alfreda89 | Recent Entries

When you live alone, and you don't have a roommate or clever pet in house, it's really strange when something happens that doesn't have an easy explanation.

I heard a clink yesterday during the early hours of morning. Just a tiny clink, on the outside wall of the largest bedroom where I fortify myself against the air quality.

When I got up a few minutes later in need of coffee hours early, I opened the blinds to check the snow levels, and so forth. And saw a screw laying on top of my baseboard. A Phillips head screw, maybe 1 1/8 thread length, small raised head.

I have no idea where this came from, and have no idea what it could possibly have fallen out of.

This is where SFFH writers get material.

It could be a ghost--the house has one. It's mostly a quiet ghost, and helpful--it is very protective when I use the stairs, leading me to believe that either he, or someone he cared about, fell down them once.

It could be house spirits. (I write fantasy--stay with me.) Things live out here in the woods, and they also like the little log cabin house I am in. They have decided they like me. This could be either a warning--something needs attention--or a gift, like a crow bringing a bottle cap.

It could be quantum. The screw may have traded places somewhere along the space time continuum, or perhaps I did. This is a different reality, and another Kat somewhere knows what this screw means. It doesn't feel threatening. But when quantum hits, it's always very weird.

I don't know. But I now have this screw. And I need to figure out where to put it so I have it when I find out where it relocated from. . . .

Current Mood: amused
Current Location: Great Lakes

I can't do our holiday in the US today--too many people, too few masks where my family is--but I want to share this essay.

A foreign student fell in love with the best part of this holiday. I wish you a satisfying meal with people you love.

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/11/23/503170309/how-a-student-from-india-fell-in-love-with-thanksgiving

Current Mood: thankful
Current Location: Great Lakes

UNCANNY TIMES
by Laura Anne Gilman
5 of 5 stars
~ ~ ~
One of the nicest things about the Internet making it easier to research, request library books, etc. is that authors can dive down deep rabbit holes and emerge triumphant with areas no one has visited recently. Gilman plunged into early 20th century New England, USA, 1913--a country and a world teetering on the crux of war and a new age of politics and society.

The gold she emerged with is woven into a story of siblings, Aaron and Rosemary Harker, part of the people called the Huntsmen. A people the Church finds anathema, but are necessary to the world. Because the Huntsmen sense and hunt the Uncanny. Who are the Uncanny? They are remnants of the inhuman folk & creatures that still haunt the edges of the world. And the Uncanny are not friends of humanity.

This tale of magic and catastrophic change has layers of the political & economic strife of pre-war factory life, of the coming world war, and of the upheavals in Europe that male Huntsmen have been drawn to--drawn to, and the men have not been heard from since. UNCANNY TIMES shows the constraints of the lives of educated women, suggests that elves were interested in humans at *some* point in the past--and is capable of showing how people keep secrets, forget history, and can adapt to more things than one might think.

There is a quiet, rolling tension and relaxation to the beautiful writing that may be slow for readers who need all action all the time. But the layers of world building and the sudden explosions of battle will reward those who love alternative historical fantasy. You should be able to find this at all the usual places online.

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: Great Lakes

The Cailleach found me in the depths of North America, swirled round my tiny home, bent a few failing ash trees & left a swarm of songbirds emptying my feeders.

But she swept away the miasma long enough to tell me that the air is the problem, and I must make plans. Somehow.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Great Lakes

We got 4-6" of heavy snow last weekend. (One inch was predicted. Sigh.) Shrubs in back are like twiggy wood folk trying to stand back up. (I never would have planted boxwood here; they didn't clear that with the HOA board. But it does soak up excess water.) It's overcast now but has that winter glow things sometime get when the sun is hidden.

Birds have been by and taken down most of the winter mix seed and half the hot stuff. Woodpeckers, sparrows, black-eyed juncos, chickadees, titmice, white-breasted nuthatches, cardinals--I even saw a young bluejay--lots of birds. I saw both black squirrels (a variant of the greys) and a tiny red squirrel the size of a chipmunk tearing around yesterday.

