QUINN SMYTHWOOD: Life With Imaginary People (author blog)

Trick or treat

Hey Intrepid Readers,

It's Halloween and for a treat I thought I'd put up a short for you all to read; maybe you want to save it for when darkness falls, the moon rises (or the storm clouds smother the light and stars) and ghosts and ghoulies come out to play...

by lju photo

Whatever you're getting up to this Halloween don't waste it on Monday blues! Now, for the treat...or is it a trick? You decide. Read on...and listen for the owl...

Yours,

Quinn Smythwood

by gfoster67

The Bitch is Dead

The owl is gazing down from the tree. It’s dark out or I would see the pale green bark, the dark emerald leaves and the white ivory of the thorns. I wonder if the thorn tree is significant or if the owl would have been just as menacing sitting among the long leaves of a eucalyptus. The owl doesn’t call my name.

***

Summer and the heat is oppressive. There are lines of bright shimmers across the cheeks of the men who dig the grave. There’s something wild about their eyes; like the whites absorb the sunlight and burn brighter than the darks of the iris. Sometimes you wonder if they’re even alive, until they raise their voices suddenly and you’re broken out of the illusion. I try to persuade myself that it’s only my morbid mood that colours the gravediggers this way. The bitch is dead. She’s not coming for you. I wish I could be more convincing.

There are no mourners. The plot of earth lies lonely among a dozen wood crosses. They’re thin like plywood and already a few are rotting, mirroring the process below their sharp African sun thrown shadows. Plastic flowers hang from a few, fading quickly in the hot harsh light. At last the gravediggers are done and the coffin—a box really, cheap wood with a splinter-touch surface—is lowered with small ceremony into the earth. The bitch is dead, I think, and watch as the fine dry sand is thrown back into the hole covering the box and the crone within. When it is done, I stand on her grave and look down at the freshly placed cross pegged into the ground. Goodbye, I silently tell her. A jewel falls from my forehead, a silver bead of perspiration that hits the arm of the wooden cross and draws a wet line across it. I fall back. The noon sun beats down and I retreat. The bitch is dead. I’m free.

The night falls slowly, but not slow enough. The owl is there among the mint green branches, watching me with unblinking amber eyes and I lock the doors and close the windows even though the heat of the day is trapped inside with me. I sweat. I perspire. Not all of it is the heat. The owl does not call my name.

***

I dream of stars that are too bright. I am back in the past and I’ve drunk the hot liquid in the bone cup and my mind is not clear. My mind burns and my thoughts are a fever. The witch is watching me. Her smoke yellowed eyes are bruised with age. She’s old, so very old. They say she can talk to the spirits. They say she can cure all ills. They say she can make cattle barren, make their udders dry. I forget why I came to her in my dream. There are shells in her hair, shells and bones; the frail skeletons of small things, of rats and birds. She takes my hand and pricks the fingers one by one, grinning at me with dark lips over toothless gums. She’s old, so very old. I forget how I got here.

I wake drenched in my sweat, in my terror. I get up and on the way to work, I stop at her grave. I stand on it. The sun is rising but there are too many shadows still on the ground to separate her wooden cross from the thrown darkness. I stand there a long time in my mind, seconds on my watch and then hurry away. I work like the gravediggers, I work like the owl called my name. I work like I am dead.

In the fading day I pass her grave again on my way home. The light is thin when I walk under the thorn tree to reach my door. The owl is there and I feel its eyes on my back, drinking in my soul. I open the door and slink inside. The owl does not call my name.

***

Sometimes I think I am going mad. The witch lies in her grave, but every night I feel she visits me. I dream of her tasting my blood as it wells from small pricks in each fingertip. I dream of spinning under the hazy influence of the hot drink she spills down my throat. I dream of the chanting words and the sharp bark of laughter like hyenas calling on the wind. The air smells of dirt and fire and I taste ashes on my tongue. Sometimes I know I am going mad. I don’t know how I came to be under her dark eaves. I don’t know why I drink her hot potion. I don’t know why I visit her grave. I think someone told me that the owl would call my name.

I read the paper in the evening after work, curtains closed against the owl in the yard and the lights are all burning. It only makes the shadows longer, thinner, hungrier. I turn to the classifieds scanning the adverts that promise to dispel curses, drive away evil spirits, bring you good luck, make your lovers faithful. I cannot bring myself to call on any of them. Not even those who promise no payment unless the muti* works. Black magic, dark magic. I know I am still under her spell. The bitch is dead. It doesn’t matter.

