About cmariebissett

Carina Bissett is a writer, poet, and educator working primarily in the fields of dark fiction and fabulism. Her short fiction and poetry have been published in multiple journals and anthologies including Arterial Bloom, Gorgon: Stories of Emergence, Hath No Fury, NonBinary Review, and the HWA Poetry Showcase Vol. V and VI. In addition to writing, she also teaches online workshops at The Storied Imaginarium.

Author Spotlight: Wailana Kalama

Posted on April 19, 2023 by cmariebissett

Q. Tell us a little bit about your background, and your evolution as a writer.

I’ve been writing since I was a kid, fantasy was my jam, I’d create these worlds and languages and civilizations to go along with them. Honestly I spent more time world building than actually writing, hah. Then I fell in love with creative nonfiction, spent a few years doing that, and travel pieces. In the past 2 years I’ve been diving headlong into the wonderful world of dark fiction and finding it makes me deliriously happy most days.

Q. Have you published any stories that have come out of the generative workshops at the Storied Imaginarium? If so, what inspired your pieces, and where can we read them?

I took the Storied Imaginarium’s Season of the Hare in the Spring of 2022, and now have published two stories that came out of that. “The Sea-Hare” was inspired by the eponymous Grimm fairy-tale. The image of a girl trapped into a tower while all these suitors swarmed her was just so striking. I just thought it’d make more sense if she had a way to defend herself against all that smothering love. So I gave her a rifle, the same one that Simo Häyhä used in WW2. You can read that story in Apparition Literary Magazine’s April 2023 issue: https://apparitionlit.com/issues/

“Kill Switch” is another piece I wrote during that workshop. We read a BBC article about the dangers of seeing your own doppelgänger. Obviously, my story doesn’t have any doppelgängers, but it did get me thinking about alternative modes of reality and identity, and how technology can affect your body’s perception of what’s real, what’s yours and what’s virtual. You can read it in Dark Matter INK’s Monstrous Futures: https://darkmattermagazine.shop/products/dark-matter-presents-monstrous-futures

Q. What advice do you have for writers working with fairy tales and myth as well as combining them with current science and social issues?

Read as much as you can and don’t be afraid to brainstorm. Inspiration is a diving board, not a prescription. Pay attention to what stories and themes you gravitate to the most. If you have unanswered questions while reading an article/story, write them down and think how you might solve them creatively.

Q. How did you come to writing and who are some of your influences?

Probably my biggest influences are the short stories of Stephen Graham Jones–his Father, Son, Holy Rabbit alone inspired me to pick up the dark fiction mantle to begin with.

Others whose work shakes me include Oshimi Shuzo, Brian Hodge, Nathan Ballingrud, Gemma Files, Paula D. Ashe, Josh Malerman, Iain Banks, Algernon Blackwood, Angela Carter, Marguerite Duras, Albert Camus, Joe Sacco, Brian Doyle, Joan Didion, Tom Stoppard.

Q. Can you give us an insight into your writing process? Any habits when you sit down to write?

I guess the only thing I really do habitually is turn on my playlist. I have a playlist per story I’m writing and it helps me sink back into the world almost instantly.

Q. What is next in store for your readers? I have two upcoming pieces later this year, a coming-of-age short in Rock and a Hard Place magazine and a paleohorror piece in Dark Matter INK’s Monster Lairs.

Wailana Kalama is a dark fiction writer from Hawaii, with credits in Weird Little World’s Mother: Tales of Love and Terror, Pseudopod, Dark Matter INK’s Monstrous Futures and Monster Lairs (upcoming), and more.

Author Website: https://linktr.ee/whylana

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/27720197.Wailana_Kalama

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Wailana-Kalama/author/B0C1MDZJH5

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Whylana

What Roni has to say about the workshops at The Storied Imaginarium:

Carina Bissett is a knowledgeable, kind, and honest instructor who provides invaluable feedback, as well as collaborative brainstorming to help participants through places they may be stuck. I highly recommend The Storied Imaginarium workshops to anyone looking to get quality writing done in a supportive and creative community with a fantastic instructor. The Storied Imaginarium workshops have helped me generate many stories, poems, and story ideas. While being primarily generative, I have learned more from Carina and my fellow workshop writers, through discussions and critiques, than I have in more instructionally focused workshops. The modules cover an expansive and in-depth selection of retellings, research, and related articles. I’ve come back to them again and again when looking for creative sparks. — Roni Stinger, author of “The Ground Shook,” Dark Matter Magazine and “Worm Bagging,” Unnerving Magazine.

