The Space Between Worlds, Fiction, Issue 35, June 1, 2016

T. Lucas Earle's short stories have appeared in The Colored Lens, Razor, and Electric Spec. He is passionate about science, fiction, and smashing the two together like a mid-air plane collision. He currently lives in Los Angeles where he avoids the sun and considers his life choices. His most recent film, Up Next, premiered in Dances With Films in 2014. You can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iADdqDT0glM

http://www.tlucasearle.com/

Twitter: @timothyearle

Get to know T. Lucas...

Birthday? September 27th

When did you start writing? I'm sure I don't remember. I've been told it was later than most kids, and that my early work was incomprehensible.

When and what and where did you first get published? Electric Spec published my first short story, "Monkey Talk," which is not about a monkey. I believe it was 2011.

What themes do you like to write about? I've always been interested in states of flux, whether that be great historical transition periods, or people whose unique in-betweenness allowed them keen insight into the world around them.

What books and/or stories have most resonated with you as an author? Why? How do these stories and their characters find expression in your work? I absolutely adore The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat by Oliver Sacks. The book is a simple and sometimes bleakly funny look at the lives of people whose brains have malfunctioned in some crucial and exciting way. Ever since reading that book, I have been obsessed with the beauty of damaged things. Sacks taught me that being broken is nothing to be ashamed of. It is the best way to really understand life.

Red Sky at Dawn, Fiction, Issue 28, September 1, 2014

Biography

I work in catering and have done for the last few years, before that I worked repairing mobile phones and also in a grocery store. I have also worked in proofreading and write fiction in my spare time. I have had work published in Robot and Raygun and Fabula Argentea.

I both live and work in Norwich, England where I can be found indulging in red wine and heavy metal while cynically plotting my neighbours' downfall.

Get to know James...

Birthdate? January 3rd, 1984

When did you start writing? I started writing originally doing fan fiction in my early and mid-twenties for games such as Bioshock, World of Warcraft and Mass Effect which I shared with other fans on various websites. After doing this for a while I decided to try doing my own stuff and took some creative writing classes.

When and what and where did you first get published? The first story I had appeared a couple of years ago in a Canadian publication called Separate Worlds, a short story about the day in the life of a young man in a London heavily afflicted by climate change. 

What themes do you like to write about? I tend to focus predominantly on science fiction and fantasy, though I prefer to focus on personal issues and character struggles within alternate settings. I frequently write about individuals trapped into certain situations they have little or no control over, people both with and without power locked into political or social institutions they have little or no control over. Earlier this year I had a short story published about a group of individuals on different sides in a conflict forced into an escalating level of violence and altering their personalities in order to present a false image to others.

What books and/or stories have most resonated with you as an author? Why? How do these stories and their characters find expression in your work? I'm particularly influenced by Dune by Frank Herbert and the Song of Ice and Fire series from George R R Martin. I love the world building in both as well as the focus on individuals and the string of unintended consequences their actions arise. Although I enjoy reading genre fiction, the pieces I admire the most are those which tend to follow stronger senses of realism and character driven pieces. 

A Catechism for Pride, Fiction, Issue 11, June 1, 2010

Godblocker, Fiction, Issue 20, September 1, 2012

Spirits in the Salt, Fiction, Issue 23, June 1, 2013

Stroppy Cow, Fiction, Issue 31, June 1, 2015

T.D. Edge ran away from home to travel around Britain, becoming a street theatre performer, props maker for the Welsh Opera, sign writer, schools caretaker, soft toys salesman, and professional palm-reader at Pink Floyd gigs. This gave him plenty of stuff to write about. His children's novels have been published by Random House, Scholastic, Hutchinson and others. His adult short fiction has appeared in numerous places. Terry is also a creative writing teacher, working with groups and individuals, also tutoring with government departments and Denman College. He's very proud of being the youngest-ever England Subbuteo Champion. More at: www.td-edge.com.

Get to know T.D...

Birthday? 13th August 1952

When did you start writing? Decided to be a writer aged 10 (1962)

When and what and where did you first get published? Flymo and Shedbuilder, children's novel, published by Andre Deutsch in 1984 in the UK.

What themes do you like to write about? Social equality; challenging established authority; love.

What books and/or stories have most resonated with you as an author? Why? How do these stories and their characters find expression in your work? My favourite book is The Once and Future King by T.H. White. It resonated with me because of the very powerful combination of universal themes and the author's own beliefs and passions. That, and the wonderful way the writing moves through child-like in the first part, "The Sword in the Stone", to dark and adult for the last, "The Candle in the Wind." I've always tried to do something similar with my writing: put my own values and beliefs into the stories but without being obtrusive, and match the style to the subject matter.

