Tag: family

Last Ocean Tide Lost in Sand

cover of Capricious #11

I’ve got a new story out: “Last Ocean Tide Lost in Sand” is available in Capricious #11! It features an aromantic family, a depressed spaceship and a magical fox all seeking a better life on a planet that’s un-terraforming into contagious, deadly sand. Every person is non-binary, there’s multiple sets of neopronouns, and it’s sort of Space Australia!

The kernel of this story is about a decade old and I was only able to finally figure out how to tie it all together in early 2018 when seeing Sword & Sonnet, so it’s really nice not only to have actually written it, but to have it published as well!

There is also an interview with me in this issue. I talk a bit about “Last Ocean Tide Lost in Sand” and a bit about some weird Australian animals.

Additionally, next month Sharp & Sugar Tooth is being released and you’ll find my short “Red, from the Heartwood” in it! There’s also an aromantic, non-binary family… but none of the other things! It’s set in modern day Perth and features arospec questioning, vegetarian cannibalism, polyamory with both a queerplatonic relationship and a romantic one, and weird apple stuff.

I meant to do a 2018 summary but I ended up too busy in December because I got top surgery!!! It went well and I’m really happy! Dealt with a lot of anxiety about Am I Queer Enough and Do I Deserve This and Can I Afford This, but the recovery so far has had some rough spots I have not for one single second regretted it. (Also I went back to full-time hours halfway through last year and that’s been a rough adjustment…)

Painted podcast

“Kin, Painted” has been reprinted and podcasted at PodCastle! It’s narrated by Julia Rios. If you’ve had a hankering to listen to a story about an aroace middle child of a queer-normative and supportive family trying to find out how to fit into the world and how or whether to paint, well now you’re in luck! Hooray!

It is so wonderful to me that so many people like this quiet little story.

Heartwood

book cover
Sharp & Sugar Tooth
The Kickstarter for Broad Knowledge: 35 Women Up To No Good and Sharp & Sugar Tooth: Women Up To No Good (edited by Joanne Merriam and Octavia Cade respectively) has relaunched! My arospec love story “Red, from the Heartwood” appears in Sharp & Sugar Tooth and features a non-binary arospec dryad, who bakes desserts with apples plucked from her own body, juggling her long-term queerplatonic relationship and her new romantic relationship with a woman who’s having a little bit of difficulty with the idea of relationship anarchy. It’s got body horror and good food and weird food and questioning arospec wonderings about romance and puns and getting to know your girlfriend and aroace metamour over Star Trek and, don’t worry, the queerplatonic relationship is still strong and happy at the end of the story. You can read the opening of it here! Please have a look at the line-up and the other sneak peeks, Sharp & Sugar Tooth is looking pretty mouth-wateringly good.

She is, there—amongst the Mango Trees—a Flytrap Garden

Here’s a flash prosetry piece of mine which appeared in Verse Kraken in 2014! The formatting in this inspired me to do “stone”, my twine poem.

“She is, there—amongst the Mango Trees—a Flytrap Garden”
by Penny Stirling

Continue reading She is, there—amongst the Mango Trees—a Flytrap Garden

Transcendent is here!

artwork
cover of Transcendent, art by Noel Arthur Heimpel
Transcendent: The Year’s Best Transgender Speculative Fiction has been released into the world! It contains my story “Kin, Painted”, originally in Lackington’s, a gentle thing about queer children growing up in a supportive family, and Our Narrator trying to find a true self and place amongst them. I wrote a bit about it, as well as my gender and ungendered protagonists, here. (Bit funny rereading that; last year feels like only just yesterday, yet also so long ago.)

“Kin, Painted” is the concluding story in Transcendent, and also the inspiration for the cover painted by the outstanding Noel Arthur Heimpel, and I am just all ヽ(ﾟ〇ﾟ)ﾉ and (⁄ ⁄•⁄ω⁄•⁄ ⁄) and (ღ˘ᴗ˘ღ) at such an honour.

Here’s the full table of contents! Look at that line-up, damn.

You find it here: Book Depository, Amazon.com, Kindle, Smashwords, and Goodreads.

I’m excited to see what future transgender sff anthologies are like, and what K.M. Szpara edits next!

(And remember to check out Lethe Press’s other books and Patreon!)

sky and kin

My story “Tanith’s Sky” is one of 50 reprinted in The Best of Luna Station Quarterly: The First Five Years! This anthology’s only in paper form but you can still read “Tanith’s Sky” online here. It’s about what happens after the world’s been saved, it’s about grief and non-romantic love and maths and astrology and gender.

And I’m in the new issue of Lackington’s with “Kin, Painted”! It’s about finding a way to be happy in yourself, in your family and in your life, it’s about paint and non-romantic love and romantic love and compromise and being different amongst the different and quite a lot of paint. In a couple weeks the issue will be online for free but if you can’t wait there’s the (very recommendable) ebook and subscriptions available!