Volume 2

Posted byAda Milenkovic BrownPosted inUncategorizedTags:, , , , , ,

I titled this blog post “Volume 2” for *2* reasons (see what I did there).

First of all, Wandering Grove Press, which I am one of the co-editors/co-authors of, is getting ready to publish a new book: volume 2 of our collaborative anthology series.  This one is called Become the Sky: An Anthology of Escapes. And we’re having a sale for preorders: https://fractalsedge.net/become-the-sky/

I have 3 short stories in it: Winter’s End, Crumpet Bagel Setting, and The Nixie of Alken Bog. 

Winter’s End is the 2nd part of a short story series about people with a paranormal ability to shift suddenly in time or space. The first story in the series was about a medieval woman who sends her village forward in time to Communist East Germany, which causes all kinds of trouble. That story was in volume 1 of our anthology, The Ceaseless Way: An Anthology of Wanderers’ Tales, which if you want a copy can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=ceaseless+way&crid=3A1RHDB4VR1FX&sprefix=ceaseless+way%2Caps%2C184&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

The paranormal character in Winter’s End manifests this same ability during the Hartford Witch Trials in 1600’s Connecticut.  Which, as you might imagine, is just as problematic a setting as East Germany.

Crumpet Bagel Setting is about a teenager who causes the Singularity by ordering her waffle cooked in such a complicated way, that her aunt’s AI toaster becomes sentient.

When I got done with these 2 stories, my co-authors thought my total word count was too much lower than everyone else’s, so they urged me to write a 3rd story. One week before the deadline for turning in our stories. Yeah.  Now I can be incredibly slow at finishing stories, although I’ve gotten better. And I did have to write a story a week for the 6-week spec fiction writing workshop I attended in 2005, Clarion West. But I brought a list of story ideas with me to that workshop. This time I had nothin’. And I really surprised myself. Without any story prompt, I just pulled some ideas together about a modern-day archeologist testing the preserved body of an ancient Roman soldier, and a mermaid angry that the body was stolen from her home.  7 days later I had a fully plotted story. Which you can preorder for 10% off, above.

The 2nd reason this blog post is called Volume 2 is that I suddenly have a whole bunch of irons in the fire: two books coming out and another project that’s also moving forward. (But more about that one when I have a contract in hand.) I feel as if the universe threw a switch, and suddenly I’m in volume 2 of my life.

Published by Ada Milenkovic Brown

Hi. I'm Ada Milenkovic Brown, a writer whose short stories, humor pieces, and poems started appearing in publications in the mid 1990’s and my spec fiction about a decade after that. I write mostly fractured folk and fairy tales but occasionally break out into science fiction. I'm trained as a scientist, and taught at a medical school. But having strange ideas that turn into stranger stories was probably always how I was going to end up. I should have known that in high school, when one of my classmates made a collage for me for my birthday. It’s a snapshot of what my brain looked like then. It’s also the background to this homepage. It’s still what the inside of my brain looks like. And the only difference now, is that I've read and watched more widely. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell would be in there, along with the gods and goddesses of N. K. Jemison's Hundred Thousand Kindoms, Kidd from Samuel Delaney's Dahlgren, the Tom Baker, Jon Pertwee, and Christopher Eggleston Dr. Who's. (All of you David Tennant fans may now say, “Okay Boomer.) And everything would have a patina of some nightmarish fungus from the mind of Jeff VanderMeer. I'm in the latter stages of revision of a novel called Fairytale Hell. It's Inception meets Into the Woods. Speaking of musicals, I’m also a lyric soprano, actor, and oboist. If you’re interested in my performing arts side, find out more here.

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