Posts tagged ‘Damien Angelica Walters’

Sharp & Sugar Tooth

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Go to: About | Reviews | Goodreads
Released 26 March 2019.

About

Sharp & Sugar Tooth: Women Up To No Good is a horror anthology of dark fiction and darker appetites, edited by Octavia Cade. Containing 22 stories of “bad” women, and “good” women who just haven’t been caught yet, it features 22 fearless writers who identify as female, non-binary, or a marginalized sex or gender identity. It’s the third in the Women Up To No Good series, which can be read in any order. It’s forthcoming on 26 March 2019.

Our contributors are based in or hailing from Australia, Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, Nigeria, Singapore, the UK, and all over the United States. Between them, they have won the Andre Norton, Eugie Foster Memorial, Hugo, Lambda, Locus, Mythopoeic, Nebula, Prix Imaginales, Rhysling, Romantic Times’ Critics Choice, This Is Horror, James Tiptree Jr., and World Fantasy Awards, and been shortlisted for the Bram Stoker, John W. Campbell, and Shirley Jackson Awards!

Table of Contents

  • Kathleen Alcalá, “The Doll’s Eye”
  • Betsy Aoki, “And When We Die They Will Consume Us”
  • Joyce Chng, “Dear Son”
  • Katharine Duckett, “Gimme Sugar”
  • Anahita Eftekhari, “The Fool’s Feast”
  • Chikodili Emelumadu, “Candy Girl” (first published in Apex Magazine, issue 66, November 2014)
  • Amelia Gorman, “She Makes the Deep Boil”
  • Jasmyne J. Harris, “What the Bees Know About Discarded Girlish Organs”
  • A. R. Henle, “Strong Meat”
  • Crystal Lynn Hilbert, “Soul of Soup Bones” (first published in Apex Magazine, issue 61, June 2014)
  • Erin Horáková, “A Year Without the Taste of Meat”
  • Kathryn McMahon, “The Honey Witch”
  • H. Pueyo, “I Eat”
  • D. A. Xiaolin Spires, “Bristling Skim”
  • Rachael Sterling, “Alice Underground”
  • Penny Stirling, “Red, From the Heartwood”
  • Catherynne M. Valente, “The Lily and the Horn” (first published in Fantasy Magazine, issue 59, Queers Destroy Fantasy!, 2015)
  • Sabrina Vourvoulias, “A Fish Tale”
  • Damien Angelica Walters, “A Lie You Give, And Thus I Take” (first published in Lightspeed, issue 55, December 2014)
  • Rem Wigmore, “Who Watches”
  • Alyssa Wong, “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers” (first published in Nightmare, issue 37, Queers Destroy Horror!, 2015)
  • Caroline M. Yoachim, “The Carnival Was Eaten, All Except the Clown” (first published in Electric Velocipede, issue 27, 2013 and republished at Drabblecast)

Contributors

“The Doll’s Eye” (original) is by Kathleen Alcalá, the author of six books of fiction and nonfiction, from a collection of magical realism called Mrs. Vargas and the Dead Naturalist, to The Deepest Roots: Finding Food and Community on a Pacific Northwest Island.

“And When We Die They Will Consume Us” (original) is by Betsy Aoki. This is her first speculative fiction publication, though her poems have appeared in Uncanny, Southern Humanities Review, Hunger Mountain, and Calyx, among others.

“Dear Son” (original) is by Singaporean Joyce Chng. Her fiction has appeared in The Apex Book of World SF II, We See A Different Frontier, Cranky Ladies of History, and Accessing The Future. Joyce also co-edited THE SEA IS OURS: Tales of Steampunk Southeast Asia with Jaymee Goh. Her alter-ego is J. Damask.

“Gimme Sugar” (original) by Katharine Duckett, whose stories have appeared in Apex and Interzone, and been reprinted in Wilde Stories 2015 and The Best of Apex: Volume I. She works in publishing and lives in Brooklyn with her wife.

“The Fool’s Feast” (original) is by Iranian-Canadian Anahita Eftekhari. She has a background in genetics and half a decade of experience teaching ESL in Asia and Europe.

Chikodili Emelumadu is a Nigerian writer currently residing in Cambridge, MA. Her work has been published in Eclectica, One Throne, Omenana, and various other magazines and anthologies. Her “Candy Girl” first appeared in Apex Magazine and was nominated for the Shirley Jackson prize.

