Alex Wilson is not unknown to Shimmer, but in Shimmer #17 he joins us with something entirely new, “Romeo & Meatbox.” It’s a story that ripped our hearts from our chests and consumed them raw. Ah, zombies. Here, the author reads!

Sunny Moraine joins us in Shimmer #17 with a story that alarmed me the first moment I read it. I mean that in a good way, reader. I have never read anything like her story before. And may not again. Here, Sunny talks about the writing of it. -ECT

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You can’t get to any of these truths by sitting in a field smiling beatifically, avoiding your anger and damage and grief. Your anger and damage and grief are the way to the truth. We don’t have much truth to express unless we have gone into those rooms and closets and woods and abysses that we were told not go in to. When we have gone in and looked around for a long while, just breathing and finally taking it in – then we will be able to speak in our own voice and to stay in the present moment. And that moment is home. – Anne Lamott

Many, many writers have influenced my writing, from the earliest days of wanting to tell stories via words on a page to the voice I often feel like I’m still struggling to find. But in terms of attitude toward writing, how I really think about the craft and what it requires, few people have been as influential for me as Anne Lamott.

Reading Lamott’s Bird by Bird was the first time I encountered an urge to go into the most uncomfortable places in myself in order to find material, to write about what one isn’t supposed to write about. There was something liberating about being told that so blatantly, though I’d never really believed otherwise – it’s different when you’re getting it from someone who isn’t you. But she doesn’t only claim that it’s important to do. She acknowledges that it’s painful and frightening, that the process of writing is often both, and that it’s okay to feel those things. That it doesn’t mean that you’re not doing well, but – on the contrary – that you’re doing what you need to do.

Stephen King, another writer who’s been a huge influence on how I go about the act of writing, has said many times that writing fiction is ultimately about telling the truth, and on this he and Lamott are in total agreement: the best fiction is the truth. But the truth hurts. The truth requires courage.

I’ve worked on a lot of things in my journey toward being a better writer, and all of them are things I’m still working on – technique, plotting, discipline, character creation, consistent world building, not overusing certain words (which seem to change with wild abandon as new ones move into and out of fashion in my brain). But I get the feeling that the most difficult and most important thing is that act of telling the truth. Like most people, I’m carrying around a lot of scar tissue, as well as wounds that are still pretty raw. There’s a lot of anger and pain and terror there. And I feel sure that when I can finally let that anger and pain and terror be present in my writing, I’ll be doing great work. But I don’t feel like I’m totally there yet. I’m not quite brave enough.

Which brings me to my story in Shimmer #17.

“Love in the Time of Vivisection” is a bloody, vicious story in a lot of ways, but it’s also tender and pained. It came out of thinking about honesty and how much it hurts, how it can actually be destructive, how it can destroy relationships just as easily as it can make them stronger. I was also thinking about how the most destructive kind of honesty is the kind that exists without any mutuality; it’s almost coercive, almost a violation. One person is stripped bare by someone else, submitting willingly but also left with little choice, and in the end they’re left with nothing at all. It doesn’t quite come out of my own experience – I’m happy to report that my own relationship is nowhere near as dysfunctional – but I can imagine myself there, and I know how hard it is for me to be honest.

In fact, if my own fear is at the heart of the story, it’s really more about the act of writing itself than it is about a relationship with a lover. It’s about the relationship between me and whoever is reading what I’m writing. I’m afraid to be stripped bare, but by the same token I think it might be necessary. And what happens then? What are we left with?

By the way, I realized that just as I was writing it. Huh.

So writing – good writing, true writing – is terrifying. It’s visceral. It can be ugly and beautiful in equal measure. And maybe, when it’s at its best, we as readers feel just as stripped as the writer, having read something so piercingly true that it’s as if the writer saw into us just as they were putting their own blood and bone and guts on display. Truth in fiction is mutual. It’s all done on faith, that we won’t actually be destroyed, that when it’s all over we’ll be left with something that’s fully ours.

