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Silk & Steel

Page 36

by Ellen Kushner


  K.A. Doore

  K.A. Doore is a writer and shouter of queer sci-fi and fantasy who lives in mid-Michigan with her coffee, cats, children, and wife. The Chronicles of Ghadid is her debut fantasy trilogy, starting with The Perfect Assassin. While she enjoys writing about stabbing and stabbing implements, she’s actually terrified of blood, but she’ll be fine as long as no one learns about that. Find her at kadoore.com or follow her @KA_Doore.

  Ellen Kushner

  Ellen Kushner’s Riverside series begins with the cult classic Swordspoint, followed by The Privilege of the Sword, The Fall of the Kings (written with Delia Sherman); and, most recently, the collaborative prequel Tremontaine for SerialBox.com and Saga Press. The author herself recorded all three novels in audiobook form for Neil Gaiman Presents/Audible.com, winning an Audie Award for Swordspoint. Her mythic fantasy novel Thomas the Rhymer won the World Fantasy and Mythopoeic Awards, and is a Gollancz “Fantasy Masterwork.” She has taught writing at the Clarion Workshop, the Odyssey Writing Workshop, and Hollins University. She lives in New York City with her wife, author and educator Delia Sherman, and a great many theater and airplane ticket stubs they just don’t have the heart to throw away, especially not now. “The Sweet Tooth of Angwar Bec,” while written as a standalone story for this volume, does happen to take place about five years after the events of The Privilege of the Sword. She currently is finishing a fourth novel in the series. She’s on Twitter as @EllenKushner. Her website is www.EllenKushner.com, where you can also sign up for her SubStack newsletter.

  Ann LeBlanc

  Ann LeBlanc lives in Massachusetts with her wife, where she writes about queer yearning, culinary adventures, and death. Her fiction can be read in sub-Q Magazine, If There’s Anyone Left, and the Spring 2021 issue of Fireside Magazine. She edits for The Spectacles Blog and can be found on Twitter at @RobotLeBlanc.

  Yoon Ha Lee

  Yoon Ha Lee’s debut novel, Ninefox Gambit, won the Locus Award for best first novel, and was a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, and Clarke awards; its sequels, Raven Stratagem and Revenant Gun, were also Hugo finalists. His middle-grade space opera, Dragon Pearl, was a New York Times bestseller and won the Locus Award for best YA novel. His next novel, the standalone fantasy Phoenix Extravagant, will be out from Solaris Books in October 2020. Lee’s fiction has appeared in venues such as Tor.com, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Clarkesworld Magazine, Lightspeed, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Lee is a lapsed épée fencer. He lives in Louisiana with his family and an extremely lazy cat, and has not yet been eaten by gators. You can find him online at yoonhalee.com and patreon.com/yhlee.

  Jennifer Mace

  Jennifer Mace is a queer Brit who roams the Pacific Northwest in search of tea and interesting plant life. A two-time Hugo finalist podcaster for her work with Be The Serpent, she writes about strange magic and the cracks that form in society. Her short fiction may be found in Cast of Wonders, Syntax & Salt, and GlitterShip, and her poetry has appeared in Uncanny Magazine. While Silk & Steel is far from the first anthology she has pitched to the internet, this is the first time the internet has called her bluff. If you want to keep track of her future hijinks, you can find her online at www.englishmace.com.

  Freya Marske

  Freya Marske lives in Australia, where she is yet to be killed by any form of wildlife. She writes stories full of magic, blood, and as much kissing as she can get away with, and she co-hosts the Hugo Award–nominated podcast Be the Serpent. Her hobbies include figure skating and discovering new art galleries, and she is on a quest to try all the gin in the world. Her debut novel, the queer historical fantasy A Marvellous Light, is forthcoming from Tor.Com Publishing in 2021. Find her on Twitter at @freyamarske, or at freyamarske.com.

  Elaine McIonyn

  Elaine McIonyn spent her wayward youth jaunting around Europe, teaching English, and translating. She lived in Austria, Germany, and the UK before returning to her native Ireland just in time to join the staff of Dublin 2019 – An Irish Worldcon. She is a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop, class of 2018. She is also, perhaps unwisely, licensed to sail dinghies and small catamarans. She co-runs a sci-fi and fantasy writing group in Dublin and lives with her partner (and a selection of loose-leaf teas).