“She Makes the Deep Boil” (original) is by Minnesotan Amelia Gorman. Her other monstrous-themed writing appears in the Lovecraftian anthology She Walks in Shadows, and her poetry in Liminality Magazine, Star*Line, and Eternal Haunted Summer.

“What the Bees Know About Discarded Girlish Organs” (original) is by Jasmyne J. Harris, who lives in Washington, DC. Her work is forthcoming in Bayou Magazine.

“Strong Meat” (original) is by archivist, historian, and librarian A. R. Henle.

Crystal Lynn Hilbert lives in the forgotten backwaters of Western Pennsylvania. Her latest stories appear in Betwixt Magazine. Her “Soul of Soup Bones” was first published in Apex Magazine in June 2014.

“A Year Without the Taste of Meat” (original) is by Erin Horáková, a southern American writer who lives in London. She’s working towards her literature PhD, which focuses on how charm evolves over time.

“The Honey Witch” (original) is by Kathryn McMahon, an American writer living abroad with her British wife and dog. Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The Baltimore Review, Crack the Spine, and Necessary Fiction, among others.

“I Eat” (original) is by H. Pueyo (@hachepueyo on Twitter), an Argentine-Brazilian writer of comics and speculative fiction. Her work has appeared before in print and online venues like Clarkesworld, The Dark, and Broken Metropolis, among others. She currently lives in Brazil with her boyfriend and their interminable piles of work to do.

“Bristling Skim” (original) is by D.A. Xiaolin Spires who stares at skies and wonders what there is to eat out there in the cosmos.

“Alice Underground” (original) is by Rachael Sterling, who lives in sunny Santa Monica, California, teaching music to preschoolers most mornings and writing most afternoons. You can find her talking about books on YouTube under the name Rae Sterling.

“Red, From the Heartwood” (original) is by Penny Stirling, who edits and embroiders in Western Australia. Their speculative fiction and poetry can be found in Lackington’s, Interfictions, Strange Horizons, and other venues.

Catherynne M. Valente is the New York Times bestselling author of over two dozen works of fiction and poetry, including Space Opera, the Orphan’s Tales series, and The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. She is the winner of the Andre Norton, Eugie Foster Memorial, Hugo, Lambda, Locus, Mythopoeic, Prix Imaginales, Rhysling, Romantic Times’ Critics Choice, and Tiptree awards. Her “The Lily and the Horn” was first published in Fantasy Magazine‘s 2015 Queers Destroy Fantasy! issue.

“A Fish Tale” (original) is by Sabrina Vourvoulias, the author of Ink, which was named to Latinidad’s Best Books of 2012. Her fiction can be found in Uncanny, Tor.com, Strange Horizons, and Crossed Genres.

Damien Angelica Walters wrote Sing Me Your Scars, Paper Tigers, and Cry Your Way Home. Her short fiction has been nominated twice for a Bram Stoker Award and reprinted in The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror and The Year’s Best Weird Fiction. She lives in Maryland with her husband and two rescued pit bulls. Her “A Lie You Give, And Thus I Take” was first published in Lightspeed in December 2014.

“Who Watches” (original) is by Wellington-based Rem Wigmore, who also published under Summer Wigmore. Their first novel The Wind City was published in 2013 by Steam Press and they had a short story in the 2016 At the Edge anthology.

Alyssa Wong was a finalist for the 2016 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Her fiction has been shortlisted for the Hugo Award, the Bram Stoker Award, the Locus Award, and the Shirley Jackson Award. Her “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers” was first published in the 2015 Queers Destroy Horror! issue of Nightmare, and won the 2015 Nebula Award for Best Short Story and the 2016 World Fantasy Award for Short Fiction.

Caroline M. Yoachim has written dozens of short stories, appearing in Asimov’s, Clarkesworld, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Lightspeed, and her short story collection, Seven Wonders of a Once and Future World & Other Stories. Her “The Carnival Was Eaten, All Except the Clown” was first published in Electric Velocipede in 2013 and was featured in The Drabblecast.

Editor Octavia Cade is a New Zealand writer with a PhD in science communication and a particular interest in science history and marine studies. She has most recently been researching the reproductive strategies of Zostera muelleri seagrass. She has had around 30 short stories published, in places like Clarkesworld, Asimov’s, and Apex Magazine, amongst others. Her poetry collection on the periodic table, Chemical Letters, was published by Popcorn Press and her novellas have been published by Masque Books, Paper Road Press, and The Book Smugglers. She has been nominated for BSFA and Elgin awards, and has won three Sir Julius Vogels, twice for best novella (The Ghost of Matter and The Convergence of Fairy Tales) and once for best fan writing, for a series of columns on food and horror, which became Food and Horror: Essays on Ravenous Souls, Toothsome Monsters, and Vicious Cravings (Book Smugglers, 2017).

