You see…due to the intransigence of the new owners at the sf digest magazines (as well as the mystery magazines), I can no longer send them my short fiction. I actually had to pull some stories that were already sold but did not yet have a contract. Long story short, contract negotiations went extremely poorly. (I blogged about this as it went on through May on my Patreon page. Take a look at this post if you’re curious.) I will write a lot more about this in the next few weeks, because I’ll be making some changes to the way I market things.

This Kickstarter is the beginning of the changes. The Kickstarter features four science fiction novellas. Three were published in Asimov’s in the past two years, and two of the novellas are this year’s Readers Choice nominees. The third, “Weather Duty,” appeared in early 2025.

The fourth novella is brand new. It was sitting on Sheila Williams’ desk as the contract negotiations for another story started and ultimately failed. So no one has read this novella. If you back the Kickstarter, you’ll be among the first.

The Kickstarter contains all kinds of goodies as rewards. All of my Diving novels so far. All of the Retrieval Artist novels so far. More novellas. Some writing workshops.

With all of those rewards, you’ll get the novellas. I’m proud of them and I think you’ll enjoy them.

The Kickstarter just went live, so hurry on over and take a look!

Now Reynaldo must convince one Songbird to return. Just one. Or he will use devastating magic to make sure she never sings from her heart again.

“Songbirds“ is available for one week on this site. The ebook is available on all retail stores, as well as here.

Songbirds

By Kristine Kathryn Rusch

The rain was hard, and cold, the village a welcome sight. Reynaldo had been riding for days without seeing any signs of civilization—and he had thought that good. If he were to find the Songbirds, he believed he would find them in this wilderness at the very edge of the kingdom.

But even the best hunter welcomed a respite after days of unrelenting rain. The village was as dismal as the weather: small hovels with little more than a door, the occasional house, and finally, at the end of town, an inn that looked like it had seen better days.

At least it had a stable. He dismounted and looked for a stable hand. Seeing none, he led Cara to the only stall.

He would have tended her himself even if there had been a stable hand. She was the only pure white horse in the kingdom. He never let anyone else touch her—only his brushstroke cleaned her coat, only his hand fed her, and he cherished the small nuzzle she would give his shoulder, or her soft sighs of contentment. They were his best reward, and his only real joy.

His life was bleak—had been since he was a boy—but he knew no way of improving it. He already lived in the palace, and was the best in his field. He wasn’t sure he had the capacity for love, and if he did, he wasn’t sure if it would improve his life. The kingdom was a gloomy place, but he’d heard of none better.

He’d only seen better in his dreams—dreams he could barely remember.

The hay in the stalls was fresh. There was good food, several buckets of rainwater, and surprisingly, a handful of apples. He gave Cara one—a thank-you for carrying him so far—and then he stroked her velvet nose.

“If the stable hand shows up and gives you trouble,” he said, “call for me. You know I’ll hear you.”

She whickered and nudged him, as if urging him to go inside the inn, and take care of himself.

He hated to leave her, but he really wanted a warm meal and a soft bed. If there was no room, he’d sleep in the hay. Cara wouldn’t like it; she wanted privacy at night. But he would rest easier, knowing she was all right.

She nudged him a second time, and he smiled. “All right, I’ll go. Sleep well.”

But she wasn’t looking at him any longer. Her head was bowed, and she was drinking from one of the buckets he’d set near her. When he walked back into the rain, it seemed as if she had forgotten all about him.

***

The inn had one room left, so small that to call it a closet would be to give it dignity. He’d left it almost immediately and headed into the tavern. Locals clustered around the wooden tables, drinking the watered-down ale.

He picked a table in the back corner, close enough to the fire to get warm, but far enough away that no one would notice him. One of his best skills was his ability to disappear into his surroundings, to make those around him comfortable by his quiet.

“We have mutton tonight,” the serving wench said. She had noticed him quicker than he liked. He looked up at her with surprise. He hadn’t even heard her approach.

She was young and thin, barely big enough to carry trays.

“Mutton is fine,” he said.

She nodded, and went away. He leaned back in his chair, legs stretched out before him, ankles crossed. His dark pants, tucked into his scuffed boots, were wet and mud-covered. Only his shirt remained dry, except on the shoulders, where his long black hair dripped.

The tavern was clearly where the innkeeper made his money. Only a handful of the locals were eating, and once his food came he knew why. The mutton was old and gray, leaving a pool of grease in the broth, and the bread had mold on the corners.

Because he hadn’t eaten in two days, he picked off the mold and choked down the bread, but the mutton wasn’t worth his time. He sent it back with a request for cheese and some more bread.

It took the serving wench only a few moments to bring him a new plate. The food on this one looked appetizing. The bread was still warm. The cheese was a perfect white, soft to the touch. Obviously, the innkeeper here had two kinds of food: the cheap horrible stuff for travelers, and the good food for regulars. By complaining, Reynaldo had put himself in a new category.

He thanked the girl and sighed as she walked away. He wished she were plump and world-wise. He would have loved someone warm in his bed tonight. The road had given him a chill. He hadn’t expected to have been traveling for so long.

Prince Tadeo had his heart set on a Songbird for the coronation. He had sent Reynaldo—and no one else—after it. Reynaldo was the best magic hunter in the Kingdom, and this trip was meant as an honor—or perhaps a chance at humiliation.

He knew that the other magic hunters had snuck away surreptitiously, hoping to beat him at the profession he had invented. But they would not. In their entire careers, they only found the easy, obvious creatures. It took Reynaldo’s patience, his determination, and his stillness to bring the truly elusive creatures out of hiding.

That, and his ability to find the remote places where the creatures lived in the first place. He had been the only one of Tadeo’s hunters to capture creatures like unicorns and sea witches. His triumphs gave him a room in the palace, a favored position at Tadeo’s table, and a bit of gold, but not enough to last him through the long dry spells between Tadeo’s whims.

Songbirds were proving the most elusive of the magics that Reynaldo had ever sought. Reynaldo had hoped that Tadeo wouldn’t learn of them, but he did a year ago when a storyteller visited court. The storyteller told an ancient tale about the Songbirds and the days when their magic filled the kingdom. Then they had served the king and, more than once, saved his crown.

Things had changed in the centuries since. For reasons the storyteller did not explain, the Songbirds rebelled. Most were slaughtered, and the remainder—it was said—went into hiding. No one had seen a Songbird in nearly a thousand years.

Reynaldo had tried to tell Tadeo that, but of course the Prince didn’t listen. Tadeo had been a magic collector since childhood, and to get a magical creature thought extinct only increased the lure. Tadeo thought it perfect for his coronation, half a year away. He wanted to reveal the greatest magic of all on that day.

Reynaldo sighed and ate the thick warm bread. It had a freshness that was foreign to his tongue. Not even the bread at the palace was this good. His second mug of ale was not diluted this time, and the cheese was the best he had ever tasted.

He was nearly done eating when the serving wench climbed on a stool in front of the fireplace. Conversation ceased, and Reynaldo pushed back his chair. The girl seemed too young to be the entertainment, but she wrapped her hands around her knee as if she were accustomed to sitting in front of a crowd. She surveyed everyone before her gaze met his. She had very old eyes.

She leaned her head back, and began to sing without accompaniment. The hush in the room grew. Her voice had a richness and depth that he had never heard in a human voice before. It had overtones, undertones, and harmonics all its own.

Her first song had no words, and neither did her second. By the third, he no longer listened for words, only for tonalities and phrasing. The sound of her voice sent shivers through him. The place seemed brighter, the fire warmer, and the girl prettier.

He found himself wondering if he’d had too much to drink, and knowing he hadn’t. He was listening to a Songbird.

He had completed his quest.

***

Reynaldo knew better than to capture her in public. He had some research to do. He needed to find out if the girl’s family were all Songbirds and if the rest of the village knew it. The girl—young as she was—might not be the best choice for Tadeo’s collection. An older Songbird might serve better and not be as hard to hold.

