It’s that writerly tradition: the year-end post! I don’t always make one, but I usually wish I had. This year I received the gift of an unexpected day off from work and I’m going to make the most of it! 2017 short fiction from me, which I hope you’ll kindly consider when making your award nominations: “Wooden Boxes Lined with the Tongues of Doves”, Beneath Ceaseless Skies: a bleak and difficult start to the year, even more than usual for my work. This story doesn’t make it easy for the reader. “Dinners in Wartime”, Liminal: this one’s also quite bleak, inspired by the suicide of someone I cared about. Trigger warning, friends; I don’t know if this story’s emotional payload will hit you the way it hit me to write, but please take care of yourselves. “Yellowcat”, Grain Magazine: not actually available to read online so you’ll have to trust me on how fantastic it is! “Le lundi de la matraque (Nightstick Monday)”, Strange Horizons: Immortal screwup Gus Hillyard returns in this story of a violent moment in Canadian history. Gus is always willing to take up someone else’s fight, and not always able to tease out who’s right or […]
Daughters of Frankenstein sweepstakes!
Tor.com is holding a sweepstakes–you could win one of three copies of Daughters of Frankenstein by entering here! Read Brit Mandelo’s generous review also. My story “Eldritch Brown Houses” appears in this anthology–my first, and likely last, engagement with Lovecraft, all mashed up with analog photography, loneliness, and witchcraft. Enjoy! […]
2013 in Review(s)
2013 has been an excellent year for me, writing-wise. I’ve sold more stories this year than the last three put together. I’ve learned how to finish stories faster, instead of letting them linger for months in the second-draft stage. I’ve cracked some new markets—really aspirational ones, too. I have also had at least one entire month go by without writing at all, and I’ve failed to make any progress on Draft 2 of my second novel, although I did cap off Draft 1 in an awesome two-week binge last winter. I continue to spend too much time looking around the internet for mentions of my work, time that I should spend honing my craft and reading others’ stories instead. I have a lot to learn about this business. Each hill I crest shows me a wider landscape to map. I’m pretty proud of my 2013 output though. Here are the new stories of mine that came out this year: “The God-Seed” (Crossed Genres, July)Walking up Genesee Road in the country dark, I thought I was seeing the northern lights. Rose-coloured streaks, twisting upward, half-obscured stars on the far side. I stopped and threw my head back to look. Then I […]
More great moments in the life of Clairification, Professional Writer
Yesterday I went to Chapters and bought Imaginarium 2012. Yes: I walked into one of my bookstores and bought a book with my story in it. Somehow it feels bigger than seeing my name in a book in the first place–which was cool and all, but this book was living in the wild. There are more copies there, if you want one! The last few weeks have been rather scattered, from a writing perspective, but I have been immeasurably cheered by an awesome review from Bogi Takács, a blogger I have been reading for a few months, who writes wonderful and cogent reviews on a laudably regular basis, and also a shout-out from Liz Bourke on Tor.com. Let this post serve as an inadequate but heartfelt thanks to everyone who reads my work, whether you respond in public or think about it in private. I’m so glad that some of what I am doing works for you… and I’m so grateful that in turn, you are seeing me, and through your observation, making me real. […]
In which I am reviewed in Romanian
Since I don’t speak Romanian, I am not totally positive what the reviewer said. Here is the Babel Fish translation: The short story Nightfall character in the Scent Garden, by Claire Humphrey, published in the online magazine 05.03.2012, belongs to Horizonsîn Strange ficţiunii romantic. The narration can be classified in the genus ficţiunii, tangential speculative science fiction. Elements of Romance: schematizate characters that look more defined by the choices we make, the consequences of those choices while pursuing them for the rest of life; the action going on around a sundial, in a lush garden; epic thread also ranks among the more experienced feelings of characters, rather than a certain determinism. end of story, composed in the dubitativă key. What makes me recommend this story: the originality of the composition of the text; narrative freshness, in spite of the abundance of the elements, inspired, poetic. This charms the heck out of me. It’s kind of like overhearing a conversation in a washroom where a stranger says “…and that awesome girl with the yellow shoes” and you are wearing yours, and you know it’s you, and you’ll never know exactly what makes you awesome, but you’ll know there is something. This […]
In which we have shameless self-googling
In today’s news, the internet has awesome things: Beyond Binary received a starred review at Publishers Weekly “Nightfall in the Scent Garden” received thoughtful reviews from Tangent and Locus “Bleaker Collegiate” was also reviewed at Tangent a while ago I really like it when people talk about my work. I also like talking about other people’s work: “My Dignity in Scars” by Cory Skerry: I read the demons in this fascinating story as a metaphor for cancer, maybe, an illness that takes people on a long journey away from the familiar. An illness that can become inseparable from a person’s identity, and even a source of strength. “Chorus of the Dead” by S.E. Gale: sorrowful and sweet, exploring the collision between a quotidian life and the enormous strangeness of death And finally, congratulations to the winners of the Friends of the Merril Contest! […]