Reviews & Mentions

Mentioned in:

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There are fairy tales, horrible murders, and romances, straight, lesbian and …complicated. Some are sexy, some are disturbing, and some are both. I devoured this collection quickly and eagerly.

—”Sharp and Sugar Tooth: Women Up To No Good – Book Review,” Jennifer Muirhead, Weekend Notes, 16 June 2019.

I found that after each story I had to put the book aside so that I could process and ponder what I had just read. Even after a few weeks, I find my mind wandering back to an idea, a character, a situation from the stories and I just sit and think. Sometimes its because it was shocking, sometimes because the situation was heart-breaking, other times its the particular twist of a well-known idea or theme that strikes me. There wasn’t a single story that I hated — and most I really liked. Sharp & Sugar Tooth is definitely a book that I am recommending to my friends – it is a very worthwhile read.

—”Review: Sharp & Sugar Tooth: Women Up to No Good,” A Book Geek, 11 July 2018.

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Our Kickstarter was mentioned, promoted, or reviewed in:

26 March 2019

I may have a sweet tooth but I’m not delicate.

We’re continuing our Kickstarter campaign features with “A Lie You Give, And Thus I Take” by Damien Angelica Walters, the source of our title, and which was first published in Lightspeed in December 2014, along with an author spotlight, in which she says:

The only things that surprised me were all the other story references that occur throughout. It makes a strange sort of sense because it’s fiction about a fiction, but I initially thought the story was nothing more than a strange retelling of Hansel and Gretel, minus the familial relation and the witch, of course. . . . I was thinking about the nature of liars, how they often get away with it by spoon-feeding people stories a little at a time, and the lengths they’ll go to to preserve that fiction as truth. Some of the best liars use sweet words as a lure; they tell people what they want to hear and believe, and they do it in such a way that their sincerity is never doubted. (At least not until it begins to fall apart, as all lies eventually do.)

Also exploring the horrific side of familiar stories is Rachael Sterling in “Alice Underground,” in which Alice has grown up and runs a bakery with Wonderland-inspired goods, and discovers to her horror that she has been serving cakes she didn’t know she had.

Laura E. Price’s “Mary in the Looking Glass” takes a woman struggling with the grief of miscarriage and adds Mary Whales (or Mary Worth, in other versions of the folktale, who is sometimes a teenager killed in the Salem witch trials), who will come visit—or murder—you if you chant “I believe in Mary Whales” in front of a mirror in a room lit only by a single candle. Price writes:

“Mary In the Looking Glass” is partly the product of my adolescent fascination with creepy, bloody stories—Bloody Mary, of course, but also the Headless Lady who supposedly walks the north end of Gasparilla Island, where my mother grew up, looking for the head she lost when Jose Gaspar, her lover, murdered her. It’s also partly due to those short paperback romance novels both my grandmothers read: the ones where, say, the newly-divorced woman heads back home and meets up with her old high school flame, who is still single, carrying a torch for her, and probably, like, breaks horses or something for a living. I have the sort of brain that puts those things together and wonders . . . who lives in the center of that story, and how did she get there?

 

About the Authors

Laura E. Price lives in southwestern Florida with her husband and son. Her work has appeared in On Spec, Strange Horizons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, GigaNotoSaurus, Penumbra eMag, and Betwixt. She also blogs at seldnei.wordpress.com.

Rachael Sterling lives in sunny Santa Monica, California, staying indoors or else seeking shade. She teaches music to preschoolers most mornings and writes most afternoons. You can find her talking about books on YouTube under the name Rae Sterling.

Damien Angelica Walters is the author of Sing Me Your Scars, Paper Tigers, and Cry Your Way Home. Her short fiction has been nominated twice for a Bram Stoker Award, reprinted in The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror and The Year’s Best Weird Fiction, and published in various anthologies and magazines, including the 2016 World Fantasy Award Finalist Cassilda’s Song, Cemetery Dance, Nightmare Magazine, and Black Static. She lives in Maryland with her husband and two rescued pit bulls. Find her on Twitter @DamienAWalters or on the web at damienangelicawalters.com.

