Written in the stars

Very pleased to announce that my story, Deep Draw, will appear in a new anthology called Astrologica : Stories of the Zodiac. The anthology is edited by Allen Ashley and will be published by The Alchemy Press in November, with a launch event during the World Fantasy Convention in Brighton.

This story…well, it’s a bit of a strange one. Astrology is not a subject I’m particularly interested in and, were an editor with an eye for the subtle and unusual, like Allen, not in charge, I probably wouldn’t have considered taking on the challenge. Even once I’d decided to give it a shot, I wasn’t sure what I would write about.

But then I had an idea about water that I realized might chime with the sign of Aquarius. So, I did some research into the attributes of Aquarians and discovered that they were said to be creative thinkers and good communicators (which makes them natural raconteurs, right?), but at the same time are reticent to discuss personal feelings (but secretive raconteurs…). So, I put fingers to keys to see what would happen and ended up with a story about sharing stories. About the ubiquity of water and the seemingly random links between strangers. With glints of mythology sparkling through.

Deep Draw is unlike any story I’ve written before–it’s structurally challenging and was difficult get right–but I’m glad I wrote it and really pretty chuffed with the result.

So maybe it was fate after all. Maybe I was always going to write a story about astrology. You never know what’s written in the stars, do you?