Registration is currently open for the Season of the Bear (March-May). For more information, click HERE.

Workshop Update: The Season of the Bear

Posted on February 15, 2023 by cmariebissett

There are only TWO seats open for the Season of the Bear! Both openings are for the Tuesday night section. (Note: This translates to Wednesday morning/early afternoon in Australia). The course will begin in three weeks with the first meeting scheduled for March 7. The Season of the Bear meets for twelve consecutive weeks with the final class (portfolio presentation) scheduled for May 23.

This course won’t be offered again, so make sure to secure your seat before the workshop fills up!

Currently, the proposed schedule is as follows:

SECTION II: Tuesdays from 4:30-7 pm (PST), 5:30-8 pm (MST), 6:30-9 pm (CST), 7:30-10 pm (EST); Wednesdays 10:30 am-1 pm (AEDT)

Daylight Savings Time starts on March 12 on November 6 in the United States in Canada and on March 26 in Central Europe. Daylight Savings Time ends in Australia on April 2. For conversion check https://www.worldtimebuddy.com/. If there is enough interest, we may add an additional workshop on Friday afternoon or on the weekend.

Note: All sections are limited to six participants plus the workshop facilitator. Inquire for additional times & days.

THE SEASON OF THE BEAR workshop is twelve weeks long and includes five modules. Participants are encouraged to write a poem, short story, or essay (3K maximum word count) for each module. Alternating weeks are dedicated to study, discussion, and writing prompts. At the end of the course, writers will present one revision (5K maximum word count). The price to join THE SEASON OF THE BEAR is $600 with a 10% discount for returning participants.

Materials for THE SEASON OF THE BEAR include:

MODULE 1: Bear Tales & Hibernation
MODULE 2: The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf & Extremophiles
MODULE 3: Baba Yaga & Fairy Tale Architecture
MODULE 4: The Boy Who Did Not Know What Fear Was & The Science of Fear
MODULE 5: Hades and Persephone & Sinkholes

REGISTRATION: To save a seat for The Season of the Bear, send an email request for an invoice to Carina Bissett at cmariebissett@gmail.com. The fee to attend the workshop is $600, payable to cmariebissett@gmail.com via PayPal. There is a $100 non-refundable deposit required to hold your spot with payment in FULL prior to the first class. Returning students receive a 10% discount. Space is limited. Payment plans available.

This series of interactive and generative workshops offers and opportunity to explore fairy tales and other traditional tales, paired with strange and marvelous concepts. You’ll have an opportunity to workshop five new stories or poems, and a portfolio piece you’ve revised based on the workshop discussions. This is a supportive and generative workshop that combines reading, discussion, writing, and feedback.

SCHEDULE

Week 1 (3/7): Retellings: Into the Dark Woods & Discussion of Module 1 reading material

Week 2 (3/14): Module 1 Story Workshop

Week 3 (3/21): Discussion of Module 2 reading material & prompts

Week 4 (3/28): Module 2 Story Workshop

Week 5 (4/4): Discussion of Module 3 reading material & prompts

Week 6 (4/11): Module 3 Story Workshop

Week 7 (4/18): Discussion of Module 4 reading material & prompts

Week 8 (4/25): Module 4 Story Workshop

Week 9 (5/2): Discussion of Module 5 reading material & prompts

Week 10 (5/9): Module 5 Story Workshop

Week 11 (5/16): Revision & Submission Strategies

Week 12 (5/23): Portfolio Presentations

What you get:

An introductory lesson exploring the history of the fairy tale, and various approaches to creating new works that draw on this rich and strange tradition.
Five lessons that combine a tale and a scientific or cultural concept, each of which includes traditional and contemporary tales, writing prompts, and stimulus information about the paired concept.
Twelve face-to-face workshops, delivered via Zoom and facilitated by The Storied Imaginarium’s passionate writers and teachers.
Access to a private Facebook group where you can interact with your facilitator and fellow workshop participants.
Access to a shared drive to upload your stories for workshopping.
An opportunity to share and discuss five of your original stories, plus an extra week when you can resubmit one story you’ve revised on the basis of the workshop discussion.
Written and oral feedback on the five stories + portfolio that you submit from both your peers in the workshop, and your workshop facilitator, including advice on potential markets for your work.