18 June 2018

Kickstarting Women Up To No Good!

 

Projects like the VIDA Count have demonstrated that women account for startlingly less than half of those published, and writers of marginalized sex and gender identities account for much less than their presence in the general population.

To help counteract that—and also because we thought it would be fun—we started the Women Up To No Good series, which focuses on “bad” women, and “good” women who just haven’t been caught yet.

There are other imbalances too, most notably race, and while we have no formal requirement for inclusion of writers of color, we strive for diversity in all of our anthologies.

Broad Knowledge: 35 Women Up To No Good and Sharp & Sugar Tooth: Women Up To No Good are anthologies of writing by women and authors of marginalized sex and gender identities, about female protagonists whose knowledge or appetites are critical to their stories.

We’re raising money to be able to pay our authors professional rates, and to properly promote the anthologies so they get the attention they deserve. Our hope is to get the Women Up To No Good series on a solid enough footing that sales of the books will support all future anthologies.

 

Broad Knowledge authors

Sharp & Sugar Tooth authors

Check out our Kickstarter here.

1 April 2018

Contributor news!

It’s been a pretty long time—nine months!—since I’ve shared contributor news, so I have a long list of stuff for you to read and enjoy below.

 
◊ Apocalypse Now: Poems and Prose from the End of Days contributors:

 
◊ Choose Wisely: 35 Women Up To No Good contributors:

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◊ How to Live on Other Planets: A Handbook for Aspiring Aliens contributors:

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◊ The Museum of All Things Awesome and That Go Boom (which will be released next year) contributors:

 
◊ Soles Series contributors:

 
The Twelfth Planet book Letters to Tiptree includes many talented writers, including URB authors Rose Lemberg, Alex Dally MacFarlane, Sarah Pinsker, Cat Rambo, Nisi Shawl, Lucy Sussex, Rachel Swirsky, and Bogi Takács.

And, finally, Flight 505: A Novella‘s author Leslie Bohem has a TV series with Hulu involving psychics and organized crime that’s going to be awesome.

31 October 2015

Choose Wisely: 35 Women Up To No Good

a welcome antidote to the conventional world of women’s fiction
—Best New Fiction

Print (978-1-937794-46-0)

Ebook (978-1-937794-43-9)

Out of print.

Go to: About | Goodreads | Reviews
Released 31 March 2015

 ChooseWiselycover-print-front

Choose Wisely: 35 Women Up To No Good is a feminist anthology of dark fiction, co-edited by H. L. Nelson and Joanne Merriam. Containing 35 stories of “bad” women, and “good” women who just haven’t been caught yet, it features Joyce Carol Oates, Aimee Bender, Diane Cook, and 33 other fearless women writers. In January 2016, it was nominated for a This Is Horror Award. It’s the first in the Women Up To No Good series.

About this book:

Table of Contents:

  • Janet Shell Anderson, “Every Purpose Under Heaven”
  • Sidney Archer, “Woman Enough”
  • Alisha M. Attella, “Rise”
  • Gwen Beatty, “Angel Thinks She Will Die Very Soon”
  • Aimee Bender, “Broke”
  • Tina Connolly, “Hard Choices”
  • Diane Cook, “Moving On”
  • Kathy Fish, “The Hollow”
  • Amina Gautier, “A Cup of My Time”
  • Amelia Gray and Lindsay Hunter, “Sisters”
  • Tina May Hall, “Vampire”
  • Rebecca Jones-Howe, “Better Places”
  • Andrea Kneeland, “Imagination”
  • Molly Laich, “Kristen Doesn’t Like Surprise Parties”
  • Heather Lindsley, “The Angel of Death Has a Business Plan”
  • Holly Lopez, “The Head”
  • Kelly Luce, “Rooey”
  • Mesha Maren, “Eminent Domain”
  • Jessica McHugh, “In the Silt”
  • Mary Miller, “This Boy I Loved a Rock”
  • Ellen Birkett Morris, “After the Fall”
  • Joyce Carol Oates, “Spotted Hyenas: A Romance”
  • Jennifer Pelland, “The Kennel Club”
  • Cat Rambo, “Ms. Liberty Gets a Haircut”
  • Joani Reese, “Good Neighbors”
  • Marytza K. Rubio, “Clap If You Believe”
  • Nisi Shawl, “Looking for Lilith”
  • Quill Shiv, “The Bitter Sea”
  • Emily Slaney, “Bear Traps”
  • Amber Sparks, “We Dressed Up Like Other People”
  • Rachel Swirsky, “The Sea of Trees”
  • Meg Tuite, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?”
  • Damien Angelica Walters, “Girl, With Coin”
  • xTx, “Today I Am A Wife”
  • Bonnie ZoBell, “Tricking the Moon”

Contributor Bios:

Janet Shell Anderson has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize for fiction and the Micro Prize for short fiction, published by Cease, Cows; decomP; FRIGG; Vestal Review; Gemini Magazine; Black Heart; Convergence; Grey Sparrow; and others. She likes flash fiction and is an attorney.

