I'm in a new anthology!
When the World Stopped: A Collection of Infectious Stories is just what it sounds like. It's a multi-author anthology of short stories about viruses, real and fictional, compiled and edited by Emma Nelson and Hannah Smith of Owl Hollow Press, the same publisher that brought you Matt's Bennytown.
It's freshly released, and my personal copy is still on its way, so I haven't gotten to look at the stories other than my own yet. However, I hear tell that this was one of Owl Hollow's most popular short story submission calls ever, and that it took a lot of tough choices to keep it down to a manageable size, so I have no doubt that the quality and range of different takes on the theme will be stellar.
So, if, like me, you cope through fiction and have spent this year watching zombie movies along with Alien and Contagion and The Thing more times than you can count, consider joining me for some new, timely-on-purpose plague fiction.
From the back cover:
Viruses are not new to life or literature, but the ways we experience them are always evolving. And stories are some of the best ways to heal, connect with others, process our own emotions, and remember the nuances of unique times and places, so join us as we explore love and loss, passion and betrayal, fear and panic, togetherness and separation, community and isolation within viruses of all varieties—real and imagined.
Look for my story, "The Regrecode."
In the year 3020, an idealistic young doctor and her randomly assigned quarantine partner, a jaded operations manager, race to save humanity from a bio-digital virus that can short out the human brain, circumventing all reason and compassion and leaving only childlike pettiness with a compulsion to spread.
Click here to order
(Paperback and Kindle editions available)