Category Archives: published works

Essays, stories, and a book – things I published.

Misfits now available through Third Place Books and Indy Bound

My collection Misfits from the Beehive State is on the shelves now in Seattle at Third Place Books — both Ravenna Third Place Books and Third Place Lake Forest Park.

It’s also now available through Indy Bound. What’s that? A way to support independent bookstores, which are a really important part of our communities! Just enter your zip code, and you get a list of local independent bookstores that can sell it to you. Then click on the name of a bookstore and you’ll get its address. Or, if it’s an independent bookstore that offers books for sale online, it can ship it to you just as fast as Amazon, and for the same price. For instance, you can buy it online from Queen Anne Books.

Why support independent bookstores? Here are some great reasons (excerpted from the Indy Bound FAQ):

  • Spend $100 at a local and $68 of that stays in your community. Spend the same $100 at a national chain, and your community only sees $43.
  • More of your taxes are reinvested in your community–where they belong.
  • Buying local means less packaging, less transportation, and a smaller carbon footprint.
  • More independents means more choice, more diversity, and a truly unique community.

My local independent bookstore has been a lifeline for me as an author, reader, and mom. When my kids were little, I was lonesome and a bit stir-crazy. But I could always pack up the kids in their double stroller and head over there for a cup of coffee and to browse Brain, Child and Hip Mama Magazine. Oh, and the Reality Mom zine that Corbin Lewars put out — somebody else on the same wavelength! When I was researching Sumer for the story “Mystery of the Missing Mothers,” which appeared in Missing Links and Secret Histories, I found a bunch of used books on Sumer by Samuel Kramer. Most recently, they saved my son from boredom by recommending the Nicholas Flamel series.

Anyway, indy bookstores are great. Support them!

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Misfits from the Beehive State

Misfits from the Beehive State

Coming up! The publication of “Misfits from the Beehive State” ran into a bit of a hitch with the cover, but it’s finally done. I’ll get a proof copy on Wednesday, make changes, get another proof copy, and then good to go!

Couple stories published in Missing Links and Secret Histories

So if you haven’t heard yet, good news on the publication front. Two of my stories came out in the anthology Missing Links and Secret Histories from Aqueduct Press.

NPR online rated it one of the top 5 books to read this summer. I agree. And no, not just because my stories are in it! This is the kind of book you might take to the beach, have fun reading a story, then watch the water while you think about it. I can manage one story a day, if that.

My two stories are:

“Mystery of the Missing Mothers” — fake Wikipedia entries detailing how teen detective Nancy’s search for her mother leads her through a time tunnel into an ancient Sumerian city, where mysterious stone tablets describe her search for her mother.

Excerpt: “Nancy and her friend Tom Swift are comparing memories about their dead mothers and discover startling similarities. Hunting for some answers, Nancy goes to the Riverside Library only to find the river has flooded and alluvial mud is swamping the library. . . . She trips, falls into a wall, and knocks a brick loose, revealing a hidden passage. Excited, Nancy pries away the bricks with a chisel she brought just in case and then goes on down the tunnel using a flashlight she just happened to have.”

and “The Galadriel Apocrypha” — fake Wikipedia entries about how Galadriel will be depicted in the canon in various cyberchurches in the Next Age.

Excerpt: “The characterization of Galadriel is also controversial in these apocryphal texts. They paint a picture of Galadriel as a transsexual(1) who befriended the Dark Elves(2) and who was destined to become an organizer and military strategist in a quest to unite all the races of Middle-Earth(3). This is in direct contradiction to claims made by both the Church of the Elven Queen and the Ilúvatar Priesthood that all elves are strictly heterosexual and respect the Hierarchy of Races, and that any evidence to the contrary stems from serious inconsistencies in Tolkien’s unfinished works(4). The Ilúvatar AI, as always, has made no comment one way or the other.”

Sound geeky and silly and twisty-turny? They are.

Cover to the anthology Missing Links and Secret Histories