  Cara Patterson

  Cara Patterson is a Scottish writer who dabbles in any genre that takes her fancy, sprinkling in generous helpings of diversity, puns, and sarcasm. Between the Out of Time time-travel series, published under the pen name C.B. Lewis, and a range of short stories in award-winning anthologies, she’s starting to get a handle on this writing lark.

  Alison Tam

  Alison Tam is a queer Taiwanese-American writer and occasional game developer. Her short story “Beauty, Glory, Thrift” was part of the Book Smugglers’ Gods and Monsters series, and her personal essay “The Drag Kings of Taipei” was featured in Autostraddle. To her knowledge, she has never fought a duel. Alison likes writing about complicated diaspora emotions, women who love and appreciate each other, and non-Western worlds. She’s lived in Taipei, Shanghai, and California, but her home will always be online. You can find her on her website at alisontam.github.io or on Twitter @TheTamSlam.

  S.K. Terentiev

  S.K. Terentiev lives in the wilds of North Texas, where she’s on the hunt for the perfect latte or tacos al pastor. A member of the DFW Writers’ Workshop, she writes speculative short stories and is currently working on her first fantasy novel. She’s never seen a chupacabra or a werewolf, as far as she knows. She can be found on Twitter at @SKTerentiev or her website SKTerentiev.com.

  Django Wexler

  Django Wexler is the author of flintlock fantasy series The Shadow Campaigns, middle-grade fantasy The Forbidden Library, and YA fantasy The Wells of Sorcery. His latest is the epic fantasy Ashes of the Sun. In his former life as a software engineer, he worked on AI research and programming languages. He currently lives near Seattle with his wife, two cats, and a teetering mountain of books. When not writing, he wrangles computers, paints tiny soldiers, and plays games of all sorts.

  Chris Wolfgang

  Chris Wolfgang writes and edits sci-fi and fantasy fiction in Omaha, Nebraska. She changes her hair color frequently, attempts to study foreign languages outside of a classroom, and occasionally reads tarot. Follow her on Twitter at @chriswolfgang for queer feminist yelling, often about things she finds exciting, but sometimes not. She’s a delight.

  Neon Yang

  Neon Yang (they/them) is queer, non-binary, and the author of the Tensorate series of novellas from Tor.Com Publishing (The Black Tides of Heaven, The Red Threads of Fortune, The Descent of Monsters, The Ascent to Godhood). Their work has been shortlisted for the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, and Lambda awards. A Clarion West alum, they graduated from the University of East Anglia with an MA in Creative Writing and currently live in Singapore.

  Kaitlyn Zivanovich

  Kaitlyn Zivanovich is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer and current speculative fiction writer who pens short stories to avoid editing her novels. She’s lived a good chunk of her adult life in the Middle East, and speaks enough Arabic to get around Egypt but not enough to impress anyone in Morocco. She is a graduate of the Viable Paradise Workshop and an associate editor at PodCastle. Kaitlyn grew up as a Third Culture Kid, and she and her husband are inflicting the same lifestyle on their four loud children. Currently they all live in a small farming village in Okinawa, Japan. Pre-coronavirus she spent her free time hiking, traveling, and learning new languages. Now she stress-bakes and binge-watches Turkish TV shows.

  Acknowledgements

  We owe so many thanks for making this book everything it could be. We (Django, Janine, and Macey, that is) would be especially lost without our Kickstarter backers. Thank you for believing in this anthology!

  These wonderful people made this book possible (so that we could pay our artists, our cover designer, and all the other people whose work went into making this a high-quality product). In pa
rticular, we’d like to thank the following backers for their contributions (in alphabetical order by first name because you have to order things somehow):

  9th Level Games

  A. Charis Goldflam

  A. Fourtet

  A. Hancock

  A. Jade

  A. Miura

  A. Rachel Haddix

  A.Okuonghae

  A.Y. Chao

  Abigail

  Accolade Aula

  Acolet

  Adam Duke

  Adam Pilfold-Bagwell

  Adam Puckette

  Adam S. Gravano

  ADC

  Adri Joy

  AdriAnne Strickland

  Adrien Barnes

  Adron Buske

  Aemil K.