Then I go to bed and I dream. How do I know she is dead? I just do. I know that I must go to her grave and watch them put her in the ground. I know I must stand on her grave and so I do. And I remember drinking her hot brew that leaves the taste of ashes and iron in my mouth and sends fire through my brain. I remember her toothless smile, her yellow eyes. I remember the owl. I remember the hyenas laughing in the dark.

I wake and morning is still so fragile and young that the night is still in the air and it is dark. Too dark. I should sleep more. I should dream more. But I don’t. I get out of bed and I wonder about the house, unsettled. Afraid. Why did I go to the witch? Why did I drink her dark muti? Why is she in my thoughts? Why does she haunt my dreams? I don’t think I know. I don’t think I ever did. I walk to the door and throw it open. The owl in the thorn tree watches me. It drinks my soul. It doesn’t call my name. Sunlight chases it away. I don’t think I can last another night. I think soon the owl will call my name.

***

The day is long and hard and hot. I can’t concentrate. My mind wanders. My work is shoddy. My colleagues complain. I say I am sick. I say I should go home and then I leave. I go to the witch’s grave and I stand on it, staring down at the wooden cross, burning in the hot sun. I don’t care. I don’t move. Then the sun sinks and I’m free to go home.

The thorn tree is empty as I open the rusted gate and walk under the pale green arms. The night air is cool against my burnt and fevered skin. I feel worn out, faded like a mote in the air. I could float away, I think. I walk to the door and as I open it I hear the beat of wings and the owl slips into the tree, talons rasping at the smooth green bark. I turn back and face its amber glare. Unblinking, the owl watches me. I feel lighter already. I escape into the house and close the door. It’s not long now, I know. The owl is going to call my name.

I make supper. The yellow butter melts and colours my potatoes like the witch’s eyes. I don’t eat. I go to bed after switching aimlessly from channel to channel. After scouring the paper for adverts I know I’ll never use. I go to bed hot from the heat trapped in my skin, the sunlight that I’ve allowed to seep into my pores. It’s not enough light to keep the dark at bay.

I dream of the witch. I tell myself that the bitch is dead. She says she knows. She says that is why. She doesn’t tell me why. She doesn’t tell me more. She just smiles. Her toothless smile is dark and gapping. Even under the spell of the hot potion, of the wicked brew, I shiver.

When I wake it’s midnight. I don’t have to look at my watch to tell. I know. I get up out of the bed, turning damp sheets aside. I move quickly through the house to the door and out into the garden. I stand under the thorn tree, the moonlight full and bone white on the branches, on the owl. I think I see the witch. A shadow beside the tree. A shadow with yellow eyes. The owl blinks. The owl opens its beak. The witch shadow rushes forward. The owl calls my name.

* Muti is a term for traditional medicine in Southern Africa as far north as Lake Tanganyika. The word muti is derived from the Zulu word for tree, of which the root is -thi. In Southern Africa, the word muti is in widespread use in most indigenous African languages, as well as in South African English and Afrikaans where it is sometimes used as a slang word for medicine in general. (Wikipedia)

I'm back from outer space

Hey Intrepid Readers,

I know alien abduction ain’t gonna fly with you folks; so would you believe wicked witchcraft? Yes, okay, I’ve been a little on the quiet side and maybe someone noticed. (I hope not; I tried to be real circumspect about it.) The year has all but flown by and I came back from a little holiday away (it happened in March, I’m absolutely sure of it because I’m still paying off the instalments) and it turned into months and months and months…(and months!)

Seven months! Really? Good lord! I thought of it more like revolving credit, no more than three demands for payments…you know, 90 days final notice stuff, but alas no. Seven months! Regular correspondence shall return; but I hear a wicked witch call my name…and this Halloween so shall you…

Yours,

Quinn Smythwood

Reviewing the 'Ungrateful Dead'

Hey Intrepid Readers,

I'm talking mini-review today. A while back I received an ebook from my 'tweep' Naomi Clark; a copy of her short story Ungrateful Dead, an Ethan Banning case. I figured I'd do Naomi a solid and give her something more than my quickie "@naomi_jay Ungrateful Dead-Thanks for holding the zombies. Charlie-cute; Ethan-that's why they call them hard boiled. Demonised-cor blimey!" tweet. So here it is, my mini review.

