Paper Fruit

I didn’t do an end-of-year wrap-up for 2022, and now all of a sudden it’s August 9th, 2023.

Well, there’s no time like the present–not the least because I’m attending the World Fantasy Convention in Kansas City this October, and they threatened to look at my website for up-to-date information on me. So I should put some up here!

Part of my absence here has been due to just being busy! That, and I do monthly writing updates over at my Patreon. If you’d like to keep current on what’s going on in my life, that’s probably the better prospect, along with my social media: I’m on Twitter, Bluesky, and Instagram. Facebook too, but I don’t accept a lot of requests over there unless they come with a message.

So, what’s been going on? Late last year I was asked to read for the Kitschie Awards, which was an absolute gas. I read loads of books, which was a wonderful experience, and I was thrilled by the short list and the winners, which can be found at that link.

Also last year…I edited a lot of manga for both Viz and Seven Seas (just did my 75th rewrite for Seven Seas, actually!), restarted my novel (again, la!), and wrote and published a novelette in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction called “Les Chimères: An Ode,” which I think is probably the best thing I’ve written to-date. I also published a short story in Phase Change: Imagining Energy Futures.

This year…has been busy. My reading for the Kitschies ate a lot of time in the first few months. I’m in a new D&D game that is a real ripsnorter, I’m playing an Air Genasi Warlock. My cat was sick, but he seems to be doing better…he’s 16, so he’s a slower guy than he’s been in the past, but apparently he can recover from just about anything. I was invited (to my surprise) to the Sycamore Hill Writer’s Workshop and wrote a novelette for that, which after attending I revised into something that’s between a novelette and a novella. That limits its sale prospects, but it’s out on the market currently.

Now I’m back to work on my novel, and I have a whole plan for finishing it before WFC. We’ll see if I can do it.

Tinkerty-tonk,

-Molly

March again, hmm? Well, it might not feel like it, but a year has definitely passed. Last March, I worked up the nerve to submit a novelet to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and this March… it’s in the issue! I’m so overwhelmed and full of gratitude.

Here’s the lovely review from Rich Horton over at Locus Magazine, who was kind enough to make it one of his Reccomended Stories:

‘In the Garden of Ibn-Ghazi’ is a fine mysterious, horror-tinged piece by Molly Tanzer. The narrator is a writer who mentions having read a story with that name, in which an attempt is made to duplicate the powder from Lovecraft’s ‘‘The Dunwich Horror’’, but no evidence of such a story can be found. Then an invitation comes from a man named Upton De Vries, to a performance of an obscure 17th-century play written by a French noblewoman, the Marquise de Sevigny. This performance will be at an obscure estate in Pennsylvania…. We are treated to a journey to this strange place, to the play, to a memoir by the rather rackety Marquise, and to an unexpected invitation not just to see the play but to act in it. Because we know this is Lovecraftian, we know that strange and sinister things will result, and so they do. The conclusion is a nice twist from what I thought at first.

That’s right, I surprised Rich Horton with the *ending*… of a Lovecraft story!! (That’s because it’s not really a Lovecraft story, it’s a story about a Lovecraft story.)

Reader, I am pleased.

You can find F&SF on bookstore shelves or on their website.

I know the USA is a tire fire right now, but I also have a new story up on Lightspeed Magazine. Take a break from the news, just half an hour, and check it out. It’s called “Nine-Tenths of the Law” and it’s about marital problems and Denver International Airport conspiracy theories. And other stuff. It’s a bit racy so maybe read it at work. You can also listen to it!

There’s a little interview with me, too, in which I talk about said conspiracy theories!

This month’s Locus has a familiar name on the cover…

Yeah, what? I dunno! At ICFA, back in March, Locus asked if they could interview me. I had a lovely time chatting with Liza Groen Trombi, who was so fun and interesting it was very hard to stay on topic, and then we goofed around taking ridiculous glamour shots of me for a while. Anyway, the result of that pleasantness is an interview entitled “Ghosts ‘n’ Shit,” which is apparently one of if not the cuss-heaviest interview they’ve run, according to another editor.

