Kristin Janz

Category: Short fiction

  • Story to appear in Canadian Best of the Year anthology

    The table of contents is up, so it’s official:  my story “The Kiss of the Blood-Red Pomegranate”, published last year in Aoife’s Kiss, is slated to appear in Imaginarium 2012:  The Best Canadian Speculative Writing.  Of course, I feel incredibly honored to have a story chosen for this, along with writers like Cory Doctorow, Geoff Ryman, and Peter Watts.

    Imaginarium is a yearly anthology co-published by ChiZine Publications and Tightrope Books.  It’s coming out in July, but you can already pre-order either the trade paperback or the e-book (Kindle, iBook, or Nook).

    I’ll post another update once the book has been officially released, and probably another once I’ve had a chance to read all the other stories.  This will be my first appearance in any Best of the Year anthology, so I’m pretty excited!

  • Nine

    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.

  • New story out in Nine

    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.

  • On Spec

    My story “The Observation Deck” came out not too long ago in On Spec, “the Canadian magazine of the fantastic”, and I recently finished reading the issue that has my story in it (Fall 2011, though I didn’t receive it until 2012).  My favorite story in the magazine was Megan Fennell’s “Hexenhaus”, which picks up the story of Hansel and Gretel after they’ve defeated the witch.  I also liked a story by Scott H. Andrews (the editor of Beneath Ceaseless Skies), “The Halberdier, by Moonlight”.

    The cover is very pretty, a sort of Asian-inspired steampunk illustration by featured artist James Ng.  There’s more of Ng’s art inside, also very cool, especially “Imperial Sheriff”.  Though I wondered if the originals of the interior pictures, reproduced in the magazine in black and white, are actually color paintings (like the cover), as they seemed quite dark, and often lacking in contrast.

    On Spec tends to publish a pretty diverse selection of fiction:  this issue had more fantasy, but 3 of the 9 stories (including mine) could be considered science fiction (two futuristic, one steampunk).  The fantasy stories ranged from magic realism to high fantasy to historical fantasy.

    The only negative note:  although they did get it right inside the magazine, my name is spelled wrong on the cover.

  • Aoife’s Kiss

    I recently finished reading my contributor’s copy of Aoife’s Kiss, which features my story “The Kiss of the Blood-Red Pomegranate”.  My favorite story was Rachel Zakuta’s “Memory of Snow”, an urban fantasy retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Snow Queen”.  I’ve always found “The Snow Queen” the most compelling of Andersen’s stories, and I thought Zakuta’s version worked both as an homage and as its own story, with Gerda having to rescue her younger brother from under the spell of their magically-gifted mother in Canada.

    Aoife’s Kiss also published poetry.  I’m not sure I read enough poetry to be a good judge, but I loved V. Shirley Valencia’s poem “The Stray They Brought Inside”, printed on the back cover of the magazine.  It’s a beautifully written poem, the speculative element both subtle and integral to the piece.

    I also enjoyed  “Wolves”, by Laura DeHaan, a retelling of “Little Red Riding Hood” with a clever twist; and Chris Ward’s “Happy Shopping”, a satirical science fiction piece about the future of consumerism (you can read Chris Ward’s story and V. Shirley Valencia’s poem for free at the Aoife’s Kiss website).

    I really like the diversity of fiction Aoife’s Kiss publishes, everything from steampunk to historical romantic fantasy, to hard science fiction.  They have great cover art, too, this month’s by April Bullard.

    Aoife’s Kiss is also the only magazine that both Donald and I have appeared in, so far.  Donald’s story “A Stranger in the Library” appeared back in Issue 23, December 2007.

    The magazine comes out in print four times a year, in March, June, September, and December.

  • “Looking-Glass Milk” now available in Kindle edition

    My science fiction story “Looking-Glass Milk” is now available to read on your Kindle or Kindle app.  This originally came out in 2009 from Scribblers & Ink Spillers as part of the Crystal Codices collection, but it’s out of print now, and I thought I’d re-issue it.

    The goal right now is to make sure that people are able to read all my published stories.  I probably won’t re-issue stories that are still available to read for free on the internet, since I want to encourage you to visit e-zines that have supported me by buying my fiction.  But for stories that came out in print, in magazines that are difficult and/or expensive to obtain, re-publishing old stories with Amazon seemed like a good way to make them more readily available.

