I’m posting on the Fox Spirit Books blog today, a piece to help promote the just-released Pacific Monsters anthology which contains my horror story: Mudgerwokee.
The blog post is about why we’re afraid of the dark… or rather it started out that way and kind of turned into a flash fiction piece.
Check out the post and let me know if you like it, and if you’re a horror fan have a look at Pacific Monsters while you’re on the Fox Spirit website.
Tales of the Sunrise Lands has just released from Guardbridge Books and one of the stories in this cool anthology is mine: Hanabi to Kitsune (which translates to ‘Fireworks and Foxes’).
The story follows Mayu, a high schooler in current day Japan. In traditional high schooler style she has a crush on an upper classman (notice me senpai, notice me ;p ). She’s managed to catch his eye once at a fireworks festival, but she’s determined to do it again, even going so far as to steal a beautiful yukata from her grandmother’s attic. What Mayu doesn’t realise is her act of theft will result in mythic consequences.
I had a lot of fun with this one. I got to show off some of my knowledge of kitsuke(the art of kimono fashion), kitsune and a cavalcade of yokai, and got to come up with two more awesome Japanese names complete with matching and meaningful kanji (if you don’t know what I mean but are curious check out this old post on the complexity of Japanese names). I also played around with kishotenketsu story structure, though the end result can be viewed in both a three act way as well as a kishotenketsu sort of way(more on kishotenketsu in a later post).
You might also notice Mayu’s love interest is called Arima-senpai. My beagle, Arima, recently passed away, and though this story was written and submitted long before that, I can’t help but feel it’s a beautiful little tribute to him.
If you’re a fellow Japanophile I hope you’ll check out the anthology. You can find it on Amazon, or buy it directly from Guardbridge Books(if you can, buy it from Guardbridge, it helps support this awesome and ever-growing small press).
For this holiday season grab two of my stories for free (or even three if you sign up for my newsletter also!).
God’s Chosen is my most recently published short story, released in Darkest Depths, and you can get THE WHOLE ANTHOLOGY FREE from the 25/12/16 to 28/12/16. Not just my story but also all the other tales by up and coming Australian authors.
God’s Chosen is the tale of Ryn, a young woman born into a modern day cult, and her fight to break free, no matter how badly her peoples’ God wants her to stay.
The Troll’s Toll, the first of my Retailored Fairy Tales novellas, will also be free. For those not familiar with my Retailored Fairy Tales, they are set in a world where witches will curse you for looking sideways at them, trolls charge bridge tolls(and accept princesses as payment), but you can hire a Prince Charming should your daughter have need of escaping either of the aforementioned predicaments.
As for the story itself: Lilly might be a princess, but she’s still the ultimate middle child, lost in a crowd of ten siblings. From his inability to ever get her name right Lilly knew her father didn’t care about her, but she never guessed exactly how little until the bridge. Without enough money to pay the toll, he uses her as payment to the troll that runs the bridge. Now Lilly must re-adjust to life as a troll’s slave, but the troll is not the worst thing in the forest…
Kirstie Olley is an award-winning speculative fiction author and the full-time wrangler of her children Xander and Harlequin.
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Books
Read The Troll's Toll: A Retailored Fairy Tales Novella now.
Read 'Charming' (Honorable Mention in the Writers of The Future contest Q4 2014) in Leading Edge Magazine issue 68.
Read 'Short Circuit' (finalist in the 2013 Aurealis Awards Best Fantasy Short Fiction category) in Oomph: A Little Super Goes A Long Way from Crossed Genres.
Read ‘Hanabi to Kitsune'(Fireworks and Foxes) now in Tales of the Sunrise Lands from Guardbridge Books.
Read ‘Glass Bones’ now in WARRIOR an anthology choc-full of LGBTQIA warriors all across space, time, and imagination.
Read 'Gaps' in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #63. Click the cover to buy.
Read The Beauty of the Dance(Honorable Mention in the Writers of The Future contest Q41 2015) in Myriad Lands vol 1: Around the World.
Read 'Nightfall' for free now in 18. Click the picture to decide where to download it from.
Read ‘God’s Chosen’ for free now in Darkest Depths – the Vision Writers 20th Anniversary anthology. Click the picture to decide where to download it from.
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