In it I talk about Vermilion, The Pleasure Merchant, and the novel I just turned in to my agent, The Ginger Eaters, along with some other stuff… like the journal I used to keep as a kid where I’d go about my day surrounded by invisible snarky dragons. You can legit buy this at like Barnes & Noble. It’s on the news stand! So cool. Many thanks to the Locus crew for the fun time, the I’m sure brutal process of editing my interview into something coherent, and the gorgeous design and layout.

Additionally, here’s the cover for Congress for our debut issue next month:

Stories by Livia Llewellyn, Robert Levy, Matthew Addison, and David Nickle. I’m really stoked about this. Not only does it look gorgeous (just wait until you see the site! Jeremy is a wizard) but the stories are all top-notch smut, this time all with a speculative bent. Not all issues will be so fantastical (or science fictional) but I’m excited it has a bit of genre flair.

I’m reading for the next issue already. If you have a pitch, query me. If you have a story with me, hold up I’mma gettin there.

Swords v Cthulhu is coming out this year, official cover release will be soon I hope, plus pre-ordering and such. Look for it soon! It’s pretty, and I’m so proud of the work our authors put into this book.

Otherwise… woof, I dunno. I’m working on the first short story I’ve written for myself, not for an anthology, in literally years, and it’s giving me back a bit of my joy over short form writing. This isn’t to say I’m not thrilled to have had two short stories accepted into anthologies already this year: “Cognac, Communism, and Cocaine,” co-authored with Nick Mamatas for Through a Mythos Darkly, ed. Glynn Owen Barass and Brian Sammons, and “That Nature Which Peers Out In Sleep,” for The Madness of Dr. Caligari, ed. Joe Pulver. It’s just that as someone who isn’t a particularly prolific short writer, having every single one I write be for a specific purpose, and for anthologies with lots of vision but a limited audience, has burned me out a little.

Perhaps I will muse on that more later. For now, I’m excited to finish this story—for love!—and begin the thrilling process of submitting to magazines again.

I’ve received quite a few contributor’s copies between uh… November, when I last updated this blog, and now, so I figured I’d do a big roundup:

Gods, Memes, and Monsters: A 21st Century Bestiary

Featuring more than 60 authors, this stunning volume brings a fresh take on the bestiary, the dictionary of mythological creatures, by imagining how beasts such as gorgons, minotaurs, and mantichores would cope in the modern age. Offering informational entries and short stories, the collection ranges from the horrific to the humorous, reacquaints readers to classic beasts, and introduces the newly discovered, thriving creatures of the cyber age like the meme mosquitoes, trashsquatches, and urbantelopes. From the casino where the griffin has taken up residence, to the gorgon’s new occupation and love interest, to the now happy sphinx who has moved to Manhattan, this bestiary is a unique and contemporary twist on the creatures that have captivated the human imagination since ancient times.

Contains my story “La Fée Verte”

The Burning Maiden 2

In this second volume of The Burning Maiden anthology we continue our mission to present the finest storytellers of supernatural fiction and verse: legendary literary voices like Ramsey Campbell, Laird Barron, David Liss, James Morrow and Richard Chizmar—but also breakout talents like Paul Tremblay, Molly Tanzer, Cullen Bunn and Joanna Parypinski. They offer us literary and unforgettable glimpses into the darkness of human nature.

Contains my story “Do Not Loiter in the Glen”

Cassilda’s Song

Cassilda’s Song is a collection of weird fiction and horror stories based on the King in Yellow Mythos created by Robert W. Chambers—entirely authored by women. There are no pretenders here. The Daughters of the Yellow Sign, each a titan of unmasked fire in their own right, have parted the curtains. From Hali’s deeps and Carcosa’s gloomy balconies and Styx-black towers, come their lamentations and rage and the consequences of intrigues and follies born in Oblivion. Run into their embrace. Their carriages wait to take you from shadowed rooms and cobblestones to The Place Where the Black Stars Hang. 