Magic, Reynaldo knew, was always hard to hold, especially for those who had none. He had captured magic countless times using only his intelligence and his strength. Underestimating magic was always the worst thing a hunter could do.

Reynaldo listened until the girl finished her miraculous concert. The local crowd applauded and then went back to their ale as if the girl had done nothing unusual. He allowed himself to be shocked and pleased, made a point of complimenting her on the beauty of her voice, and got a blush in return as well as a free mug of ale. But he asked no questions, sought no answers, just paid his tab with one of his last coins and took the stairs to his tiny room.

And there he collapsed on the bed, determined to have a plan by morning.

***

Reynaldo dreamed of colors so bright that they hurt his eyes, scents so pure that they cleared his head, and fabrics so soft that they soothed his skin. He had had dreams like this before. He believed they were moments when he actually touched magic, when he was allowed to enter a world where life was more vivid, each sensation more profound than the one before. He knew if he stayed here long, he would never want to leave. But he also knew that he could not stay.

The colors faded first, then the scents, and finally the softness. He was cold and damp, and the bed smelled of swamp water. He stirred, realized that his face was wet, and opened his eyes.

He was lying face-down in a rut on a muddy road. It was raining so hard that the rut was filling with water. If he’d dreamed much longer, he would have drowned.

Reynaldo sat up and wiped the mud from his face. He was wearing his cloak and boots, even though he had taken them off for bed. The cloak had been stolen from a water elf, and kept his torso dry. But his pants and boots were wet as they had been the night before.

He was in a clearing, and the road continued north into a forest of trees. The same forest he had seen the night before at the edge of the village.

But the village itself was gone. There were no hovels, no small houses, no inn. And no stable.

Cara. He felt his breath catch. He scanned the area, looking for her, hoping she was grazing beneath a tree. He should have seen her white coat even if she were miles away, but he saw nothing except the dark trees, mud, and the greenish gray grass.

She was gone. They had taken her, his prize possession, his heart, and his companion.

It was almost as an afterthought that he patted his cloak, feeling for his purse—humble as it was—and couldn’t find that either.

The great magic hunter had been robbed by his quarry. They had known from the beginning who he was and what he wanted, and they had toyed with him all night. Then they had left him here, alone, to die.

Although that wasn’t accurate. He had clearly been at their mercy. They could have killed him at any point. They let him live as a warning, perhaps to Tadeo, or perhaps to himself.

But they had taken Cara, and no one did that. He had to find her. He couldn’t imagine being without her.

Rain splattered around him. The puddle grew deeper, the mud thicker. He got up and shook his hair free of his cloak, and studied the area, looking for signs of magic.

The clearing was an unnatural one, with paths that branched off the road and then stopped. Large patches of dead grass, and even larger patches of mud covered the ground. He saw bits of hay and horse manure where the stable had recently stood.

The village had been here, just as the inn had been here, just as the stable had been here. But it was all gone now.

The wind came up, cold and biting, pushing Reynaldo back toward the palace. He stood his ground.

He had eaten fairy food and had awakened hungry. He was not hungry now. He had slept the sleep of the enchanted and awakened exhausted. He was not exhausted now.

Obviously his meal and dreams had been as real as they had always been. During his sleep, the Songbirds had taken their village and left him behind.

If Reynaldo went back to the palace for help, he would have to admit his failure. His failure would please Tadeo almost as much as success. Tadeo had been giving Reynaldo tougher and tougher assignments, hoping for this day when his great magic hunter would falter.

But Tadeo did not realize that success was all Reynaldo had. No family, no real friends, no wealth, and no home of his own. Since Reynaldo had been forced into this cursed life by his even more accursed talent, he had lost everything except himself.

Now he faced losing even that.

He would not ride back to Tadeo in shame. He would retrieve his horse, at the very least. At the very best, he would clip the wings of a Songbird and carry it home to its own large, beautiful, gilded cage.

***

Six days of tracking on foot. It rained the entire time—although the rain varied from a downpour to drippy mist. The forest seemed empty of life except for Reynaldo, downed branches, and fallen leaves. He managed to scrounge berries, roots, and bark. That and rainwater kept him sated. But he never had a fire, and his feet were never dry.

The rain, he knew, was not natural. Nor was the stillness of the forest. He had to strain to hear his own feet moving through the mud.

And as he walked, he reviewed what the stories had told him about Songbirds.

Songbirds looked human but lacked all human kindness, all human warmth. Their magic lived in their songs. As long as a Songbird sang the same piece—without starting over—it could create a world with that music. Or it could persuade, cajole, or change a long-held opinion. Some even said that a Songbird’s song could make a heartless man fall in love.

On the seventh day Reynaldo found the village beside a raging river. The village looked the same as before. The houses were in the same order: the road went through the center with paths coming off the sides. The inn was at the north end, and the stable was beside it.

He knew that he found the place because they wanted him to. If they could move the village, they could have kept it hidden from him forever. They finally wanted to see him—for reasons he was sure he would soon discover.

Reynaldo went directly to the stable and pulled open the wooden doors. Lamps hung from pegs on the wall, shedding a soft light on the straw-covered floor. Cara was in the last stall. She whickered when she saw Reynaldo, and his heart leapt. He had missed her; part of him had thought he would never see her again.

He stepped inside. For the first time in a week, water did not hit him in the face. He was cold and numb, unable to absorb the heat.

He started toward Cara when a melodious voice said, “Stop.”

Reynaldo sighed. He had known that it wouldn’t be this easy.

“Give me my horse and my money,” he said, “and I will leave you in peace.”

“Of course you will.” The voice mocked him. “Until you remember your promise to your prince to clip our wings.”

The phrase was not metaphorical. Songbirds had wings, so the stories said, invisible wings that, if clipped properly, would forever trap them in the hand that maimed them.

“You seem to know a lot about me.” Reynaldo was still watching Cara. The horse was not nervous around the Songbird, and magical creatures usually made Cara skittish.

“Dreams reveal much about the dreamer.”

So they had peered into his sleep. The Songbirds had a greater magic than he had originally thought.

“But dreams do not reveal all,” Reynaldo said. “I did not promise Tadeo that I would clip your wings. I promised him a Songbird for his coronation.”

“For his collection.”

Slowly Reynaldo turned, hands out, showing that he meant no harm. “Tadeo always wants magic for his collection. What he does with the magic I bring back is his choice. I was instructed to bring back a Songbird for the coronation, nothing else.”

He could not see the Songbird, but there were shadows near the door that hadn’t been there before.

“You tell pretty lies,” the Songbird said. “Is that how you capture your prey?”

“No.”

“Pity. It would seem the logical thing.” The Songbird stepped out of the shadows. It was the girl, the one who had waited on him, who had sang to him. Only she was not a girl. That had been an illusion. She was a small woman whose hair, skin, and eyes were brown. She wore a brown cape over brown clothing. The only spots of color on her were her red lips and rosy cheeks.

She held herself like a human woman would. He had thought Songbirds would move differently to protect their invisible wings.

“My horse,” he said softly, “and my money. Then I will leave.”

She smiled. “You’re exhausted and wet. You haven’t eaten properly in a week. We can give you food and shelter.”

“Like you did the last time?” he said. “I nearly drowned.”

“The food was real enough, and the bed, too. You spent half the night in it.”

“You let me know what you were.”

“It took you long enough to figure that out.”

“I knew the moment you sat on that stool.”

“And you did nothing? That’s hard to believe.” She crossed her arms. Her cloak bunched slightly, unnaturally, in the back.

“You watched me that first time, peered into my dreams when I slept in the forest, and then let me find you.” He glanced at Cara. She seemed to be watching with great interest.

The Songbird did not answer his question, but he saw the truth of it in her eyes. That was the only way they would have known his identity. He hunted infrequently, and never the same creatures twice.

“That still doesn’t explain,” he said into her silence, “why you’re treating me this way. You could have killed me that night. Or better, you could have ignored me. There was no reason to let me see your village. But you want something. What is it?”

“We want to give you your life back,” she said.

He felt his shoulders stiffen. “My life has never left me. Or are you telling me that I’m dead?”

