labricoleuse: (supershakespeare)
[personal profile] labricoleuse
So, this might seem completely off-topic, but in fact it is not. Bear with me here!

It's perhaps a little-known fact that in addition to writing this blog, I also write loads of other stuff--fiction, essays, poetry, first and foremost for my own amusement but also for publication. I've had essays in journals and literary magazines, poetry and short stories in anthologies, and so forth. To this date i think my most widely circulated short story was a piece featured in the Tachyon Press anthology Steampunk, entitled "Reflected Light."

Thanks to that story, in fact, an editor named Scott Harrison contacted me to ask whether i'd be interested in writing a piece for a new anthology he was assembling, in which authors would take classic 19th century literature and fairytales as a jumping-off point for their stories, which would reinterpret or extrapolate upon or "reload" the original into a steampunk/anachrotechnological universe. The anthology was to be called Resurrection Engines, and would be released by the UK publisher Snowbooks.

I chose Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island as my inspiration work (I love pirates!), and sat down to reread the original, looking for inspiration. You may not recall--I didn't--that the fearsome pirate Long John Silver was married to a nameless woman of color. She's mentioned only twice in Stevenson's book, in passing, but i couldn't stop thinking about her. Who was she?

My piece tells her story, or an alternate-universe version of her story. Celie works as a hatmaker out of a shop on the shores of St. Clement, crafting top-quality hats for the seafaring men whose ships make berth there, including a young master's mate, John Argent. Pirates, sea monsters, and a diabolical conformateur converge to push Celie and John toward a destiny doomed by the sinister Black Spot.

(See, i told you this was relevant! Hatmaking! A conformateur!)

Snowbooks released the anthology at the first of the year, and I've got a copy to give away! If this sort of fiction sounds like it is up your alley, or if you are just intrigued by the prospect of a story with pirates and hatmakers in it, leave a comment here or on the La Bricoleuse Facebook page. A week from today, I'll draw a winner at random and send you the book.


6140_small

Cover image courtesy of Snowbooks

Date: 2013-03-03 11:18 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ladycelia.livejournal.com
I would love to be entered in the drawing! Sounds like an entertaining book.

Date: 2013-03-04 02:59 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dark-phoenix54.livejournal.com
I'm a huge steampunk fan! And your story sounds fascinating!

Date: 2013-03-04 06:19 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lubadovhann.livejournal.com
look forward to reading this book and your story!

Date: 2013-03-04 02:10 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] selwynne.livejournal.com
Oh my goodness, you wrote that story!?!?! Here's what I wrote about it in my Goodreads page:

""Reflected Light" (Rachel E Pollack) was intriguing and made me want to read more of her vision of the society she created." (I only wrote about the stories in that anthology that I really liked)

Yes, please enter me!!

Date: 2013-03-04 10:27 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] giffydoll.livejournal.com
Free book? Yes, please!

Date: 2013-03-05 12:33 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] iterum.livejournal.com
Please put my name in what I assume will be a hat.

Date: 2013-03-05 03:56 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] vanityfairy.livejournal.com
Oh that sounds like my cup of tea for sure! :)

Date: 2013-03-07 10:30 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lee strickler (from livejournal.com)
I would love to read this anthology. Thanks for the contest.

Yes, please!

Date: 2013-03-09 03:15 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] elizabeth perry (from livejournal.com)
Hats? Pirates? An overlooked woman? I'd love to read this. Thanks for offering this contest. (And thanks, more generally, for your blog - I'm a long-time reader via RSS, and this is my first comment.)

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