fantasy

In Our Rags of Light

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I spent a year writing about the justifiable anger of teenage girls.

Most of that was in the novel that I’m currently shopping around (hey agents – call me!), but a lot of it ended up here, in a story that takes place in a very specific environment for teenage girls: the South. It’s the South of True Detective and True Blood, where “slutty” teen girls in cutoffs are seen but never heard. Where they’re set decoration. Where no one looks at them and wonders what their story is.

I look at them. I ask “why are you in this place with these men? what are you getting out of this?” And the answer here is “more than they can imagine”.

“In Our Rags of Light” was published in Strange Horizons in August 2016. It is on the 2016 Tangent Online recommended reading list.

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Maria Haskins says: “Teenage girls practicing witchcraft: now there’s a trope that needs to be slashed open and turned inside out, and that is exactly what Shira Lipkin does in this story. I love how the story plays around with what’s “expected”, and makes into something new and different, and I especially love how complex (strong and foolish and clever, brittle and daring) the main character Jess is. A beautiful read that feels alive and real.”

Charles Payseur of Quick Sips Reviews says: “This is a story about growing up and about danger and about power. About magic and about a young woman named Jess who knows just a little about magic and warmth and finds herself drawn to it. I love the way the story draws parallels between her and a moth, that idea of magic as warmth, as fire, and her compelled to chase it. But at the same time having her reject the comparison because she is not doing so blindly….” (Please go read the whole review; it’s great! After you read the story.)

Never Chose This Way

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…this one is personal.

I saw a call for stories dealing with the concept of institutions. The call was deliberately loosely defined; a story about the institution of marriage, say, would have fit. But my brain kept cycling back to something and saying “maybe it’s time.” And would not let it go.

I grew up in the 80s. Toward the middle and end of the 80s and the beginning of the 90s, there was a horrific trend. If your child did not conform, and you had good health insurance, you could put them into an adolescent treatment center.

Junior loony bin, we called it on the inside.

There’s a song about it, even.

I have so much more to write, about that and things like it. This is just a glimpse. Some of my stories are pretty autobiographical. This one? I don’t have any ink. But.

And I shan’t tell you more; go read.

“Never Chose This Way” was published in Apex Magazine in July 2015.

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Review:
Charles Payseur of Quick Sip Reviews says: “…It’s a gripping story, slow and tragic and for anyone who has struggled with mental health probably a bit triggering. But it works, the prose disjointed enough, showing a person yearning to be understood, yearning for people to care, yearning to know that she will fit somewhere. Slowly these things open to them, but not because they are offered. More because they are stubborn and they start to figure themself out. Slowly they figure out what they are and, because they know the pain of it all, they begin to try and help other people. It’s a nice story, positing basically that monsters have to help each other, that monsters aren’t exactly monsters, that all they are are people who are pushed into categories that don’t fit. The sense of slow despair in the story slowly lifts, and a deeper current can be felt tugging at things. A current of empathy, which is really what the main character really wanted. What most people really want. It’s a somewhat chilling and definitely a dark piece, but one that has a vein of bright gold to it, a vein of hope…”

The Cartographer’s Requiem

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Illustration of The Cartographer's Requiem

“The Cartographer’s Requiem” is that rarest of beasts for me – a secondary-world fantasy story. I love reading them – they just don’t seem to come out of my writerbrain! Til this one.

The seed of it was the image of a bright red train cutting through a featureless vellum-esque plain; that occurred to me and lingered in the very back of my head for quite some time, to resurface when I saw the call for cartography stories.

(I’ve been on a cartography kick lately. Expect more, I hope.)

“The Cartographer’s Requiem” was published in June 2014 at The Journal of Unlikely Cartography.

The Selves We Leave Behind

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The Selves We Leave Behind”

The Angel of Fremont Street” and “Fortune” were always meant to reflect each other. Versions, shall we say, of the same characters, in a way that’ll make sense when you read them.

But it’s been difficult to show you “Fortune”! Because it was published in a very limited-edition anthology!

BUT NOW YOU CAN HAVE IT. With “The Angel of Fremont Street”. In handy e-book form.

Packaged as “The Selves We Leave Behind”, my Vegas duology is now available from Upper Rubber Boot Press.

So get on that and make my day.

Not Too Bold

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The acceptance letter for this read “This is finally a serial killer poem that I am very happy to accept!”

Let me back up.

