Read The Gyre at The Colored Lens

The Land Baby by John Collier

I wrote my mermaid story, The Gyre, a couple years ago, and workshopped it at ArmadilloCon 2011 with Paolo Bacigalupi. It made the rounds and was parked at a couple publications for quite a while, but now I'm thrilled that it's finally found a home at The Colored Lens. If you haven't heard of this great publication be sure to check them out. Their website is packed with great stuff. Here's what they're about in their own words:

The Colored Lens: Spring 2013

"The goal of speculative fiction has always been to examine the real world through the lens of the imaginary. By considering what could be, we gain a better understanding of what is. The Colored Lens strives to do exactly that. By publishing four to five short stories and serialized novellas a quarter in genres ranging from fantasy, to science fiction, to slipstream or magical realism, we hope to help our readers see the world just a bit differently than before they came to us."

Actually their spring issue has been available for nearly a month. I didn't have a specific publication date for this one and then I got busy and forgot to check. You can buy the whole 200+ page issue for Kindle for just $2.99 or borrow it for free with Amazon Prime. After the summer issue is published, the spring issue stories will begin to roll out on their website, where you can read them for free.

When I wrote The Gyre, there were a couple news stories about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and for some reason it got me thinking about what mermaids might be like in the modern world. I reread Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid and was struck by how different it was from the Disney version, which has supplanted his far more tragic tale in popular culture.

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