The next day everything was waiting to see if the snow melt would start and reveal things. I planted two Northern pin oak acorns yesterday before the snow started. They come from a tree three hours north. We need more oaks here now. Perhaps they will like the soil.

Then another six inches. More coming. :(

( Read more... )

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: Great Lakes

The wheel turns, the harvest ends. We stand on the threshold of winter.

Often, our dead return to check up on us.

In honor of them, our stories of those who left a pattern--or a part of themselves--behind. MURMURS IN THE DARK, edited by Marissa Doyle and Shannon Page.

I hope you have people or pets who stop by to check up on you.

Blessings of Samhain to all who celebrate.

Current Location: Great Lakes

Still alive. But have lost three people I valued in the past month, and along with the rising smoke, that was making it hard to post anything anywhere. (I have a bunch of back posts for here. Some might still get here eventually.)

But--Cow watch.

I am on virtual cow watch via Twitter with a writer/dairy farmer in Pennsylvania.

Beki's trying to keep her sense of humor--it is this heifer's first, and Tweed is defiantly saying 'I'm fine, this is Normal' and doing things like insisting on grass outside and jumping a fence or two. As her udder drips milk.

Sometimes I think the farmers of Twitter have kept me more or less sane this pandemic. I think the interest of stranger writers & fans and our odd hours support have helped them. They are isolated with toddlers, aging parents who refuse to take precautions, and working multiple jobs. They are at the end of their rope, too.

I follow several farmers and shepherds on Twitter and Facebook. Their hard work and dedication is a pipeline to my great-grandparents. Their battle to hang onto their sense of humor and compassion is inspiring. (Several are funny as &%$#. So if you need some occasionally off-color toddler humor, or a battle with courting barred owls (that would be @NeolithicSheep) I can recommend reconnecting to the land via herders and gardeners. (You can also enjoy writer T. Kingfisher as she rants about bugs, plants, and heirloom vegetables. On occasion we get her running D&D real-time, which never gets old.) Right now I am Cat Kimbriel there.

This could all change in a month--Twitter is going to lay claim to posts. Maybe EM will buy it, although I have my doubts. Which means I will be sharing sunsets there to help folks locate awesome photographers for calendars, note cards and prints, and things like @Thereisnocat_ which leaves Wordle in the dust. And of course Book View Cafe. New books, a great new site, blog posts almost daily.

There is still a pandemic, and some of us still mask. Because the smoke makes my lungs bleed. Still healing, but too slowly, IMO.

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: Great Lakes

Be ready! May 15-16, 2022.

(Of course chance of rain*....) *deluge

https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/total-lunar-eclipse-may16-2022/

Current Location: Great Lakes

For you all--my favorite for this season as performed by Wyrd Sisters--Solstice Carole

Current Location: Great Lakes

"Your story may be the lifeline that your readers desperately need to pull them to shore." ---Martha Wells

Our own Martha Wells won not one, but two Hugos last night at WorldCon 2021. For best novel (NETWORK EFFECT) and for best series (THE MURDERBOT DIARIES.)

Here's the link for her acceptance speech--she figured that even with crazy luck she would only need one speech, right?

The tl;dr is the sentence at the top of the entry. I think that is why she won. Not simply because she is a great storyteller--she's been that for years. But because MurderBot was and is a lifeline for a lot of us.

Current Location: Great Lakes

If you are someone who suspects I would let you see Friends posts on Falsebook, and you don't see them here? Please ping me somehow.

I just found several who should have been seeing private posts are weren't. So....

Current Location: Great Lakes

It's been a long time since I finished a piece of writing. Life, Interrupted has been prolonged. But a 7500 word novelette called "Borrowed Places" is now out in the ghost story anthology MURMURS IN THE DARK, edited by Marissa Doyle and Shannon Page. It's about a young person who is a property assessor for Borrowed Places, Inc. BPI is a rather special B&B type of place, catering to those who are so sensitive to chemicals, smoke, and EMF that average motels and rentals drive them half-nuts. And there's a second type of rental BPI handles. . . haunted homes.