Sidney Archer is one of the pseudonyms of K.D. McCrite, popular author of children’s books and cozy mysteries. As Sidney Archer, she looks into the darker side of life, seeking redemptive qualities found in the shadows. She harbors passion for a well-crafted story, a unique plot twist, or a colorful phrase. Her books guide readers along narrow paths fraught with obstacles and illusion until light shines fully on what was hidden. Desolate Heart, a between-worlds novel, tells the story of a cursed painting, the man who has been trapped in it for a century, and the modern-day woman who finds him.

Alisha M. Attella lives in Long Beach, California with her two blond children and one black cat. In their tiny apartment she reads books, scratches out poems and stories, raises-up the children, and talks to the cat about writers and schedules and the wonders of publishing. She’s served as Managing Editor at Mojave River Press & Review and Cease, Cows, and her own work can be found in Lummox, East Jasmine Review, San Pedro River Review, Cadence Collective, and elsewhere.

Gwen Beatty is a sorority dropout from Iowa. She is an editor at First Stop Fiction and her website is the ridiculously convenient gwenbeatty.com.

Aimee Bender is the author of five books, including The Girl in the Flammable Skirt and The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake. Her work has been translated into sixteen languages. She lives in Los Angeles.

Tina Connolly lives with her family in Portland, Oregon. Her stories have appeared in Lightspeed, Tor.com, Strange Horizons, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Her first fantasy novel, Ironskin (Tor 2012), was nominated for a Nebula, and the sequels Copperhead and Silverblind are now out. She narrates for Podcastle and Beneath Ceaseless Skies, runs the Parsec-winning flash fiction podcast Toasted Cake, and her website is tinaconnolly.com.

Diane Cook is the author of the story collection Man V. Nature (Harper, 2014). Her fiction has been published in Harper’s, Granta, Tin House, One Story, Zoetrope, Guernica, and elsewhere. Her nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times Magazine and on This American Life, where she worked as a radio producer for six years. She won the 2012 Calvino Prize for fabulist fiction, and earned an MFA from Columbia University, where she was a teaching fellow. She lives in Oakland, California.

Kathy Fish’s short fiction has been published or is forthcoming in The Lineup: 25 Provocative Women Writers (Black Lawrence Press, 2015), Guernica, Indiana Review, Denver Quarterly, and elsewhere. She served as guest editor of Dzanc Books’ Best of the Web 2010. She is the author of three collections of short fiction: a chapbook of flash fiction in the chapbook collective, A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness: Four Chapbooks of Short Short Fiction by Four Women (Rose Metal Press, 2008), Wild Life (Matter Press, 2011), and Together We Can Bury It (The Lit Pub, 2012).

Amina Gautier is the author of two short story collections: At-Risk, which won the Flannery O’Connor Award (University of Georgia Press, 2011) and Now We Will Be Happy, which won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize (University of Nebraska Press, 2014). More than eighty of her short stories have been published, appearing in Antioch Review, Best African American Fiction, Callaloo, Crazyhorse, Glimmer Train Stories, Iowa Review, Kenyon Review, North American Review, Notre Dame Review, and Southern Review among other places. Her stories have been honored with the Crazyhorse Fiction Prize, the Danahy Prize, the Jack Dyer Prize, the Lamar York Prize, the Schlafly Microfiction Award, and the William Richey Award as well as fellowships from the American Antiquarian Society, Breadloaf Writer’s Conference, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, MacDowell Colony, Prairie Center of the Arts, the Retreat for Writers at Hawthornden Castle, Sewanee Writer’s Conference, Ucross Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, and Writers in the Heartland, as well as artist grants from the Illinois Arts Council and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.

Amelia Gray is the author of four books: AM/PM, Museum of the Weird, THREATS, and Gutshot. She lives in Los Angeles, where she is at work on a novel.

