm navigating my fifty-first year on Spaceship Earth. Chris's weekend retreat and workshop ranks among the best of the many I've attended, and I can't wait to return next year. So much so, in fact, that I've added one more adventure to 2016's calendar: in September, I'm returning to Star Island in the Isles of Shoals for a five-day retreat and workshop, which I attended four years ago. Excelsior!

Xanadu...Xanadu...Now We Are Here!

(Me, at 7600 Beverly Boulevard, before the famous
art deco spire)

In the summer of 1980, perhaps when I needed some sort of divine intervention most, my life turned in the best direction possible thanks to a song, a soundtrack, and a movie that not only opened a door on a far vaster universe than the one I knew, but emboldened me to enter it. Because of Xanadu, I have gotten to live my fondest dreams, and continue to.

My name is Gregory L. Norris, and I am a writer. I take that sobriquet quite seriously, and with the perfect balance of pride and humility, I hope. I grew up without a lot on the surface. I didn't have many friends and wore my father's ill-fitting hand-me-downs until I was eighteen. I was likely the least popular kid in school. I didn't have the looks or, at first, much in terms of savvy. But I had an imagination that didn't understand it was supposed to have limitations and so, in a way, I had everything. You see, I grew up on a healthy diet of creature double features and classic Science Fiction TV, in a small, enchanted cottage on Cobbett's Pond in the then-mystical town of Windham, New Hampshire, surrounded by deep, dark pine woods that still haunt my dreams and inspire my pen. By the summer I was fifteen, we had moved out of Windham for one town over, to a house that haunts my dreams for other reasons. I was bullied at school (who wasn't in those days?), not making the smartest choices, tortured over the truth about my sexuality, and feeling lost, truly lost. What I remember most about those days was the vibrancy in which my imagination flourished. I'd dabbled in writing short stories, had even started a novel. But the Eureka! moment in which lightning flashed, unable to be ignored, didn't happen until a humid July night on a sleepover at a friend's house, in which I took a first nervous step into that breathtaking universe.

(me, below the spire)

That summer, I began writing a short novel that featured my small circle of friends as the main characters. As the summer progressed, said friends grew anxious to read the pages as I put them down, and even began work on their own stories. Most abandoned their efforts after a couple of paragraphs, while my tale surged past Page 100 (it would conclude somewhere in the neighborhood of 200). On that July night, as my cramping fingers wrote toward THE END, my entire body filled with a sensation that still strikes me as resembling eight-pointed tiny stars. It was a surge of sunlight, like every cell inside me was smiling. Inspiration, yes. And more. The cosmic light of creation. At the sleepover, I pulled out a fresh stack of lined paper and began to work on another story, not an hour later. I had tasted a kind of euphoria and was addicted. My good friend slept with the radio playing, and as I pondered what I had experienced and its farther-reaching possibilities, the anthem Xanadu by Olivia Newton-John and ELO came on. The emotion surged back as I listened to the words about destiny and a place where dreams come true.

Earlier that spring, I'd been smitten with ONJ's dreamy release, "Magic", also from the same movie, though I didn't know that at the time -- this was 1980, long before the Information Superhighway. So I kept writing, and waiting on the radio to play both songs.

In August, the weekend the movie premiered at our town's local cinema, I hosted a back-to-school/end of summer party for my friends at my family's house. We cooked out on the grill, swam in the pool, and then packed up for the movie in numerous parental-driven cars. From the instant the movie started, with failed artist Michael Beck tearing up his dreams and tossing the pieces out the window, only to awaken the Nine Muses of Greek Mythology, my body crackled with energy, and my spirit seemed to glow. Xanadu, with its roller disco vibe and dance routines, is often criticized, but I've never been one to pay much heed to critics and like to form my own opinions about people, life, and pop culture. I fell madly in love with the message -- that we should pursue our dreams despite the world's many challenges -- and in the film's climax, when Olivia and the other muses soar up from the stage in an effulgence of light, I had an image to attach to that feeling of divine euphoria and inspiration I experienced on the sleepover. Every day of my life since, I've equated writing and completing projects and reading acceptance letters and winning awards to that moment -- extending my arms and soaring aloft into the heavens on a surge of light and cosmic energy. I walked out of that cinema with my friends into a glorious summer night set beneath a massive full moon and, on our mosey around the building and toward the parking lot, said aloud that I would be a published writer. Some 4,000 credits in short fiction, nonfiction articles, novellas, novels, a smattering of TV episodes, and one feature film later...

