shameless friend promotion 1

I loved this story…  I had the great honor of doing a peer review for Grasyon before he published it.  It meant a great deal to me that he trusted my opinion.  It’s a little bit science fiction.  It’s a little fantasy.  There’s drama and love and intrigue and super powers…  What’s not to like?  And all of it written by a skilled author.  So, what are you waiting for?  Go get this book!

Everything changed the moment Super-humans became a reality; laws, politics, and society. They built the Office of New Entities to govern the Super-human population. But you can’t please all of the people all of the time. Norms afraid of Super-humans. Super-humans afraid of government. Government afraid that they’re losing control. One side versus all sides.
In any group, the further you look, the clearer the individuals become. They are children, men, woman, lovers, families, hopes, dreams, futures and pain. They are people torn apart by something they have no control over. And despite all that, there are some that choose to bear the burden of responsibility. They fight to protect those who can’t protect themselves.
The legendary and invulnerable John Porter. Alien/human poster boy Robert Day. Abandoned telepath Shruti Pandey. First functional teleporter Eve Levitas. People with a past and future, all caught up in something bigger.
They are heroes.
And this is just the beginning.

Buy your copy here!

Gray

Ra posted the image below for her supporters to enjoy on her Patreon page.  With her permission I am re-posting it here, for all of you, along with a bit of flash fiction I wrote to go with it. 

 

“She’ll never fall” by Grayson Queen

 

He called himself Grayson.  It was a name he had always liked and at some point he realized that the names given by other people meant nothing and he might as well use one he liked.

She called him many things, including Gray, because she valued the stories that went with each name, the origin of them, the stepping stones that led from how things were to how things are, and she liked to honor the history and the process.

They had been fastened to the ground near each other.  Their original purpose was lost with the passing of time.  They couldn’t touch.  They couldn’t move at all.  But, they could share their hopes and dreams and they learned to love each other.  For a long time that simple state of being was enough.  The knowledge that they loved and were loved in return sustained them through the long years of their solitude.

Then the world fell apart around them.  Battles were waged, won and lost.  Lands were torn asunder.  Fires raged unchecked reducing the landscape to ash strewn scars, with only a few glimpses of what had stood before.  Their love, their need to protect each other, worked one of the few true miracles the world had ever seen, and they shook themselves free of their concrete moors.  Their love gave them life.

Seeing the danger they were in, she fell away first, knowing he would fall to catch her, to save her.  He saw the danger too, of course, and knew why she fell.  He knew she would fall before she even started.  After all, he loved her and knew how she thought.  So, he reached for her and followed her swift movement in one smooth motion.

He would save her.  Neither doubted that.  It was a truth written in the bones of the ground they’d been freed from.  In saving her, he would be saved too and what happened afterwards didn’t matter.  They would be together in their new reality, in their freedom, in their love.

Dear Mom

Head over to Stories to read some words by Grayson Queen that Rara is sharing with the community there. And, don’t forget to leave a Thud in the comments.

Stories that Must Not Die

This was written by Grayson Queen in December of 2012, and posted to his blog.  You may remember it from there.  He was an artist, a writer, a blogger, a geek, a diabetic, a depression-sufferer, my husband, and billions of other things.   His was born David Martinez, and in May of 2015, he died from natural causes– specific reasons still unknown.   If you were one of his dedicated readers, please know I’m finding a safe space for each of his precious words.  We’re starting right here, with this post and this site, because I’d know he’d trust us to gently fold this note to his mom into our Stories.

I don’t really know how to work out the comments but when having the Big Talks together, Dave and I used to say “Thud.”   It was our way of saying the right words, in the right way.  Our way of summarizing…

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To End Without My And

I don’t have any great words to use here… one again Rara’s words have left me hurting in shared grief over the depth of her loss. Read on and leave messages of love as you can.

Stories that Must Not Die

After pausing last week, we continue now with post 4 of 6 in the series of poems and prose that Rara sent to be shared with the Stories community.  Each posting brings us a bit closer to her release from jail…  If you can, and you haven’t already, please donate what you can to the Rara Relief fund.  Every little bit will help her get back on her feet.

We bought an ampersand stamp
At a fruitstand & fair in Nevada.

It was Wednesday, and her name was Wednesday
and I couldn’t resist the charm of the coincidence.

She made custom rubber stamps,
pressed into perfect wooden cubes.  Anything
you could ever want to imperfectly – repeatedly
impress onto paper,
formed in a few hot, citrus-scented minutes.

I blinked at him, wearing his favorite smile
and he heard by mind, and responded.

“There’s a Wednesday every week, and –
it’s…

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Orange Buffalo Blood

“An orange buffalo is a thing we are told exists, but doesn’t.”
But what if we believe in that thing so fiercely, it becomes real to us? And then what if it stolen from us? What if it bleeds? What if it dies?
Head over to Stories today and read Rara’s adaptation of the recurring lines and themes from her husband’s novel.

Stories that Must Not Die

This is post 3 of 6 of a series of poems and prose that Rara sent to be shared with the Stories community.  Next week we take a break from this series and will feature two posts that were submitted to be shared, and then we will resume this series the following week. 

This post from Rara hit me harder than most.  She has taken something her husband wrote in his novel, Orange Buffalo, and adapted it to her current situation.  If you haven’t read his book, you should.  You can also find some artwork and other items he put together based on the book on RedBubble.  And, please donate what you can to the Rara Relief fund.  Every little bit will help her get back on her feet.

What a good girl – – a strong girl – –
She’s gonna grow up to be a felon, a…

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