Tina May Hall lives in upstate New York where she teaches creative writing at Hamilton College. Her collection The Physics of Imaginary Objects won the 2010 Drue Heinz Literature Prize and was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Her stories have appeared in Quarterly West, Black Warrior Review, The Collagist, Fourth River, and other literary magazines.

Lindsay Hunter is the author of the story collections Daddy’s and Don’t Kiss Me and the novel, Ugly Girls. Find her at lindsayhunter.com.

Rebecca Jones-Howe lives and writes in Kamloops, British Columbia. Her work has appeared in [PANK], Pulp Modern, and Punchnel’s, among others. Her first collection of short fiction, Vile Men, will be released by Dark House Press in summer of 2015. She can be found online at rebeccajoneshowe.com.

Andrea Kneeland is the author of How to Pose for Hustler (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2015). Her stories and poems have appeared in more than 50 journals and anthologies. More work can be found at andreakneeland.com.

Molly Laich is a writer in Seattle. Her work has appeared in Hobart, [PANK], Midwestern Gothic, and beyond. You can read her blog at mollylaich.com.

Heather Lindsley’s work has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Asimov’s, and Strange Horizons. Her fiction has also been in John Joseph Adams’s dystopian anthology Brave New Worlds, in Year’s Best SF 12, edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, and in Talking Back, edited by L. Timmel Duchamp. She has been featured on Escape Pod as a writer and on Podcastle as a reader, and her stories have appeared in Polish, Romanian, Russian, and French translations.

Holly Lopez lives in Charlotte, NC with her husband, pampered Doberman, and the growing number of offbeat characters mulling about in her head. Her work has appeared in Plots With Guns and Charlotte Viewpoint.

Kelly Luce’s story collection, Three Scenarios in Which Hana Sasaki Grows a Tail, won the 2013 Foreword Review’s Editors Choice Prize in Fiction. Her work has been honored by fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Jentel Arts, Ragdale Foundation, Kerouac House, and Michener Center for Writers, and has appeared in Salon, O Magazine, Crazyhorse, American Short Fiction, Electric Literature, and other magazines. She’s the editorial assistant for the O. Henry Prize anthology and editor-in-chief of Bat City Review. She grew up in Illinois and currently lives in Austin, TX.

Mesha Maren is a fiction writer from southern West Virginia whose work appears or is forthcoming in Tin House, The Oxford American, Hobart, The Barcelona Review, and other literary journals as well as the anthology Forty Stories: New Writing from Harper Perennial.

Jessica McHugh is an author of speculative fiction spanning the genre from horror and alternate history to young adult. She has had seventeen books published in six years, including her bestselling Post Mortem Press thriller, Rabbits in the Garden, and the first two books in her edgy YA series from Evolved Publishing, The Darla Decker Diaries. More info on her speculations and publications can be found at JessicaMcHughBooks.com.

Mary Miller is the author of two books, Big World and The Last Days of California. Her work has appeared in dozens of journals and anthologies including McSweeney’s Quarterly, American Short Fiction, the Oxford American, and New Stories from the South.

Ellen Birkett Morris is a writer and poet based in Louisville, Kentucky. Her fiction has appeared in journals including The Antioch Review, Notre Dame Review, South Carolina Review, Santa Fe Literary Review, wigleaf, and Paradigm. Her story “The Cycle of Life and Other Incidentals” was a finalist in the Glimmer Train Press Family Matters short story competition. Morris is a recipient of a 2013 Al Smith Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council.

Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Book Award, the National Humanities Medal, the Commonwealth Award for Distinguished Service in Literature, and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction. Her acclaimed fiction includes We Were the Mulvaneys, Blonde, and The Falls. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University.

Jennifer Pelland is a two-time Nebula nominee for short fiction, and has a short story collection (Unwelcome Bodies) and novel (Machine) available from Apex Publications. Nowadays, she mostly belly dances. Find her at www.jenniferpelland.com.

Although currently on the road, Cat Rambo usually lives, writes, and teaches by the shores of an eagle-haunted lake in the Pacific Northwest. Her 200+ fiction publications include stories in Asimov’s, Clarkesworld Magazine, and Tor.com. Her short story, “Five Ways to Fall in Love on Planet Porcelain,” from her story collection Near + Far (Hydra House Books), was a 2012 Nebula nominee. Her editorship of Fantasy Magazine earned her a World Fantasy Award nomination in 2012. She is the current Vice President of SFWA. For more about her, as well as links to her fiction, see kittywumpus.net.