In April, I learned that my short story "Mandered" won Honorable Mention in the prestigious Roswell Awards in Short Science Fiction Writing. The Roswells are doubly fabulous in that winners get to enjoy their stories read aloud by classic SF TV and Film actors on stage at the award ceremony, held in Hollywood. I planned to take in the ceremony, pick up my HM certificate -- me, a writer from a small town in New Hampshire, headed to TinselTown to collect my writing award! While there, I decided to visit 7600 Beverly Boulevard, where Xanadu's exteriors were filmed. The original venue burned down in a spectacular fire in 1989 but was rebuilt in 2002 to feature one of those beautiful art deco spires so identifiable with the film. Six hours before the award ceremony commenced, I walked onto Xanadu, where Olivia Newton-John, Gene Kelly, and the rest of the cast once stood, once upon a time.

I love my muse. Writing has made all of my dreams come true, and that movie not only saved my life, but gave me the best life possible. May you embrace your dreams and never allow them to die.

A Fond Farewell to 2015

Normally, at the end of each year I like to get my house and office in order to ring in the new -- files filed, everything printed up that needs printing, fresh lists made of the ever-expanding roster of fiction projects I've completed and the shrinking list of those yet to achieve their first drafts. As 2015 waned, I did all these things, only to fall more than three weeks behind on updating this blog with the first of 2016's posts.

Without adieu, I hope to fix that one shortcoming. Know that the weeks between Now and Before have been busy ones, devoted to writing. In fact, the first two weeks of 2016 saw me completing the two of my oldest as-yet unwritten ideas (unwritten no more!), which hail from the long ago. 1984, in fact!

Back to 2015. The year kicked off with promise, despite a winter so brutal and long that I wondered if it would ever end. We suffered frozen pipes, both in our basement and elsewhere in town, ice dam damage to the roof, and what seemed an endless supply of snow and icicles, which transformed the sun porch of our home into a jagged dragon's mouth filled with transparent teeth. In 2015, I lost three relatives, including my beloved and brilliant Grandmother Rachel, who once wrote for Highlights For Children. Grammy Rachel was a great friend, and one of the two best grandmothers in the history of the universe (I'm looking at you, Grammy Lovey!).

In April, a week of sunny spring weather had me and the cats out on the sun porch writing, where I finished a first draft of my novel Kingdoms Be Damned in seven days. The sun porch throughout the summer was like my own private, comfortable, and efficient Command Center -- out there in my al fresco-style office, with its stunning views of the woods and mountains, I penned the longhand draft of a novella, Sweat Punk: A Love Story that kept me walking around in a daze for two months while I worked on numerous other projects. I was so wrapped up in the love story between two characters separated by walls both physical and cerebral that when the last page was put down, I mourned. On my birthday, I started my Space:1999 fan fiction novel, Metamorphosis, and found myself writing back and forth between both projects, and inspired to a height I haven't known before. I completed Metamorphosis in early October and shared the final chapter at one memorable meeting of my beloved Tuesday night writers' group, where I forgot I was German and blubbered nonstop throughout the reading. For the first time in my life -- my fiftieth on Planet Earth -- a new year began without a single Space:1999 story on the unwritten story idea list.

My collection of three novellas, Tales From the Robot Graveyard, was launched at Anthocon, an annual gem of the conference circuit held in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. During that fantastic weekend, it was my honor to see three other anthologies debut containing my stories, including Anthology: Year Three - Distant, Dying Ember, which features my long epic SF tale, "The Sun Struck". On Christmas Eve, I learned that 2015's conference would be the last, and wish to extend my profound thanks to Anthocon's organizers. I attended every one. It was a pleasure, truly.

