Kristin Janz

I just released my story “Clear Skies in Pixieland”, originally published earlier this year in the first issue of Nine, as a Kindle e-book for $1.29.  I’ve been charging 99 cents for the other individual short stories, but this one’s longer.  I noticed that someone already bought a copy, even though it’s been up less than a week–thank you, whoever you are!

Here’s a description, lifted from the Amazon page (I wrote it myself, so I’m allowed to do that):

It didn’t take Chris long to learn the dark side of his summer job: trapping pixies, fairies and other small creatures in a magical forest for sale to wealthy collectors.  He’d have quit if he didn’t need the money.  Now, after a disastrous expedition, only Chris can rescue the man who hired him.  But does his boss deserve to be rescued?  And how can Chris ever pay the terrible price the pixies have demanded?

I enjoy writing fiction more than I enjoy writing promotional blurbs.

Unfortunately, the editors of Nine decided to stop publishing the magazine after the 3rd issue.  I was sad to hear this, but I’m glad that they gave it a try and helped some great stories find a good home.

It’s been over a month since my story “Clear Skies in Pixieland” came out in new e-journal Nine, and I’ve finally (a) finished reading the entire issue, and (b) found time to blog about it.  One of these days, maybe I’ll be more timely with these blog posts.  But there’s been more travelling and less time for writing than usual in my life this past month, and I try not to spend time on blog posts unless I’m also spending a reasonable amount of time writing fiction, so….

The nine stories in Issue 1 are a nicely diverse set:  contemporary fantasy (my story), science fiction, horror, magic realism, and historical fantasy all appear, ranging in length from flash fiction to novelette.  While I found every story interesting and compelling in some way (which is not the case with every magazine I read), my favorite was Garrett Ashley’s “The Last Letter, I’m Sorry You’ll Live Forever”, a science fictional take on the story of a son whose mother is immortal.

The lineup for Issue 2 of Nine was just announced, though no official word yet on when they’ll be publishing it.

My story “Clear Skies in Pixieland” just came out in the first issue of Nine, a brand-new e-zine.  If you’re interested, you can buy a copy of the magazine (or even a 3-month subscription) here.  The authors will receive royalties if the magazine sells enough copies, so if you buy one, you’re helping out the authors as well as the publishers!

“Clear Skies in Pixieland” is a contemporary fantasy loosely connected to “The Kiss of the Blood-Red Pomegranate”, which appeared in the December issue of Aoife’s Kiss.  The shadowy villain mentioned in TKotBP actually shows up in this one.

This is an important story for me, because it’s the first one I finished after deciding that I wanted to make a serious attempt at writing and publishing short fiction.  Before that, I’d mostly worked on novels.  I’d written a handful of short stories, even submitted a couple to magazines, but I’d give up after they were rejected two or three times (with those earlier stories, giving up was probably a good idea).  This was the first story I wrote after deciding that I was going to write short stories, and I was going to keep submitting them until they were accepted.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, the version that you can read now in Nine doesn’t bear much resemblance to that first version that I started sending around.  The basic premise is the same, but it’s been almost completely rewritten.  Twice.  As I learned more about writing, I would take another look at that old story, and realize that I could probably do better.  So I did.

There are eight other stories in this issue of Nine (hence the name), one by Hugo- and Nebula-nominated author Ken Liu, who is also, coincidentally, one of my husband’s coworkers.  I haven’t read his story in Nine yet, but I really liked the story he had in last October’s Clarkesworld, “Staying Behind”.

So, check out Nine!  Tell your friends.