     Ungrateful Dead was an introduction to Ethan Banning for me, but not an introduction to author Naomi Clark. (If you've read QUEER WOLF then you've read the awesome Wolf Strap which introduces readers to girl-power-getting-her-bitch-on lesbian werewolf Ayla Hammond. A character whose tale is continued in the whoopass novel SILVER KISS!) But let's talk about down-on-his-luck, Ethan Banning, private dick. (Psst ask Naomi for a copy of Ungrateful Dead, it's FREE).

     Straight off the bat he struck me as the original 'hard boiled' kind of private investigator and the reader is plunged into the kind of seedy world you'd expect from the noir in which Ethan Banning lives and breathes. I could instantly imagine him chatting up a 'leggy dame' who walked into his office in a voice as dry as dirt; not that his client in this short tale is such a dame; rather it's a medical examiner and the only dame in the piece is dead and rather pissed about it. Reading Ungrateful Dead, I actually 'heard' Ethan (you know like in my head) with that deep, monotone Bogie voice going on.

     The short read itself is packed with humour and delivers high impact for all that this is a quick read; there's a ghost, a morgue, a client and I'm pretty sure there's even a knock knock joke thrown in there too. Or maybe that was just me. It's well worth grabbing and reading for anybody who loves a good ghost in the morgue and PI story; whether you're interested in the supernatural angle, the noir private investigator angle, or that touch of grim in your humour angle, Ungrateful Dead delivers and it delivers promptly.

     The story is also a bit of promo for the upcoming Ethan Banning novella by Naomi Clark called DEMONISED. The first chapter of this novella comes along with your copy of Ungrateful Dead and is a definite hook into another tale, another case. It's this opener that, to my mind, fixed that descriptor 'hard boiled' to Ethan Banning, PI, and it is a taster that promises a blooming brilliant read. What I got out of chapter one is that DEMONISED offers readers hardcore private dick like no paranormal you've read before. (Yes I said it that way and I'm sticking with it.) Will it deliver? I'm betting it will!

    I guess what I'm saying is keep an eye out for DEMONISED! While you wait, you can take Ethan out for a test drive by getting Ungrateful Dead and seeing how his engine races.

     DEMONISED: (The Blurb)
     PI Ethan Banning is smoking too much, sleeping too little, and hearing voices. One voice, to be exact: the voice of the demon that possessed him on his last case. A voice that urges him to hurt, rape, kill ... and Ethan doesn't think he has the strength to ignore it much longer.

     When his latest missing person case turns into a murder investigation, Ethan finds himself fighting not just demonic urges, but black magic, an incubus with a hidden agenda, and a client who just won't pay up. Luckily, Ethan's got a few friends on his side, like Detective Anna Radcliffe, and his trusty dog, Mutt. If Ethan can ignore the demon long enough, he might just solve this case before it kills him.

Yours,

Quinn Smythwood

Behind the Times

Hey Intrepid Readers,

So it's 2011 and where the heck has Quinn been? Oh I've been around living that wild ride they call life and generally behaving like I'm completely responsibility free... Oh well, it was fun while it lasted and now everyone knows that I procrastinated. Nevertheless it's a new year and with new years come great burdens that we like to call resolutions; new year wannabes just doesn't have the same sense of finality to it, though it may—just a tad—be more accurate. Yes, I realise it's a trifle late to be bringing new years and resolutions to the table, but I've been trying to estivate through the usual resolution period and forgive me if I've just crawled out of my cave to greet 2011 and suss out the character of this spring chicken.

   So what's my wannabe...er resolution for 2011? Well I've got a couple dangling metaphors in front of me as we speak, but I'll highlight just numero uno: Get a novel/la out this year. I've been dancing around that one for a good while and I think this year stands there with goal posts wide open, so let's see if we can put aside the wannabe and hit this resolution on the nail.