(Reading from ROBOTS at Anthocon, photo courtesy of Tony Tremblay)

I kept some pretty spectacular company in 2015. Within the covers of Firbolg Publishing's spectacular anthology, Enter at Your Own Risk: Dreamscapes Into Darkness, my short story "One More" shared space with reprints by none other than the D.H. Lawrence, Mary Shelley, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Earlier in the spring, editor Dave Goudsward sought me out with a personal invitation to write a story for his charity anthology to benefit the John Greenleaf Whittier farm and museum -- my gothic ghost tale "The Coldest Room in the House" was selected to be the anchor story in Snowbound With Zombies and is nuzzled up against a reprint by Mister Whittier himself. And in May, H. David Blalock solicited an original short story from me -- "Breakwater" -- to appear alongside a reprint of "Beyond the Wall of Sleep" by the master himself, H.P. Lovecraft, in his anthology devoted to the lesser written of human villains in Lovecraftiana, The Idolaters of Cthulhu.

I traveled to an event at the Whittier Farm to read and autograph Snowbound, and spent three luxurious days at The Coppertoppe Inn for a Halloween writing retreat with my writers' group. Joining us at the retreat were my good friends Laura Bear from New York State, and Tina McCollum, my best friend from my teen years -- Tina and I used to hang out and write together weekdays following our release from the humorless prison of Salem High School, and did so again for a full week between my home and the top-shelf accommodations at Coppertoppe.

(With the talented and lovely Judi Ann Calhoun at the
Whittier reading event from SNOWBOUND)

As the year's final days ran out, I tallied up my totals from 2015, as I always do: two completed novels, four novellas, a feature film screenplay, and fifty-six short stories adding up to nearly 380,000 fresh words over the course of my fiftieth year. I published one book, saw my fiction appear or get accepted in numerous anthologies, and, above all, lived my life here in the mountains of my home state being happy while harming none.

2016 will hopefully continue the trend, and seems to be headed in the right -- and write -- direction as of this early juncture. In addition to those two ancient stories finally having their THE ENDs (I was both shocked and pleased to witness their characters coming alive from the dead and really running with the fresh pulses of ink, across pages that flew off notepads!), I have booked three writing retreats, a return visit to my beloved Wednesday night writers' group in the southern part of the state, and a trip into Boston, where I'll be reading from my short mystery, "Exhuming Secrets on a Hot August Day", which is set to appear in the anthology Murder Ink. And, after thirteen years together, my wonderful partner and I are going to tie the knot officially, which will make 2016 one for the history books.  Carpe diem!

BEHOLD! SLAVE STORIES: Scenes From the Slave State

We're all slaves to something -- loves, lusts, chemicals, memories, obligations, history.  For a long while, I've jokingly said that I'm a slave to my Muse, that rugged, unshaven taskmaster who, for a decade now, has resembled a certain lieutenant colonel from the lost city of the Ancients but in recent weeks has taken on the guise of a former Deputy Sheriff tasked with the unenviable responsibility of saving the world.  I love my Muse, though I am, to use the lingo of this era, his bitch.  I'm lucky that I get to pour my coffee in the morning before I hear his fingers snapping, motioning me toward the lined page and pen or laptop for whatever deadlines and adventures await. I'm also lucky in that my Muse and I play extremely well together, that we have since our introduction on a muggy, stormy July night in the summer of my fifteenth year on Spaceship Earth when I figured out what I wanted to do with my life in one of those Eureka! moments that forever changed my world and, yeah, saved me.  I love to write.  I am a slave to my muse.  I am among the luckiest human beings who've ever walked the planet.

Not so the slaves who inhabit such fourth-dimensional shadow realms like Moosejaw, Wire City, and the other hopeless landscapes where humans are forced into hard labor in alien mining enclaves explored in author Chris Kelso's grimdark universe, Slave Stories: Scenes From the Slave State, published by the fine folks at Omnium Gatherum.  I was one of several scribes who received a personal invitation from Kelso, a young writer from the UK whose brilliant star is on the rise, to contribute to his shared-world experience. After reading up on the Slave State Primer, I had the opening for my story, "The Coin-Operated Man" -- about a hired gun who shepherds two refugees deep into Moosejaw territory, where a particularly valuable substance is being extracted as part of the mining operation. My foray into Kelso's sandbox left me immersed in a world of nihilism, betrayal, sweat, and pain.  And I had more fun in his fourth-dimensional world of horrors than I initially thought possible.