Joani Reese is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Final Notes and Dead Letters, and the poetry collection Night Chorus, forthcoming from Lit Fest Press. Reese’s poetry and fiction have been widely anthologized and featured in over seventy print and online venues. She has been poetry editor for THIS Magazine and senior poetry editor for Connotation Press—An Online Artifact and was fiction guest editor for Scissors and Spackle in 2013 & 2014. Reese is currently Editor-in-Chief of the online magazine MadHat Lit, the quarterly online presence of MadHat Publishing. Reese won the first Patricia McFarland Memorial Prize for her flash fiction and The Graduate School Creative Writing Award from The University of Memphis for her poetry, where she earned her MFA. Reese won the 15th Glass Woman Prize in 2014 for her flash fiction and currently lives in Texas with six fine cats and some men. She also has a real job.

Marytza K. Rubio is a writer from Santa Ana, CA.

Nisi Shawl’s acclaimed story collection Filter House was one of two winners of the 2009 James Tiptree, Jr. Award and a nominee for the World Fantasy Award. She was WisCon 35’s Guest of Honor. She edited WisCon Chronicles 5: Writing and Racial Identity and with Dr. Rebecca J. Holden she co-edited Strange Matings: Octavia E. Butler, Science Fiction, Feminism, and African American Voices. With classmate Cynthia Ward she co-authored Writing the Other: A Practical Approach. Shawl is a cofounder of the Carl Brandon Society and serves on the Board of Directors of the Clarion West Writers Workshop. Tor books will publish her Belgian Congo steampunk novel Everfair in Fall 2015. Her website is www.nisishawl.com.

Quill Shiv is a genre-blending writer living in Saugus, MA. Her work has appeared in the anthologies Haikus for Lovers (ed. Laura Roberts) and 1 Photo, 50 Authors, 100 Words: Flash Fiction (ed. Madison Woods), and in literary magazines such as Metazen and The Watermark. When not cross-stitching or blogging at www.QuillShiv.com, Quill spends her time perfecting the nap-to-coffee ratio.

Emily Slaney is 70% no confidence, with dark humor and a crooked smile. She describes her writing as nihilistic emotional satire because she likes to make you laugh before she pulls it all away from you. She lives in England with her husband and kids in a semi-detached madhouse where sarcasm is what passes for everyday speech. She has been published in Menacing Hedge, Revolt Daily, Solarcide, Parable Press, Thunderdome Magazine, and Cease, Cows. You can find more about Emily at: emilyslaney.com.

Amber Sparks is the author of the short story collection May We Shed These Human Bodies, and co-author (with Robert Kloss and illustrator Matt Kish) of the hybrid novella The Desert Places. Her second short story collection, The Unfinished World and Other Stories, is forthcoming in 2016. You can follow her on Twitter @ambernoelle, or at ambernoellesparks.com.

Rachel Swirsky holds an MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers Workshop. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous venues, including Tor.com, Subterranean Magazine, and Clarkesworld Magazine. It’s also been nominated for the Hugo Award, the Locus Award, and the World Fantasy Award, among others, and twice won the Nebula Award. Her second collection, How the World Became Quiet: Myths of the Past, Present and Future, came out from Subterranean Press in 2013.

Meg Tuite’s writing has appeared in numerous literary journals. She is the author of two short story collections, Bound By Blue (Sententia Books, 2013) and Domestic Apparition (San Francisco Bay Press, 2011), and three chapbooks, the latest titled Her Skin is a Costume (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2013). She won the Twin Antlers Collaborative Poetry award from Artistically Declined Press for her poetry collection, Bare Bulbs Swinging (2014) written with Heather Fowler and Michelle Reale. She teaches at the Santa Fe Community College, is an editor for Santa Fe Literary Review and Connotation Press, and has a column up at JMWW. She lives in Santa Fe with her husband and menagerie of pets. Her blog: megtuite.com.

Damien Angelica Walters’ work has appeared or is forthcoming in various magazines and anthologies, including Year’s Best Weird Fiction Volume One, The Best of Electric Velocipede, Nightmare, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, Shimmer, Apex, Glitter & Mayhem, Not Our Kind, and What Fates Impose. Sing Me Your Scars, a collection of her short fiction, will be released in early 2015 from Apex Publications, and Paper Tigers, a novel, will be released later that same year from Dark House Press.

xTx is a writer living in Southern California. Her work has been published in places like The Collagist, [PANK], Hobart, The Rumpus, The Chicago Review, Smokelong Quarterly, and Wigleaf. Her short story collection Normally Special is available from Tiny Hardcore Press and her chapbook Billie the Bull is available from Dzanc Books. Her story “The Mill Pond” won the 2012 storySouth Million Writers Award. She says nothing at www.notimetosayit.blogspot.com.

