Below, dear reader, please find bonus content for Suzanne’s book: ELEMENTS: A Collection of Speculative Fiction.
This series of posts provides stories-behind-the-stories for each tale in ELEMENTS.
Sitting in the 13th slot in the Table of Contents is: Tattoo Ink
From January 2 to February 12 2005, I attended Clarion South in Brisbane, Australia. What an adventure! I certainly learned more about writing and editing in those six weeks than I had learned up until that point in my writing career.
One of my classmates, Shane Jiraiya Cummings and Angela Challis edited the innovative charity anthology Shadow Box. The project was described as, “a fusion of dark art and flash fiction lashed together with multimedia nastiness.” With 70 stories, creepy music, and twisted artwork, the anthology arrived on a CD and was well worth the money.
I looked through my old emails and couldn’t recall the tight word-count guidelines for submissions, but I believe the maximum was 125 words.
Not very many words at all!
I was delighted to learn that Tattoo Ink would be included in the project.
On some level, I believe that my research into the tattoo arts not only inspired this tale, but also the rules for tattooing the population in Destiny Lives in the Tattoo’s Needle.
Fun Fact
I began blogging after my two-week writing workshop at the Center for the Study of Sciece Fiction in Kansas in the summer of 2004. Lucky for me, I was comfortable enough with blogging that I was able to blog during my Clarion South trip.
And although Clarion is one of those experiences you can only have once, my thoughts and insights will exist online as long as LiveJournal stays in business.
While some of the links might no longer be active, you can still read my Clarion South adventures on LiveJournal.
ELEMENTS: A Collection of Speculative Fiction is available in Canada and the USA from EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing.
