Will you drown for this? Will you go down for this?

[sovay]

My short story "Tea with the Earl of Twilight" is now online at Nightmare Magazine.

It was written in late January and early February, which feels now like even more of a foreign country than your average past; at the time it felt almost bleeding-edge for my fiction, growing as it did out of that month's explorations of Broad Canal. Readers from that time may also detect echoes of ITV's Casting the Runes (1979) and my interest in the Precisionist art style, particularly the work of Charles Sheeler. I don't construct soundtracks specifically for stories, but I tend to gravitate while writing toward music that in some way resonates with the work in progress, and I wrote this one almost entirely to MGMT's "In the Afternoon," Desperate Journalist's In Search of the Miraculous (2019), especially "International Waters," and a potentially hazardous amount of Belbury Poly, especially "The Geography." I am indebted to ashlyme for the title.

I didn't expect the hauntology of this story to bend back on itself, although I don't know what else I should have expected. As discussed in the author spotlight, the future I felt ghosting the city was gentrification and climate change. Now the year itself has become another yardstick of a future that never came to pass. I miss the Boston I could wander like the protagonist of this story. We live in formally, taxonomically weird times.

Comments

[ashlyme]

Congratulations!! I loved the author spotlight (and thank you for the mention!). I wouldn't have thought of Boston as a city of water if it wasn't for you.

*a potentially hazardous amount of Belbury Poly, especially "The Geography."*

Ha! I wonder what a hauntological hazmat suit looks like.

[sovay]

Congratulations!! I loved the author spotlight (and thank you for the mention!). I wouldn't have thought of Boston as a city of water if it wasn't for you.

Thank you! You're welcome! Thank you!

It was written in winter, but I like that it's come out at the start of autumn, the ghost-season. Your gift of a title really did jumpstart it for me.

I wonder what a hauntological hazmat suit looks like.

I'm not sure there is such a thing, unless you count the natural protections of people who don't feel the numinousness of time, whoever they are.

[asakiyume]

I love this story! Hurray for its being out in the world!

[sovay]

I love this story! Hurray for its being out in the world!

Thank you! I am very glad it is! I think it may be the most specifically Boston story I have written to date.

[moon_custafer]

days when the Red Line preferred not to

Heh.

[sovay]

Heh.

It was authentic to the state of public transit at the time!

[moon_custafer]

Also, I’d willingly read more about Sid, Torrey and Daniel and their lives and occasional spectral experiences.

[sovay]

Also, I’d willingly read more about Sid, Torrey and Daniel and their lives and occasional spectral experiences.

Thank you! I like them. I have never yet succeeded in writing recurring characters, I have to warn you.

[a_reasonable_man]

Congratulations! It's a great story. And I love the author spotlight, too. I'm glad for any role I played guiding you towards Nancy's book.

[sovay]

Congratulations! It's a great story. And I love the author spotlight, too. I'm glad for any role I played guiding you towards Nancy's book.

Thank you! You specifically pointed me toward it: I had no idea it existed—that anyone had done that kind of land-mapping research—until you were working with her on The Atlas of Boston History. It still makes me happy.

[gwynnega]

Congratulations! I look forward to reading it.

[sovay]

Congratulations! I look forward to reading it.

Thank you! I hope you enjoy!

[anna_wing]

What an amazing story. This is a place and milieu so absolutely foreign to me that it's like reading ...I don't really have a phrase for it. Real-life science fiction, in a way.

[sovay]

What an amazing story. This is a place and milieu so absolutely foreign to me that it's like reading ...I don't really have a phrase for it. Real-life science fiction, in a way.

Thank you! I am very glad to know that the sense of place comes through so strongly. It's important to me.

[thisbluespirit]

Hello hello I saw this on tumblr and thought of you ♥

[sovay]

Hello hello I saw this on tumblr and thought of you

Thank you! Those are delightful.

[cyphomandra]

I really enjoyed your story! Boston is not a city I’ve encountered outside fiction, but it feels very real here, densely layered with imagery and remembered (or forgotten) history. And the last line is indeed haunting.

[sovay]

I really enjoyed your story! Boston is not a city I’ve encountered outside fiction, but it feels very real here, densely layered with imagery and remembered (or forgotten) history. And the last line is indeed haunting.

Thank you! I wanted it to be the real city, full of real time. And I am especially glad to hear it about the last line. I am not necessarily a linear writer and it was one of the keys of the story from early on.

[swan_tower]

I am (very belatedly) catching up on tabs, and ahahaha -- the cover for Issue #97 of Nightmare is a different image from the same photo shoot that gave me the cover of Monstrous Beauty! What a weird feeling of recognition.

[sovay]

the cover for Issue #97 of Nightmare is a different image from the same photo shoot that gave me the cover of Monstrous Beauty! What a weird feeling of recognition.

That's neat. The art for Nightmare #96 was a submarine surrounded by kraken tentacles, which had nothing to do with any of the stories in the issue, including mine, but I still appreciated it.