The book is stunning, with cover design by Terence-Jaiden Wray and gorgeous interior illustrations by Robert Thomas Baumer (Soussherpa Art).  Many of my fellow authors who also played in Kelso's world were kind enough to share the back-stories behind their stories.

Simon Marshall-Jones on "Shatterdemalion": "I suppose, like most creative people (and writers and artists in particular), the inspiration for stories or images can be found anywhere. In this instance, the springboard for my Slave State story is two-fold, a concatenation (or, perhaps, a collision) of two influences -- the very human need for spiritual salvation, and the darker end of the mystical pool from which ‘saviours’ appear to surface on a regular basis. Desperate people are malleable; provide them with promises of an end to their existential sufferings and a reward for their endurance, and they will gather. The aromatic honey of that desperation will often bring the worst type of the charlatan to it: unscrupulous monsters willing to denude those who have already suffered enough for their own personal gain, and in the process subverting the definition of what it means to be human itself. The saviour here is a cipher of that erosion of the soul such charlatans enact. The title came to me whilst travelling on a bus -- a combination of tatterdemalion (a person wearing ragged or tattered clothing) and people whose lives have been unknowingly shattered. Hope you enjoy it!"

Roger Lovelace on "Wax Worx": "I’ve always wanted to write a story with the idea of setting it in a wax museum. This goes back to my love for old horror movies. The vintage Universal logo with the plane circling the globe was my late night North Star. When my good friend, fellow writer and sometimes co-conspirator Gio Clairval suggested I submit a piece for consideration, I immediately dropped what I was doing and churned out a story. I was familiar with Chris Kelso’s work and wanted a chance at being a part of this project. Chris’s response was positive, but he was looking for something different. I picked back up the as yet untitled wax museum story and molded it into something that I hoped would fit into this exotic, dark world he had created. I saw the Wax Worx as a pit inside an already stygian world. It is a place entered through a fractured revolving door. A haven revealed to be worse than the polluted city surrounding it. Marie Antoinette is a stained adult toy and Marco a misshapen Caligula of a moldy kingdom of ages. Did I have fun writing about masochistic pimps, cardboard torture and ‘happy’ trash? You bet."

Violet LeVoit on "To Imagine Disaster is to Invoke the Same":  "Despite all my efforts to the contrary, I am irrevocably American in character, and the way that most often manifests in my behavior is a slavish desire to believe in contemporary mythologies. We Americans enjoy self-delusions about clean slates and new frontiers: California dreaming, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, the synthetic rebirth of Times Square as a corporate-funded simulacra of itself. But despite all the churches in the Bible Belt promising a fresh start after being ‘born again’, the South is still where the bodies are buried, literally and figuratively. The tumult rises to the surface every now and again, as it just did, messily, in my hometown of Baltimore a few weeks ago, and sinks back down into the sweetly perfumed mire. I wanted a story that could span those two polar truths about the American South while addressing the Disneyland impulse for newer and better ersatz experiences, while also still staying humble in light of how the contrast between antebellum gentility and bloody secrets isn't new territory for writers. To that end, I paid homage to those who had gone before me with a title that sounded like it could have come out of Flannery O'Connor."

Love Kolle on "Doctor Sector and the Song of the Artificial Transmatizer": "When I was first approached by Chris Kelso about writing a piece set in the slave state literary universe, I immediately jumped at the chance. I had admired his writing for quite some time before the offer, and as Kelso and I have similar influences -- I am referring to Burroughs and Dick in particular -- I felt right at home in his Slave State setting (both as a reader and a writer). The very first artistic decision I took had nothing to do with plot or characters, but style. There is this experimental, daring side to Kelso's work that I find really inspiring, so that I had to try to honour. The idea for the actual story -- a piece called ‘Doctor Sector and the Song of the Artificial Transmatizer’ -- came as I read ‘Transmatic’ as preparation. One particular scene featuring a rather eccentric supporting character named Dr. Sector struck a chord that resonated with me on a subconscious level, and made me ponder the metaphysical constitution of Kelso's literary universe. Then, a few days later, during a sudden flash of inspiration that came out of nowhere like a burst of spontaneous transmatica, I wrote it all down in one sitting."

