Last week, Girl Meets Monster talked vampires with Stephanie M. Wytovich. This week, Speculative Fiction writer K. Ceres Wright is here to share a fragment and talk about how you can support other writers and become a mentor.

K. Ceres Wright received her master’s degree in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University and her published cyberpunk novel, Cog, was her thesis for the program. Her short stories, poems, and articles have appeared in Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia Butler (Locus Award winner; Hugo Award nominee); Sycorax’s Daughters (Bram Stoker Award nominee); Emanations: 2+2=5; Diner Stories: Off the Menu; Many Genres, One Craft (Best Non-Fiction London Book Festival); The City: A Cyberfunk Anthology; The Museum of All Things Awesome and That Go Boom; among others. Ms. Wright is the founder and president of Diverse Writers and Artists of Speculative Fiction, a support group. She works as a publications manager and writer/editor for a management consulting firm in Rockville, MD.

Three Questions

GMM: What inspired the fragment you shared with us today? Is it a work in progress or an abandoned project?

KCW: There was a call for submissions for the TROUBLE THE WATERS: Tales from the Deep Blue anthology by Sheree Renee Thomas. I wrote a short story, but didn’t finish it in time for the submission. I finished the story later, but it got rejected at the outlets to which I submitted, mostly for the fact that editors wanted more. But I am unsure if I want to add to it, so it’s sitting on my computer at the moment.

GMM: As a woman of color writing speculative fiction – horror, science fiction, fantasy – do you feel that you have an obligation to support the work of other writers of color and writers from other diverse backgrounds? What advice would you give to writers looking to provide support or become mentors?

KCW: Yes, I do. I founded a writers support group, Diverse Writers and Artists of Speculative Fiction (DWASF). We have an active Twitter page (@DiverseSpecFic), and a website (dwasf.org). We present on panels at local scifi cons, such as Capclave, AwesomeCon, BlerdCon, and BaltiCon. We also plan to publish an anthology of short stories next year.

As far as advice, I would say to start your own group with local writers you know looking to get support; write about your process on social media, especially on grammar, self-editing, and honing your craft; and, if you have the time, reach out to a local school and perhaps give a presentation on writing to the children there.

GMM: Why speculative fiction? What were your earliest influences and what makes you want to keep writing within this genre?

KCW: My earliest memory was of watching Star Trek when it first came on, and I remember appreciating the primary-color uniform shirts, as most men’s suits at the time were either grey or black, which I found rather dull. Later, I would read spec fic stories such as A Wrinkle in Time, Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, and Chronicles of Narnia. Then Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, and Arthur C. Clarke. And there was Star Wars, of course, along with Doctor Who and Blake’s 7. But what made me want to write science fiction was the cyberpunk novel, Neuromancer, by William Gibson. The book enthralled me, and that’s what made me attend Seton Hill’s Writing Popular Fiction Program–to learn how to write a book. My thesis, Cog, a cyberpunk adventure novel, was published by Dog Star Books in 2013, and I’ve had several short stories, poems, and articles published, as well, in various venues.

I love how writers can use science fiction to comment on present-day society, as well as possible future society, and make you think about how the choices we make today will affect the generations to come. That’s what makes me keep writing.

An Exchange of Privilege, by K. Ceres Wright

It was always the poets–saturating pages with their blood over love, freedom, and peace–who touched Yemoja’s soul. Their words fashioned into brevity of wit and yearning amour stirred her underpinnings, which stretched to the ocean depths. Little else pricked her heart much, for she had borne witness to it all–Creation, the destruction of the leviathans, and the rise and fall of civilizations. She had carried the blood of slain Mali warriors down the Niger to be absorbed by distant shores. She had carried the Vikings on raids to European villages, guided Africans to South America, and stirred up the Spanish armada as it attacked England. She had borne the ships carrying slaves to the New World and accepted the bodies of those who had thrown themselves overboard, or who had been lost to the waves in a storm. She rusted their chains as quickly as she could to complete their release from captivity.

