Tag: news

Short story in Kaleidotrope

On By Julia AugustIn Fiction, Fiction elsewhere, Short Story

It’s July and I’m back in my favourite zine with a story (science fiction, very rare for me) about a dam and the problem of power transmission. It’s called Transmission Systems.

Top-secret corporate communications, report the secret police to their superiors. Highly suspicious, most likely an attempt by the opposition to influence the election, and the military security man, filing his report on the secret policemen rather later, remarks that: José is cheating on his mistress with Aníbal’s wife who is certainly blackmailing him for our eastern quadrant comrades. Recommend to keep under observation. But none of them stay long enough to see the message divide…

There are so many other great pieces in this issue. Look at the table of contents!

Flash in Cosmic Horror Monthly’s Patreon Series

On By Julia AugustIn Fiction, Fiction elsewhere, Flash fiction, Short Story

Cosmic Horror Monthly is running a series of Patreon-only flash pieces: this month’s is mine! Dunwich Revisited, a tiny quiet reflective walk around a Lovecraft-flavoured valley.

Poem in Fantasy

On By Julia AugustIn poetry

A tiny new departure for me. I have written three poems since I was eighteen; the third of them is in this month’s issue of Fantasy Magazine, available to subscribers here. It will go online later this month, but of course you should subscribe and get the whole fantastic issue right now.

My piece is called The End of Little Dreams and it is a poem for anyone getting through the day by thinking very, very hard about the place they are definitely going to have sometime:

It’s 6.18am and you are looking at / reproduction William de Morgan tiles / and Morris & Co fabrics on John Lewis…

Short story in Kaleidotrope

On By Julia AugustIn Uncategorized

The summer issue of Kaleidotrope is out and I have a new short story in it: ‘With Flowers in Her Hair’, about Emma, who finds a creepy girl in the woods and brings her home and mostly doesn’t regret this, although some other people do. And it’s about the things you find under the mountains, and knowing when to turn a blind eye, and how Ann, a very creepy girl, accidentally turned her bones to stone.

For this I read half of Agricola’s De Re Metallica and borrowed a bit from the story of Rübezahl. One day I’ll read the whole thing.

Flash in On Spec Issue #116 vol 31.2

On By Julia AugustIn Fiction, Fiction elsewhere, Flash fiction, Short Story

The latest issue of On Spec is out, featuring my very short story ‘The Opportunity Costs of Adventure: Unsent Emails from Stephen Greenwood’s Drafts Folder’. Did you ever wonder what it does to your career when you keep running off to save the world? Dr Greenwood (last seen in The Journal of Unlikely Academia‘s ‘Soteriology and Stephen Greenwood’) would really like to tell you! However, he’s not going to, because nothing ruins a reputation faster than emailing a professional mailing list about apocalypse and ancient prophecy. Maybe he’ll just save that email to Drafts.

Detail of Onspec cover.
‘The Opportunity Costs of Adventure’. You wouldn’t believe how difficult it is to smuggle a vial of lion’s blood and a ceremonial knife through a Turkish airport nowadays…

Lackington’s #18 free to read

On By Julia AugustIn Fiction, Fiction elsewhere, Short Story

The “Magics” issue of Lackington’s is now free to read, including my little Roman ghost story, Prima Fuit, Finis Erit.

First Cynthia caught me with her fulminating eyes. O me miserum! Captive and collared, a fool never before touched. Now she, trailing charred Coan silk, her curls breathing cold perfume, leans over my bed: We shall lie together, you and I…

… but of course you should check out the whole amazing issue. I have said this before, but Propertius is my favourite of the Augustan lyric poets, partly just because of all the Augustan lyric girlfriends only Cynthia gets to speak for herself. And what she says is almost never flattering to Propertius.

Detail of Pear Nuallak’s gorgeous illustration!

DFF Reprint: Bitter Water

On By Julia AugustIn Anthology, Fiction elsewhere, News, Short Story

In 2014 I had a secondary world adventure story called ‘Bitter Water’ published in the anthology Triangulation: Parched (ed. Stephen V. Ramey), featuring sand, bandits, extremely aggrieved merchants, alarming spirit-haunted mountains and some rather unkind practical jokers. Now it’s been reprinted by Digital Fantasy Fiction as an e-book, which I am delighted about, because the characters in it remain among my personal favourites. You can get it both on its own and as part of an anthology of ten awesome fantasy stories. So, you know. Why not?

DFF cover - short story

DFF cover - anthology

Short Story in 3LBE #28

On By Julia AugustIn Fiction, Fiction elsewhere, Short Story

I have a new short story in 3LBE #28: Delia’s Door, a piece about music, escapism and the power of inertia. It’s a little melancholic, but on the plus side: no body horror.

The first time I saw the summer country was when the first fugue of Vivaldi’s Dixit came together, finally, for a single perfect moment one wintry night. The rain beat against the drafty windows and fifty voices sang out together, split into two choirs, which means eight different harmony lines, which is quite hard when you’ve only got six tenors and seven basses to start with, and for once, for once it sounded as if we were really singing what Vivaldi had written.

I saw it then. A wash of blue and gold lit up the old school hall turned community centre, splashing raggedly across the choir notice boards and institutional paint and hundred-year-old prize lists full of familiar names, and through a hole as evanescent as a soap bubble I saw a new horizon: green hills, summer sunset skies, a long perspective onto light and color and a different country, far away — yet one I could reach if I could just step through the door our singing had opened up…

I may as well admit now that the quickest way to get my attention is to have a really good singing voice, preferably bass. For this reason, my favourite dragon is Fafner. (Sorry, Glaurung; sorry, Smaug.) Anyway, you should certainly check out the issue! The full table of contents is: