Reading Whispers

I've been reading the submissions to Whispers in Darkness today, and I can already tell this book is going to make me work.

The stories that stand out all have a certain ambiguity and uneasiness, just as you would expect of stories set in Lovecraft's backyard. However, what this means to me, as the editor, is that I'm going to have to cope with being unsettled and challenged all the way through the process. These authors have not held back, have not left any aspect of Lovecraft unexplored. I've read stories that deal with alienation from humanity, and unease with racial differences. There are stories that feature demonic triumph over sex-negativity, and ones that throw all the rules of sexual definition out the window. I love this stuff. This is where I live; but that doesn't mean it's going to be easy to wrangle all this into a coherent mass and deliver it to you, bound and polished and ready for exposure.

I am going to have to make a lot of tough decisions with this collection. In the end, it'll be the stories that serve the whole that get chosen, and I know that means I'll have to leave some good, haunting stories out. I love working as a professional fangirl, but it's days like today that remind me that I have to earn that by making the difficult calls.

I'm planning on announcing the final line-up in early June. As always, I'll post the authors, their bios, and the titles of their stories, just to tease. :-)