Which means that if we’re really going to do this, we’ll all have to be brave before the end.

Carmen Maria Machado joins us in Shimmer #17 with her remarkable story, “We Were Never Alone in Space.” Here, she takes us behind the scenes to tell us how the story came into being. -ECT

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“We Were Never Alone in Space” came together in a way that was unusual for me and my process—through three separate and distinct incidents.

The first happened the summer I attended Clarion. The night before we left, I stood teary-eyed with my classmates on the shore of the Pacific Ocean. We all read something for each other—a meaningful quote or passage, or something that we had written—and then knotted them into a giant rope of kelp that we had pulled out of the sea weeks before. I volunteered to return the kelp, and our words, to the ocean. As my fellow Clarionauts and teachers stood by, I ran pretty far into the water and hurled the kelp into an oncoming wave.

What I didn’t realize, as I galumphed into the tide, was that the sun had already set, and it was mere seconds before total darkness. As I stood there in the water, the kelp left my hand, and the light left the sky. All that was in front of me—the horizon, the whole of the ocean—was velvety, impenetrable darkness. I had spent all summer eluding certain memories and fears, and in that moment they all rushed in. I had never felt more alone than at that moment. I was certain I was going to drown, unseeing and terrified.

Then I turned around and saw the lights of the shore, and the faintest outline of my Clarion family. I could hear them shouting my name. Praying that a wave wouldn’t knock me down, I crawled toward to the shore, where they were waiting for me.

*

A few days later, I said goodbye to Clarion and took a roadtrip with my now-girlfriend. We left Southern California and began meandering back toward my home in Iowa.

We stopped for a day in Roswell, New Mexico, and a decided to go to a UFO Museum. It was more of a radioactive science fair project than a proper museum, but it was fun and weird and had newspaper clippings pertaining to the history “the event” pinned up on cloth walls. One of them was from a local paper, published just after the Roswell incident in July of 1947. The reporter interviewed a woman who was incredibly excited about the out-of-town alien visitors. She said to him: “How were we to have known that we were never alone in space?”

I had a list of interesting titles going on that trip–little fragments of text that we saw here and there–and as I added it, I thought about the moment in the sea. They seemed connected, but I didn’t know how—not yet, anyway.

*

Over the next few months, I kicked around a couple of half-drafts of the story. I thought about space and the ocean and how they are both alike—two terrifyingly unknown monstrosities, both of which I am afraid. I thought about that phrase, “we were never alone in space,” and about the frightening memory of my sea-walk, but nothing was really working. There was something I was missing, but I didn’t know what it was.

So one day, I decided to start over. I went back to the moment at the ocean, where I had intended on ending the story, and wrote it first. It occurred to me that I could try and tell the story backwards, beginning with this ending and learning, as the story progressed, each critical moment that came before. It’s hardly a new structure, but as it turned out, it was exactly the missing element that I needed to understand what it was that Adelaide was waiting for, there in the sea.

I wrote the first full draft of this story–not terribly different from the final version that appears in Shimmer–that afternoon.

A.C. Wise’s story in Shimmer #17 is “How Bunny Came to Be.” It’s a story of a person who finally comes to accept what they are, even if they have to do battle with a sea monster along the way. Here, A.C. gives us a peek into a cool show I’m pretty sure I’ll be watching soon! -ECT

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There’s a brilliant cartoon series on the Hub Network called SheZow. It’s not crisp, witty dialog, or tightly woven plots that make it brilliant. In fact, the first episode I watched featured plot that made little to no sense, even within a genre known for taking liberties with reality. It is brilliant because of the premise:  A twelve year old boy named Guy Hamdon discovers a ring belonging to his late aunt, and by putting it on he inherits her superpowers and transforms into the hero SheZow, complete with go-go boots, a pink, glittery skirt, and laser lipstick.

