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Resa Nelson's Recent Stories:
Published Since 2000
This page describes the stories I've sold since the year 2000 that are currently not on sale.
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"Trees, Like Candles, Dripping Wax"
Fantasy Magazine
Spring/Summer 2006 (#3)
This is a surrealistic story that I'm really proud of. It's another one of my "art meets fiction" stories. It's about the pressures placed on us by society to do whatever is necessary to fit in vs. being true to yourself and following your own path in life regardless of what anyone else thinks. Click here to read a review of this story at Tangent Online.
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"The Mix-In"
Oceans of the Mind Magazine
Issue XXI
Fall 2006
Mysteries
This is a science fiction story about aliens, baseball, and the importance of telling the truth, especially to those you love. This is my third story published in Oceans of the Mind, which is an electronic publication delivered as a PDF file. The magazine is quarterly, and each issue is themed. Every Fall issue tends to be the "mysteries" issue. My short stories "Brain Spike" (another sf mystery) and "Tin Soldier" were published in two different issues of Oceans of the Mind in 2003.
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"Rebecca's Hell" -- Brutarian Quarterly
Issue #44 (Summer 2005)
(on sale now through mid-October, 2005)
"Rebecca's Hell" is a short story that's near and dear to my heart. I like writing about art and artists, and I also like writing surrealistic stories.
Lately, I've been exploring writing about characters who aren't easy to like but who have redeeming qualities (even though it may take awhile for those qualities to surface). I think it's because when I look at life and the world, I see lots of shades of gray and very little that's black and white.
I was very lucky that fine artist Andy Volpe created a new drawing specifically for this story! It's a gorgeous and very evocative piece of art. I wrote an article about Volpe for Massachusetts Wildlife magazine, which was published earlier this year. (See Magazine Articles archive.) Volpe has exhibited his art at science fiction and fantasy conventions, so keep your eyes open for the original artwork for "Rebecca's Hell" (and possibly prints?) at future conventions.
The image on the left is a detail from Volpe's illustration. He's given me permission to put this detail online.
Rebecca's Hell received a positive review in Tangent Online. Click here to read the review.
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"Osiris Rising" -- Paradox Magazine
Winter 2004/2005
(on sale now through June 15, 2005)
"Osiris Rising" is a novelette that's part science fiction, part historical/mythological. Half of it takes place in the future, and the other half takes place in ancient Egypt.
I've been an "armchair Egyptologist" since childhood. I've been to Egypt twice, and I've travelled throughout the country (from Alexandria to Aswan) for a total of four weeks. The details in this story come from what I've seen and experienced in Egypt, my own study, and information from a native Egyptologist.
You can find information about ordering Paradox Magazine at http://home.nyc.rr.com/paradoxmag/.
"Osiris Rising" is mentioned in the Spring 2005 issue of KMT: A Modern Journal of Ancient Egypt. If you're a fan of ancient Egypt, look for KMT at Borders Bookstore.
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"Brain Spike" -- Oceans of the Mind, September 2003
Whenever I fly, I flip through the airline magazine in the seat pocket and look for story ideas. On one trip I read an article about Phineas Gage, a man who survived a serious head injury but whose behavior radically changed.
I've read oodles of books about the brain over the years, and I started thinking about the fine line between artistic genius and insanity. What would happen if you could make a choice? What if keeping artistic talent required sacrificing a degree of sanity, and vice versa? Even worse, what if you were responsible for making that decision for someone else's child, and you knew from your own experience what one of those choices meant and you couldn't bear to make the same choice for someone else?
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"Tin Soldier" -- Oceans of the Mind, March 2003
In the mid-1990s I stopped writing stories so I could study screenplay writing. Several years later, I decided to try writing short fiction again. I didn't know if I could remember how to write short stories, so it felt like a big leap of faith.
"Tin Soldier" was the first short story I wrote after my haitus, so it meant a lot to me that it was the first story to sell in several years. I wrote this story because I always feel baffled that you have to get a license to drive a car or own a dog -- but not to have a child. I have a difficult time understanding why society thinks it's OK to have no preparation for raising children, because it seems like the most important job anyone can ever have. So I decided to have some fun and create a world that takes pre-requisites for having children to extremes.
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