Stories From Space Camp

I have a new story, Star-Crossed, out in Stories From Space Camp. Stories From Space Camp is a scifi zine with an issue theme of assimilation / liberation.

Star-Crossed is about aliens and alienation. Although I’ve been writing science fiction since I was a teenager, most of it has never seen the light of day. For good reason, that is. Either I like the world but nothing interesting happens, or there’s no particularly reason to set the action in the Delta Quadrant. I’m happy with Star-Crossed, though. There’s a different world, characters perform actions, there’s not too much exposition, and the story resolves.

After The Subway Bride, though, I felt a bit awkward talking about it. Hey Meg, didn’t you just finish a story that’s basically about being transplanted in a slightly-twisted South? Yes, yes I did.

I wrote Star-Crossed in the spring, before I began teaching at Youth Digital, and sent it off to Stories From Space Camp, and didn’t really think about it until it arrived. When I reread my story, I found this whole secondary (tertiary?) theme about finding satisfaction in challenging work and good colleagues, even if the job isn’t quite what you’d expected.

(Also, I’m incapable of rereading anything I wrote without wanting to go back and make changes. )

Speaking of surprises from my subconscious,  I recently came across an old paperback of E Pluribus Unicorn (from high school, you know, when I thought I would be a science fiction writer), and reread it. Apparently the story The World Well Lost made a larger impression on me than I’d thought, because of the arcs in Star-Crossed is not so much inspired-by, more stolen-from.

Anyway, new story, I don’t hate it, it’s on dead trees and it’s part of a really lovely collection. Plus it was mailed with a candy bar, which is how all zines should arrive.