“You’re not dead.” Her voice was soft. “You just haven’t lived for years.”

“Perhaps by your definition.” The tension was working its way down his back. “I don’t sing pretty songs and laugh as much as some think I should. But I live.”

“In service to a boy who believes that beauty should be caged.”

Reynaldo took a deep breath. Some of the tension slipped away. “So that’s it. You want me to renounce my work.”

“More than that,” she said. “We want you to free the creatures that Tadeo holds.”

“We?” he said. “Do you speak for yourself or your people?”

“The Songbirds listen to me.”

“And they want me to destroy Prince Tadeo’s collection.”

“Yes.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because of your dreams.” She took a step toward him. Her voice was mesmerizing, warm, and rich. “I can let you live in the world of your dreams.”

He recognized charm when he heard it. Of course Songbirds could entice. Magic lived in their voices.

“Live in the world of my dreams.” He made it sound like he was tempted and—if he told himself the truth—he was. “The lush beautiful magical world that I see whenever I’m near something unusual?”

She nodded.

“You want me to risk everything, including my life, for a place where the food tastes better and the colors are brighter? A world I can barely remember when I’m awake? A world I’m not even sure exists?”

Those eyes held him. “Are you sure this one exists?”

He laughed. “I am not a philosopher. Questions like that are better contemplated by smarter men than I.”

“There are few men smarter than you are,” she said. “You simply have chosen a poor way to use your intelligence.”

He crossed his arms. “The creatures I’ve given to Prince Tadeo live in complete luxury.”

An emotion flashed across her face too quickly for him to read it—Disgust? Amusement?—he wasn’t sure.

“You must decide what you want.” The vibrancy had left her voice.

“What if I don’t do what you want?”

“Then you’ll wander the forest until you decide to return empty-handed. You will lose your status as the greatest magic hunter, but you will have your life. Or you could choose to make a new life away from the kingdom. You do not have to do what we want.”

The tension had spread through him. “If I do what you ask, Prince Tadeo will have me killed.”

“You chose to come after us.”

“There are others who are after you.”

Her eyes glittered. “But there is only one who can free Tadeo’s prisoners.”

He was silent for a moment, weighing her words. Then he said, “What if I don’t want to live in the land of my dreams? If I do what you ask, what will you give me instead?”

“A miracle,” she said quietly.

He had seen miracles all his life—and had captured them for his prince.

“I’ll do as you ask,” he said.

***

An instant later he was in the rain, on Cara’s back, heading toward the palace. A week of riding, vanished in a single moment.

It felt good to touch her. Part of him thought he had lost her forever. He touched her mane for reassurance, and she grunted, as if he had disturbed her rhythm somehow.

The rain seemed even colder, the wind harsher. The drops stung at his cheeks. Cara’s hooves threw mud on him, and only the horse’s innate grace prevented them from slipping on the washed out roads.

It had rained here too, rained like he had never seen. Tadeo would be displeased. He hated rain—always longing for sun or snow.

And now Reynaldo was returning without his prize. He had thought he would have time to come up with a story, but he had nothing. It was the same as having failed.

The palace stood alone at the edge of the Great Wood. The Royal City was several miles to the south. The palace, built a thousand years ago, was purposely isolated; the land itself was seen as a protection against rebels who would attack a king.

But for nearly ten years, there had been no king to attack. Tadeo’s father had died of a wasting disease. Tadeo’s mother, his father’s fifth wife and the only one to bear a child, had become Queen Mother, but the kingdom’s laws prevented her from ruling despite her son’s youth. Since he was eleven, Tadeo had acted as king. On his twenty-first birthday, he would become king officially.

The coronation would be his greatest triumph—or so he hoped.

Reynaldo reached the palace gates where the guards recognized him and opened the way. He headed straight for the stables. Once Cara was groomed and fed and placed in a comfortable stall, Reynaldo tended to his own needs.

His rooms were large and well furnished. The main room had carved wooden cabinets that were centuries old, couches embroidered by ladies in waiting of nearly two dozen different queens.

Reynaldo did not even look into the bedroom or the small dining room. Instead he ordered a bath, then went to the wardrobe to choose the proper clothes for an audience with Tadeo.

With the bath came food, and a summons from Tadeo.

The bath was heaven, the steaming water soothing to his cold limbs. He felt as if he hadn’t been warm in a year; he ate grapes and small cakes, and drank the cool artesian water.

When he was through, he dressed in silk robes over a white shirt, and a pair of velvet riding trousers which he tucked into polished black boots. The outfit was a mixture of court dress and his usual clothing. He was the only member of the court who did not follow Tadeo’s strict dress codes.

Reynaldo hated looking tame.

He took back corridors and a secret passage that led to Tadeo’s private audience room. Although Reynaldo was not keeping his return a secret, he did not want the news of it to spread too quickly either.

He had the beginnings of a plan.

He knocked on the hidden door, and Tadeo himself opened it. The prince was slight, dark-haired, and smooth-skinned. He hadn’t yet matured enough to grow a beard.

“I have not heard of any great triumph,” Tadeo said as he stepped aside, allowing Reynaldo into the room. “Where’s my Songbird?”

“Elusive,” Reynaldo said.

“Elusive or not, you were supposed to find one.” Tadeo crossed the hand-woven carpet to the gilt chair that he only used when speaking business. “Have you?”

“I have been following myth, legend, and rumor for weeks.” Reynaldo took a simple wooden chair and sat across from Tadeo. “I found a village at the very edge of the kingdom which led me to believe that some of what I heard is true, and some is not. What is clear is that Songbirds are more powerful than the stories let on. That the kingdom held them in thrall once seems almost miraculous to me.”

Tadeo waved a hand in dismissal. He did not care about the past, only the present. “If you were close, I don’t understand why you came back.”

“To offer you a choice.” The room was too warm—a fire burned high, probably to ward off the damp. The windows were shuttered against the rain, but Reynaldo could hear it, beating against the walls as if it were trying to break in.

Tadeo raised his eyebrows. “A choice? There is no choice, Reynaldo. You are to bring me a Songbird.”

“At any cost?”

“Yes, at any cost.” And then Tadeo frowned. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“The price,” Reynaldo said. “But if you don’t want to hear it….”

“You know that I will not pay you more than we have already agreed.” Tadeo crossed his arms. He was getting angry.

“The cost is yours, not mine.”

“Whatever does that mean?”

“It means,” Reynaldo said, “that magic is powerful, and sometimes not worth the price of capture.”

“Nonsense,” Tadeo said. “We haven’t paid a price before.”

Reynaldo stared at him for a moment. Tadeo was so young that his skin was still soft and lined with baby fat. He had no idea how life exacted a price.

“Well, then,” Reynaldo said, pushing himself out of the chair. “If you are unconcerned, I will go about my business.”

He had almost made it to the door when Tadeo said, “You’ve never approached me about a price before. What has changed this time?”

Reynaldo did not turn around. Instead, he smiled. He had maneuvered Tadeo into the place that he wanted him. “The only way I can catch a Songbird is to open the cages of your collection.”

“My collection!” Tadeo sounded stunned.

Reynaldo slowly faced him. The boy’s cheeks were red. He didn’t like the idea. He would now have to choose between all his toys and a single great prize.

“Are you certain you will be able to capture a Songbird with this method?” Tadeo asked.

“Yes,” Reynaldo said.

Tadeo leaned back in his chair. It was still too large for him. He looked like a child trying to act like an adult. All except his eyes. They were too cold to be a child’s. “Can you recapture my collection?”

“Of course, Sire. They have my marks. They should be easier to find this time.”

“How do I know that you’re not doing this just to create more work for yourself?”

Reynaldo smiled. “Because there is still so much work to do. You only possess a fraction of the magic that exists in this Kingdom. If you want a complete collection, you must hire two others who are as good as I am—and we both know there are none—and then the three of us must capture a magical creature once a month.”

Tadeo sighed. “Quite a risk you’re taking, Reynaldo. I will kill you if you fail.”

