Tag: Fiction

2022 Round-Up and Awards Eligibility

by Grace, posted in Reflections, Updates, Writing

Just to change things up, I decided to pair my stories for 2022 with ~vibes~ and recommended drinks!

I published 4 short stories and 1 novel in 2022. (The novel, Every Version of You, was published in Australia and New Zealand.)

If you like the sound of any of them, I’d be honoured if you gave them a look and considered them for awards nominations.

NOBODY EVER GOES HOME TO ZHENZHU – Lightspeed

~vibes~: Interstellar detective noir; acid rain battering roadside stalls; love-hate relationships with your shipmates; punching up against the system

drink: rice wine, preferably hot with floral notes

TO THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON – Hexagon

~vibes~: melancholy love in a feminist utopia; dude in distress; brooding cyborgs and coy androids and shiny spaceships

drink: a warm, creamy matcha latte with a drizzle of honey

AS THOUGH I WERE A LITTLE SUN – Fireside Fiction

~vibes~: cosy; bittersweet; a tree remembers how she became a tree

drink: pear and red date soup (or any sweet, clear soup)

DEATH BY WATER – From The Waste Land, PS Publishing (paperback available, e-book forthcoming)

~vibes~: an abandoned space mission; underwater caverns choked with ice and water; threads of memory, love, hope, rebirth, regeneration

drink: shots of strong coffee, swigged with each scene break

EVERY VERSION OF YOU – Affirm Press

~vibes~: “how to stay in love and feel real after mind-uploading into virtual reality”

drink: make a pot of your favourite tea, sip it slowly, until it’s bitter and cold; when you reach the final chapter, you may brew a fresh pot.

The Epoch Engine, my story for Magic the Gathering’s newly launched Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty plane, was published in February.

I published poetry for the first time: Inertness in Going Down Swinging (illustrated by the otherworldly, fantastic James Alexander Martin) and Symmetry, in the Winter 2022 edition of The Victorian Writer.

I published two non-fiction articles: a personal piece in SBS Voices and a column for Meanjin’s What I’m Reading. I also did a few interviews and podcasts.

In summary? 2022 was a year unlike any other. It was exhausting, delirious, wonderful, overwhelming, fuelled by sugar and adrenaline. But I feel incredibly lucky–that Every Version of You is out in the world, and that I managed to publish a bunch of short pieces.

If you want more of a reflection about the joys and challenges of this year, I’ll be sending out my year-end newsletter soon, so jump onto my Substack if you haven’t!

As always, thank you for following my work. I hope the stories whisk you away to adventures surreal, fantastic, and futuristic.

Using Psychology to Deepen Character Development

by Grace, posted in Reflections, Updates, Writing

I presented Using Psychology to Deepen Character Development for the first time at Flights of Foundry last month and received some lovely feedback.

I reflected on the role of the unconscious, internal/external conflict, and self-narrative in shaping complex characters, did a deep dive into defence mechanisms (with a lighthearted spec-fic twist!), and explored attachment theory in relating to others.

I also touched on embodied emotion, psychology interfacing with magic/tech/worldbuilding/horror, and other sorts of minds–although those themes would deserve a talk of their own!

I thought I’d share a couple of key slides/points.

The mind is a speculative place

◦ Psychological theories are frameworks for seeing the mind from different angles

◦ No single theory or framework can explain the human mind

◦ Applying a psychological understanding allows you to show rather than tell the reader what your characters are like

◦ Moreover, you can pare back the showing so it can be implicit, subtle, metaphorical and open, allowing the reader to imbue the story with their individual interpretations and personal meaning

The mind is not a single, unified entity

◦ Inner disharmonies are unavoidable

◦ We can consider the different stories within our characters–different origins, aims, and defences mechanisms of various agencies within the mind.

A conceptual diagram of Freud’s Topographical and Structural Models. Taken from
Kenny, D.T. (2016). A brief history of psychoanalysis: From Freud to fantasy to folly. Psychotherapy and Counselling Journal of Australia.

Exercise: Think about a character from your work. Visualise them clearly in your mind’s eye. Then, consider the following questions…

Id

What are your character’s hidden desires? What do they yearn for? What would give them a sense of wholeness and vitality? What sparks their lust, aggression, or anger? What wishes or fears are they unable to admit to themselves? Can other characters glimpse these drives? Will events force them to confront buried aspects of themselves?

Superego

What sort of early upbringing did your character have? Who were their role models, and what values and morals would they have internalised? What standards does your character strive towards? What is forbidden territory for your character, associated with guilt or shame?