I grew up on fairy tales. Not just Little Red and Snow White; I dug deep into Grimm’s. My favorite was The Robber Bridegroom and its variant, Mr. Fox. I was a bloodthirsty kid! The murder and cannibalism fascinated me. I make no excuses or apologies.

It could use an update, I thought.

And I still want to install a series of signs in my house, through the progressive doorways:

Be bold, be bold.

Be bold, be bold, but not too bold.

Be bold, be bold, but not too bold,
Lest that your heart’s blood should run cold.

“Not Too Bold” was published in Niteblade #25 in September 2013. It has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

Happy Hour at the Tooth and Claw

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So, you may remember that Mike Allen had a Kickstarter for Clockwork Phoenix 4, and that his $10K goal, which he made, was that he’d start a new magazine. He hit the goal, and we all got a little ridiculous on Twitter.

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Me: Hey @mythicdelirium when do submissions open for your BRAND NEW MAGAZINE because I have a thing about a vampire& a werewolf who fall in love

@rose_lemberg: vampire and werewolf fall in love with a DEMON. And a witch. It is poly.

Me: ALSO THERE ARE ANGELS AND SELKIES. And everyone is noncreatively pseudokinky. PUBLISH ME.

@time_shark: oh do you now? (patience grasshopper)

Me: Ha! No. No, I do not.

@time_shark: I’m curious if someone could write a story like that I’d actually buy. [NO that is NOT a challenge…]

Me: …damn you. *chases plotbunny*
*******

I did not chase the plotbunny at that time. At that time, I was going wild on Twitter to distract myself from the fact that our cat was dying and my grandmother was having the same symptoms as the cat. Besides, I had a totally different idea for my CP4 submission, something that would really bend storytelling in weird ways…

…something that I just couldn’t get started on. I needed to do research for it, et cetera. In the meantime, life was collapsing in on me and I kept getting little story-sparks for this thing. Could I write a story like that that Mike would buy? Doesn’t matter, I have five other things to do first. But what if – NO, brain, stop it, that is last in the queue!

But in the middle of the hell time, I sat down and wrote it anyway.

My characters have ridiculous names. I crisscross five different genres. I hoped the story wouldn’t get rejected on formatting alone, because I Did Things. But I wasn’t writing to make it pretty and publishable. I was in the center of the whirlwind and it was my damn rope. And it didn’t matter if anyone else liked it, because dammit, it made me laugh when I didn’t think I could. And whenever I had time, whenever I wasn’t medicating the cat or flying to Florida or dealing with my now-ex cheating on, lying to, and emotionally terrorizing me, I would sit and say “it’s okay if you only do a hundred words today, but you have to do a hundred words.” No drowning allowed. I was writing with a strict set of guidelines because that’s what I needed, but I had no idea if it would work for anyone but me, and I didn’t need it to. I needed to be ludicrous and break all the boxes and build something new.

So I wrote it.

I sent it to my husband and he said it was my best story yet and y’know, I think I agree. It’s my longest. It is not grimdark. There are parts that make you laugh and parts that make you go oooh and sometimes those are the same parts.

So I sent it to Mike. And he bought it, this story about a vampire and a werewolf in LOVE and there’s a witch and an angel and an alien stripper and there are zero straight people in it and two genderfluid characters and a new drink and karaoke and discredited scientific theories.

And it all starts when a vampire and a werewolf walk into a bar.

(The witch is already in the bar.)

You should buy Clockwork Phoenix 4 is what I am saying, I guess. And Mike, thanks for the challenge. 🙂

“Happy Hour at the Tooth and Claw” was published in Clockwork Phoenix 4. It has been reprinted online at Mythic Delirium, and it is on Tangent Online’s 2013 Recommended Reading List.

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Louis West at Tangent Online says: “Shira Lipkin’s “Happy Hour at the Tooth and Claw” is an incredible love story about Zee, a witch who can flip through realities like reading a book, who violates the laws of physics by thinning boundaries between worlds because she’s bored, and who long ago hid her heart to avoid the pain. Cast in a poetic, screen-play type style, at places the structure of the story morphs because a character doesn’t like the way Zee first portrays them. Hiding her heart made her inviolate and immortal. But Zee is “apocalyptically bored,” and “bad things happen when beings who can smash together universes get bored.” Hesitantly, she comes to the decision that perhaps it’s time to find and reassemble the pieces of her heart, only to learn that the most crucial pieces never left her. The ending changes the story, and everyone in it, allowing me to discover a brand new tale upon rereading it. Exceptional and highly recommended.”