“Actually,” Reynaldo said softly, “It’s your risk, Sire. My life is not worth the price of your collection.”

“True.” Tadeo stood. He took a deep breath. He was clearly uneasy about the decision, but he had made it, as Reynaldo wanted him to. That way, if Tadeo was dissatisfied with the Songbird, he had no one to blame but himself. “You have my permission.”

Reynaldo bowed once. “Thank you, Sire,” he said, and let himself out.

***

The collection was housed in its own tower on the palace grounds. Tadeo had had the tower built special after Reynaldo had caught his first creature. The tower was designed so that the nobles could view the collection, perhaps even see a bit of magic, without harm—and without fear that the creatures would escape.

Tadeo had dismissed the guards. The rest of the staff had been ordered not to interfere with Reynaldo.

He was dressed all in black. His boots were silver, his gloves so thick that nothing could touch him. His heart pounded hard. He had caught fifteen creatures, but he had never freed one before. On this day, he would free everything—even the creatures caught by his imitators.

Reynaldo carried a bucket filled with seawater, and went to the fresh water grotto in the basement to see the sea witch, water elf, and mermaid. The grotto was large and deep. The walls and ceiling were made of rock so that they looked like a natural cave. The humid air smelled of dampness and despair.

They hid, as they always did when he came, but he lured them with the salt water’s scent. The sea witch rose first, her magnificent face—once the gray of a stormy ocean, now so pale as to be nearly clear—flashing with anger.

“What more can you do to us?” she asked, and as she did, he splashed her with the salt water. She sputtered, shocked, and then the gray returned to her face.

“This is a trick,” she said.

He shook his head.

She snapped her fingers, rousing her companions, then she cursed Reynaldo and vanished, leaving a small water funnel in her wake. As the water elf rose to the surface, Reynaldo splashed him as well, and then the mermaid. They didn’t vanish like the sea witch. The water elf flew away on a rain cloud, and the mermaid climbed to the side of the grotto. She stood for a moment, naked, legs in place of her tail, and then she approached him.

“May you live as I have these past eight years,” she said in her throaty voice. Then she slapped him, took his cloak, wrapped it around herself, and walked out of the room.

Reynaldo stared at the fresh water grotto for a moment, stunned at how easy it was to free its prisoners. It had taken him weeks to catch the mermaid, months to capture the water elf, and nearly a year to find the sea witch, let alone outsmart her. All that work, gone, in the space of a few moments.

He poured the remaining seawater out of the bucket. He cleaned the bucket thoroughly and filled it with fresh water. Then he went to the saltwater pools to free the nymphs and water sprites.

By mid-morning, half his prizes were gone. He felt their losses as if the collection belonged to him, not Tadeo. For the first time, Reynaldo wondered at the wisdom of his plan.

But he did not stop. He led the troll to the grotto’s bridge, gave gold to the dragon, and pocketed the scissors from the life-weaver’s room. He placed the mushroom elf on loamy ground, and gave the griffin his tail. He went through every room, reversing each capture spell until he found himself alone in the tower.

The room was round and made of stone. There was no furniture here, no windows, nothing except a pair of gold-flecked wings in a case made of glass.

He stared at them for the longest time, remembering that summer afternoon in the forest, not far from here. He had been a young man then, so young he had not known a woman and had never dreamed of love. He sat in the glade and waited for days, until the call of his soul was answered.

This was what he had feared most—this room, this reversal. And he hadn’t even admitted it to himself.

He opened the case and removed the wings. They were as soft as he remembered, and they smelled faintly of lavender, just as they had all those years ago. He brought them to his face, leaned his cheek into them, remembering that moment, that fleeting moment, when he thought the world could belong to him.

But of course it didn’t. Magic was like a sparkle, something that could be ruined by prolonged close contact. And yet, being close was all he had ever wanted.

He sighed, set the bucket down, and tucked the wings under his arm. He went down the circular staircase to the main floor of the empty tower, and let himself out.

The raindrops seemed fatter than before, colder, almost ice. The sky was black. Sometimes, when it rained like this, it felt as if the sun would never shine again.

He crossed the muddy grounds to the stable. The grooms were gone, as he had ordered.

Cara watched him approach. She was strangely motionless. He would have thought that she would have been pacing the stall in anticipation. But her blue eyes were wide, her white coat trembling, her nose quivering. Those were the only things that revealed her emotions. No one else would have seen it, but no one else knew what Reynaldo held in his hands.

There was nothing he could say—and neither could Cara. She had lost the art of speech long ago. It had been the second thing to go after he took her wings. First her horn, then her speech, and finally the unusual intelligence in those blue eyes.

He opened the stall door and placed the wings on her back, careful to put them on the proper sides. For a moment, he thought it had been too long, that they wouldn’t take. Then they slipped into her skin as if they had never left her.

Her eyes grew darker, her coat gained a sprinkling of gold, and with a twist of light, her horn returned. The air sparkled around her, as it had when she had first come to him in the glade all those years ago.

He pulled the stall door back, and stood aside. She turned her head toward him. She was beautiful again—her eyes so alive he wondered how he had ever been satisfied with what he had made her.

She brushed his face with the tip of her horn. It was soft and warm, and he could feel the magic sloughing off it. The magic burned him, like sparks from a campfire.

“In spite of myself, I am fond of you,” she said, her voice as deep and rich as the Songbird’s.

He stepped back so that she could not touch him. “You’ve been with me all this time. You know what I’ve become.”

“And I remember what you were.” She tossed her mane. More magic fell around him, burning when it touched his skin. Then she walked out of the stall and disappeared in the rain.

She did not look back, and he could not stop staring after her. It had been an impulse, the first time, a hunch. Somehow he had known that if he took her wings, she would be his forever. She had come to him, and he wanted to tell his friends about it. But he knew if he returned to his friends without her, they wouldn’t have believed him. They would have laughed. He brought her with him to prove to them that he had touched magic.

Then Tadeo saw her and demanded one of his own. But Reynaldo had lied. He had said that he was building a reputation, and would not waste his time capturing the same type of creature twice.

For a decade, he had lived up to that vow.

Now Cara was gone, walking away as if they had not spent the last ten years together. He had thought her his only remaining friend.

He had been wrong.

“I did not think you would live up to the bargain.” The Songbird was in the stall with him. She seemed brighter too—shots of gold in her brown hair, a light behind her dark eyes.

Reynaldo slipped his hand in his pocket, his fingers trembling.

“I didn’t live up to it,” he said, grabbing her and pulling her close. He wrapped one arm around her tiny little neck and held her tightly.

He could feel her heart beating rapidly, and knew he felt her fright. His fingers closed on the handle of the scissors as he took them out of his pocket and held them over her right shoulder—the very spot where her coat had bunched a few nights before.

“Prince Tadeo let me use his collection to catch you.” Reynaldo could hear her breath rasping, feel the fragility of her small bones against his.

“If you clip my wings,” she said, “you destroy more than you can imagine.”

He could feel the wings now, fluttering against him. Their feathers were sharp, scratching him.

“It’s a risk I will take,” he said, opening the scissors.

“You’ll start the war all over again. This time, your people will know they lost.”

His hand was still trembling. It took all of his strength to hold her and keep the scissors open. “What do you mean?”

“You have always been wrong.” Her voice wobbled. “You have a magic. It’s a bit of vision, nothing more. You can see edges, corners, things that are usually hidden from your people. That was how you hunted. That was how you knew how to cripple Cara.”

He flinched at the phrase. It wasn’t accurate. Cara had her wings again. She wasn’t permanently damaged.

Before he spoke, he made sure his voice held no emotion. “So?”

“So you dream,” she said, “and see what is.”

His hand slipped and he nicked her. She cried out. A spot of blood welled in the air an inch above her right shoulder. “What does that matter?”

“You’re not the first. Your people’s powers have been growing.”

“Be clearer,” he said softly, “or I will cut your wing off.”

“Your people’s new powers threaten us.”

He tightened his grip on her. Her bones felt more fragile than any bones he had ever touched. “We have always threatened you. The fact that we grow stronger should make no difference.”