Ray Bradbury and Theodore Sturgeon were great influences on me. Bradbury for his imagination and prose and Sturgeon for, again, introducing very powerful emotions based on his own beliefs. In terms of writing style, I learned a lot from YA authors in the 70s - like M.E. Kerr, Katherine Paterson, E.L. Konigsburg - who wrote very sparsely and were/are brilliant at capturing characters by intimation, dialogue and thought.

The Book Traveler, Flash, Issue 67, summer 2024

Karl El-Koura lives with his family in Canada's capital city and works a regular job in daylight while writing fiction at night. Visit www.ootersplace.com to learn more about his work. 

Get to know Karl...

When did you start writing? 

I wrote my first short story with the goal of sending it to an editor (rather than for fun or a school assignment) when I was about 15. I read a lot of Asimov at the time, and this story was a feghoot inspired by many of his. Decades later, I still like the story (“Lost Eternity,” which started a series of connected feghoots collected in a short book called The Lost Stories.)

When and what and where did you first get published?

It took another few years to sell one of my stories. This one was called “They Came From Ooter’s Place” and was published in a speculative fiction magazine called SpaceWays Weekly in March of 1998. SpaceWays was ahead of its time and delivered a new short story to subscribers’ inboxes every week. My story is available to read for free on my website: http://www.ootersplace.com/books/ootersplace/they-came-from-ooters-place/

Why do you write?

Not a humble man, Hemingway said, “I like to do and can do many things better than I can write, but when I don’t write I feel like shit.” I’m not sure I can do many things better than I can write, and I tend to use less colourful language, but I do feel better when I’m working on a story. Writing comes with its own challenges and frustrations, but very few activities give me more satisfaction.

Cronus, Fiction, Issue 66, Spring 2024

J.M. Eno's work has appeared or is forthcoming in L’Esprit Literary Review, House of Zolo's Journal of Speculative Literature, The Cobalt Review, Radon Journal, Stupefying Stories, Short Edition, Zooscape, The Fabulist, and various anthologies. He can be found among the trees with his family and a recalcitrant English bulldog or on Twitter at @jmenowrites. 

Get to know J.M. Eno...

Birthdate?

February 1, 1988

When did you start writing?

I've been writing my entire life in one form or another. One of my earliest memories is hand-sewing a book I had written and illustrated called "The Deadly Spider." It didn't have the strongest characters or plot, but it did have spectacle and probably presaged the strange things I write now.

When and what and where did you first get published?

My first published story was "The Tale the Rat King" at Zooscape Zine. It's a fun little story about the nature of storytelling, which I suppose is appropriate for a first publication.

Why do you write?

There are many reasons, but perhaps chief among them is because I enjoy it. I derive a lot of pleasure from the mix of creative and analytical thinking it takes to put together stories.

Why do you write Science Fiction and/or Fantasy?

I have a four-year-old daughter. When we play creatively, she alters the constraints of reality in any way she sees fit to serve the purpose of the play. Why should it be any different when I write?

Who is your favorite author? Your favorite story?

I'm going to cheat and give you two. In my adult life, my favorite authors have been Haruki Murakami and Gene Wolfe. I think both of them are at their strongest when they are operating in that slippery borderland between reality and the speculative. 

For favorite story, I will cheat again by choosing "Forlesen" and "The Changeling" by Wolfe. Of course, his novel The Fifth Head of Cerberus is a collection of three extremely strong stories, each compelling in its own way and even better when read together. Don't get me started on Wolfe or we'll be here all day.

What are you trying to say with your fiction?

I think ultimately fiction is written to convey something that cannot be said otherwise. It's a bit of saying, "This is how the world is for me. Is it the same for you?" I hope my work conveys some piece of that.

Do you blog?

Yes, on no particular schedule, at jmenowrites.com.

Terminals, Fiction, Issue 35, June 1, 2016 

Angela Enos has been published in A Café in Space, Flapperhouse, Niteblade Magazine, Visibility Fiction, Nonbinary Review's alphanumeric, and Body Parts Magazine. She is also a designer and artist whose work in theatre has been seen across the United States. Find her on Twitter at @angelaenos. 

Joel Enos is a writer and editor who has written comics (Sonic the Hedgehog) and graphic novels (Ben 10 Omniverse) and published short fiction in Whispers from the Abyss, Visibility Fiction and Flapperhouse. His recent editing projects include Jason McNamara and Greg Hinkle’s The Rattler and Jeremy Haun and Jason A. Hurley’s The Beauty, both for Image Comics. Visit him at www.joelenos.com.