Is Rik negotiating with the owners--or the ghosts?

There's humor, affection, and problem-solving along the way, as Erika Rowen does her best to keep owners, renters, and ghosts happy.

You can find the anthology at Book View Cafe, in MOBI or EPUB--at a mere $3.99 USD for 13 Stories. Click through if you'd like a trade paperback version for a friend who loves ghosts. There is more unease than ARGH in this anthology, and I am pleased to have a story in it. No, I didn't submit it anywhere else. I just needed to see that I was still in there fighting the good fight for Story. And Marissa and Shannon wanted it. I hope my story leaves you in a good place. The anthology contains tales of laughter, love, and loss.

It was an October, 2021 release. Should be eligible in original fiction, novelette length. Hope you enjoy it, and thank you for your consideration.

Sample below:

( Read the start of Borrowed Places here. )

Over on Book View Cafe, I have a brief jumble of a book review, the blurb I gave the author, and three new questions about Sara Stamey's PAUSE, now available from BVC.

It's for a special audience--not me, I don't lean into so-called women's books--but I really liked the protagonist, and how she survived and thrived in her journey. There are questions about romance, but it is not a Romance. CW for a malpractice suit that is part of the story, and TW for emotional abuse from Ex-partners and fathers, in the past, which she is working to move beyond. I am skittish about the Ex-partners stuff, and it was careful enough to work for me.

So--in case you like some women-rediscovering-life stories occasionally? Or you like to branch out occasionally?

Some info on PAUSE.

(Interview is gone for now, as BVC built a new storefront and hasn't gotten all old essays up again.)

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Location: Great Lakes

The dead are always with us.

Most folks don’t fully understand that. People wrap a corpse in ritual and custom, say their good-byes, and try to move on. But it doesn’t work. We carry our dead, always. Long years later, something will bring the past to mind—a child’s motion, a woman’s perfume, a man’s sputtering laugh. For a brief moment, the past is now, and our dead live again.

As long as we remember them, we are shadowed by our dead.

---KINDRED RITES by Katharine Eliska Kimbriel

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The year turns; the dead may return.

Welcome their visit, their love, their wisdom should they give you enlightenment.

May you find good health, great creativity, and renewal in the year to come.

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Location: Great Lakes

Cover to fantasy OF ABSENCE, DARKNESS by Rachel Neumeier; DEATH'S LADY, Book 2. 2021 cover to Book View Caf� edition.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
OF ABSENCE, DARKNESS
Book 2 of Death's Lady
by Rachel Neumeier
$4.99 (Novel)
ISBN 978-1-61138-986-9
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Portals open both ways

Daniel never imagined that Tenai's memories of her earlier life might be absolutely true. But when he and his daughter are swept up in the plots of her enemies and dropped abruptly into a world of dark magic and darker history, Daniel must find a way to aid Tenai against the all-too-real echoes of her past.

Though the hidden schemes of Tenai's enemies offer peril enough, the worse threat comes from within: if Tenai cannot master the vast rage she still carries, her own fury may shatter her world.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Read a sample online

Current Mood: pleased
Current Location: Great Lakes

It makes complete sense when you look at the source words in the language. I suspect many cultures have similar nuance in where and how the dead are buried--or not--and remembered.

Here's the Difference Between a Cemetery and a Graveyard.

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Location: Great Lakes

My commentary--indirectly, like all good things ghostly--on writing "Borrowed Places."

"Do you believe that a human being can run an English mile in about four minutes? If you believe the record is true--why do you believe it? How good are you at accepting that other people can do something you can't?

"When someone hears something you don't--like a camera flash recharging? Do you doubt them? If not--would you doubt them if they told you a kitchen light ballast was buzzing, driving them nuts?

"If someone told you that an empty house felt "occupied" . . . do you immediately dismiss it? Wish you believed it? Wonder what it is they sense?

"If. If. If.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: Great Lakes

They are tales of loss, love, and laughter--of things you are positive you didn't see. But then again, perhaps you did. . . . In my case, I was writing about places where people learned to temporarily share with a ghost. Turned out I was also writing about a woman who tried to help the ghosts as well.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Book View Cafe presents thirteen (of course) brand new (mostly) tales of ghosts, hauntings, and things that might or might not go bump in the night--tales that will inspire an involuntary glance over the shoulder, an unexpected shiver, or an uneasy chuckle.

Open this book at your own risk...of a spooky good read.

Stories by Alma Alexander - Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff - Chaz Brenchley - Marie Brennan - Brenda W. Clough - Marissa Doyle - Katharine Eliska Kimbriel - Shannon Page - Paul Piper - Steven Popkes - Dave Smeds - Jennifer Stevenson - Jill Zeller

Read a sample online!

Current Mood: happy
Current Location: Great Lakes

Well, between the idiocy at Facebook--both their aggressive pursuit of clicks and their changing the frames per second of the latest upgrade, thus triggering migraines in many of us--I have been contemplating social media, and where to take a stand.

Also, I am still healing, but the pandemic and shipping problems have complicated my life in too many ways. I have been waiting almost a month for a shipment from New Zealand. It's something that may allow me to level up to the next health plateau. But who knows how fast it will get here. I would have guessed two weeks at the fastest before shipping backlog and USPS re-org.

Right now I am thinking about moving my longer posts over here (probably buying in, as I once did with Live Journal) and just posting links at FB and Twitter. Cat memes and such will remain over there, but writing, politics, and all-over-the-map stuff may move here. Stuff that was Friend post or special post at FB will be Frie4nd post here, too, so you can join--it's free for a basic journal. It's easier right now than creating a new web site, frankly. Too many balls are in play. I don't want to drop any of them.

I have the uncomfortable feeling I will need to leave here. Between the AQ and the ancient sea bed we float upon, plus vortex weather upping its game (used to be 3 years out of 10. It's been the last three years....)it is not looking like a good place for me to contemplate early retirement. The question is, where is my Venn diagram so I can spend the most time in good air/humidity, and go out to visit folks? I don't know. And the way things are in Texas right now, I don't know that returning to Austin is an option.

But--good news! My 7500+ word ghost story is now out from Book View Cafe. Murmurs in the Dark. Both ebook and print. I'll post some info on it in a bit here.

May you all be doing well. Remember--just functioning right now is a triumph!

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Location: Great Lakes

Sometimes I would hear flying squirrels on the roof during mating season. Sometimes, I now know I did have squirrels--grey squirrels, young ones, in the roof. Until a cat, or hawk, or the young bald eagle got them.

Sigh. Pest removal is no joke. Locals kept saying I could not have squirrels--I had no attic.

I have a crawl space.
( Of intruders and nightmares )
But they always arrived as metaphor.

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Location: Great Lakes

Life, Interrupted

We dance four times with the Fates....

Recent Entries

Navigation

. . .and this is another reason I write SFFH. . . .

In celebration of any holiday involving your favorite people and foods

Book Review--UNCANNY TIMES by Laura Anne Gilman

Winter telling me to move on

Birds, snow, heating bills

In case you need some good ghost stories today--

Keeping Me Going--Cow Watch

A Total Eclipse for You--

The Solstice Arrives. Happy Yule!

Writers & Writing as Lifelines.

Sorting on the Account Page

2021 Award Roundup Post

I really liked Sara Stamey's new book PAUSE. So--review, blurb, even a few extra Qs

For Samhain. The first paragraphs of KINDRED RITES

New from Book View Cafe, and from our new member, Rachel Neumeier

The difference between a graveyard and a cemetery.

On "Borrowed Places," my latest work--a novelette.

Now Available--MURMURS IN THE DARK, a ghost story anthology edited by Marissa Doyle & Shannon Page

Losing patience here....

So....pests and nightmares

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June 2025

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