Specutopia is out! Buy it for the stellar lineup of writers and stories, or because it’s an interesting new venue for speculative fiction, or because you’d like to read “Water Child”, but do buy it. For the moment, your choice is to purchase through Amazon or Barnes and Noble, though it will soon be available directly from the publisher.
The writers featured in the first issue are: Greg Mellor, James Beamon, D. Thomas Minton, Rachael Acks (who also has a great story out at Strange Horizons this week), David Steffen, and Jetse de Vries. (And me, but if you’re reading this, you already know that.) I’ve only had time to read a few of the stories so far, but I’ve enjoyed them.
What can I tell you about “Water Child”? I could say it came from a title of a documentary I read about, or from standing at the viewing window of a fish ladder while enormously pregnant, and watching the tattered, tired fish trying to reach their final destination. Both would be true, to a certain extent. But beyond those things, it’s simply about the fact that motherhood takes you places you never expected to go.