I have a new story out! It’s a novelette called “Scales, Tails, and Hagfish,” and it can be found in the anthology Middle Distance, edited by Craig Gamble and published by Victoria University Press. You might imagine from the book title and cover that this is a book about running, but you would be wrong. (The likelihood of my contributing to a book about running is just slightly lower than me actually running, and the chances of that are already infinitesimal.) No, the “middle distance” here is actually a reference to word count. This is an anthology of novelettes – specifically, an anthology of novelettes from New Zealand writers that are all approximately 10,000 words in length. A novelette can get up to 17,500 words, if you use the SFWA definition and I do, so you can see that it’s on the shorter side of the form, but still. Novelettes.
I love novelettes. The older I get the less patience I have for reading long form, so anything short gets extra points from me. I knew, when I saw the submission call, that I had to send something in. That something, I am almost sorry to say, was batshit lunacy.
“Scales, Tails, and Hagfish” is about an extremely unpleasant little girl who wants to be a mermaid. Loretta, in fact, is certain that she is a mermaid, and she doesn’t let technicalities like having legs instead of a fish tail stop her. Loretta’s unfortunate partner in delinquency is an otherwise well-behaved boy named Jeremy, who has severe allergies and a resulting level of snot production that convinces Loretta that he is a hagfish in disguise. They are almost friends, if only because no-one else will put up with either of them.
I actually enjoyed writing this novelette so much I’ve expanded it into a middle grade novel, Loretta and the Hagfish, which I’m currently shopping around. Fingers crossed!
ojcade.com 