“Siren” heads into SF with a slight horror element. The story is tense and the character’s well crafted. The reader will find themselves immersed in this tight tale and left with a sense of both wonder and dread at the end. This story pushed several of my buttons as a reader and editor. There was no way I could resist it.

Sky-Tinted Waters is available from Sam’s Dot Publishing.

I picked “Tutivillus” because it is a fine tale, delving deeply into temptation and redemption without being heavy-handed, I placed it first in the anthology not only because of its strength as a story, but because I wanted to hit the reader hard and let them know this anthology was going to be full of surprises.

“Tutivillus” originally appeared in the chapbook Tales from the Black Dog.

Sky-Tinted Waters is available from Sam’s Dot Publishing.

Northern Lights was selling well, an anthology of stories by local writers being a hit with the Minnesota crowd. I asked Tyree if he would like to publish another anthology in conjunction with MinnSpec. He agreed, and we set a tentative publication date for early 2012. I brought Eli Effinger-Weintraub, another MinnSpec member, on board as copy editor.

I sent out a call for submissions to the group. The stories arrived in my email inbox. All of the stories were high-quality. These twenty stood out for various reasons. Of the twenty-one author’s, nine had appeared in the previous anthology, so it was good to get some new blood between the pages

This second anthology was significantly easier to get off the ground than the first, proving the value of both networking and having a product that sold reasonably well against which to measure another potential project. It is my hope that you enjoy reading Sky-Tinted Waters as much as I enjoyed putting it together!

Michael Merriam
Hopkins, Minnesota
2012

With Sky-Tinted Waters, award winning small-press publisher Sam’s Dot Publishing and the 350+ member strong Minnesota Speculative Fiction Writers follow up their successful Northern Lights: 20 MinnSpec Tales anthology with twenty new tales certain to thrill, entertain, and illuminate. Within these pages the reader will find exciting fantasy, horror, and science fiction stories featuring:

…Rampaging steam-powered constructs
…Bioengineered killer squirrels
…Military serums filled with nanotech
…A demon who pounces on mispronounced words
…An invisible flying pony
…The two worst friends in the world at the edge of space

…And fourteen more tales of adventure, enchantment, humor, terror, magic and science gone wrong, the unexplained, and the unanticipated by twenty authors ranging from debut talents to established professionals in the field of speculative fiction.

Sky-Tinted Waters is available from Sam’s Dot Publishing.

But the biggest change I need to make is in my head.

I’ve actually been floundering around as a writer for the last year or so. I haven’t been producing at the rate I’m used to. I’ve been second guessing myself too much. In my head, I do a lot of saying to myself, “Yes. But…” “Yes. But…” could drive one crazy, if one let it.

Here has been my problem: I’ve been afraid; afraid to really let go and write the things that come from deep down in the scary places. The fact is, most of my short fiction, while perfectly fine, is also a little workman like at times. There is nothing wrong with this. I’ve written many stories like this, solid and entertaining pieces of fiction that sold to good markets and that people have enjoyed.

But every once in a while, I write something that…well, it sings. Should We Drown in Feathered Sleep might be the best thing I’ve ever written. “Out Among the Singing Void,” “All the Leaves Your Bed,” and “Fetch” all had that same feel, came from that same place, earlier in my writing career. There are moments in both Last Car to Annwn Station and even in Horror at Cold Springs that, while not at all the same in theme, tone, or use of language, when I wrote them I felt the story resonate deep down in my bones and soul. Not always. But enough to know I was doing something veryvery right. The piece I just finished, The Intimacy of Books, also had those moments.

But those moments when I give over and let the deep places have free range, when I let all the stuff–dark and light both–that I keep buried inside come to the surface and spill onto the page, when I set aside my fear of language and experimentation and strive for something beyond my normal style, those times scare me even as I feel (dear Tiny Gods, this is going to sound like I’m waxing mystical or some bullshit) a little transcendent.

I need to give myself permission to write from that place. I know that is why the Lowry Hill Tunnel Troll story keeps stalling. Because I start to write from that place and then I get scared and pull back. And this story is demanding nothing less than my best. I know this is why I’ve shied away from the Spear of Destiny novel for the last five years. I lie and say it’s because of the amount of research I need to do make this novel work, but really, it’s fear. I know what this novel is going to demand of me, and I’m afraid: afraid to let myself write from the deep place, afraid that I’m not up to the task the novel will demand of me, afraid the story will not live up to what I have in my mind.

I am afraid I’m going to fail the story.

I need to stop being afraid. I need to give myself permission to write from the scary places, the hard places, the places deep down inside. And if I do, maybe, just maybe, the story will sing…