  Aerylaance

  Afik "Ninja" Blitz

  AG.91

  AH

  Aidan Doyle

  Aidan Miller

  Aily & Mimi

  Aimee Benson

  Aimee Ogden

  AingealWroth

  Aisling nic Lynne

  Aiyesha

  AJ Ryan

  AK Turza

  Akhila Sriram

  Al Clay

  Al Julian

  Alaina

  Alan Wu

  Alana M T

  Alanna Noel Solomon

  Alastor

  Aleida

  Alena Cicholewski

  Alessandra Cristallini

  Alex "Fox" Dell

  Alex Caligiuri

  Alex Claman

  Alex Hardison

  Alex Jackson

  Alex Leitch

  Alex Leuthold

  Alex McKenzie

  Alex Miller

  Alex Roscura Guerrero

  Alexa Donley

  Alexander Belford

  Alexandra Martin

  Alexandra Rowland

  Alexandre Muñiz

  Alexis Eaton

  Alexis Lockwell

  Ali Fisher

  Alice Kroutikova

  Alice Lemieux

  Alice Reininger

  Alice Southey

  Alicia Z

  Alison C

  Alison Lam

  Alison Mann

  Alison N

  Alleyne Dickens

  Allie B.

  Allison Drinnon

  Allison Hewett

  Allison Hinds

  Allison Liem

  Alyssa Carter

  Alyssa Hull

  Alyssa Marie

  Alyssa Ziegenhorn

  AM Meca

  Amaelalin

  Amalia Nanciu

  Amalie N Ingham

  Amalija Vitezović

  Amanda Besch

  Amanda C. Davis

  Amanda Cook

  Amanda Davidson

  Amanda Pester

  Amanda Sumner

  Amaryllis Jeanne Quilliou

  Amber Dawn Loranger

  Amber Marie Goss

  Amber R Lewis

  Amber Yust

  Amberle Browne

  Ambrai

  Amelia Facchin

  Amy Boggs

  Amy Hirst

  Amy Huang

  Amy Schaefer

  Amy Zhou

  Amy Zuverink

  An Especially Belligerent Magpie

  Ana Maria Curtis

  Andi DiSpirito

  Andi Kent

  Andie Krutsch

  Andie Larson

  Andrea L

  Andrea Mitchell

  Andrea Salt

  Andrea Tatjana

  Andrea Viemeister

  Andrew C

  Andrew Lyons

  Andrew Taylor

  Andromeda Taylor-Wallace

  Andy Kinzler

  Angela Banks

  Angela Song

  Anita “Neeters” Twitchell

  Ann Zhu

  Anna Cook

  Anna Goldberg

  Anna Kat

  Anna Lynch

  Anna NW

  Anna S

  Anna Smith

  Anna-Rose Kirchner

  Anne Gwin

  Annie Blitzen

  Annie Fitzgerald

  Anonymous (10)

  Anonymous H.

  Anrea Jones

  Antha Ann Adkins

  Anthony Chanza

  Antoine Dailly

  April Herms

  April Ouimet

  April Walsh

  Apurva Desai

  Aria Stewart

  Arnela Bektas

  Artemis

  Ash B

  Ash Brown

  Ash Hawrychuk

  Ash Humphreys

  Ash J

  Ash Walker

  Ashe

  Ashe Azrak

  Asher Holy

  Ashleigh B.