That’s right, there’s a kids’ show out there with a twelve year old boy fighting crime dressed as a girl. You know what the best part is? Everyone is okay with it. Guy’s best friend Maz becomes his sidekick, and life rolls right on. The world doesn’t end because a boy wears girl’s clothing. In fact, in a recent episode, Guy is asked in a dream sequence, “Dude, are you wearing a dress?” With barely a pause, Guy fires back, “Yeah, you got a problem with that?”

See? Brilliant!

Of course One Million Moms is up in arms protesting the show and declaring the end of society as we know it. Personally, I want more shows like this on TV, more shows that not only flip and challenge traditional gender roles, but shows that tell boys and girls alike that being “girly” is okay. Liking pink, no matter what your sex or gender, does not make you weak. Wearing make-up and high heels, or flowery sun dresses, or layers of chiffon, or skin tight sequins doesn’t make you any less capable of fighting, or standing up for yourself and others.

While Kevlar and combat boots are more practical than stilettos and gold lame in real world combat situations, fiction doesn’t have to play by the rules. If Adam West’s Batman was able to repeatedly save Gotham City in heavy duty pantyhose while wearing his underwear on the outside, he should be just as capable of doing so in a sparkly ball gown. On the flipside, heroes like Superwoman, Jean Grey, and Storm, don’t actually get their powers from flashing their cleavage (despite what some artists would have you believe). They are strong and capable of kicking ass regardless of what they’re wearing.

Fiction should go beyond the surface of its characters, provide them with strengths and weaknesses that come from within, and those strengths and weaknesses should impact the plot. If a female character feels strong while wearing a chain mail bikini, more power to her. But if she’s wearing the chain mail bikini because of how awesome it looks on the book cover while contorting her spine in several impossible directions, and because her wearing it allows for loving descriptions of her breasts bouncing during battle scenes, then there’s a problem.

So give me men in short dresses and tall boots saving the world. Give me women in three-piece pinstripe suits battling monsters. Heck, give me a hermaphrodite in a full body fuzzy bunny costume taking down a room full of assassins. Just don’t give me blue is for boys, pink is for girls, men save the world and women stay at home. Don’t tell me there’s only one way to be strong, and that way is to purge any trace of anything the least bit “girly.” And this bit is especially true if I happen to be one of the impressionable young minds shows like SheZow are supposedly warping: Tell me I can save the world no matter what my sex or gender, and tell me you don’t give a crap what I’m wearing when I do.

Shimmer #17 arrives!

At 150 pages, this is the biggest regular issue Shimmer has ever published (not counting the themed Shimmer #11, The Clockwork Jungle Book). Shimmer #17 contains seventeen stories from seventeen diverse authors; you will encounter Shimmer regulars and Shimmer newcomers. You will journey from the circus, to the underworld, and even possibly to Mars.

Today, it can be entirely yours.

You can find Shimmer #17 in epub, mobi, and traditional paper.

A word to the wise: Shimmer #16 sold out in paper within a month of release, so if you would like Shimmer #17 paperstyle, with its gorgeous, glossy color covers, you should run and not walk!

 

Robert N. Lee makes his Shimmer debut in #17 with “98 Ianthe,” a story I love for its voice and its irreverence and reverence both. It’s that kind of story. You have to read it, exactly the same way you have to read his guest post here, about romance. Ah, romance. -ECT

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I never read Lord of the Rings. I read Pride and Prejudice instead.

That’s not entirely accurate, but it’s a good opening.

*

I did read The Hobbit, in fourth or fifth grade. I thought it was okay. I gave Fellowship of the Ring a try because my aunt Denise was a big nerd who was very excited about The Silmarillion — just then coming out — and new Dune books and the like. Later she gave me A Wizard of Earthsea; that was way better than three more long-ass books of hobbits and elves and dragons crap. Plus poems and appendices. Not in this life.

As far as Christian-themed fantasy lit went, I’d already graduated from C.S. Lewis to George MacDonald. Tolkien came off like a giant bore compared to The Princess and Curdie and Phantastes. My mom’s church friend who was a lit major and gothic/fantasy geek turned me on to MacDonald. She took an interest in me when she found out I’d read The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce and Dracula already and had opinions about them.

