Two story acceptances to mention

I'm excited to announce two new stories that will be published...soon, ish. Both are stories that I originally wrote quite a while ago but because of their style or approach or something could never find a good fit for them. So that makes it even better to have them accepted.

The first is "The Front" to Bourbon Penn, which will be the third time I have a story in that market. It's a dark, slipstream/magical realist story of a war that never ends.

The second is "Grey Eytel and His Band of Birds" to the anthology Beyond the Hedge, Volume 2. This is one of a number of stories I've written that take place in the New Weird-influenced city of Boskrea. (The same setting as the Locus-recommended story "Scolyard's 'The Constructs Foresee Their Doom'" in Three-Lobed Burning Eye, among others.) This story reaches far back into the history of the city, telling the tale of its founding...as well as the multiple ways that tale has been retold and reimagined through the city's history.

"Untouched by Fire" published

Just got my contributor copies of this 2-volume anthology. Very cool artwork, and looking forward to checking out the many stories in it. All of them are fantasies set in or inspired by non-Western historical locales and cultures.

So what's my story about? A while back I was contemplating tackling a new novel and had some vague ideas about the setting, which was largely inspired by the history and cultures of India. I dug deep into learning all I could, talking to people who knew it from inside, reading many works of fiction and nonfiction. And I also wrote this short story to get my mind into the setting.

The key to this story is that the culture venerates fire, and so when a high-born girl is burned by fire, it's seen as a judgment for her actions rather than an accident. So she must deal with being suddenly an outcast, untouchable. I really liked the character, Jaritta, and she (along with her still high-caste brother) became a central character in the novel as well, a story set some 10-15 years later.

While more a fantasy than a steampunk story, it is worth noting that this was my first big work deliberately set at the cusp of an industrial revolution and shares a lot of the themes that I like to explore in more steampunk-y settings.

Spire City, Season Three: Unwoven is available

Common wisdom is to hold lots of big, celebratory events when you have a book release. I...chose to disappear to the woods for a few days. Admittedly I had internet access a good chunk of that vacation time, but when I did, I didn't have the mental focus to do a lot of promo-ing and the like. So call it my unplanned experiment in null marketing...

But now the book is available across most online bookstores. So if you've been waiting for the full bundle to be out rather than reading the episodes as they came out (and I know many of you have), then pick up a copy, in print or digital format.

And whether you've already picked it up on your own or are doing so now, consider leaving a review--for this season and for the earlier seasons as well. The more reviews, the more it helps bring in new readers! Thanks.

Here are a few of those links, but if there's another bookstore you prefer, there's a good chance you can find it there, too:

Amazon (print and digital)
Barnes & Noble (print and digital)
Smashwords (digital; Smashwords also supplies titles to lots of other digital bookstores, so you get the Smashwords version at most online sources)
Createspace (print, and my preferred source for getting print copies)