Ego

How does your character resolve these conflicting aspects of themselves? What is the story that your character tells themselves? Which coping mechanisms do they tend to turn towards in times of stress? What happens when these mechanisms are overwhelmed? How will their unconscious desires and value systems shape their actions and manifest in the story?

I really enjoyed adapting psychological concepts for writing, especially for speculative writing. I’m hoping to further refine and develop it for the future.

I hope this is the beginning of a helpful resource.

Happy reading and writing, friends!

PS. Thank you, so much, to the Dream Foundry for having me. The talk will be available on the Dream Foundry YouTube channel later this year.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8jDna_LNiWUbJ254-dymVg

2020 Round-Up and Awards Eligibility

by Grace, posted in Reflections, Updates, Writing

For me, 2020 felt slow, and at times painful, frustrating, and confusing. It was easy to compare myself with others who seemed to be having lots of short fiction publishing success, and feel demoralised. However, when I cast my mind back to where I was a mere one year ago, I’m reminded of how far I’ve come in a short space of time. I am immensely grateful: not only for my writing journey, but for the security of my day work and living situation, and for the support systems around me.

Here are the things I’ve published in 2020. My novelette, Jigsaw Children, is eligible for the Hugo and Nebula Awards, and grants me eligibility for the Astounding Award.

Jigsaw Children
Clarkesworld (Issue 161, Feb 2020)
Audio Version available on Clarkesworld Website / Podcast

13,000 words. A science fiction novelette set in twenty-second century Hong Kong, about gene splicing, mothers, attachment, and identity.

I think I’m reasonably lucky, only having five parents. I guess my donors didn’t have too many risk mutations. Some of my classmates have been spliced together from eight, nine, even twelve donors. I don’t envy them the task of juggling their Chinese New Year dinners.

Father’s House
Aurealis (Issue 29, Apr 2020)

2500 words. A short story touching on themes of brain connectome mapping, illness, immigration, and the things that parents pass on to their children.

He removes his shoes and places them neatly next to his father’s black sneakers.
His father’s voice floats from the kitchen. ‘Henry. How’s work?’
‘Fine, Ba. I’ve taken a few days off.’
‘Just to help me clean? Are you sure that’s a good idea?’

The Ethnographer
Andromeda Spaceways Magazine (Issue #79, Jun 2020)

5000 words. A far future science fiction story about inequality and powerlessness. A solitary, empathetic ethnographer travels to a far-flung planet and gradually discovers hidden ruptures in the alien society.

I step down from the Linnaeus into a crimson haze creased with shadows. The wind howls like a banshee symphony. At once, I understand why the Vullon have no hearing organs: the noise of this alien planet inspires madness.

Of Hunger and Fury
Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women, Omnium Gatherum (Sep 2020)

3600 words. A Malaysian Chinese gothic horror story. When Fen Fang returns to her family home in Malaysia, long-forgotten ghosts begin to creep into her skin.

When I see my mother standing in the front yard, two decades disappear in a blink. I can hardly bear to look at the faded white walls, the creeping lattice of vines like bloated veins. She pulls the metal gate open. Her bare wrists look strangely vulnerable. My husband bounds over to her, grasps her hand in both of his, leans in to peck her cheek.

Mother of the Trenches
Unnatural Order, CSFG Publishing (Dec 2020, available to pre-order)

2700 words. A quirky, tentacled, symbiotic, fantasy tale about power, knowing yourself, ocean pollution, and deep, dark places.

You turn your little eyes to me, taking in my massive shapelessness, the dark patterns shifting over my skin, and my many arms, coiled around us like a nest—protecting, tasting, thinking. Your gaze flicks upwards and crosses paths with mine.
Your fear turns into disgust.

If you’d told me a couple of years ago that I’d have short fiction in two dream Aussie SFF venues, I wouldn’t have dared to believe it! The Ethnographer and Father’s House are very different stories, but both were a challenge and a joy to write. I feel very lucky to have had them edited and published by Andromeda Spaceways and Aurealis, respectively. And, of course, I’m perpetually over the moon that Clarkesworld accepted Jigsaw Children–which, now that I reflect on it, has many thematic overlaps with Every Version of You.

As I spent a large portion of the year studying for a specialty exam, I didn’t get to write and submit as much as I’d hoped. But with the exam well and truly behind me now, I’m set to dive into structural edits for EVOY and more short fiction projects!

As always, thanks for reading and lingering for a little while. May the end of your 2020 be reflective, restorative, and as peaceful as can be in these times.

Hunger, fury, and lessons learnt from a short story

by Grace, posted in Reflections

Yesterday, I finished editing the Malaysian Chinese gothic ghost story that I’ve been working on, tumultuously, with a fair amount of hair-pulling, for the better part of two months. Writing this piece was a great deal more challenging than I expected at the outset. I thought I’d share about what I struggled with, and consequently what I learnt about the craft of writing and about myself.

