I’m very happy to report that my story “Nixie,” which originally appeared last year in Terror Tales of Chaos, edited by Paul Finch, has been selected for reprint in The Best Weird Fiction of the Year, vol.
I used to teach The Lottery to my unwilling students and one thing I will say about that story is that it's really fucking boring right up until the end when everyone suddenly sits up and goes, what the actual fuck?! Haha! It was always a good trigger to get students talking about conformity, tradition, and so on. Congrats on your story, btw!
Oh wow, you know, I never thought of it as being boring before, but I went and got it out and looked at it (it's also at least twice as long than I remembered it being) and now I'm wondering--is it boring to you because it's so mundane for so much of it, because she doesn't effectively create a rising sense of menace during that mundanity, or because the village and the people feel kind of generic? That's the issue I have with it, I think--the last one--but that careful chronicling of a mundane day is something she does really well (imo) in other stories, including "The Summer People" and "The Demon Lover." But I can also see where people might read those stories and find them boring.
I've also had an unwelcome flashback to teaching "The Yellow Wallpaper", also to unwilling students, and having several say why did that woman act that way, her husband was just trying to help her! 😕
Oh I always thought it was boring on purpose. The setting, the characters, it's all intended to be another hundrum day in a place that could be anywhere. Just utterly ordinary. The ending makes it all look horribly sinister, but you don't feel that when you're reading. You're like omg get on with it. When they're picking lots, you're like, ffs stop moaning about it being unfair and just accept it. Then you realise you have been urging on her death. And then you're like, wait, even the kids had to pick lots. Wtf. I don't think it's a mistake that it doesn't grip you with strangeness and foreboding because actually that's not the experience she's trying to give you. Instead she wants you to witness yourself as part of the horror and say, but I didn't know! And everyone is so ordinary, how could you have known? I think that's really why she got so much hate mail about it. But maybe that's just something I made up to give the students something to think about 😅
Really good one, Lynda. Congrats on your story's inclusion in The Best Weird Fiction of the Year, and I am happy to report that I finally got one of your collections, The Moon one, and look forward to reading more by you.
This was such a powerful piece to read. I hadn't heard the Philip Glass remix of Heart of Glass so thank you for introducing it to me. The Summer People is one of my favourite Shirley Jackson stories because it is so unsettling. Congratulations on Nixie being accepted elsewhere!
Thanks so much, Carole, and I'm glad you enjoyed that remix! It really is very haunting. "The Summer People" is such a great story. I started a story a few years ago that is kind of a riff on it but only wrote a couple of pages on it; maybe one of these days I'll go back to it.
Ooof. This was so great but also hard to read in a way. I could barely watch that clip because it all felt too familiar. And now I'm thinking/wondering if I've been reading so much WWII history lately because I want to read about someone else's rupture, a rupture that I know ultimately turned out "okay."
I think my two favorite rupture books/series are the Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy and Connie Willis' Blackout and All Clear. I think you might like both, if you haven't read them.
I have read the Pullman (loved it!), and while I was writing the sentences about time travel I remembered that you had recommended that Connie Willis books to me! I definitely need to check them out (I've heard people mention them before, but you are the only person whose recommendations I trust who has mentioned them, lol).
I definitely get the reading about WWII. In the aftermath of 9/11, I really got into ancient and medieval literature because it was comforting to be reminded that -- well, to be extremely nerdy and quote Battlestar Galactica, "All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again." During some particularly bad periods over the past few years, binge-watching very intense, upsetting TV (including rewatching The Handmaid's Tale) was oddly comforting, partly because it was the only thing that could get me out of my head and partly because at least things weren't as bad for me as they were for those characters!
As for the rest of it... take heart. "Nothing lasts" is both the bad news and the good news. I also think despair can be a contagious disease (you are smart to be off Facebook).
This is my favorite out of many favorite posts of yours. So much here that I feel as well. And, "...remind us that we are always with one foot over the abyss." Looking forward to reading, "Nixies."
Beautifully written. Congratulations on the selection!
Thank you, Robyn!