*

This is accurate: the year I read Pride and Prejudice, the first time, was also the year I first read 2000 AD: 1980. We’d moved from Hawaii for sixth grade to New Jersey for seventh, and then back to Hawaii for eighth.

Judge Dredd, especially, I finally got to read (I’d read all about the comic back in New Jersey, in Fangoria or someplace, I had drawings in my sketchbooks of Dredd and I’d never been able to read the comics), because a couple at my parents church in Hawaii were the first adult fandom couple I ever met. And they took an interest in me when she found out I loved Doctor Who and we went to see Big Giant Science Fiction Name speak at the local SF/F book shop and stuff like that. And she loaned me a lot of books.

You could get 2000 AD in Hawaii, now, I found out the first time I ever went over to their house. She had all of them. And I went OMG YOU HAVE 2000 AD? And she went OMG YOU KNOW WHAT THAT IS? And she insisted I take them all home and read them.

Her husband was a hard SF guy, and not into comics. Not a talker, either. We bonded a little over Hal Clement and talked shit about Big Name, those are the only conversations I remember ever having with him, really.

*

We talked shit about Big Giant Science Fiction Name because…he was gross. It was a big disappointment, going to see him speak. He talked about sex the entire time, not his work or science fiction generally or whatever. I mean, it was Hawaii and he was on vacation and probably two sheets to the wind, at least. But come on.

I’m sitting there going This Guy Is a Dirty Old Man, Is All, Does Nobody Else See This? And it seemed like all these other adult nerds around me didn’t, they were just eating it all up and LOLing. Not the couple I came with, though, they did not look pleased.

They asked me what I thought on the way home, and I wasn’t sure what to say, I didn’t want to blurt out That Sucked. But I did anyway, and they agreed, thank god. She told me there were guys like that in fandom, like everywhere, watch out for them. You definitely don’t want to be that guy, Robert.

I already knew that. Mr. Darcy would not have approved of Big Name at all.

*

Pride and Prejudice, I read because my mom left it next to the toilet with the magazines, and I thought it was another book. I thought it was a book of Hawaiian history I’d used for a school report. It was not that.

I was somewhat put off by the cover — oh, this was one of the old books my mom read. I didn’t know if I was in the mood for an old book whose back cover text seemed to assume everybody already knew what this Great Classic was and was mostly quotes from people who were clearly snoots. The back cover text promised scanning the first few pages and getting dazed by old school language over a story I did not care one bit about already. Something to forget about after leaving the bathroom.

It was not that.

*

I don’t remember ever not liking romance — in fiction, in movies especially. More even than reading, my mother and my aunt and my sister had a great influence on my budding film obsessions.

We only had one TV. I could either go do something else or watch the movies my mom and sister liked, a significant amount of the time. I guess that ended in other houses with boys finding something else to do.

Not at my house.

*

My favorite movies, the handful of movies that jostle for Best Movie Ever in my head and keep me from ever making a proper list are:

Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

I Know Where I’m Going! (1945)

In a Lonely Place (1950)

Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

Vanishing Point (1971)

Of the five, two are flat-out romance stories — one tragic, the other not so much. In a Lonely Place’s source novel may be a Inside the Mind of the Psycho book in the Patricia Highsmith/Jim Thompson vein, but the (much improved) Nicholas Ray film adaptation is a love story. In which a murder also happened and people are suspected and etc. I Know Where I’m Going! is the greatest movie love story ever. I.M.O. Shadow of a Doubt has layers upon layers of dark and bitter commentary on romantic ideals and romantic relationships going on – anybody who objected to Park Chan-wook’s take on my favorite Hitchcock movie in this year’s Stoker has never really seen Shadow of a Doubt.