Get to know Joel and Angela...

Birthday? Joel and Angela were raised by the same two people though they sometimes think it was in different parallel dimensions. The goose told them this was possible as it chased them down the path.

When did you start writing? As soon as we could write and before that, as soon as we could get someone else to write them down for us while we dictated. Though this is what we heard from the parrot and he is not to be trusted.

When and what and where did you first get published? We've both done other different types of writing, including comics, journalism, academic essays, but our first fiction short story as a sibling duo was "Both of Djuna," published in 2014 in Flapperhouse Quarterly.

What themes do you like to write about? The inner lives of quietly fascinating strangers throughout history, only sometimes they're robots and what others may refer to as monsters.

What books and/or stories have most resonated with you as an author? Why? How do these stories and their characters find expression in your work? We share a fondness for the Brontes as well as recent novels like Station 11 by Emily St. John Mandell and Frog Music by Emma Donoghue. Stories that bring you to a dreamlike state inspire us to try harder to focus on liminal persons and places, frontiers and the strange beautiful hucksters who populate the worlds in our heads.

Afterbirth, Flash Fiction, Issue 4,  September 1, 2008

M P Ericson's short fiction has been published in several magazines, most recently Clarkesworld and Andromeda Spaceways. She lives on the edge of a moor in Yorkshire, England, with an assortment of spiders and mice.

Get to know M.P...

Birthdate? 1970

When did you start writing? When I could hold a crayon.

When and what and where did you first get published? A short story in a school magazine, circa 1987.

Why do you write? Otherwise I don't sleep.

Why do you write Science Fiction and/or Fantasy? Fantasy, because in this genre story is paramount--everything, even fact, has to bend to it.

Who is your favorite author? Your favorite story? Terry Pratchett. Good Omens.

What are you trying to say with your fiction? Identity is all we have.

Do you blog? No.

If you could write your own epitaph, what would it say? She had a lot of fun.

A Catechism for Pride, Fiction, Issue 11, June 1, 2010

T.D. Edge ran away from home to travel around Britain, becoming a street theatre performer, props maker for the Welsh Opera, sign writer, schools caretaker, soft toys salesman, and professional palm-reader at Pink Floyd gigs. This gave him plenty of stuff to write about. His children's novels have been published by Random House, Scholastic, Hutchinson and others. His adult short fiction has appeared in numerous places. Terry is also a creative writing teacher, working with groups and individuals, also tutoring with government departments and Denman College. He's very proud of being the youngest-ever England Subbuteo Champion. More at: www.td-edge.com.

Get to know T.D...

Birthday? 13th August 1952

When did you start writing? Decided to be a writer aged 10 (1962)

When and what and where did you first get published? Flymo and Shedbuilder, children's novel, published by Andre Deutsch in 1984 in the UK.

What themes do you like to write about? Social equality; challenging established authority; love.

What books and/or stories have most resonated with you as an author? Why? How do these stories and their characters find expression in your work? My favourite book is The Once and Future King by T.H. White. It resonated with me because of the very powerful combination of universal themes and the author's own beliefs and passions. That, and the wonderful way the writing moves through child-like in the first part, "The Sword in the Stone", to dark and adult for the last, "The Candle in the Wind." I've always tried to do something similar with my writing: put my own values and beliefs into the stories but without being obtrusive, and match the style to the subject matter.

Ray Bradbury and Theodore Sturgeon were great influences on me. Bradbury for his imagination and prose and Sturgeon for, again, introducing very powerful emotions based on his own beliefs. In terms of writing style, I learned a lot from YA authors in the 70s - like M.E. Kerr, Katherine Paterson, E.L. Konigsburg - who wrote very sparsely and were/are brilliant at capturing characters by intimation, dialogue and thought.

For the Plight of Its Children, Fiction, Issue 22, March 1, 2013

Biography

Born in Nanaimo, C.R. Esaryk currently lives abroad in search of stories and a meaningful world.

Get to know C.R...

When did you start writing? Stories I began writing independently as a young teenager--they always seemed to involve the world exposed as a hologram, and lots of angst.

When and what and where did you first get published? An essay in 1st-year University about Modernist writing & "the ordinary."

What themes do you like to write about? Love, absurd love, hopeless love. Really anything sappy and all mixed up.

What books and/or stories have most resonated with you as an author? I've always had a special respect for The Giver by Louis Lowry.

