Today’s the day! It’s my brother’s birthday! And, of arguably equal importance, it’s the release of Space Brides, LLC.
“Tired of those lonely dark nights? No one in your settlement suitable? We are here to help! We will help you find the bride or husband to keep you company, raise your children, and be your partner building a dream together. Contact us directly and give us your specifications. Success guaranteed.”
Space Brides, LLC is a sci-fi romance anthology where all the stories revolve around relationships created via the Space Brides program, matching individuals to find their happily ever after. In space.
My story, A Spectrum of Secrets, follows a single mom whose kid has a terminal disease as she does whatever it takes to find a cure. Opposite her is a genetic researcher on Europa, someone trying to prioritize the discovery of life with the value of life. Secrets jockey for priority, and emotions, well, who can ever really predict emotions?
There are fifteen stories in this collections, with a huge variety of location, race, species, orientation, pretty much everything you’d want in sci-fi stories. Paperback and ebook are available, and are available now!
Also, if amazon isn’t your thing and you like discounts, you can get 15% off at Smashwords with code LQ25S as well as from the publisher with code NR2023.
Welcome back to the far too infrequently updated Taverenbooks blog. I keep telling myself to post more, and as much as I do like to talk about myself, I like to write stories more. So my word count goes to Word instead of WordPress. But I’m here now, so let’s do this.
Since my last post, I received an acceptance for a short piece in The Avalon Literary Review, and just yesterday I got my copies in the mail. The piece, et tu Jesus, came from an exercise in my MFA point of view class this past spring and has loose parallels to my own summers in North Dakota when I was a kid. It’s a quick read, but one that’ll make you chuckle and put a smile on your face.
Last week I heard back from an anthology I submitted to, Space Brides, Inc, and they’ve accepted my story for that as well. I’ve always enjoyed reading sci-fi and it was fun combining things I’ve always had interest in (the moon Europa and extremophiles) with the scariest thing known to mankind… relationships. The anthology should be coming out later this fall, so something else to look forward to.
I just sent in a short story that takes place in the early 1500s in France and am currently working on a middle grade short about an eleven-year-old girl who, even though she just saved the world, can’t figure out what’s happening at her grandma’s house. I’ve read some of it to Westley (my five-year-old son) and he’s enjoying it so far. Though to be fair, magic and light potty humor are always golden with him.
Speaking of Westley, one of the reasons I’ve had less time to write this summer is because kids require a lot of attention and energy. In particular, he’s been super into science and we’ve been doing experiments and watching all sorts of videos. Some of the things we’ve done are a marble run, elephant toothpaste, creating S’mores “molecules”, and later today we’re going to combine baking soda and vinegar in different amounts to see what changes.
Driving some of that interest are some videos we’ve been watching. On YouTube we’ve been watching Science Max and Mark Rober, and on Netflix it’s been Emily’s Wonderlab. Science Max and Mark Rober are really good about explaining the science and presenting the results in fun, eye-popping ways. Emily’s Wonderlab is really good about including kids in the actual experiments, so it seems to him something he can do.
I’ll try to keep this next section short because as my wife can attest, I can ramble and ramble on the subject. Growing up near Seattle, I’ve always had a passion for the Seattle Mariners. The last few years have been great with their ever-improving record, and with reaching the playoffs for the first time since 2001 last fall. Since most of the games are on the west coast I don’t get to start watching until 9pm in Minnesota, which in turn makes for many late nights. So when they come to town to play the Twins, it’s especially exciting given how few chances I have to see them in person.
This year when they came I took Westley to his first Mariners game and made sure to get seats close enough to engage and entertain him, as much as can be expected for a five-year-old anyway. Of course it ended up being 95 degrees that day, so that sucked, but it was still a fun experience, even if his favorite part ended up being the Dippin’ Dots. By the way, if any Mariners person ends up reading this, I’ve got a great idea for a collaboration. Call me. 🙂
I keep saying I’ll try to post more often, and I keep meaning it. Hopefully it won’t take two months for the next post.
Back at AWP, which seems forever ago now, I was going through the bookfair and came upon F(r)iction, a lit mag that caught my interest like none others all weekend. If they select your story, they will find an illustrator to fully illustrate your story. The magazine looks like a graphic novel. It’s amazing. Unfortunately the exciting news isn’t that I’ve been accepted there (though my story has been submitted).
F(r)iction also has an online contest they do twice a year called Dually Noted where they have a singular prompt that people write on each week and each week they publish a winner. The stories have to be less than 500 words. The prompt this round is “god sends out a resignation letter”. I don’t have a ton of experience writing flash, but I thought “why not?” and wrote a story. And they picked it!
A Divine Appointment is about Heavenly HR worker Winston and a particularly bad day at HR HQ. It’s a quick read, so I’ll let you see what happens.
Now for other updates.
This week I had my last class this semester for my MFA. The class was all about POV. You all know the basics of what first, second, and third are, and perhaps you’ve heard of collective and omniscient and objective. It’s all that and more. Infinite possibilities as my professor Sheila O’Conner says.
The end of class is nice in that I’ll get some more free time to write, both on projects and on this blog, but is sad for a couple of reasons. One, no more weekly meeting with fun classmates. Two, Sheila is retiring.
I had her for Novel Class as well as POV, and she’s just super smart and insightful and it’s going to be perpetually drearier on campus without her.
With class done, I’ve decided this summer to focus on short fictions. To get some publications under my belt. I’ve only submitted off and on the last couple years as I’ve written things for class or been inspired, and a 2/20 acceptance rate isn’t the worst. But there are grants and fellowships out there that care about publications, so I’ll be working on that.
On Sunday I submitted a fantasy origin story of sorts for a character I’m planning an eight-book arc for. Today I started outlining a sci-fi romance with a hint of espionage. Next on the docket after that will be re-tooling a literary fiction short I wrote a few years back now that I’ve got some more tools in my belt. One every other week might be too optimistic, but any goal is better than no goal.
Before I sign off, if there are any writing subjects, or not writing for that matter, that you’d like me to talk about, feel free to let me know. The level of expertise may vary, but I’ll try to engage in whatever way I can.
Greetings readers. I’m excited to announce the publication of Arriving at a Shoreline, the new anthology from Great Weather for Media. There are 64 authors featured in the anthology and yours truly is one of them. My short non-fiction piece “reprogramming”, an introspective work about fatherhood and masculinity that plays with form in a unique way to tie in with the content, is one of the 64 pieces featured.
The anthology also contains interviews with National Book Award winner Martin Espada and legendary Bay Area poet Jack Foley.
There will be readings and zoom launch parties over the next couple months, so stay tuned for more info on when I’ll read from “reprogramming”.
Please take a minute to visit the anthology’s site and if you feel so inclined to purchase a copy. As much as I’d love the support, there are 63 other writers you’d be supporting as well.
Eric Taveren 