One of the movies is primarily about working relationships and corruption and power — love barely touches the dark world of Sweet Smell of Success and exists in the story primarily as a means to get yourself destroyed. The last one’s about a fallen knight on a doomed last quest, except he’s got a 1970 Hemi Challenger instead of a horse. There was once a lady, now lost, glimpsed briefly and only in memory. So…another kind of romance.

“Romance” is a good word, all around. Why would anybody be ashamed of it?

*

Pride and Prejudice wasn’t so much a dusty old classic, I found to my delight, it was a romance novel. And I already liked those.

I have no idea how many “kissing books” I’d read by then. A lot. I ran out of my own new library books to read, often, as a kid, and went rummaging through others’ collections. I read my dads’ theological and political books and his Fletch and Wambaugh novels. I read my mom’s Micheners and Krantzes. I read my sister’s V.C. Andrews and Sweet Valley High. I read whatever guests brought to the house and left laying around.

One summer – the summer previous, I believe – my mom got my sister in to Rosamond du Jardin’s books. If you’ve never heard of her, that’s because she wrote Sweet Valley High, basically, back when my mom was young. Her books were very popular in the mid-twentieth century, less so once The Sixties started in earnest. They had all fifteen or twenty of her books at the local library, I believe my sister read all of them, that year.

I read one, bored. Unfortunately, that one was Practically Seventeen, which kicks off the epic Tobey and Midge Heydon Cycle, so I was pretty much in for all six of those books. I had to find out which guy Tobey was going to end up with, and that meant stick with her through college, and then it turned out SHE HAD A SISTER WITH THE SAME KIND OF PROBLEMS. Wait, there’s more?

I tried to read one of du Jardin’s other series, after, since my sister was now all excited that I liked those books and was reading them with her, but…the Heydon sisters had spoiled me, I guess. Pam and Penny Howard seemed a wan imitation, at best.

*

Here’s how I got sucked into Pride and Prejudice, there in the bathroom, a recreation of my thirteen year old mental processes – or as best I can manage, anyway, from giving the novel a quick reread before writing this post:

1. Mr. Bennet hates idiots. Right on. And he’s funny about it.
2. Mrs. Bennet is kind of an idiot. He gets that. He loves her. I like Mr. Bennet better already.
3. I got to read about this daughter Mr. Bennet loves best and Mrs. Bennet can’t figure out.

I already knew it was going to be a love story, that’s obvious from line one, and…hey, is this going to be a love story about a smart girl who thinks everybody else in the world is hilariously stupid? Because they’re my favorites! And it was, and of course, the smartest girl in any room runs into the smartest boy in every other room and they hate each other immediately, they’re so smart they’re that stupid.

But everybody who doesn’t know Pride and Prejudice knows that story, even. I didn’t know those other stories I’d read and seen took cues from Austen, yet, but I’d find that out eventually.

*

I keep writing love stories, lately. I didn’t mean to, initially — I meant to write other things, and the stories ended up being more about love and relationships than ghosts or apocalypse or time travel.

I never got how people who love books best about flying saucers or dragons of ghosts or murder can have the gall to mock people who love books about love. I mean, first, of all the things to despise: that. But then: really? You love books about medieval-style battle between goblins and trolls riding flying horses. Maybe you’re the kind of person who reads nothing but that book, over and over, except the goblins are gnomes and the elves are banshees, this time around, and they all do battle on flying earthworms. And people who love books about first kisses, they read about the process of getting there over and over, they seem strange to you.

Okay. People have a lot of gall. I learned that first from romance fiction, probably.

*

The first overtly romantic story I wrote, I wrote for my mom. I wrote exactly the kind of science fiction story she always loved best, and I guess I did it okay. In that, after she read it, she called me and she’d totally gotten it without my prepping her, she knew exactly what kind of story I’d written and why.

And that, I guess, is as good a way as any to wrap this meandering thing up: for my mom. And for every other woman along the way, reaching out to shape the course of my adult nerdhood.

I remember, always.

Thank you. For Jane Austen and Judge Dredd and everything else.