   While I was sleeping the HELEBORE & RUE anthology (my contribution here is Gloam) was released—mere days ago in fact, appearing on the Drollerie Press website (15% discount) and will be available at other distributors soon. ZOMBIALITY (my contribution Dead Boy Number One) was nominated in the best book/anthology category at the Mail Order Zombie Dead Letter Awards—I kid you not; yes I'd not heard of it before either...but this is year three for the awards—and the votes are public, so throw in your two cents in categories ranging from fiction to film and even best score in a zombie movie! Voting happens here. Pop over, you know you want to; where else will you get to chose between "Ball me sideways! Preserve my eyes!" and "It's your ass. If you want to get it kicked, who am I to stop you?" among others for best one-liner in a zombie movie? That's a rare type of awesome. Don't forget to check your favourite anthology on the click out of your voting booth.

   I've made the social media leap and jumped onboard twitter. Say hello @smythwood if you're in the twitterhood. If you're a tweep—no really—what are you tweeting about?

Yours,

Quinn Smythwood

Dead Boy Number One

Hey Intrepid Readers,

It's almost Christmas and what goes better with Christmas, the snow and the kissing under the holly than zombies... Zombies? Yes, zombies. I can’t imagine kissing a zombie and liking it, but when the call for ZOMBIALITY (Library of the Living Dead) came to my attention, I felt the urge to at least consider the subject. Perhaps, given the above introduction, it won’t be a surprise that I chose to make my submission more light-hearted than just dead flesh gore…although, don’t get me wrong, there are just some things about a zombie that you really shouldn’t change.

I had a bit of fun with my contribution to ZOMBIALITY in my submission, Dead Boy Number One (based on a true dead story). I decided to make my zombies a little less brain dead, a little more living dead; sure there's decay, but with refrigeration and preservatives, there's a lot more to death than zombie mayhem, but as my main character--the self styled and titular Dead Boy Number One--discovers, sometimes getting past expectation is a lot harder than simply beating death and running away to join the zombie theatre...

ZOMBIALITY (A queer bent on the undead.)

Zombies don't care who you love...they want to eat us all.
This book contains 28 stories with a perspective on zombies never quite imagined before. These stories reflect a variety of queered lives and experiences and explor the depths of what a zombie is. From the traditional to the fantastical, these stories are sure to entertain all of humankind.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Stonewall Rising - Vince Liaguno
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Die - Rob Rosen
GirlWorld - Lisa Morton
Just The Three Of Them At The End Of The World - John Grover
Still Rolling - Angelia Sparrow
Unrest In Cowpat - Stephanie Kincaid
To Please - Nicholas Alexander Hayes
Till The Last Beat - Clancy Nacht
Zombie Fiction - Dave Dunwoody
The Cairn - Christopher Fletcher
Unholy Alliance - Ben Langhinrichs
Eating Peaches - Rachel Green
Accepting Death - Tony Schaab
The Duval Crawl - Dave Chrisom
Among The Living - J. R. Rodriguez
Cocktail Conversation - Patrick F. Murphy
Walk Through The Fire - Jennifer Povey
ZOMB-mailion - Eric Andrews-Katz
The Dead Walk In Brooklyn - Molly Rydzel
Dead Boy Number One - Quinn Smythwood
Quickened Wood - Nathan Sims
World Without Snow - Jesus Morales
Sweetness - B. C. Edwards
Food Chain - Steve Spinale
The Quick And The Undead - Thomas Logan
Meatbots : A Love Story - Timothy Capehart
Humans Being Human - Patrick D’Orazio
Drag Queen vs Zombies - MP Johnson

ZOMBIALITY is out now and available at Amazon. If you want to share your holiday season with zombies...let me know how you survived. Was it easier defending against zombies than the seasonal family onslaught?

Yours,

Quinn Smythwood.

Imaginary Friend :: Nilla Hayes

Hey Intrepid Readers,

Writing; it’s life without the boring bits and making friends with imaginary people. I’ve had a witch on my mind since writing the short story Gloam (HELLEBORE & RUE, Drollerie Press) and she’s been talking—over copious cups of exotic mochas (Could I try that white chocolate mocha with an infusion of mint please? It sounds really good.)—about witchy godmothers battling it out with candy bars and spells at twenty paces; demon night riders who string up mortals like puppets to dance; not to mention chasing stolen dreams as well as the less glamorous side of a magical life, covering the rent. I guess her BFF—Livia Darrow (who salsas through a room projecting Halle Berry at a Latin dance club, while looking like Reese Witherspoon taking afternoon tea with the Queen)—is dating someone new and consequently witch, Nilla Hayes, isn’t getting her quota of chat in.