Then came the great wars, with new weapons and more bodies, both land- and ocean-bound. And she carried their bodies to the depths for her children to feed on, who would later be caught to be eaten. The savage circle of life.

Next were the radiation, mercury, oil, pesticides, and waste dumped into her ocean belly and tributary fingers. Chemicals ignited spontaneously and burned her shores, singeing her marshes. Garbage roiled in a whirlpool of waste, miles in circumference. Plastic choked her children.

Only poets could soothe her and offer promise of a tomorrow. If only she could find the right one, but she was afraid a poet would be insufficient. This far along, sterner measures would be called for. So Yemoja called her daughter, Oya, Orisha of the Wind, who swept in from the northeast, bold and brash.

#

“Exploit and pollute! Exploit and pollute! Give Dugan Chemicals the boot!”

Afua repeated the chant over and over as the Society for Clean Waterways marched along the Scioto River. The skyline loomed ahead, a colorful mix of white, brick, and grey buildings. The view, however, was spoiled by the stench of pollution. Most of it came from fertilizer runoff from farms, but they’d also had problems with raw sewage and slurry. Her grandmother used to tell her of when the Cuyahoga River caught fire in 1969 when sparks from a passing train landed on oil-slicked debris trapped between wooden frames. Publicity helped to pass the National Environment Policy Act. But environmental laws had been rescinded or defanged. And the Cuyahoga had caught fire again, this time from someone throwing in a lit match into the water. The next day, it became a call to arms.

Afua had skipped class at Ohio State to join the protests. Her mother would kill her if she knew, and Afua tried to duck the cameras as much as possible. She stayed close to the edge of the river, between the crowd and the media. Her mother’s voice rang in her head. “I’m paying for you to go to school, not to hang out with white folks protesting. They get arrested, it’s a slap on the wrist. You get arrested, it’s a different story. And don’t tell me it’s an experience you can put into your poetry cuz poems ain’t gonna pay the bills.”

At the moment, though, Afua wasn’t worried about jail. Given recent circumstances, the police stayed farther back than usual and no one had been arrested. At least not yet.

A gleam in the water caught her eye. It quickly passed, like a wink, but the day was overcast. There was no sun for the undulating peaks to catch, Afua thought. Perhaps it had come from—

A sudden gust of wind pushed her sideways. She stumbled, trying to steady her footing, but the wind battered her again and she fell into the river. The cold of the water shocked her and she strove to stand, but ropes of water and sand gathered at her ankles and dragged her under. The river muffled the screams and shouts of the protesters and obscured her view in the darkening depths. Afua kicked and struggled, but the cold rushed past her body, which meant she was being pulled down river. Panic rose within her, driving her heart to pound, forcing her mind to scramble for a way out. But as quick as the water’s gleam had been, a calm washed over her and in that frame of forever, someone…thing…spoke to her. Not in words, but with ideas and images. A river on fire, a collection of waste, dead fish, algae blooms, dioxin spills, sick children, and…an apology. And she understood.

#

Darius Papadopoulos hurried down the steps of Dugan Chemicals to his waiting car. The driver held the door as Darius climbed inside and settled within the heated seats. Having forgotten his coat, he was grateful for the warmth. His mind went to the scotch in the mini-bar and he helped himself to a large tumbler full. It had been a day, holed up in a room with lawyers reviewing a groundwater pollution case. The cleanup costs alone would hover around $1 billion. The stockholders wouldn’t stand for that large a payout, he thought. Hopefully, their argument that the statute of limitations applied would hold up in court. Who cared about a bunch of burnt-out meth heads, anyway? They were lucky he even hired them.

“Home, Stravros. I’ve got a date with a large steak,” Darius said.

Next week, Matt Betts joins Girl Meets Monster. Do you have a fabulous fragment to flaunt? Send it my way at chellane@gmail.com. See you next week!