She laughed. The sound was bitter. “Think. How could we, with all our magic, lose a battle against humans?”

“The rebellion?” he asked. “The Songbirds against the king? Are you saying you won?”

“We create worlds with our song. As long as we never repeat a phrase, the world holds. This one has held for a thousand years.”

He gripped the scissors tighter. “The rain isn’t natural. There hasn’t been enough sun.”

“You noticed that, but almost no one else did. They just complained.” She stirred in his arms. “And there is no rain now.”

He strengthened his hold on her, fearing it was a trick. Then he peered beyond her through the open stable door. Weak sunlight illuminated the mud and the standing water. Cara’s hoofprints, leading away from the stable, glittered like gold.

“What’s changed?” he asked.

“The magic you captured is now free.”

“Why would that make a difference?”

“You held it in thrall, diminishing it. We had less to draw on.”

“So I was defeating you all by myself.” He brought the scissors down again. “I could have destroyed you.”

“Only the illusion,” she whispered.

“And once the illusion disappeared, we would have had a chance to fight you again.”

She was silent.

“The battle must have been close,” he said. “You won by a small margin, or you would not imprison us like this. We barely remembered your existence. You would have kept us ignorant forever if you could.”

A shiver ran through her.

“What happens now?” he asked. “What if I clip your wings?”

She opened her mouth and sang a song so clear and pure that the hairs on the back of his neck rose. Around him, the stable melted away. He was standing in the middle of a clearing, very much like the one in which he had found Cara.

The air was fresh and smelled of spring, the grass was greener than any he had ever seen, the sunlight so brilliant that it hurt his eyes. He hadn’t realized how diminished his world had been.

There were creatures all around him—in the sky, on the ferns by his feet, on the flowers blooming beneath the trees. In front of him, three Songbirds—a man and two women—stood with their arms around each other. They sang in perfect harmony. Another Songbird approached, another man. For a moment, his song blended with theirs, and then one of the women bowed her head, excusing herself, and walked away. The new man took her place.

“This is a trick,” Reynaldo whispered.

“I wish it were,” his Songbird said. “But now that you see, I can’t blind you again.”

“If I let you go, you’ll let me live here.”

“Yes,” she said.

“And what of my people? They’ll stay in the darkness and rain, prisoners who have no idea that they’re imprisoned.”

“They aren’t unhappy,” she said.

“Are you so sure?” he asked. “If I dream of this place, what’s to say others don’t as well?”

He felt her stiffen beneath him. So others did dream. He wasn’t the only threat.

“Your people started the war,” the Songbird said softly. “You tried to destroy us. We barely survived.”

“That was a thousand years ago.” He was growing cold. “None of the people who harmed you live any longer.”

“But you collect us as if we were trophies,” she said. “We’re not.”

“No,” he said. “We are.”

She shuddered once and then went very still. Her heartbeat was just as rapid, just as frightened. It was the only thing that gave her away.

“I have the power to change everything, don’t I?” he asked. “To blend our worlds the way they were before.”

“You’re not ready to live with us again,” she said.

“I think we are. Your world is leaching into ours. I have powers I should not have, and your world bleeds into my dreams. Does ours bleed into yours?”

She was leaning against him as if she were having trouble standing on her own. “If you stay here and do not bring the others, you will have more magic than you ever dreamed of, riches beyond your power to imagine, beautiful women—anything. Anything at all.”

His hand was no longer trembling. “And if I refuse?”

“You will stand in both worlds, and live in neither.”

“I will control both worlds,” he said, “any time I threaten your music. It’s a stalemate. One I could end with two snips of these shears.”

“Please, don’t. The war—”

“Won’t happen. My people will be too confused, too awed by this new world. They’ve never seen real beauty. They won’t know what it is. And because of that, your people will gain power. They won’t have to sing all the time, won’t have to expend the magic to create an illusion. We—all of us—might move forward.”

“We might slaughter each other again.”

Her blood, warm and sticky, was flowing onto the arm he used to hold her.

“End your illusion,” he said, “and keep your wings.”

“It’ll be chaos.”

“Yes,” he said softly.

“You can’t stand up to us,” she said.

“I can.”

The other Songbirds were watching as if they knew that everything rested on this moment. She closed her eyes. He could feel her wings pressing against his chest.

“Stop singing,” she whispered.

Faces turned toward her, faces he hadn’t seen before. Grass elves looked up from their perches on long blades, flower sprites from their petals, acorn fairies from their leaves.

“What?” a thousand voices whispered, as faint as the wind in trees.

She sighed, then said again, “Stop singing.”

The Songbirds stared at her as if she had lost her mind. She was pressing against Reynaldo harder now, and he realized that she was growing weaker.

“Stop singing,” he said, “or I’ll let her die. What does it take? The loss of one wing? Or both? And if you lose her magic, you lose all, don’t you? She’s more powerful than all the creatures I captured combined.”

The male Songbird closed his mouth. The harmony faded, and then the female Songbird stopped, then the other male. Gradually the music stopped.

Reynaldo’s ears rang. He hadn’t heard silence before—not once in his entire life.

Then the silence ended. He heard screams and shouts, and a bellow that he recognized. Tadeo stood a few yards away, and screamed Reynaldo’s name.

Reynaldo did not answer. He didn’t have to. In this place, there was no kingdom, and Tadeo was simply a young, spoiled boy.

The Songbird let out a small sigh. Her heartbeat wasn’t as rapid. Reynaldo scooped her in his arms and carried her to the other Songbirds.

He handed her to them, and one of them carried her away through the tall grass. Reynaldo looked toward the trees and saw Cara staring at him, her eyes filled with tears. Her beauty took his breath away. He had tried to capture that beauty and failed. Holding her had nearly destroyed her.

Just as the world he’d been living in had nearly destroyed him.

He reached for her, but she vanished into the trees. He could pursue her, but to what end? She deserved a life, a free life, just like he did.

Tadeo had reached his side. His face was red with the strain of walking, his skin sheened with sweat.

“Reynaldo,” he said, “what is the meaning of this?”

“We’ve lost our home, Tadeo. We’re in the world we’ve always dreamed of.”

“I never dreamed of this,” Tadeo said.

But Reynaldo had. A world so bright and vivid that it threatened to overwhelm him. He had been right. His people would be weaker here while they learned to accept the changes. But they would learn—if the right person taught them.

“What do we do now?” Tadeo asked.

Reynaldo gazed at him for a moment—the boy who finally knew how it felt to lose everything. Tadeo couldn’t lead them here. He lacked the understanding. He lacked the vision.

He lacked the magic.

Reynaldo no longer had to answer him. The world had changed, in more ways than one.

___________________________________________

“Songbirds“ is available for one week on this site. The ebook is available on all retail stores, as well as here.

Songbirds

Copyright © 2021 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
First published in Dragon Magazine, September, 2000
Published by WMG Publishing
Cover and Layout copyright © 2021 by WMG Publishing
Cover design by WMG Publishing
Cover art copyright © Canva

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

I have stories here from 2 different Best American Mystery & Suspense, but I’m not recommending either volume, since I didn’t read a lot of them. The stories seemed child-cruelty heavy or animal abuse heavy, and I’m not really into either of those things. And there’s some I’m not fond of the kind of noir in either of them. So it’s up to you if you get these two volumes. 

So here’s what I liked back in February…

February 2025

Bernier, Ashley-Ruth M., “Ripen,” The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2023,  edited by Lisa Unger, Mariner Books, 2023. When editors are lazy with the Best Americans and do not put the stories in any kind of reading order, the opening story is a real crapshoot. I’m always braced for something that does not give me any ideas as to the way the volume will go. As a result, I approach the first story with trepidation, and usually that trepidation is justified.

In this volume, though, the first story, “Ripen,” is well written, powerful, and memorable. I was happily surprised by the entire thing. The setting is rich, the characters vivid, and the story itself strong. Read this one.