  • New story out in On Spec

    My hard sf flash fiction story “The Observation Deck” is out in the latest issue of On Spec.  On Spec is probably the best known Canadian science fiction magazine, so it’s pretty easy to find if you live in Canada. If you live elsewhere and are interested in reading the story, you can purchase a one-year subscription to the magazine in either print or electronic format, or buy an e-book version of just the one issue.

    I wrote this one at Clarion West, initially as a writing exercise.  But, with a bit of tinkering, I figured it worked okay as an actual story, too.  Thanks to everyone who read the initial draft and offered suggestions for improvement!

  • “Woman Moving to the Country” now available for Kindles and Kindle apps

    I just published my literary fiction story “Woman Moving to the Country” on the Kindle platform.  This story originally came out about a year ago in Prairie Fire, a Canadian literary journal.  But Prairie Fire can be difficult to get your hands on outside of Canada, and since several issues of the journal have now come and gone, I figured it might be worthwhile to re-release the story.  If you have a Kindle or a device with the Kindle app, you can buy the story here for only 99 cents.  (You don’t need to buy a Kindle to read Kindle books; you can get a free Kindle app for pretty much any computer, tablet or smart phone here.)

    It doesn’t have a cover yet, because I figure that only people who know me personally are likely to buy it right now, and they probably won’t be swayed one way or the other by whether I invest a few hours teaching myself how to use Microsoft Publisher so I can cobble together a pretty cover image.  But I’ll try to add one eventually.  You know, for when I’m famous.

    This story contains no fantasy or science fiction content whatsoever.  Just so you aren’t disappointed when you get to the end and realize that there was not a single elf (not one!) appearing anywhere within the story.  (I am aware that for some, this is a plus, not a minus.  Haters!)

  • New story out in Aoife’s Kiss

    My story “The Kiss of the Blood-Red Pomegranate” is now available in print magazine Aoife’s Kiss.  You can order a copy here for $8 plus $3 shipping and handling (they sell subscriptions, too).

    The original inspiration for this story was a dream I had, of walking down a mysterious, dimly-lit stone stairwell.  There was something ominous about it, and as I got farther down, the stone walls had Egyptian hieroglyphs carved into them, making me think of old tombs.  The final story did keep the stone stairwell, but everything else in it was dreamed up while I was conscious.

    Adam, the protagonist of my Prairie Fire story “Woman Moving to the Country” (published earlier this year) shows up again in this one, though this time it’s not from his viewpoint.  I actually wrote “The Kiss of the Blood-Red Pomegranate” first, though it takes place later, so I guess “Woman Moving to the Country” could be considered a prequel.  It didn’t have any speculative fiction elements though, and “The Kiss of the Blood-Red Pomegranate” most certainly does!

  • Donald’s story out in Daily Science Fiction

    It’s been over a month since I last posted. Shame on me! However, having not yet discovered the magic formula where I avoid distractions all day and get as much writing done as I think I should, I figured I would at least use the time spent sitting at my computer for actual fiction writing, rather than blogging about fiction writing (or about all the cooking I’m doing instead of fiction writing).

    I would be remiss in my wifely duties, though, if I failed to mention that my husband Donald’s short story “Her Majesty’s Guardian” is now out in Daily Science Fiction, an excellent online magazine.  If you’re already a subscriber, you would have received this in your email inbox a week ago, but now it’s live on the website for everyone to enjoy.  It’s a great story, and very short, so I hope you’ll all have a chance to read it.

    Here’s a picture of Donald for you to enjoy, from our Italian honeymoon back in May.  This was taken in an ancient tavern in Ostia Antica, the old port of Rome at the mouth of the Tiber River.

    Donald posing as an ancient Roman bartender

    Speaking of ancient Rome, Donald and I are thrilled to be “embark[ing] on a culinary exploration of ancient Pompeii” tonight, with help from the Museum of Science.  Donald is excited that all the courses include some sort of meat.  I’m hoping that the wine pairings won’t be served traditional style (i.e., diluted 3:1 with water).