Bonnie ZoBell’s new linked collection from Press 53, What Happened Here: a novella and stories, was released in 2014. She has received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in fiction, the Capricorn Novel Award, and a PEN Syndicated Fiction Award. She has held resident fellowships at MacDowell, Yaddo, VCCA, and Dorland, received an MFA from Columbia University on fellowship, and currently teaches at San Diego Mesa College. Visit her at www.bonniezobell.com.

Susan Perabo is Writer in Residence and Professor of English at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA. She is the author of a collection of short stories, Who I Was Supposed to Be, and a novel, The Broken Places (both with Simon and Schuster). Her fiction has been anthologized in Best American Short Stories, Pushcart Prize Stories, and New Stories from the South, and has appeared in numerous magazines, including One Story, Glimmer Train, The Iowa Review, The Missouri Review, and The Sun. Her new collection of short stories is upcoming from Simon and Schuster in 2016.

In addition to co-editing Choose Wisely, Joanne Merriam has edited How to Live on Other Planets: A Handbook for Aspiring Aliens and 140 And Counting: an anthology of writing from 7×20. In 2001, she quit her job as the Executive Assistant of the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia to travel Canada and write The Glaze from Breaking. Her writing has also appeared in The Fiddlehead, [PANK], Per Contra, Strange Horizons, and The Journal of Unlikely Entomology. In 2004, she immigrated to the USA, and now resides in Nashville, Tennessee.

In addition to co-editing Choose Wisely, H. L. Nelson is head of the online magazine Cease, Cows and Co-CEO of LitDemon.com. Her publications include Writer’s Digest, Nightmare, Lunch Ticket, [PANK], plus over 50 others in the last few years. H. L.’s poem “Absolution” was nominated for Best of the Net 2013. Her fiction chapbook, The Sea is Only Meat, will come out this summer from Sundress Publications.

Stories from the book available online:

Reviews:

Composed of 35 gleefully dark short stories by and about women, this anthology is a welcome antidote to the conventional world of women’s fiction. Don’t get me wrong, I adore Alice Monroe and agree that the minutely observed world of everyday life is just as viable a form of literature as the more adventurous fiction dominated by men, but, still, there’s something so energizing about girls who kill, or chase ghosts, or bide their time in strange worlds of the future. If there’s a mother daughter story in here, it’s likely to involve a little serial kidnapping as well. If dad was a sexual predator, then his little girl is going to be one too. Super heroes, with costumes, terrifying weapons, and all too human foibles abound. And the strange passage of time as a wife and mother? Tina May Hall describes it beautifully: “You remember the first six weeks of your firstborn’s life were the longest you’d ever known. Time slowed down into a milky trickle, stretched out, thinned. Then the rubber band snapped, and everything accelerated. An entire lacrosse season took place over the course of one rainy afternoon. Your knees sagged, wrinkled, tightened up again, grew bulbous as wormy apples in the time it took to walk to the ATM.” But this is the memory of a vampire crawling from her mausoleum in search or blood, not some elderly lady whiling away her last days in a nursing home. I don’t know how anyone can read this book and not feel energized.

—Vickie Fang, “Choose Wisely: 35 women up to no good,” Best New Fiction, 5 May 2015

What I enjoyed the most about this anthology was the range of characters: from doddering old attention seeking women, to women chased by their own demons (literally), to female serial killers and housewives striving to be perfect for their husbands. Every story showed a different type of woman facing situations that are both conceivable and inconceivable. . . This anthology is full of wonderful stories about women facing the roles they’ve chosen for themselves or had chosen for them – with glee, with sadness, with rebellion.

—Sharra Rosichan, “Choose Wisely: 35 Women Up To No Good: A Book Review,” Odds and Ends, 5 May 2015

After all, in a perfect world I’d just talk about how the anthology is all the things I mentioned above: strong, well written, and intriguing. Inside are a number of writers I downright worship. . . a stellar collection of high caliber writing.

—David S. Atkinson, “InReview: Choose Wisely,” InDigest, 30 April 2015

31 March 2015

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