The Sacred Path of the Ishir, Nonfiction, Issue 60, Fall 2022

My name is Mariana Escobar, I am 25 years old and I am Paraguayan. I was born and raised in Asuncion, although now I live in Utah with my husband and my one year old daughter.  I have always been interested in Ancient and Mediaeval History, instead of in the present, which is the reason why I have always been attracted to Myths and Legends, because I found that in them I could discover the characteristics, the beliefs, and the culture of the civilizations that told them.

 I started writing when I was about 15 years old, mainly poems in Spanish. I have always loved reading, so I thought it would be nice to try my luck as a writer. When my dad got sick with cancer, I discovered that writing had become almost a necessity, as an outlet for all my feelings that were pent up. As I have grown and matured, I have turned more into scholarly reading and whenever I do write, it is mostly academically related.  I could say more but I am really bad at writing about myself, and I prefer for my work to speak instead.

Thank you for reading

The Path, Flash Fiction, Issue #64, Fall 2023

Richard Evanoff has lived most of his adult life in Japan and been active in literary circles in Tokyo as a poet, writer, editor, and performer. His short stories have appeared in Dream International Quarterly, Mind in Motion, Printed Matter, and other publications.

Get to know Richard...

Birthdate?

 July 15, 1956

When did you start writing?

When I was about sixteen -- a story about a man who crawls through a dark passage to be reunited with his dead wife.

When and what and where did you first get published?

"The Path" is based on a poem published in the Milligan College (Tennessee) literary journal, Helicon, in 1976.

Why do you write?

As a fellow writer once said, "It's just something I do, like breathing and eating." 

Why do you write Science Fiction and/or Fantasy?

As another fellow writer told me, "Never let reality get in the way of truth."

Who is your favorite author? Your favorite story?

The short stories of Poe ("The Oval Portrait"),  Kafka ("Description of a Struggle"), and Hesse ("Augustus")

What are you trying to say with your fiction?

What cannot be said (see William Franke's "The Philosophy of the Unsayable") 

If you could write your own epitaph, what would it say?

 (This poem instead of an epitaph)

If I could choose my own death

      I would run till I fell from exhaustion,

   exhilarated, spent, not thinking a thing,

         collapsing happily on a downy cushion of grass,

      my body melting into the soft brown earth

            in a place that nobody knows. 

A Canvas Dark and Deep, Fiction, Issue 41, December 2017

Any Landing, Fiction, Issue 44, September 2018

Robert Mitchell Evans has been a sailor, a dishwasher, a shipyard worker, a cashier, and currently his day-job is in the non-profit healthcare industry. He resides in San Diego, California and can frequently be found haunting southern California SF conventions. His SF/Noir novel Vulcan's Forge will be available from FlameTree Press in March 2020.

Http: www.robertmitchellevans.com

1492, Poetry, Issue 21, December 1, 2012

Piano Waterfall, Poetry, Issue 26, March 1, 2014

Vulture Bone Flute, Poetry, Issue 53, December 2020

Gary Every Gary Every has been nominated for the Rhysling Award seven times. He has two science fiction novellas available "Inca Butterflies" and "The Saint and the Robot". As a journalist he has won regional awards for articles such as "The Apache Naichee Ceremony" and "Losing Geronimo's Language" stories which are included in his book "Shadow of the OhshaD"

Get to know Gary...

Birthdate? 9/28/1960

When did you start writing? I have always written stories for as long as I could remember. I was the oldest child of a single mom and babysitting was always a lot easier if my brothers and sisters were sitting still while I told them stories.

When and what and where did you first get published? In the 1980's, The Weekly, a free arts, entertainment, and politics magazine distributed free had a contest on the back page called Dust Devils:  Write a short story of 75 words or less for $5. One year I think was in something crazy like 37 issues. 

What themes do you like to write about? Wilderness of the Soul. The southwest, archaeology in general and Native Americans in particular.

What books and/or stories have most resonated with you as an author? Why? How do these stories and their characters find expression in your work? Ray Bradbury and Farenheit 451. I saw Ray Bradbury speak when i was around junior high and the Viet Nam War was coming to a close. Bradbury said "How many of you are going to burn your draft cards?"

A wild cheer went up from the crowd.

Bradbury shouted "Down with the Military Industrial complex. Up with the revolution"

The crowd cheered again.

Bradbury asked the crowd "How many of you are going to burn your driver's licenses?"

Silence.

Bradbury reminds, "But that's part of the military industrial complex too"