The first challenge I had to wrestle with was trying to write it ‘right’. All possible accusations of fraud leapt out at me. How can I claim to be a horror writer, when I’ve only ever written one other horror story (The Mark: and that was not with the explicit purpose to frighten, but to unsettle)? Who am I to write a Chinese ghost story when I’ve hardly lived in Asia and I have to reference-check every Chinese word I use? And how can I dare to label it as gothic when I had to spend an afternoon self-consciously Googling elements of gothic literature?

[It’s dark, it’s uncanny, it’s sensual, it has omens and spirits, it’s set in the 90s and there’s terrible phone reception—so, heck, I’m just gonna roll with it.]

Eventually, I figured out that I just had to write it ‘right by me’, although that in itself is much easier said than done. I had to focus on exactly what I was trying to convey, and shave away any pretence of being something else. My and my mother’s hazy recollections of talismans and spirits and superstitions are enough. The inspirations and influences from various things I’ve read, and places I’ve travelled, are enough. It’s enough that I’m emotionally honest with the reader.

The second challenge I had to overcome? My fear of being too…weird. What did I expect, really? In writing a story about suppressed hunger and fury, I found myself struggling with my own suppressed hunger and fury, wondering if I was coming across as too angry, too twisted, too much.

My story aims to be metaphorical and impressionistic, not explicit and didactic. I’m not trying to impart any particular lesson, but to inject you, the reader, into Fen Fang’s body: so that you can feel her feelings, grapple with her reality, and scramble as it distorts. I enjoyed this exercise immensely—using Fang’s senses, her behaviour, and even the form of her language and thought, to shape the narrative experience. It’s certainly the most metaphorical and twisty thing I’ve written so far.

Plus, yeahhhh, there’s a ghost in it!

I hope that I can share it with you soon.

Father’s House – Aurealis #129

by Grace, posted in Updates

My short story, Father’s House, is in Aurealis #129.

Here’s my ‘Story Behind The Story’:

Father’s House sprang from three concepts mashing together unexpectedly in my head. The technology to map and deconstruct the human brain is growing increasingly sophisticated. How long will it be before we try to replicate a human mind in digital form? More importantly, when we do so, how closely can we say it represents the original? At the time I was mulling about this, the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act came into effect in Victoria—and with it, the crucial issue of determining capacity to consent. Finally, this story holds a great deal of personal significance. I was reflecting on the things that parents pass on to their children: stories spoken aloud, and stories so hidden they’re only a vague feeling. Like Henry, we carry pieces of previous generations in us, and we grapple with them throughout our lives.

You can purchase the issue or sign up as a subscriber through the Aurealis website.

Aurealis Awards 2019: Shortlisted!

by Grace, posted in Reflections, Updates

Greetings, digital ghosts.

Just a little post to announce that my short story, The Mark, has been shortlisted for Best Horror Short Story in the 2019 Aurealis Awards.

 
Wang Yibo dancing on stage with a seductive twirl.
Mood

I’m feeling incredibly privileged and honoured that my second published work is an Aurealis Awards nominee.

Congratulations to all the other finalists: a stellar line-up!

https://aurealisawards.org/2020/03/25/2019-aurealis-awards-shortlist-announcement/

The Misplaced Giant – AntipodeanSF

by Grace, posted in Updates

Hello, internet!

My flash fiction, The Misplaced Giant, is live!

You can find it online here in Issue 255 of AntipodeanSF, for a limited time.

I dug this wacky little piece out of a folder of buried scribblings from my good ol’ university days, and thought it a perfect fit for a SF/F/H mag from the bottom side of the planet.

I hope you enjoy it.

PS. A narration by yours truly may be forthcoming.

***

Update (04/02/2020): The Misplaced Giant is no longer live on the AntiSF website, but you can still read it from the archives.

The Mark – Verge Uncanny

by Grace, posted in Updates

verge2019-9781925835373-cover-print

I’m excited to share that my short story, ‘The Mark’, is in Verge Uncanny, published by Monash University and launched yesterday at Readings in the State Library of Victoria as part of the Emerging Writers Festival.

‘The Mark’ is a psychological horror story inspired by the Capgras delusion. It explores themes of womanhood, powerlessness and madness. It’s also a little ode to such works as The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace.

Since receiving my contributor’s copy a couple of weeks ago, I admit I’ve already read it cover to cover. The stories are haunting, rich and imaginative–it’s exciting to get a glimpse of the sort of writing coming out of Melbourne and wider Australia!

You can find a copy at Readings (State Library of Victoria) or online here.