Seb Doubinsky on "Ruins": "Chris Kelso had asked me to write something for an upcoming anthology set in his Slave States universe. I had said, ‘yes, of course’ and immediately forgot about it, as I was fairly busy with different projects. A few months later, Chris asked me if I had written that something for him. Of course, I hadn’t and I felt really bad about it, as I am a great admirer of Chris’s work and grateful of his unflinching support. What’s more, I was stuck in a crazy schedule that completely prevented me from sitting down and writing a story. Fortunately Chris had eyed some of my recent poems, which dealt with the desperation and angst of youth. He asked me if he could use those, and I realized that, indeed, they would fit well. After all, isn’t adolescence all about living in a permanent Slave State we call ‘society’?"

Richard Thomas on "From Within": "With my story, I tried to use the new voice I'm working on where I replace death at the center of my fiction with love. I have a habit of killing off a lot of people, using it as a bit of a crutch, so I wanted to make sure that neither of my main characters died. But that doesn't mean there isn't a threat. And world domination, slavery, at the hands of these beasts, well, it's kind of a fate worse than death, right? I thought about what the father's greatest fear might be in this new world, something I've been doing ever since I took a class with Jack Ketchum, and the obvious thing to me was that his boy would be taken from him. It's bad enough they have to work in the mines, but to have him taken away, never to be seen again? That seemed like the worst thing that could happen. I also wanted to give the boy a chance to be the hero, and if you pay close attention early on in the story, you'll see that I plant a seed toward the front, the old Chekov concept that, ‘One must never place a loaded rifle on the stage if it isn't going to go off.’ Can you spot the gun?"

John Palisano on "Dodge and Midge Escape the Silo": "It’s been a long, crying time since I met Midge, deep in the Slave State -- hopeless purgatory fuck-all. I swung an electro-hammer beside him, smashing stacks of dried shit bricks of the Drivers. We reeked of burnt cherries and milk-bone. There was one decent Driver. Chris Kelso. Instead of fetid bricks, he fed us wildberry pies laced with Scorpion powder. Stuff makes two rocks about the same size look like the sexiest thing you ever saw. Those rocks’ll turn into planets and you’ll be in outer space. That’s where Dodge bonked me upside the head. I was busy tripping my balls off when this spritely wad of energy found me. ‘You? Yes! You’re good and ripe, and ready to hear how me and Midge rode the floods and took down the Silo?’ A frowning oaf of a man stood nearby. Dodge giggled like a nervous schoolboy. ‘I don’t think he’ll have any problem taking this in and spewing it out later, will he?’ ‘Don’t think so,’ Midge said. He was right. I was open . . . on a plain they say . . . when Dodge sat, cleared his throat, and didn’t shut up for twenty minutes."

Laura Lee Bahr on "Black Out in Upper Moosejaw": "Once Upon a Time I worked corporate. I had good and bad masters.  My last corporate master almost broke me.  I kept my heart alive by writing emails to myself of story fragments, thinking up rap lyrics, and fantasizing about different relationships with co-workers beyond the mechanistic robotic roles we enacted daily. There is power in what we tell ourselves that we love, even if we know it can never love us back. Acting upon that love can be an act of sabotage.  It can destroy you, the other, or even the hive itself."

Gio Clairval on "Escape From the Slave State": "The idea of my story came from my pyromaniac tendencies. I already blew up an anthology when I was invited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer to contribute to The Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities, a gathering or weird objects. In that story, the protagonist went and burned down the good doctor's cabinet, along with the stuffed dodos and an entire box of ampersands, which is why my story was the last on the Table of Contents. So, when Chris Kelso elbowed me in the ribs about The Slave State (I was already going to accept because he's the haws, but I let him try to convince me anyway -- I'm bad like that), I started to plot the new bonfire. It's all set now. Ignore the billowing smoke. Keep turning the pages. You'll find my story at the end, and it will scorch your eyes."