Dusty on Movies says: “One of my favorites, Shira Lipkin’s story follows a playful witch who flips through dimensions like they’re TV stations. Along the way she develops a relationship with a bar-keeping angel and a mysterious courtesan. She also casts a spell of love between a female werewolf and female vampire, who of course have all sorts of compatibility issues but love each other nonetheless. It’s a story with heart, literally. Our witch has hidden her heart to increase her power, but now she’s on a quest to find the pieces she’s hidden throughout the multiverse. This is a truly fun story. There’s a gimmick with the text alignment that adds to the fun. I’ll let you discover it for yourself. I’m a huge fan of this story.”

Just Book Reading says: “A witch who can switch between realities and is happy to play around with the boundaries of love but shies away from her own heart. Zee, the witch, is such an intriguing character and I love how she plays around with everyone else’s heart and ignores her own. It’s a keeper and by that I mean it’s another favorite.”

Michelle Anjirbag at Cabinet des Fees says: “a new kind of love story, in part inspired by a challenge by the editor himself. What makes a heart whole?”

And the War is Never Over

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This poem had been building for quite some time.

I’ve been volunteering with the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center since 2007; I’m a community education volunteer and a survivor speaker. In the former role, I’ve been doing a lot of work within my local community and the greater SF/F community regarding sexual violence. It’s been pretty nonstop. And by the nature of it, it worked its way into every aspect of my life – especially as I began to write a novel about childhood sexual abuse. And spent some time actually working at BARCC as well.

I began to fray. Vicarious trauma, they call it. It’s not uncommon. I kept pushing myself, but I got to a point where I had to take leave or snap, and I did take leave.

And the week I took leave, I wrote this poem.

Which has new meaning now that I’ve realized that I was in an abusive relationship at the time – a relationship that exploded into violence the week the poem was published.

“And the War is Never Over” was published in Strange Horizons in May 2013.

Where We Died

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This one, I remember writing.

It’s a shadow of sorts of my first published short story, “The Angel of Fremont Street”. It draws from the same inciting incident – but instead of an examination of the years beyond, “Where We Died” is a snapshot, one few-second slice of a life right before everything changes forever.

It’s short, as my poems go. By necessity. Just one moment long.

“Where We Died” was published in Niteblade #24, June 2013.

Ereshkigal’s Proposal to Hades

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(Art by Paula Friedlander!)

I am tired of Persephone Poems.

We all have them! I have two. It’s an attractive narrative – the lovely, innocent young maiden seduced into the underworld. People have done interesting things with the story. But it’s one of the most popular narratives out there, poetry-wise, and I am drowning in Persephone and want to drown her.

So yes, everyone loves the good girl.

What about the bad girl? What about someone who’s a Queen of the Underworld in her own right, and could be an equal match for Hades?

I’m a Sumerian mythology geek, and I’ve told my version of Inanna’s Descent. What about Inanna’s sister, who requires that Inanna surrender her very life?

That’s a strong character.

So here, Ereshkigal has a proposition for Hades.

And I still can’t read the last line aloud without blushing.

“Ereshkigal’s Proposal to Hades” was published in Mythic Delirium #27.

The Oracle Never Dances

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(Art by Paula Friedlander!)

It’s funny how many of the pieces I sell to Mike Allen of Mythic Delirium originate with him, in one way or another. This one is quite directly traceable to him!

Every year at Readercon, Mike runs a speculative poetry workshop. One year, Readercon had other poets listed as participants – Mike was still in charge, but people doing the workshop could come to the poet-assistants and ask us for input and guidance. I’m not sure how well that worked! (One person did approach me, but he seemed more interested in my cleavage than my critique.)

What was productive, though, was that Mike made us write! We had an enforced period of time where we were just to write whatever came to us. Just stretch. It took me a while to pull my brain into writing mode; I kept sneaking peeks at Erik Amundsen’s notebook (he is incredible). Finally I settled down and wrote three short pieces – a haiku, just to put my brain in “we are paying attention to words now” mode. The beginnings of a poem about how we relate to fairy tales. And, since my brain drifts inexorably to fairy tales, oracles, and Vegas when left unattended, this poem about an oracle in a nightclub.

Drinking’s a bad idea, when one has a tendency to spill prophecy. Dancing might be even worse.

“The Oracle Never Dances” was published in Mythic Delirium #27.