    It’s part of the spill over effect that happens after writing—however brief a piece—about any particular character; those imaginary people don’t want to get out even after you’ve penned the end. They want to live on to see another page and as a writer, you’re feeling comfortable enough with them to actually indulge these post mortem conversations with imaginary friends that could have been so last chapter. It doesn’t hurt that the modern view on writing a series is all good news… (Don’t you wonder what the classics would have been like if the authors had lived in a similar publishing environment? At least those that didn’t end up killing off their characters, or so firmly ensconcing them in a Happily Ever After so as to make a series an impracticality short of going Wuthering Heights: In the Hands of Resurrection Men.)

    So you indulge your imaginary friend and even let her order yet another mocha that you’re half sure isn’t sold in any coffee store you know of outside of your head, because it sounds like she’s got much more in her than just one little short story for an anthology. In fact, you’ve got this thrilled little cocoon of a million butterflies ready to burst through you like a river of adrenalin; this little witchy imaginary friend has enough promise to fill an entire novel…perhaps an entire series with her quirky little tales. Of course, as she is your personal imaginary friend, you’re also completely convinced she’s got something original to contribute to a genre and so…you let her bend your ear a little more.

    Before you know it, you’ve jotted a few notes and penned a title (BUMP) for an undefined project (Novella? Novel?) featuring a lesbian witch who made (or as at this writing rather will make) her debut in the HELLEBORE & RUE anthology. Already I can see my beta reader (or is that prime critic), Misty, rolling her eyes and frowning at me…her meaning is obvious, enough with the imaginary coffee party, write already!

Yours,

Quinn Smythwood

Gloam

Dear Intrepid Reader,

Do you like a little witchcraft in your fiction? I do and so I was more than a little intrigued when I came across a call for submissions from Drollerie Press for their forthcoming anthology collection HELLEBORE & RUE: Tales of Queer Women and Magic edited by JoSelle Vanderhooft and Catherine Lundoff.

    "We’re looking for stories about lesbian-identified sorceresses, witches, magicians and magic users of all kinds. Lesbian and trans protagonists are welcome. All stories must include a woman who identifies as a lesbian and who uses magic. The definition of magic is open to interpretation-surprise us, dazzle us, make us believe in all different kinds of magic all over again!"

   When I sat down to write something for the anthology, I decided that it would take place within a tenative universe that has been forming as I've jotted a few short stories; a universe I hope to one day write a novel, or a whole series of novels set in. I call the stories that take place here 'Cusp Tales' and the story I finally submitted to the editors of HELLEBORE & RUE, entitled Gloam, is certainly a Cusp Tale. The protagonist of the piece, Nilla Hayes, is a witch with a problem. She's seen a shadow out of the corner of her eye, a corpse shadow. Somebody is going to die and as soon as the corpse shadow steps into the light Nilla Hayes will know who and when. It's the one thing she hates about being a witch. A bad start to her morning, but that's only the beginning...of course, things always get darker, darkest at the approach of the storm...

    I was delighted when Gloam was accepted for the anthology and impressed by the various authors who joined me in the anthology. The Table of Contents of HELLEBORE & RUE promises an excellent collection of tales:

“Counterbalance” by Ruth Sorrell
“Trouble Arrived” by C.B. Calsing
“Personal Demons” by Jean Marie Ward
“The Windskimmer” by Connie Wilkins
“Sky Lit Bargains” by Kelly A. Harmon
“Gloam” by Quinn Smythwood
“Witches Have Cats” by Juliet Kemp
“D is for Delicious” by Steve Berman
“And Out of the Strong Came Forth Sweetness” by Lisa Nohealani Morton
“Bridges and Lullabies” by Rrain Prior
“Thin Spun” by Sunny Moraine
“A State of Panic” by Rachel Green

I may have a story in the collection, but it's a collection that I can't wait to read. There are twelve stories in the anthology and I anticipate twelve very different witches in unique worlds with boiling magic and bubbling plot lines. HELLEBORE & RUE will hopefully release soon. Do you like a good tale featuring a witchy heroine? What do you most like about witches? The magic? The familiars? The paranormal?

Yours,

Quinn Smythwood