Publication News: Dark Matter Presents

Posted on February 14, 2023 by cmariebissett

It is publication day for Dark Matter Presents: Zero Dark Thirty, and we are excited to cheer on Roni Stinger for the inclusion of her story “The Ground Shook” in this highly competitive “best of” compilation. We enjoyed this story in its early workshop stages at The Storied Imaginarium, and we loved it even more when it appeared in its final form in Dark Matter Magazine (May 2022).

Rob Carroll included a little tidbit about Roni’s piece in the May issue’s letter from the editor: “‘The Ground Shook’ declares two truths: 1) the world is often cruel and uncaring; and 2) choosing to carry on amid such circumstances is heroic.”

Trust us. This is a story you want to check out. Order your copy HERE.

Every story published in Dark Matter Magazine is a best-of story to us, and that’s why we had to do something different when choosing stories for the magazine’s first ever trade paperback anthology. Enter ZERO DARK THIRTY, a curated collection of the 30 DARKEST stories to haunt our magazine’s pages during the first two years of publication (2021-2022). These are the most depressing and deranged tales the magazine has to offer. Enter if you must, but beware.
Dark Matter Editor-in-Chief, Rob Carroll.

Roni Stinger lives in Vancouver, Washington. When she’s not writing strange dark stories, she’s wandering the forests, beaches, and streets in search of shiny objects and creative sparks. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Dark Matter Magazine, MetaStellar, Hypnos Magazine, All Worlds Wayfarer: Through Other Eyes, and The Molotov Cocktail.

Author Website: www.ronistinger.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/20885227.Roni_Stinger

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Roni-Stinger/e/B07ZBLJRGK/

Facebook: Roni Stinger

Twitter: @roni_stinger

Instagram: @roni_stinger

What Roni has to say about the workshops at The Storied Imaginarium:

Registration is currently open for the Season of the Bear (March-May). For more information, click HERE.

Nomination News: “Fracture” by Mercedes M. Yardley

Posted on February 13, 2023 by cmariebissett

The Storied Imaginarium wants to congratulate Mercedes M. Yardley for her recent presence on the preliminary ballot for the Bram Stoker Awards® for 2022! Her story “Fracture” is featured in the category of Best Short Fiction. Mercedes wrote this workshop story in response to the module “The Princess on the Glass Hill” & Glassworks (Season of the Hare), and we are super excited here to see this lovely piece about a glass girl get the attention it deserves.

“Fracture” was originally published in the anthology Mother: Tales of Love and Terror by Weird Little Worlds (October 2022). The publisher has made it available to read online for free HERE. Enjoy!

NOTE: Active members of the Horror Writers Association can cast their votes on the preliminary ballot no later than MIDNIGHT US West Coast time on February 15.

She was safe and she was loved, but that wasn’t enough. One night when the moon was full and the air was as clear as Crystal herself, she donned her warmest cloak and fled into the night.

She ran like a rabbit. She ran like a stream. She ran like her mother so many years ago, her human heart thumping against her fragile ribs, her legs shining in the dark. While her mother had carried a precious unborn child of glass, Crystal carried her fragile, human heart.

It wasn’t easy for a glass girl in a city. There were cobblestones to trip on and carriages that run past. Crystal’s pinky finger was caught in a door and broke off in the jam. Her tears plink, plink, plinked as they fell and shattered on the ground. Children hurried to collect them before they broke, sucking on them like candy.

Mercedes M. Yardley is a whimsical dark fantasist who wears stilettos, red lipstick, and poisonous flowers in her hair. She is the author of many diverse works, including Darling, Beautiful Sorrows, the Stabby Award-winning Apocalyptic Montessa and Nuclear Lulu: A Tale of Atomic Love, Pretty Little Dead Girls: A Novel of Murder and Whimsy, Detritus in Love, and Nameless. She recently won the Bram Stoker Award for her story Little Dead Red, and was nominated for “Loving You Darkly” and the Arterial Bloom anthology. Mercedes lives and creates in Las Vegas with her family and menagerie of battle-scarred, rescued animal familiars. Mercedes is a member of the Horror Writers Association and co-chair of the Las Vegas HWA Chapter.