Cho, Winston, “AI: The Ghost in Hollywood’s Machine,” The Hollywood Reporter, December 13, 2024. (This story online has a different title.) Fascinating piece that could have been written about any emerging technology, really. AI will change how business gets done all over the planet (is changing?), and Hollywood is no different. It will make some things easier to “film” such as massive crowd scenes (already is, in fact) but it might cost a lot of jobs. As in a lot of jobs. And the kind that normally don’t get taken by technological change…as in the jobs of creatives. I think we’ll see a lot of these articles in the future as we try to figure out how to live with this newest thing in our lives.

Cobo, Leila, “Guarding Celia Cruz’s Legacy,” Billboard January 11, 2025. Fascinating interview with Omer Pardillo, who manages the Celia Cruz estate. It’s about how he got the job, how he goes about maintaining the estate, and the heart of the estate. He lists where the revenue comes from. He says it’s mostly from recording royalties and brand partnerships. It’s really fun to see his joy at all of the success the estate’s been having. At one point, he states that it’s not bad for an artist who’s been dead for 21 years.

Cole, Alyssa, “Just a Girl,” The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2024, edited by S.A. Cosby, Mariner Books, 2024. This story, written as a series of online TikTok posts, DMs, texts, emails, and online articles, is devastating and heartbreaking and extremely powerful. Tiana, her first year in college during Covid, starts posting updates on TikTok, and gaining a following. She tries a dating app, encounters a gross guy, and calls his yuckiness out on her TikTok…and then he and his friends start going after her. Everything spirals after that. What’s amazing about this story is that you can see the joy leaching from this young woman as she realizes how terrible the world can be—and how dangerous it is for young beautiful women. Highly recommended.

Freimor, Jacqueline, “Forward,” The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2023,  edited by Lisa Unger, Mariner Books, 2023. Normally, I wouldn’t read a story that looked dense and difficult, but the format (and the footnotes) are the point of the story. It’s an amazing work of fiction, with a great reveal. Yes, it takes concentration to read it, but it’s really worthwhile.

McClintock, Pamela, “Ryan Reynolds Multitasks Like a Mofo,” The Hollywood Reporter,  December 13, 2024. There’s a lot of fascinating quotes in this interview with Ryan Reynolds, whom The Hollywood Reporter dubbed their Producer of the Year. He does a variety of things besides act, and seems to enjoy all of them. The quote I like the most is at the end:

…it’s all an emotional investment. If you can create emotional investment in anything, any brand, it creates a moat around that brand that really, I think, facilitates the resilience and allows it to weather the storms in the bad times. And yes, that’s the part I love.

I think I love it too, although not as much as actual writing and making things up. Still, lots of good stuff to think about in this interview.

Zeitchik, Steven,“The Other Rebuild,” The Hollywood Reporter, January 17, 2025. 2025 has been such a shitshow already it’s hard to remember that the LA Fires happened only a few months ago. We seem to be moving from tragedy to tragedy, heartbreak to heartbreak, every single day, and we lose track of what others have gone through. A number of my friends went through the fires and fortunately, in this round of the climate change blues, very few of them lost their homes. (I can’t say that about previous California fires.) But everyone’s mental health took a nosedive. Many moved to different digs in the same town while others are leaving their LA homes. It’s an ongoing tragedy, and this is a piece from the early days. Important.

Over the last year, a number of you have asked how to get my Derringer-award winning novella, “Catherine The Great,” and while you can get it in last year’s Holiday Spectacular compilation, that’s only available in ebook. Many of you want paper…and I get it. I do too.

So, we decided to put it into paper. And by the time we got to that project, I had also written three other mystery/crime novellas. One is a thriller (Kizzie) and two are more straightforward mysteries. We put all four in a Kickstarter that launches today.

Here’s the video for the Kickstarter. Over the next week, I’ll also share the book trailers with you for the novellas. However, if you’d like to see them now, head to the Kickstarter. They’re all on it, along with a lot of other goodies.

As you can tell, this is one of my favorite things to write. I hope you end up getting the books.

Then this is the Kickstarter project for you.

Here, in a nutshell, is what it is:

Socks & Sorcery will have four themed collector’s boxes, each delivered three times over the course of a year. Every box contains:

•  A Surprise fantasy novel in the format of your choice (ebook, paperback or audiobook)
•  100g skein of exclusively dyed fingering weight yarn inspired by something from the book
• A 20g contrasting mini skein perfect for crafting heels and toes
• Delightful surprises to enhance your reading and crafting journey. 

Mix and match any of the four themes—Dragons, Familiars, Witches and Vampires, or Faeries—or get them all for a box delivered each month for a year!

There are lots of great writers contributing books to this project including T. Thorn Coyle, Anthea Sharp, Leslie Claire Walker, and Thomas K. Carpenter. The first book in my Fey series, Sacrifice, is also a part of the project.

This project is a lot of fun, and I’m pleased to take part in it. I hope you join us!

Putting Yourself Out There

I’m gearing back up to return to the university in the fall. After a heck of a couple of years, I’m resuming my very slow attempt to get a few extra college degrees. Mostly, it’s an excuse to listen to people much younger than myself learn cool stuff, and an excuse to listen to people somewhat younger than myself share their expertise.

I get inspired by all of that.

I’m searching class schedules and realizing that my Spanish has gotten rusty again, so there is probably a summertime online refresher in the complicated tenses on the horizon. Even though, really, using the proper tense is not my problem so much as finding the correct vocabulary word. As in any word that might suit in that circumstance. The vocabulary was the first thing to flee my brain in the hiatus.

The thing that fascinates me the most, though, is watching the theater kids, particularly those who are (at 18, 19, or 20) convinced they’re going to be Actors! (and yes, the exclamation point is there for a reason). Most won’t be, not because they’re not good enough, but because they don’t listen well and they already think they’re God’s gift to the profession.

Mostly, I watch the ones who are insecurely secure in their dreams. These kids know exactly what they want in their lives, but they’re not sure they’re good enough to get there, so they work extra hard to figure out where they should be.

Sometimes it is not where they expect to be. In the theater department in particular, they have to take courses in all aspects of theater, and they sometimes learn that they love a part of theater that they hadn’t expected to like at all.

Surprisingly enough to my younger self, the one who didn’t have the courage to follow her musical abilities into a music degree or to even walk into the theater department at the University of Wisconsin, there are a lot of introverts in theater. Some of those introverts are writers, yes, but many go onstage and perform. Most, in fact, because they like being someone else in front of a group. It’s safer for them.

I get safe. It makes sense. I also get the fear of doing something revealing in front of a crowd. Mostly, that fear is gone for me now. Years of public speaking and talking on panels at sf conventions eased my mind.

Still, I was pretty shocked when I learned that a lot of actors and musicians suffer severe stage fright—people you’ve all heard of. If they have to go onstage, they sit in the dressing room and shake, or, in some cases, puke, because they’re so scared.

Had I known that…well, I doubt I would have done it, because puking is not something I voluntarily do, even for art…but it certainly would have eased my mind about what for me is relatively minor stage fright (in comparison to what these folks have).

Really, though, it’s what they are willing to do for their dreams and their art. They put themselves out there. More importantly, they figure out how to put themselves out there.

Every year, I have a conversation with at least one of my writing students who is terrified for some reason I never probe of putting their work in front of an audience. It always boils down to the fact that they’re afraid of being seen.

Sidebar from a nearly 65-year-old person who has worked in the arts her entire life: You are never seen. Not in your entirety. You may reveal all of your secrets and no one will care. Or they’ll comment on the portrayal of something minor, like the cat, and kvetch about that. It’s disappointing…and freeing.

However, the fear of being seen is a real and crippling fear, stopping a lot of prose writers and poets from following their dreams. Writers, unlike actors and musicians, can hide from the world. You can use a pen name, set up a legal entity that doesn’t use your real name (in an obvious manner), and never let your picture out into the world.

You can hide and publish your work. That’s the great thing about being a writer.

Usually when a writer figures out their own personal workaround, they put their work on the market, whatever it means for them.

I had one of those discussions this past week with a couple of different writers, some in person, one online, and when I photo-bombed the Writers’ Block webinar on Wednesday.

