If I were asked to name the most awesome thing about working at Shimmer, I would be stumped. There is too much goodness. Wait, can there BE too much goodness? Rest assured, there is a lot of awesome involved in this job and here’s where I get to share some of it with you!

Shimmer #15 hit the streets last week, and six of the seven authors are new to our pages. We always interview our authors, trying to get a peek behind the scenes, a glimpse of the magic. I hope you enjoy these glimpses as much as you will the stories themselves! I am blessed to work with the outstanding people I do.

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The spark initially came from the eruption of Mount Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland. I was fascinated by the images of volcanic lightning…

Things grow: they come up out of the ground, and some are stunted, and some flourish, and I have no real insight into the nature of what’s happening. I suppose I’ve just inadvertently called my own mind inhuman and overwhelming, but that feels accurate as well. I stand by the analogy…

Reject simple dichotomies. Never use gender, color, age, or orientation as short-hand in characterization; none of those traits necessitates or presupposes any other character trait. Show the world not as other people tell you it is or as you’ve learned to see it, but as you see it when you’re really looking…

Writing-wise, the most important thing I learned was that writing was a job that I was doing. Not a kind of ethereal ongoing vision quest (though there can sometimes be elements of that). It’s about putting the words on the page, putting the pages in the mail and doing it again and again and again. And then you die, I think…

While I approached this project with a great deal of fear and trembling at the start, worried I wouldn’t be able to do it justice, [this] is now a story I can single out as an example of my best work and a project I didn’t allow to beat me…

I’ve also wondered about how hacking, phishing, spam, flame wars, and other internet phenomena might work on a galactic scale.  Suppose we finally communicate with aliens, and they turn out to be telemarketers?

Feed the dragon regularly.  The expenses alone will keep you writing – dragons typically demand to be fed imported caviar, fine single sourced chocolate, organic ranch raised bison and beef, teddy bears, and fairies.

Shimmer 15 is available in paper and electronic formats. Get yours today!