Contains my story “Grave-Worms.” I’m ultra-proud of this story, and this review:

There have already been some matchless stories in this book, and this story has the sound of a lighter at a crucial moment. The work is perfect, indeed matchless, as an example of a work that could easily have appeared in the original ‘King in Yellow’ book; it is elegant, literary, with the feel of the fin de siecle, as well as Truman Capote and Elizabeth Bowen. Those New York grave-worms, those shoals of the dead as bright young things. An apotheosis of cigarettes, and one particular brand, and the Yellow Sign thus seems here for the first ever time so exactly appropriate to smoking. And there are the business relationships (in parallel with the equally exquisitely done Colonial and Governance relationships of the Bulkin), the gender politics, the cynical sex, the glass ceiling (where starlight and skyscrapers change places), and the knotty debate between abstraction and representation in art. This is wildly good, sedate, too. I imagined when the heroine stood on the balcony with her cigarette that the climax was soon to be the balcony vanishing into avant garde nothingness and she falling to the lighted city below. I was wrong. The real ending was even better. Robert W. Chambers couldn’t have done it better.

Legacy of the Reanimator

The Legacy of the Reanimator collects the original serialized H.P. Lovecraft story, “Herbert West—Reanimator” along with it’s two sequels and a bevy of short stories from some of the most renowned Lovecraftian writers. Details of Herbert West’s life from childhood to death—and beyond can be found within The Legacy of the Reanimator.

Contains my story “Herbert West in Love”

Aleriel

First published in 1883, “Aleriel” is a visionary tale of space travel, evolution, and Utopian idealism. The titular character, a Venusian explorer, wanders through the Solar System in search of compatible life, including lengthy stays on Mars and, of course, Earth. 

W.S. Lach-Szyrma’s long-forgotten book addresses all the contemporary thinking of the period – political, religious and scientific – and brings them to life on an interplanetary stage. 

This edition carefully preserves the original text, including both of the author’s original prefaces and the endnotes. It also includes a lengthy new introduction by Richard Dunn (Head of Science and Technology, Royal Museums Greenwich) and Marek Kukula (Public Astronomer, Royal Observatory Greenwich), discussing Mars in fiction and the role our Solar System has played in inspiring contemporary literature. 

“Aleriel” also comes complete with “Civilisation and Its Discontented”, a new short story by Molly Tanzer, revealing the unforeseen results of Aleriel’s passage through Mars. 

Not pictured:

Tomorrow’s Cthulhu: Stories at the Dawn of Posthumanity

Super science. Madness. Transhumanism. 

This is the dawn of posthumanity. Some things can’t be unlearned. 

Gleaming labs whir with the hum of servers as scientists unravel the secrets of the universe. But as we peel away mysteries, the universe glances back at us. Even now, terrors rise from the Mariana Trench and drift down from the stars. Scientists are disappearing—or worse. Experiments take on minds of their own. Some fight back against the unknown, some give in, some are destroyed, and still others are becoming… more.

Contains my story “The Stricken”

I apologize for not being able to get my cat into the picture with the books, as is traditional, so here’s a picture of him just being adorable.

If you have some Christmas fun money to spend on whatever, consider some of the above! All curated by delightful individuals, and chock full of quality reads, these are all perfect reads for the snowy months to come. Enjoy!

We’re less than two weeks out from the official drop date for Vermilion, so before I become ultra-annoying about the book, I figured I’d acknowledge that my debut novel isn’t the only thing in my life.

The latest installment of Pygmalia is up, on Henry James’ Watch and Ward. Verdict: Stinky. But interesting.