Yes, yikes, and wow. Haha, that’s all I got today.
😸
Congratulations! 👍
Thank you, Cheri!
I used to teach The Lottery to my unwilling students and one thing I will say about that story is that it's really fucking boring right up until the end when everyone suddenly sits up and goes, what the actual fuck?! Haha! It was always a good trigger to get students talking about conformity, tradition, and so on. Congrats on your story, btw!
Oh wow, you know, I never thought of it as being boring before, but I went and got it out and looked at it (it's also at least twice as long than I remembered it being) and now I'm wondering--is it boring to you because it's so mundane for so much of it, because she doesn't effectively create a rising sense of menace during that mundanity, or because the village and the people feel kind of generic? That's the issue I have with it, I think--the last one--but that careful chronicling of a mundane day is something she does really well (imo) in other stories, including "The Summer People" and "The Demon Lover." But I can also see where people might read those stories and find them boring.
I've also had an unwelcome flashback to teaching "The Yellow Wallpaper", also to unwilling students, and having several say why did that woman act that way, her husband was just trying to help her! 😕
Oh I always thought it was boring on purpose. The setting, the characters, it's all intended to be another hundrum day in a place that could be anywhere. Just utterly ordinary. The ending makes it all look horribly sinister, but you don't feel that when you're reading. You're like omg get on with it. When they're picking lots, you're like, ffs stop moaning about it being unfair and just accept it. Then you realise you have been urging on her death. And then you're like, wait, even the kids had to pick lots. Wtf. I don't think it's a mistake that it doesn't grip you with strangeness and foreboding because actually that's not the experience she's trying to give you. Instead she wants you to witness yourself as part of the horror and say, but I didn't know! And everyone is so ordinary, how could you have known? I think that's really why she got so much hate mail about it. But maybe that's just something I made up to give the students something to think about 😅
Really good one, Lynda. Congrats on your story's inclusion in The Best Weird Fiction of the Year, and I am happy to report that I finally got one of your collections, The Moon one, and look forward to reading more by you.
Thank you so much, and I really hope you enjoy the book!
This was such a powerful piece to read. I hadn't heard the Philip Glass remix of Heart of Glass so thank you for introducing it to me. The Summer People is one of my favourite Shirley Jackson stories because it is so unsettling. Congratulations on Nixie being accepted elsewhere!
Thanks so much, Carole, and I'm glad you enjoyed that remix! It really is very haunting. "The Summer People" is such a great story. I started a story a few years ago that is kind of a riff on it but only wrote a couple of pages on it; maybe one of these days I'll go back to it.
Ooof. This was so great but also hard to read in a way. I could barely watch that clip because it all felt too familiar. And now I'm thinking/wondering if I've been reading so much WWII history lately because I want to read about someone else's rupture, a rupture that I know ultimately turned out "okay."
I think my two favorite rupture books/series are the Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy and Connie Willis' Blackout and All Clear. I think you might like both, if you haven't read them.
Also, I was so excited to reply to your comment I forgot to say thank you. :)
I have read the Pullman (loved it!), and while I was writing the sentences about time travel I remembered that you had recommended that Connie Willis books to me! I definitely need to check them out (I've heard people mention them before, but you are the only person whose recommendations I trust who has mentioned them, lol).
I definitely get the reading about WWII. In the aftermath of 9/11, I really got into ancient and medieval literature because it was comforting to be reminded that -- well, to be extremely nerdy and quote Battlestar Galactica, "All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again." During some particularly bad periods over the past few years, binge-watching very intense, upsetting TV (including rewatching The Handmaid's Tale) was oddly comforting, partly because it was the only thing that could get me out of my head and partly because at least things weren't as bad for me as they were for those characters!
As for the rest of it... take heart. "Nothing lasts" is both the bad news and the good news. I also think despair can be a contagious disease (you are smart to be off Facebook).
This is my favorite out of many favorite posts of yours. So much here that I feel as well. And, "...remind us that we are always with one foot over the abyss." Looking forward to reading, "Nixies."
Thanks so much 💜