If you didn’t catch last week’s Fiction Fragments, you missed my chat with Stoker Award nominated writer, Cindy O’Quinn.

This week, I am absolutely thrilled to welcome Linda D. Addison to Girl Meets Monster. Linda is a living legend, and if you don’t know who she is, or aren’t familiar with her work, you definitely need to get out more.

Linda D. Addison, the author of five award-winning collections, including The Place of Broken Things written with Alessandro Manzetti, & How To Recognize A Demon Has Become Your Friend and recipient of the HWA Lifetime Achievement Award.

Site: www.lindaaddisonpoet.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/linda.d.addison
Twitter: https://twitter.com/nytebird45
Instagram: nytebird45

Three Questions

GMM: Welcome to Girl Meets Monster, Linda. Way back in 2018, before the world began to resemble a dystopian science fiction novel, I had the unexpected privilege of sitting at your table during the awards ceremony at StokerCon in Providence, Rhode Island. I say unexpected because I got separated from my friends and we had to find seats at different tables. I like to believe that everything happens for a reason. That night I got to hear your acceptance speech for your Lifetime Achievement Award, and it had a profound effect on me. I had pitched my novel, Invisible Chains, earlier that day, and felt good about the possibilities that were ahead of me. But after listening to your story of strength, dedication and success, I believed in myself a bit more.

You are and have been an inspiration to many writers, including myself. Who inspires you? Which writers, musicians, artists, or experiences shaped your view of the world and gave voice to your writing?

LDA: I totally believe everything happens for a reason. How delightful that we met as your wonderful novel was finding its way into the world. Thank you for sharing how you were inspired by me. There were so many who inspired me, the first that always comes to mind is my mother, who was a master storyteller, giving my imagination permission to grow. I never lost that connection, no matter how hard life is, I’ve learned to return, again and again, to my imagination, to creating…

Let me first say how inspired I am by reading the work of new authors, like yourself, that is the secret gift I get from mentoring. Every year I discover new writers, whose work excites me and makes me want to write. The list of writers, musicians, artists, and experiences that shaped me would fill a book. I was a very quiet child and watched everyone around me, internally trying to understand others’ behavior. I’ve studied philosophy, psychology, religion, science, everything to figure the world out, still studying, only not so shy anymore.

Many of my family members support and celebrate my writing growing up and now. I have core friends who hold me up when life wears me down. My writers’ group (since 1990) continue to make my writing better and are my good friends also.

Per influences: In elementary school I read all the fairy tales and fantasies I could. Junior high, high school and college I read a lot of genre and non-genre work; to name a few: Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Edgar Allan Poe, Baldwin, Kafka, Shakespeare, Langston Hughes, John Cheever, and Toni Morrison. Once I got out of college, I obsessed over authors like Alice Walker, Terry Bisson, Nancy Kress, Octavia Butler, Maya Angelou and others.

There’s a long list of established creative people who I admired that have become friends over the years and early supporters of my writing career (some who are no longer with us): Jack Ketchum (AKA Dallas Mayr), David Morrell, Stanley Wiater, Tananarive Due, Charles Grant, Jill Bauman, Rick Hautala, Ellen Datlow, Charlee Jacob, Tom Monteleone, Doug Clegg, Tom Piccirilli, Weston Ochse, Yvonne Navarro, Marge Simon, Elizabeth Massie, Michael Collings. I could go on. Some people, who I only talked to a few times but whose words of support are diamonds I carry forever inside: Octavia Butler, Ramsey Campbell, Toni Morrison, Joe Lansdale, etc. I love all kinds of music, but when I write I like music that is all instrumental: anything by Miles Davis, Keith Jarrett; Arizona musicians I’ve discovered since 2014 are Stu Jenks, Barry Smith and Beau Gerard.

GMM: Now that you’ve won a Lifetime Achievement Award, what’s next? What projects have you been working on? What dream projects have you been putting off? What creative work have you been doing aside from writing fiction and poetry? How are you channeling your experience and expertise into educating and mentoring other writers?

LDA: The first new thing is I’ve finished my first novel, science-fiction. Writing a novel was a whole new land to play in, since I’ve made my career with poetry and short fiction. It’s been something I’ve avoided for years because I was afraid I’d get lost in the novel and not find my way out. The fear started to dissipate at WHC2012 when Rick Hautala and Joe Lansdale both came up to me and wanted to know why I hadn’t written any novels. I told them I was afraid and they reminded me that I know how to write a story and should do novels as one chapter/story at a time. Somehow, that worked on me over time. Once it comes out, we’ll see what the world thinks.

Another dream come true: I attended (virtually) the release of a film (inspired by my poem of same name) “Mourning Meal” by award-winning producer/director Jamal Hodge and it was so beyond exciting. Jamal (and team) did an amazing job of creating a high-quality movie and story. I’m so proud to have this as my first visual project to be part of because I grew up watching scary movies with my mom and always dreamed of seeing my work as part of a film.

A dream project I’d like to do is design a Life Poems Meditation card deck, using some of the Life Poems I’ve posted.

There’s not a lot of time outside of writing, editing and mentoring to do other things but I do meditate and do tai chi each day. Occasionally, I like to create collages, and dream about doing collages with poetry involved. I also like playing the American Indian flute and sketching both are hobby level.

I enjoy sharing my experience with others. It’s completing a cycle of what is given to me, to pass on to others. Not to mention how much I learn in the process. There’s three ways I do this: (1) I teach workshops at conferences; (2) I am an official part of the HWA Mentor Program; (3) I take opportunities that cross my path, in person or on social media, to share suggestions with other writers, to connect people, and to celebrate others successes.

