Oops, I'm a Short Story Writer

 Hey everyone! Mary here, still slightly crisped from a long weekend in the Dominican Republic last week (that sun is strong, and there's nowhere to hide if you're doing outdoorsy things!). Despite that vacation and a one to Vermont a few weeks before, I've been pretty productive lately. Just not in the way I expected.

I still consider myself a novelist. Short stories aren't my forte, I say. My brush is to big for small canvasses that require a finer touch. And yet I keep figuring out how to angle that big ole brush in a way that works in miniature (Okay, so my idea of a short story is 10,000 words... hey, you're talking to a gal who struggles to keep her novels under 100,000!). 

And suddenly I looked up, and pretty much all of my latest and upcoming projects are short stories for anthologies. Oh, I still have novels too... in fact, I have no fewer than five completed but unpublished manuscripts waiting in the wings and two indie series I intend to finish. But I have no control over the former (unless I decide to go indie with one) and too much control over the latter (which means I keep procrastinating to hit short story deadlines).

Even though I don't consider short stories to be my primary medium, I love writing them. The smaller format let me explore and experiment without committing to a whole novel. And in some cases, an anthology's theme provides an interesting challenge.

Anyway, here's what's coming up:

"Broken Wings," a dieselpunk fantasy about a former ace pilot plucked out of jail to compete for a ruthless warlord in an international competition, for the annual Origins anthology, Games Around the World (ed. Aaron Rosenberg)... first dieselpunk!

"The Four Opera Singers of the Apocalypse," about exactly what the title implies, for The Four ??? of the Apocalypse (ed. Keith DeCandido & Wrenn Simms), coming... whenever Keith and Wrenn say so (but soon, I think!)... I was about to say this was my first absurdist story, but then I remembered that I killed Glenn

"The Lost Lab," a solarpunk adventure about two teens who break into an abandoned lab seeking a rare bioengineered plant, in Brave New Girls: Tales of Girls who Engineer and Explore (ed. myself and Paige Daniels)... first solarpunk!

An untitled YA rom com, about a girl who swaps places with a classmate so she can attend a prestigious circus camp, for Magic Under the Big Top, a circus-themed anthology I'm putting together for Snowy Wings Publishing... first rom com (once I write it)!

A noir-ish 1960s/70s-set short story for an anthology that I'm not sure I can talk about yet, but will be shouting about once its Kickstarter goes live! It won't be my first noir, but it'll be my first noir with an SFF bent... first atompunk, maybe??

An alternate/secret history short story for another anthology I'm not sure I can talk about yet... first time writing this genre to!

 All right, gotta go... looks like I've got homework...