After that moment on the webinar, I spent a few hours thinking about how universal that fear is among writers. I’ve been in this business almost fifty years now, and I’ve seen it every year.

Then Dean and I watched a little bit of The Voice. We often watch something to rest our poor brains, usually at dinner. We’ve moved away from news (since there’s no way that will relax anyone), and gone to documentaries and The Voice.

We usually watch a segment or two and then go back to whatever we were doing. It will take us days to watch an entire 2-hour episode.

So that Wednesday night, we watched two members of Michael Bublé’s team duet on a song he wrote, called “Home.” Most of you know it as a super hit for Blake Shelton, but Bublé wrote the song and released it first.

Before the battle, Bublé talked a bit about writing the song. I can’t find the clip for that (mostly because I’m lazy, but also because it’s not that relevant), but I did find the one that caught my attention.

It got me thinking, and I went up to my office and made a list.

Most people who work in the arts realize that their work has to be put out into the world.

• People who write music must perform that music to sell that song/sonata/whatever. They may be terrible singers. They might be shy as hell. But they need to make, at minimum, a demo tape.

Often they perform their own work, in some kind of concert, and it is that work that ends up catapulting them into whatever level of fame they will reach.

And then, partly because of the vagaries of the (exceedingly complex) music copyright laws, they may hear someone else cover their song. They might be like John Legend, who has said on The Voice that he cannot listen to a cover of one of his songs fairly. Or they might be like Bublé who not only assigned the song, but was honored by the way the singers performed it.

• People who write plays write them with production in mind. What is the point of writing a play if it’s just going to languish on your desk? The problem, though, with writing a play is that when it is performed, there will be an area that the performers cannot do or cannot say.

In early drafts of a play, the playwright will have to be nearby to do some kind of work to smooth out that section. Sometimes it’s because the star is a doofus and can’t say a word with more than two syllables, but mostly it’s because that section of the show, when performed in previews, did not work. Neil Simon deals with this a lot in his autobiography Rewrites.

• People who write screenplays know that they’re writing something that will be performed as well. I had a very famous writer friend who wrote the wordiest damn screenplays ever and had, in his contract, a clause that said not a word could be touched.

After his early years in Hollywood (when he didn’t have enough clout to have that stupid contract), he rarely sold a screenplay and when he did, it was a charity sale from a friend who would buy the screenplay so that the writer could retain his Writers Guild membership. (And then the charity friend would do a shooting script.)

• Artists know that their paintings or photographs will be displayed or used on covers or put on t-shirts and prints and everything else.

Even the lowest of the low, graffiti “artists,” the ones who deface buildings, understand that their art needs to be seen. (I’m grumpy about graffiti these days since Vegas has a lot of wall murals all over the city—and the freakin’ graffiti “artists” will deface them. Grrr. I hate people who deface other people’s art.)

• Even young poets these days understand that they might have to get up in front of a crowd at a poetry slam and declaim their poem.
• And let’s not talk about comedians, who are also writers, who get in front of a crowd, and risk bombing night after night after night. Dean and I saw one of George Carlin’s shows in his last years, and Carlin was testing material so new that he was holding paper torn from a notepad.

Some of it was funny. Much of it was not.

Fiction writers—people who write novels and short stories—are the only artists I know who expect someone else to publish their work. Fiction writers, particularly those who are traditionally published, believe that all they have to do is write it, and everyone will flock to their feet.

That’s an ingrained attitude, and a hard one to fight. Heck, a lot of these writers are worried when they decide to give a copy of their manuscript to an editor at a book publishing house or (worse) an agent.

Writers do not expect to have their work in the public view, and often fear it.

I’m not sure why this is. I think it’s just part of the culture.

There are movies that show writers at work, and someone else dragging that “brilliant” manuscript off the writer’s desk. Or the writer “gets discovered” in an English class (never happened when I was in school). Or someone else mailed off their manuscript.

That myth goes hand in hand with the idea that writing should be hard and writers should suffer while doing it. That myth also goes with the idea that anything written fast is terrible and anything labored over is brilliant. And that myth goes with the idea that being prolific is a sin. (Tell that to Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare.)

Indie writers have a similar problem, but it’s couched in other terms. I don’t want to learn how to publish. That’s going to be hard. It’ll take too much money or I can’t do covers or…or…

Okay, I want to reply, whatever roadblocks you want to set up for your work, go ahead.

But real artists—be they musicians or painters or (yes) writers—need to have their work seen. They need to figure out how to get on that stage despite their stage fright and put their art in front of an audience.

Otherwise the art will be destroyed when they die, tossed out with the trash or deleted off their computers.

Oh…and let’s talk “covers” for a minute. Blake Shelton’s version of “Home” is very different from Bublé’s version, which is different from the duet that aired on The Voice this past week.

If you’re lucky as a writer, and if you put yourself out there, at some point, someone will want to do make another piece of art using yours as inspiration. Maybe a movie, maybe a TV show, maybe a dramatic reading or an audio book.

That’s a “cover” for lack of a better term. (It really is a derivative work, and it does fall in a different place in the copyright law, but go with me on this for a minute.) Instead of being all protective and saying that you must control all things, say yes…if the contract terms are good.

That’s all.

A singer doesn’t have to get permission to cover a song. I can sing “Home” badly in front of an audience if I want to, but if I get paid for it, I need to let the songwriter know that I’m going to be covering the song. The songwriter cannot say no.

It gets complicated after that. (Okay, it’s already complicated.) But implied in all of this is that the music needs to get in front of an audience. The play will be performed. The screenplay will become the basis for a movie. The painting will hang on a gallery wall.

What makes writer-artists any different? Why should we fight so hard to create something and then be afraid to put it in front of an audience. Particularly since we’ll never see that audience. We don’t have to hear from them either, if we keep our email private and don’t go on social media and don’t read reviews.

What makes fiction writers so dang delicate? Every artist has fears. All of us do. If we want to make a living at our art, we learn to overcome the fear.

It may take a dozen workarounds. It might mean the writing equivalent of puking in the bathroom before stepping on the stage. But if you value your own work and your own dreams, you learn how to get past whatever is stopping you.

Just like other performers do.

“Putting Yourself Out There,” copyright © 2025 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Picture of Gavin is there because, despite appearances, he’s terrified of putting himself out there.

I haven’t yet finished reading  The Best American Sports Writing of the Century, because I needed to take a break. The book has a slant that is very white-male oriented. It’s also filled with some challenging pieces that aren’t holding up to the 26 years since the book was printed. (I swear, New Journalism is soooo self-involved.) But some of it is good and interesting and I’ll come back to it when the mood suits me. I doubt I’ll ever recommend the book, but watch: there will be a time when I recommend more essays from it.

I read one of the best novels I’ve seen in years and some great articles. So January was quite a success…which is why this list is so late. It took a while to chronicle my reading.

January 2025

Anders, Charlie Jane, “A Temporary Embarrassment in Space Time,” New Adventures in Space Opera, edited by Jonathan Strahan, Tachyon, 2024. I absolutely love this story. It’s everything a certain kind of space opera should be—fun, preposterous, believable, tense, and adventurous. All wrapped into a neat and well-written package. A wonderful gem of a story.

Crais, Robert, The Big Empty, Putnam, 2024. The best book I’ve read all year, maybe in the past few years. I love Robert Crais’s Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. Pike doesn’t show up until halfway through this book because Bob is so dang good at point of view and the way a story should flow. I don’t have a lot of time for leisure reading, and right now, my lack of time is significantly worse. So I did the readerly thing. I stayed up past my bedtime, and Dean literally had to pull the book from my hands. I still read it in two days. Fantastic. And no, I’m not going to tell you much more than “fantastic” because, as with all of Bob’s books, to say more is to ruin a surprise. (I might have already said too much, in fact.)