I had a story accepted to Ross Lockhart’s latest Lovecraftian anthology, Cthulhu Fhtagn!. Yes, the exclamation point is part of the title, hence the double punctuation. The story, “The Curse of the Old Ones,” was co-authored by myself and Jesse Bullington, and it’s about Ingrid Pitt and Peter Cushing trying to keep their sanity on the set of a doomed Hammer Horror production called… you guessed it. Behold: the full ToC.

I’ll be at Starfest/Horrorfest the weekend of my book release, just Saturday/Sunday, but I’ll be there!

And now, here’s a little something for you, dear reader: two muffin recipes! Both are really delicious. Sorry I don’t have pictures, I didn’t even think about it! But, I came across these recipes when searching for something else yesterday, and I wanted to share.

These muffins are built off a similar base base that includes yogurt in the batter, which makes them fluffy if a bit delicate. Just be gentle when generously spreading with Earth Balance. Trust me on this, though… the carrot tahini, while maybe a little wild-sounding, is absolutely delicious and unique! And the apple pie muffin is like apple pie for breakfast…

Apple Pie Crumb Muffins

• 2 c. flour
• ½ c. sugar
• 1 tbs baking powder
• ½ tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. cinnamon

• ½ c. unsweetened coconut yogurt
• ½ c. unsweetened nondairy milk
• ½ c. oil

• ½ c. finely chopped apple
• ½ c. grated apple

For the Crumb: 

• ¼ c. flour
• ¼ c. brown sugar
• a handful of oats
• a pinch of salt
• oil

Preheat oven to 375. Spray a muffin tin with spray oil.

Sift dry together. Stir wet together.

Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the wet. Mix gently until batter is not quite combined, and fold in chopped and shredded apple. Divide evenly among 12 muffin tins.

Mix together the dry ingredients for the crumb and then rub in the oil until it’s crumbly. Spoon over tops of muffins and press in gently.

Bake for 26-30 minutes. Test with a toothpick for doneness. Let sit in muffin tins for a bit before removing—the crumb is a bit delicate.

Carrot Tahini Muffins

• 2 c. flour
• ½ c. sugar + 2 tbs
• 1 tbs baking powder
• ½ tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. cinnamon

• ½ c. unsweetened coconut yogurt
• ½ c. orange juice
• ½ c tahini
• 1 tbs. vanilla
• 1 tsp orange flower water (if you have it)

• ¾ c. diced carrot
• ¾ c. grated carrot

Preheat oven to 375. Spray a muffin tin with spray oil.

Sift dry together. Mix wet vigorously. The tahini may cause the mixture to seize; if that’s the case, add a little water until it loosens up.

Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the wet. Mix gently until batter is not quite combined, and fold in diced and shredded carrots. If a little dry, add a bit of water, but the carrots when they cook will make up a lot of moisture.

Bake for 26-30 minutes. Test with a toothpick for doneness. Let sit in muffin tins for a bit before removing—the crumb is a bit delicate.

Aw man. Left it too late again…

October’s been a crazy month. In spite of two major deadlines looming, I went to Japan for two weeks, which was awesome! More on that when I have time to upload a thousand pictures of temples and deer and stuff.

As my deadlines seem a lot closer on this side of the trip (and my birthday—I’m 33 now, righteous), here’s a quick update of things I’ve been doing:

• I’m now a regular contributor over at Pornokitch.com! This is super exciting. Now my posts have my name beside them, like this, my latest Roald Dahl blog on his short stories. Roald Dahl hated beards. Who knew?

• Speaking of Pornokitsch, I had a new short story go up over there. Co-authored with Jesse Bullington, it’s called “Four Seasons in the Floating World™“. You can also buy it for 99 whole cents and read it on your e-reader.

• I wrote a short piece on doing my tri for Josh Vogt’s ongoing blog series Write Strong.

• I blind submitted a short story for the first time in several… years? And it was accepted! More details as I can share them.

That’s about it. Except… am I forgetting something?

Oh! That’s right!

