May 2022 – Deep Sky Anchor

Sting Once and Die

“…she carefully placed the brittle body of a dead bumblebee on the circle of salt. She had considered using a wasp, but she was looking for justice, not vengeance. A solution, not escalation.”

by Mary E. Lowd

A Deep Sky Anchor Original, May 2022

Selina knelt in the middle of the empty Hamilton Middle School room. She’d pushed the desks and chairs up against the walls, leaving the floor clear for the bull’s eye pattern she’d drawn with salt. The only light came from the soft cold glow of the moon behind the shuttered windows and a flickering warm radiance from the ring of candles around the outer edge of the bull’s eye. In the middle, the very middle, she carefully placed the brittle body of a dead bumblebee on the circle of salt. She had considered using a wasp, but she was looking for justice, not vengeance. A solution, not escalation.
Continue reading “Sting Once and Die”

Nebulas 2022 Panel Recap

As promised, for anyone who missed the #Nebulas2022 panel, “Getting It Done On Time,” or who just wants to be reminded of some of what was said, I’m going to convert the notes I made preparing for the panel into a thread…

The central theme is: know your own capabilities. Continue reading “Nebulas 2022 Panel Recap”

Lilo & Stitch and Spirited Away

Apparently, today is the day to catch the younger child up on classics they’ve somehow missed — so far we’ve watched Lilo & Stitch and The Secret of NIMH.

Now we’re watching Spirited Away.

I think Younger Child missed out on Lilo & Stitch because we watched it SO MUCH when Elder Child was little. Continue reading “Lilo & Stitch and Spirited Away”

Harrison Bergeron

My kid has to write a short story for a creative writing class, so they have me texting every five minutes to check their word count, while they hide out in their room.

This means, I have an alarm go off every five minutes and have to send a text that just reads, “Word count?” Continue reading “Harrison Bergeron”

Editing Otters In Space 4

So, I’m now reading the manuscript for Otters In Space 4 from the beginning, looking for errors or parts that need smoothing, and the opening scenes are ADORABLE.

Kipper and Trugger go to recruit a mouse gymnast for their space program and take her to a sushi restaurant… Continue reading “Editing Otters In Space 4”

Angry Music

Last night, I decided I needed more angry music to handle this week. My main angry music is American Idiot, which I love, but wasn’t hitting the right note.

So, I remembered that there’d been a bit of a newish Alanis Morissette song on Grey’s Anatomy a few weeks ago… Continue reading “Angry Music”

Submission Mistakes

That feeling when you notice that the story you just submitted through Moksha had the wrong title (like for a TOTALLY different story) in the subject line, because you changed your mind halfway through about which story to send & apparently didn’t get all the fields fixed… Continue reading “Submission Mistakes”

Ado Annie

Sometime I need to write a thread about how Ado Annie in Oklahoma is clearly autistic, both as shown by the exceptional performance of Gloria Grahame in the 1955 movie but also by the text of her two songs, even if not every performer seems to get that… Continue reading “Ado Annie”

Losing RvW

I’ve turned away family and fans over the years for not supporting my right to bodily autonomy. I don’t think I’ve turned away any friends… because honestly, I just won’t be friends with people who aren’t pro-choice.

This was my personal line in the sand, and my body doesn’t know how to contain the knowledge that Roe will be overturned. I may have known it was coming, and there may be so many other bad things… but I didn’t how know much I didn’t, couldn’t believe in reaching this.

It feels like my own organs are trying to force this knowledge out of my body. My stomach is so tense and leaping so hard, it feels like it’s trying to escape my body and ride off to war.

But my stomach can’t change this.

Having a body that’s physically designed to betray you by picking up unwanted parasites is bad enough.

Knowing that so much of the world — and so many people with too much power — would side with the parasite is infinitely painful.

I am worth more than a lump of cells.

My feelings, my ideas, my experiences, my books — the ones I’ve written and the ones I haven’t written yet — are worth so much more than any mere lump of unwanted cells.

Every grown person is worth more than a lump of cells attacking them.

When I have to spend a day feeling rage-fatigue about the world & how Republicans are trying to strip away my basic rights, it makes it much harder to write happy stories about a tabby cat visiting a far away space station with her crew of dogs, mice, octopi, & best friend otter.

You know how when you stare at one color for too long, your eyes run out of the pigment for seeing it? I think it’s called color fatigue.

And I think I have it, but with rage. My body has felt so much rage that it’s run out of the pigment to reliably produce that emotion.

World-burning aside, this week there’s a new Seanan McGuire book, new Reina del Cid album, and new season of Grace & Frankie that have all come out, all of which I’ve been fiercely anticipating. So, I’m just gonna bury myself in those for a while and revel in their wonderfulness.

Brain-Dead Baby Jesuses

“Miley skimmed the article, but it was clearly ridiculous — it claimed that swarms of nano-drones were flying around the country, finding women who had said pro-life things on the internet, and then entering their bodies.”

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Kaleidotrope, July 2019

The snow came down in flurries. It swarmed outside the window of Miley’s dorm room, brushing softly against the third story window in gusts of wind. Tiny flakes. White crystals, pinging against the glass. Miley had been checking the weather app on her phone, watching the forecast fluctuate back and forth all week — snow on Friday, no wait, now on Saturday, back to Friday, and then only freezing rain. She’d been praying for snow. Continue reading “Brain-Dead Baby Jesuses”