GMM: In the documentary, Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror (2019), based on Robin R. Means Coleman’s book, Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from the 1890s to Present (2011), Tananarive Due says, in reference to the representation of blacks in films like D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915), “Black history is black horror.” How has your identity as a woman of color living in the United States shaped your writing? Why were you drawn to the dark speculative and horror genres? Why do you think these genres are a good match for the stories marginalized people need to tell?

LDA: My imagination was always in the world of unreality. The first stories were told to me by my mother and there were magical creatures involved. I was drawn to genre books, movies, television shows growing up as a way of escapism from a life that was sometimes unsafe. Even though there were few Black images, I connected internally to the stories as a way to feel afraid, in the safety of movies. It’s clear to me my whole life, that being Black in America is riddled with real life horror. The monsters are human and the world on many levels, is waiting to make me feel less human, my life less valuable than others. As a girl, I learned the streets weren’t safe for me, whether in a Black neighborhood or outside my area.

The stories of marginalized people need to be told. Our voices need to be heard for so many reasons. Pain/anger is more than physical, it’s emotional, psychological, and passed generation to generation, wearing on the spirit. A society that suppresses part of its population loses part of itself. Like it or not, we are all in this together. We can’t heal the suppression that others create, but we can reflect our feelings in our stories, in any way we decide, with the possibility of some self-healing.

Fragment from The Nature of the Beast by Linda D. Addison

Sentinel Feu crouched in the cave’s entrance, scanning the outside area at 80% interface, as Bos-garth wiped the blood from his hands with the shaman’s robe. Other than indigenous animal life there was no humanoid life form nearby.

Bos-garth’s main ship, the Barstorm, waited in the outer orbit of Tah-Jaka. There wasn’t enough time for a cleanup crew. Feu would have to handle this herself. Although the Organization did business on Tah-Jaka there was little interaction with the native religious groups. A lone shaman this far from settlement wouldn’t be missed.

“To come this far for nothing.” Bos-garth kicked the dead Jakan’s small body. “For no answers.” He stomped the shaman’s fetishes into the stone floor.

Feu listened to Bos-garth’s heartbeat, waiting for it to slow, before saying anything. Not afraid, but too familiar with his needs, the rhythm of his drives. “We should go now.”

“Yes, you’re right.” He almost had to crawl to get out the small cave entrance.

She removed a pinch of grey clay from her waist bag and placed it on the center of the dirt floor.

Once they were back in the transport, Feu snapped her fingers sending an activation signal to the explosive. There was a muted rumble as the cave filled with a flash fire and collapsed inward.

She sat in the driver’s seat next to Bos-garth.

“I know you don’t approve of this quest of mine,” Bos-garth said.

“It’s not my place to approve or disapprove, but between this and the Ema project the Organization is concerned about your focus.”

“Let me worry about the Organization. I’ve brought enough gain to them and you to be allowed my hobbies, don’t you think?”

“This is more than a hobby, Bos-garth,” she said, looking into the reflective sun shades he wore.

He removed the shades, took her right hand and squeezed her thumb, invoking the Sentinel Override. “I don’t want to talk about this again. You’re not the one who has been told they are on their last life. I will find a way to continue. Now let’s get back to the ship. I have a new employee to interview.”

She nodded slightly, acknowledging acceptance of his override. He released her hand and Feu drove them to the spaceport.

Raven stepped out of the public transport, in front of the spaceport main building, into ankle high ash of Akan, her birth planet. This was the last time she would walk on Akan in a biosuit. She was leaving and never coming back. e-Raven, her ema was wrapped around her neck, looking at quick glance like a lizard-like necklace. It tasted the emotional distress in her blood and created a precursor to Serotonin to calm her.

It took going through three sections of decontamination before Raven could unlock her helmet. Few at the spaceport would have known she had won the ema lottery and was actually picked at the Joining by the ema baby. That would have been big news on other planets but here. Only people with interstellar feeds would know her story.

She faced the slated windows of the lobby, taking a last look at Akan, one of the planets designated for trash, after its natural resources had been depleted. Constant grey snow fell from the sky. Not real snow like she’d seen in vids, but ash from trash flashed into the upper atmosphere by teleporters. The final use of found alien technology, once hoped to make instantaneous travel from planet to planet a reality. The only problem is that whatever was transported, arrived dissembled. So planets used them to move their trash off planet, to places like Akan.

Raven checked the departure monitor to find the gate for Bos-garth’s ship. Everyone knew he was one of the richest people in the known universe, and probably one of the most corrupt. When his agent approached her, after the Joining about a job, she asked one question, was it off planet? He smiled softly and said yes, that she could pick any planet to work on. The possibilities were endless. Or she could decide she didn’t want to work for Bos-garth, after their first meeting. In return, Raven would get transportation to any place she wanted and enough credits to live extravagantly for five years.

It took Raven no time to agree. The smiling agent waited at the gate for Raven and bowed deeply.

“Do you have any luggage?” he asked.

Raven shook her head, unlocking the biosuit. He helped her step out of it. “Do you want to keep this?

“No.”

The agent passed it to a young woman behind him. “We are ready to go when you are, Ms Raven.”

“Are there others coming on board?” she asked, stroking e-Raven.

“No, we were waiting just for you.” He pointed with an open hand to the loading ramp.

Feu met Raven/e-Raven in the reception room on Barstorm. She looked at the thin girl with a hint of fur around her neck, hidden behind the rainbow spun tunic shirt and loose pants. The material slowly changed color at the pace of passing clouds, created onboard by spiders genetically designed for Bos-garth. This girl and her pharmaceutical creature was not the answer to his impossible search.

Do you have a fiction fragment? How about your friends? Would you like to recommend someone to me aside from yourself? Drop me a line at chellane@gmail.com. See you next week!

Guidelines: Submit 500-1000 words of fiction, up to 5 poems, a short bio, and a recent author photo to the e-mail above.