One week from tomorrow…

What could it be??

I’m back from my Florida semi-vacation. Some medical stuff in the family, as usual, so I went down to help out my mom. She’s fine—she pulled through her end of things like a champ! She’s one tough lady.

Let’s see…

I realized the other day that I’ve sold over twenty short stories in the last five years. Given how slowly I write, that’s a really exciting figure! Some of those short stories have been sold but not announced—at least two, maybe three? I’m terrible at keeping track of that stuff. Anyways, announcements on things as I can, obviously. Whee!

A week ago last Sunday (meaning September 21st) I completed my first sprint triathlon! It was pretty much the greatest thing in the world, I’ll definitely be doing more in future. And not only did I complete it, I got the times I wanted.

My goal for this was first and foremost to finish, but I also wanted to do it under two hours. That meant, knowing my athletic ability, I needed to finish the swim in under 20 minutes, the ride in under an hour, and the run in under 40 minutes. I did all of it! And I wasn’t totally wiped out, after, nor was I particularly sore. My hips were stiff, and my knees complained a little but that’s to be expected for me. All in all, it was a great experience, and I’ll definitely do another tri with Without Limits, and maybe some others. I’d be curious to do an Olympic some day.

Sprint Triathlons are:

1/2 mile swim

12.something mile ride (mine was 12.9)

5k run

Olympic/Standard Tris are:

.93mi swim

25mi bike ride

1ok run

So, a nice increase in my best event, swimming, but also an increase in my worst event, running. But, my plan is to keep up on running this winter and increasing gradually to see if I (meaning, my knees) can take that distance. But, I must say, the sprint distance was so fun and exhilarating, I have no problem sticking with that. I enjoyed it so much I’m considering looking for a used wetsuit so I can do earlier-season triathlons. The water in Union Reservoir was 69 the day I swam, which is totally fine without a wetsuit, but maybe 4 degrees colder and it would have been pretty terrible. Given how cold the reservoirs around here get during the winter, anything before July would probably be a struggle without one.

I have really been into sewing my own clothes. Down in Florida I completed a new long-sleeved tunic and a sleeveless tunic dress thing. Pics whenever I wear them, probably.

Other than that, I’ve just been working on my WiP, which is finally (FINALLY) chugging along nicely. I had some early-novel struggles with this, for whatever reason, but now I’m enjoying myself greatly. The reduced speculative element in this has been very refreshing for me… we’ll have to see how it flies with my readership! At least anyone who picks it up because they know I can be counted upon to write about terrible fuckers fucking up will be happy. I gotta be me!

I made mandu/mandoo for the first time a few weeks back. They’re time-consuming but super-delicious! So far I’ve only cooked up the steamed kind. Tonight, I’ll be frying up the pan-fried kind for dinner. I also used my leftover mandu-pi to make tortellini with some home-fermented cashew-almond gruyere, which was pretty righteous.

In two weeks I’ll be headed to Japan, which is super-exciting.

Okay… that’s it, I think. Back to work!

John Langan, that illustrious author of quiet horror, was so good as to nominate me to be part of a Writing Process Blog Tour. I goofed and did not get to it in within a week, and as it’s sort of a chain letter, I guess I’ll be cursed or something. But, hey, first-hand curse experience isn’t such a bad thing in my field, I guess?

1) What are you working on?

Currently I’m working on a short novel. It’s been sold but not announced, so I don’t feel comfortable revealing the title yet. I will say it’s a period piece, and one with a limited speculative element. I hop it will please anyone who enjoyed the title novellas in A Pretty Mouth and Rumbullion.

2) How is your work different from others’ work in the same genre?

