My tumor’s heart is dead fluid, making it a different shape to most. This means it can only be treated with surgery, not radiation.
A part of me almost likes this horrible fact, that it’s liquid not solid, dead not living. Aggressively expanding in a way the living, circular little ones don’t.
I am the rarest of a rare kind. It is a horrible horrible miracle that this pale girl in me lives at all.
I am Schroedinger’s writer. Whether I live or die, this story exists on the razor-thin line between the possibilities. Whichever happens will cast its shadow backwards, of course. Such is the nature of the past as seen from the present.
When Mary Borsellino discovered she had a brain tumor, she coped with it the only way she knew how: by writing about it. And New Zealand. And the Antichrist. And dating sim video games. As one does.
I left a piece of my heart behind in that day. I wish I could go back to it now, and live in it, static, forever and ever.
But time and life don’t work like that. We leave pieces of our hearts behind in the memories of the good days, but we can’t go back. Only forward, into the dark.
(This is probably the closest thing to a ‘sequel’ to Sharpest that I’ll ever write. It’s also kind of sketchy and disjointed and weird.
I hope some of you like it.)
Sharpest
Sharpest: A Tour Diary
There are so many things people can be that are metaphors, tricks of speech, a word to mean a mood or talent. We can be dull, blunt, hard, soft, cool, cold, hot, warm, green, blue, bright, dim, tough, smooth, slick, thorny, broken, sharp. As far as things to be made from went, the sharpest things sounded good enough to me — better sharpest than dullest, even if it meant never being softest.
A tour diary through concert crowds, international travel, the darkest hours before dawn, music journalism, love, depression, songs, grief, and the moment when the lights go down and the audience cheers.
Any revenue I make from Sharpest is donated to suicide prevention organisations.
Patchwork Children is a free, downloadable zine produced by me and featuring work by a variety of contributors. Raw, clever, profound, and strange, this collection stitches together disparate notions about the body, the self, art, revenge, magic, technology, analysis of nineteenth-century science fiction, viscera and dreams.
Attempts at creation are, in fact, the events which prompt their destruction. The doll-maker Madeline, turned into a vampire by Louis at Claudia’s behest, and the Bride created for Adam by Victor, each act as catalysts which turn Claudia and Adam’s creators into creation-destroyers. Madeline has the potential to create other vampires if Claudia demands she do so, and it is very soon after Madeline’s creation that Lestat has both Madeline and Claudia destroyed. Victor destroys the Bride because if she and Adam were allowed to depart together, they would possibly have children some day.
In this light it become especially interesting that Elsa Lanchester plays both the Bride and Mary Shelley in the second Frankenstein film, since Mary Shelley is of course Adam’s ultimate creator, his author. The Bride isn’t just a monster – she’s the mother of monsters.
Sapphire Blue is a zine I put together for when I was a guest at the 2014 Room 801 convention. It contains two fics, one of Free! (Iwatobi Swim Club) and one of Dramatical Murder, plus illustrations and extra content. [Download]
Texas A&M University contacted me about preserving some of my zines in their digital archives, and I used this as an opportunity to create a comprehensive single-document collection of my most academically cited fanfiction work, the Lord of the Rings story “Pretty Good Year”. [Download]
I was very, very prolific in the Gotham/Batman fandom circa 2004/2005. Very. This zine is 500 pages of small type, and it’s not even all of the different series of stories I wrote, let alone all the stories. [Download] [Buy hard copy]
This multiple-fandom collection of stories showcases some of the work I’m particularly pleased with, and early collaborations with the extremely talented Audrey Fox. [Download] [Buy hard copy]
Zines I’ve contributed to
Famous Last Words: A Tribute to the Black Parade is a zine collection of original art and essays celebrating the 10th anniversary of My Chemical Romance’s third album, The Black Parade. I contributed an excerpt from my zine Sharpest.
Noble Rot is a fujoshi culture zine. I contributed an essay about Erika from Durarara!! to the third issue.
You are cordially invited is a zine for the NBC show Hannibal. I contributed the essay “Of reboots and entrées: the construction and destruction of metatext in Hannibal”, and a collage of Stephen King homages present in the show, to the first edition.
Pretty Good for a Girl is a feminist music zine. I contributed interviews and articles to the first and second issue.
Supergrrrl Action Comix is a feminist comics zine. I contributed a personal essay to the first edition.
Nurturing Paws is a collection celebrating the healing and supportive role animals can play. I contributed a personal essay.
Watch it for the plot is a collection of essays about the show Supernatural. I contributed a comparison between the show and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Lotripping is a fanfiction collection about the actors from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I contributed the story Eleven ways not to start an autobiography.
Inside a Song is a fanfic zine about Sam and Frodo. I contributed the story The Echo of Bells.