Deaver, Jeffery, and Maldonado, Isabella, Fatal Intrusion, Thomas & Mercer, 2024. Yep, I have an Amazon link only for this book, because I just discovered something very unpleasant. This book (and a bunch of Deaver novellas) are only available in ebook on Amazon. Sorry about that! I read the book in paper, which is how I prefer to read, so I had no idea that this had happened until the moment I was putting the book on the list. Sigh. It makes me, as a reader, more than mildly pissed off.

The book is good enough. It’s not as good as most Deaver books, but it’s better than a lot of thrillers. I’ll read the next book in the series, and if I like it, I’ll pick up one of Maldonado’s books. Collaborations are a difficult animal. They can be something better than both writers, especially if the book is something they wouldn’t have written without the collaborator. I suppose Deaver could argue that he wouldn’t have had a character like Carmen Sanchez, but except for a few chapters that I suspect were all Maldonado, she felt very generic. So I don’t think this collaboration enhanced the two writers’ work (I’m saying this without having read hers). But this is a good way to while away a few hours.

Fekadu, Mesfin, “The Loophole That Landed Muni Long a Grammy Nom,” The Hollywood Reporter, November 20, 2024. The online version of this article has the title “Muni Long Explains How She Made It,” and I think that is a better title for the content here. Muni Long has been around for awhile, and she has followed her own path. There are some great quotes in here, but the best was her response to how she got paid for her streaming content:

Sometimes you look at your quarterly statement and you’re like, “Oh wow, $1,000 for 500 million streams. Great. That’s awesome.” The sheer volume that I have to write in order to make an income that makes sense [is insane]. What saved me is that I have quality and quantity, whereas some of these people, all they have is one or two records.

Quantity and quality. She’s right. We’re doing the same. Take a look at this one, even if you’re new to Muni Long.

Harris, Robert,, Vintage Books, 2016. I really like Robert Harris’s writing, although his topics don’t always interest me. I picked up Conclave after seeing a review of the film. A lot of my favorite actors are in it, and since I like Harris, I thought I should give the book an eyeball before watching the film. Glad I did. There’s a nice moment toward the end of the book, something completely unexpected and yet set up. It worked for me, and might not have worked in the film (which I have not yet seen). Of course, that had me looking through more Robert Harris for the books I’ve missed. I mostly didn’t order the ones on the topics that I don’t care about, but I did preorder the next. I love his courage as a writer. He’s always doing something interesting. This is a novella, filled with his great characters and marvelous writing. Oh, and for the interested: I am not Catholic, although I was in and out of Catholic churches as a kid because so many of my friends were Catholic. So I have a passing familiarity with some of the rituals, but no great interest in the church or its habits. I still found this fascinating.

Heinz, W.C., “Brownsville Bum,” The Best American Sports Writing of the Century, edited by David Halberstam with Glenn Stout, HarperCollins, 1999. I had never heard of W.C. Heinz before reading this book. Yet many of the other writers in the front half of the book (at least) mentioned him as the best of the best. Well, this is my favorite piece in the book so far. It’s a 1951 piece about someone named Bummy Davis who was a fighter back in the day when fighters could kill each other in the ring. This one reads like a short story—the life and death of kinda thing. The writing itself is sharp and crisp, the events breathtaking. The murder, at the end, shocking because it happened in a bar, not in the ring. If you find the book, read this one first.

Rose, Lacey, “Selena Gomez is Waiting For Your Call,” The Hollywood Reporter, November 20, 2024. Last fall and early this year, there were a lot of interviews with Selena Gomez as the Oscar and Grammy hype heated up. She has a good team. But she’s also a great interview because, as young as she is, she’s had an amazing career. She knows who she is, and she’s blunt about it. I can’t encapsulate this long piece in any coherent way, except to say all writers (and Selena fans) should read it.

Royko, Mike, “‘A Very Solid Book,'” The Best American Sports Writing of the Century, edited by David Halberstam with Glenn Stout, HarperCollins, 1999. A lot of the work in this book is dated. So dated, in fact, that I had to look up some of the rivalries just to see what was going on. But this piece by Mike Royko from 1987 is familiar. I was 27 at the time, and aware of the Mets/Cubs rivalry.

Some idiot at some NY publishing house asked Royko to review a book about the Mets. And oh, did he. This piece is not dated, once you knew about the rivalry, and it is one one of my favorites. I just read it again, out loud this time to Dean. It’s a very short piece that is, ostensibly, a review of a book by Mets first baseman (at the time) Keith Hernandez. And Smith was a Cubbies fan through and through. The book is solid, you see, because it can survive being thrown against a wall…

Really worth reading

Score, Lucy, Things We Never Got Over, Bloom Books, 2022. Okay, this is annoying. As I set up this post, I discovered that Lucy Score’s ebooks are exclusive to Amazon. Same thing as the Deaver/Maldonado above. Grrrr. You can get the paperbooks anywhere you want, but to get the ebook, you have to go to Amazon. You can’t even go to her own website/store to get the book. Sorry about that. Get the paper. She has some lovely deluxe editions.

However, I did find the book on Amazon. I had just finished something else (what I can’t remember) and the algorithm suggested this book. I did what I often do and read the first chapter. And wowza is it good. Seriously, this first chapter is worth reading even if you don’t pick up the book. The chapter is a masterclass of information flow. The chapter title is Worst. Day. Ever. The first paragraph is a perfect hook:

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I walked into Café Rev, but it sure as hell wasn’t a picture of myself behind the register under the cheery headline “Do Not Serve.” A yellow frowny face magnet held the photo in place.

Each paragraph builds on that. With each page, the situation gets worse and worse and worse. You—well, I—had to go to the next chapter immediately. The book ends up being a tiny bit long, and for a moment verges on “if you two only talk to each other, this would end” but by then I didn’t care. The book is fun, the writing is great, and the characters are a hoot. So pick this one up…or at the very least (writers) read that first paragaph.

Smith, Red, “Next To Godliness,” The Best American Sports Writing of the Century, edited by David Halberstam with Glenn Stout, HarperCollins, 1999. My father, who was born in 1914, used to talk about the great sports writers and announcers from his life. He also talked about great players, so many of their names are familiar to me. Others, not quite as much. But Red Smith was quite familiar. His name was in the air all the time in our family, and also in the various writing classes I had. Red Smith was one of those writers even non-sports fans enjoyed.

Back when my father imprinted on baseball, there was radio, but it was local only. So games played outside of the area weren’t aired. The readers had to rely on the print media.

“Next To Godliness” describes an entire game in maybe 1,000 words. It also describes the reaction to that game from Smith himself. It’s lovely and well done. There’s a reason this man’s work was remembered—at least for another 50 years.

Smith, Thomas, “Dua Lipa Talks 2024,” Billboard, December 14. 2024. I love Dua Lipa’s stuff. I run to it. I also enjoy how she’s running her career, in the same way that I admire the way Taylor Swift is. These women are taking charge in a way that most musicians do not. So read this. She’s interesting and what she’s doing with her business is also great.

Verhoeven, Beatrice, “John M. Chu,” The Hollywood Reporter, November 13, 2024. Fascinating interview with John M. Chu, released just before Wicked came out. (If you haven’t seen Wicked, oh, you must! It’s marvelous.) Lots of great material here, mostly about being courageous. Lots of behind the scenes on his various movies as well. In The Heights, Crazy Rich Asians, and more. Read this one.

Weir, Keziah, “Give And Let Give,” Vanity Fair, October, 2024. I’ve been thinking about this interview ever since I read it, particularly as one particularly nutty billionaire chainsaws his way through American government, another sends his fiance into space, and the rest don’t seem to give a rat’s banana about actual human beings.

Melinda French Gates, former wife of Bill Gates, is also worth billions, and she’s giving it away, systematically, to charity after charity. She says it’s not easy, because she had to have the right organization in place to help funnel the money, and then she has to figure out where she can do the most good. Note the difference: Do The Most Good. Yeah, she’s not the only ex-wife of a billionaire doing this.

It’s fascinating to me that the wealthy women understand their social responsibility and the bulk of the men…do not.

And if you’re uncertain, at least watch the video I did. Enjoy! (Oh, and head to the Kickstarter here.)