  Ashley Hedden

  Ashley Kelly

  Ashryn Brynmore

  Ashtin Johnson

  Astrid & John

  Atthis Arts

  Aunt Dena for Tia

  Aura ✾ V

  Auri Wang

  Ava Dickerson

  Ayla Ounce

  Aynjel Kaye

  B. A. Hencher

  B. Chugg

  B. K. Neville

  B. Woodchuck

  B.C. Kinney

  B.T.Halko

  Beatrice

  Beatrice Waterhouse

  Belle McQuattie

  Benjamin Hausman

  Benjamin Jaeger

  Bernd Linke

  Beryl Egerter

  Beth Culp

  Beth Morris Tanner

  beth✨

  Bethany L. Sherwood

  Betsy Hanes Perry

  Betsy Hanes Perry

  Betty

  Bhavya Tanguturu

  Bill Frerking

  Black Lives Matter

  blackcoat

  blatanville

  Blazej Szpakowicz

  Blue

  blue wisteria

  Bob/Sally Milne

  Bobbie Crane

  bonnie blossom

  Bonnie Warford

  BookGeekGrrl

  Bookwyrm

  Brad Ackerman

  Brad Gardner

  Bradamante Smith

  Brandi

  Brandon Eaker

  Brandon Long

  Breanna Teintze

  Brendan

  Brenna Noonan

  Brett Bennett

  Brian A Liberge

  Brian Quirt

  BRITTANY AND LAURA MOELLER

  Brittany Buell

  Brooks Moses

  Bruce Baugh

  Bry Shuter

  Brynn R.

  C Ferguson

  C. Corbin Talley

  C. L. Polk

  C. Lynn Reimer

  c.billadeau

  C.E. Huddleston

  C.N. Rowen

  Cait Greer

  Caitlin and Emmelie Pinz

  Caitlin Colbert

  Caitlin Ellerbe & Elizabeth Vandermolen

  Caitlin McDonald

  Caitlin Starling

  Caitlyn Modaff

  Calamity's Child

  Cali Martin

  Calista Melano

  Calley Oresick

  CalypsoTea

  Camilla Boslev

  Camille Lucas

  Cara Murray

  Carah Helwig

  Care Ryan-Smith

  Carina S.

  carisa Bjorngaard

  Carl A Carter

  Carl M.

  Carl Rigney

  Carla H.

  Carla M. Lee

  Carlin Wednesday

  Carly

  Carmen Fernandes

  Carol Fujimoto

  Carol J. Guess

  Carol Mammano

  Caroline R.

  Caroline Wong, Hayley Bhola

  Carolyn Elizabeth

  Carolyn M

  Carolyn Saber

  Carolyn V.

  Carrie Anderson

  Carrie Hausman
r />   Caryn Cameron

  Caryn Ojemann

  Casey Andrew

  Casper Miller

  Cass Holiday

  Cassandra May

  Cassandra Panek

  Cassie A Stearns

  Cassie H.

  Cassie Katarn

  Castella Semaphore

  Cat

  Cat Bascle

  Cat Langford

  Cate Crowley

  Catherine Baker

  Cathin Yang

  Cathy Green

  Cécile Taquet

  Ceillie Simkiss

  Celeste J

  Cena Ringwald

  Chaitan Bandela

  Charles Bailey

  Charles T

  Charlie N

  Charlie Rodgers

  Charlix W.

  Charlotte G.

  Charlotte Wight

  Chel

  Chell

  Chelle Parker

  Chelsea Buchler

  Chelsea Fay Baumgartner

  ChelseaJahaliel

  Cheryl Morgan

  Chigbo Ikejiani

  Chloe Isla

  Chloe R.

  Chloe Smith Lopez

  Choco

  Chris C.

  Chris Joseph

  Chris Mangum

  Christina Bell

  Christina Kjellstrand

  Christina Koller

  Christine Hanolsy

  Christine L

  Christine S

  Christine Welman

  Christopher Hwang

  Christopher K. Davis

  Cían Lupiani

  CJ Gibson

  CL Biles

  Claire Farron

  Claire Keeney

  Claire Mead

  Claire Reynolds-Peterson

  Claire Rojstaczer

  Clare Janke

  Clarissa C. S. Ryan

  Clarissa Stefek

  Claudia Drobel

  Claudia Fontana Santoyo

  Clayton Culwell

  Cliona Shakespeare

  Cody Woodson

  Cole F.

  Cole Lopez

  Colleen O

  Colleen W.

  Coral Moore

  Corey Thatcher

  Corinna Cornett

  Cos

  Court

  Courtney S

  Courtney Willis

  cozyhades

  Cristin Heart

  Crystal

  Crystal Lynn

  Curtis Mitchell

  Cynthia Gonsalves

  Cynthia Harper

  Cynthia Phillips

 

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