I tend to be a lot goofier, I guess. And I often write in historical settings. Horror/Weird/Lovecraftiana these days is very often Very Serious, or quiet and meditative, and largely modern. (I’m not dismissing any of the above; I love quite a bit of that stuff, most recently this story by Simon Strantzas, but you asked how I was different!) My most popular works, by contrast, tend to be ridiculous, and set in the past. For example, the first chapter of A Pretty Mouth (the novella), which is set just barely before the Restoration, involves a pudgy loser writing a poem honoring a schoolmate, not realizing it’s full of homoerotic entendre, getting shamed for it in front of his class, tripping, farting loudly, and then getting kicked in the ass by his professor. Not really deep, serious stuff. “The Infernal History of the Ivybridge Twins” got a lot of attention because it has twincest and… okay, probably because of the twincest. And “Herbert West in Love,” another story that has been reprinted and will be reprinted again (announcement when I can!) is just ridiculous.

3) Why do you write what you do?

I write stories I’d like to read.

4) How does your writing process work?

With short fiction, sometimes a title comes first; sometimes an anthology has a theme that calls to me. Most often these days, someone asks me to write something for a project, and I try to produce something that I think will be different from everything else they’ll get, and that (again) I’d like to read if I picked up that anthology. I write so slowly it’s been a long time since I’ve just written a story “because.” I’m not bragging; I hope once I clear my plate of my current obligations I can write some short fiction just for fun, but I came up with an exciting new idea for a novel a few weeks back so I’ll probably go down that hole once I’m a bit more free.

I don’t know if I have a writing process, when it comes to getting words on paper. I sometimes just blart out things and then go over them, revising and reworking until the story I want takes shape. Sometimes, especially with longer projects, I’ll use Scrivener to organize myself. I wrote the first draft of Vermilion, my forthcoming novel, in Scrivener. But I wrote A Pretty Mouth in Word, so, who knows?

As most of what I write is historical, I tend to make a trip to the library to research before I put down a single word. Like with what I’m working on, I grabbed such books as Developments in the History of Sexualities, Disorderly Women in 18th Century London, and How to Create the Perfect Wife. (So that’s a clue as to what I’m working on!)

Then I just spit on my hands, pray to Dionysios, and hope for the best. Sometimes it works; sometimes not. I junk a lot of biz.

Okay! Thanks again to John Langan, whose trust I squandered. I think I’ll tag… Simon Strantzas, as I mentioned him above, and Ross Lockhart, who is a writer as well as an editor. Huzzah!

Got a cool thing in my inbox the other day—the cover for The Starry Wisdom Library: The Catalogue of the Greatest Occult Book Auction of All Time, which I have a thing in. It also contains things by Nick Mamatas, Jesse Bullington, S.J. Chambers, Livia Llewellyn, Simon Strantzas, “and more.” Lots more!

I wrote my piece for this approximately a million years ago so I’m excited to see it’s all coming together so beautifully.

I also have my latest Roald Dahl blog up on Pornokitch, on Memories with Food at Gipsy House, which is a cookbook co-authored by Roald Dahl and his wife Felicity Dahl. I tried to make a meal out of it! The story is all there. Plus a recipe for vegan vanilla ice cream that is pretty much foolproof.

Other than that, things have been quiet. Except, not really?

I’m going to Japan in mid-October for two weeks. Whaaat. I know! I’m going to be spending most of my time in Toyko, as my girl Raechel is living there whilst dissertating, but we’re planning a side-trip to Kyoto. So fun!

I’m still training for my triathlon, which is tiring but really rewarding.

I’m culturing up some Rejuvelac for cheese making.

Oh, and I’m working on writing and editing stuff, of course.

Things have gotten so busy in that regard I’m having to scale back my involvement with certain recreational activities, sadly to say specifically lion dance. I hope to get back into it later this year, but after mid-August I’ll be done for a while. I don’t like to half-devote myself to things, so I’m focusing on my professional life for a while.

So, if you (1) are reading this, (2) live in Boulder or around here, and (3) care, you should come see me perform either at Boulder Asian Fest, which is on the 9th and the 10th (lion both days) or in Aurora at GlobalFest, on the 23rd.