Yay, I have a new story coming out.

For those of you paying attention at home, I have written elsewhere about CampCon, the annual summer camping/writing weekend in central Oregon. Last year was my first visit (I’ll be back this year, hopefully).

There were about a dozen writers there, all furiously heads-down generating new stuff. During the weekend, Phyl suggested that we should do an anthology on a theme. Considering the circumstances, the consensus was that everyone would do a science-fictiony kind of story related to camping and wilderness. As I have also mentioned elsewhere, my first two stories were fun and turned out well, but didn’t fit the category. (First attempt turned into Valeriya, which led directly to Tatiyana. Second attempt became The Librarian.)

After a fit of silliness and creativity, I ended up writing a story in a whole new universe. The result is The Shipwrecked Mermaid. It’s a story about an alien scientist, a mermaid, who gets trapped inland by a tsunami and needs help to survive and escape. I’m rather proud of it, and I think it turned out pretty good (IMHO).

I liked this story so much that I took the main character, a convict/chef named Rick Pine, and wrote what will turn into my second novel (due out this summer), called Imposters. (More information about Rick, Imposters, and The Collective when we get closer.)

Back to the Anthology.

Irene Radford is the editor. She is an absolutely wonderful lady and I highly recommend her to anyone who loves fantasy and SF. Because Leah is so well organized on the topic, Ms. Radford asked Knotted Road Press to handle publishing it. All told, there are about a dozen authors represented, and we cover science fiction, fantasy, serious, and silly. Sometimes, all in the same story.

The result is Tales From An Alien Campfire. It will be officially published on Tuesday, but it is already available now here. And apparently already has reviews, but that might be because at least one of Dr. Amy’s friends has already ordered it.