WHAT MERCEDES HAS TO SAY ABOUT THE WORKSHOPS AT THE STORIED IMAGINARIUM:

“The best writing career money I ever spent was on the Storied Imaginarium Monstrous Women writing course presented by Carina Bissett. We studied together, wrote stories based on that week’s module, and then critiqued each other’s work. I immediately sold two pieces that I had written in the workshop, and made dear friends that I still associate with. I’m planning to sign up for another one of Carina’s classes next time they open. It was astronomically helpful and inspiring.”
— MERCEDES M. YARDLEY, AUTHOR OF LITTLE DEAD RED. (STORYVILLE: WHAT’S THE BEST MONEY YOU’VE SPENT ON YOUR WRITING CAREER?, COLUMN BY RICHARD THOMAS)

Registration is currently open for the Season of the Bear (March-May). For more information, click HERE.

Guest Post: Foxes & Fairy Tales by Allison Pang

Posted on January 24, 2023 by cmariebissett

Back in 2011 (holy hell, has it been that long??) I was a fledging author with a book deal and a burning urge to explore the world of writing for comics/graphic novels. But I knew it was a tough field and I hadn’t ever really considered how I would go about it.

Enter Irma ‘Aimo’ Ahmed. Aimo was what you might call a BNF (Big Name Fan) in the world of BioWare fan art (particularly Dragon Age/Mass Effect) and I had been a huge fan of her work for a very long time. I reached out to her on a whim, knowing that I absolutely wanted to work with her in some fashion, but we had never met each other, or even connected online, which makes it a bit difficult.

In the meantime, my first book had just been published (A Brush of Darkness), so I sent her an inquiry about doing some custom sketch card art for my series and hired her to do just that. (Said cards are currently framed in my upstairs hallway and I smile every time I see them.)

From there, I asked if she might be interested in a collaboration of sorts, split the profit and see what we could do. By a stroke of luck, she agreed, and we started brainstorming. In the meantime, we wanted to make sure we could actually work together – after all, we still hadn’t actually met, and she lived half-way around the world from me. (And we did manage to meet up in 2015, and again in 2019 – but we keep up in almost daily contact via LINE.) We started a mini series of illustrated fan fiction where I wrote *her* characters and she conjured up some lovely vignettes to go with the prose, posted on Tumblr and a few private ones just for fun.

Based on that, we decided to write a short comic. A one-shot. Something small, to see if I could write a script that she could capture with her art.

10 years later…

*insert hysterical laughter here*

Yeah, so, it turned out the small story erupted into a huge story and here we are, somewhere in our 5^th arc and counting. (And really, this is no small feat. Collaborations can be touchy at the best of times – the fact that we’re still here and creating is something of a miracle, and one I’m grateful for.)

So what is Fox & Willow all about? Well, when we were playing around ideas and concepts, we thought fairy tales would be a fun thing to work with. After all, there are so many out there, and on the surface they often don’t give female characters as much agency as we might want. At the time, I was more interested in possibly exploring Asian folklore – but Aimo is from Malaysia and was all about the European tales that I grew up with.

In the end, we compromised with Asian characters placed into the backdrop of European fairy tale settings. Essentially, we follow the adventures of Willow, a runaway princess and Gideon, a fox-spirit/kitsune who has had a curse placed upon him in the form of a collar that cannot be removed. The longer it remains around his neck, the more he loses himself, eventually dooming him to become nothing more than a fox, even as Willow has to come to grips with her own past and what it is she really wants.

Although each volume of Fox & Willow is a separate, stand-alone fairy tale, the overall arc of redemption and finding out who they are and what they mean to each other is a constant theme throughout. The volumes include references to Twa’ Sisters, The Little Mermaid, Rapunzel, Red Riding Hood and currently the Snow Queen, exploring a number of potential concepts. (What if The Little Mermaid actually *does* kill the prince? What if the tower is an erupting volcano in Rapunzel? What if Red Riding Hood is in a poly relationship with the woodcutter and a shape-changing wolf?)

There is something intrinsic about fairy tales that touches people. The possibilities to change them up are endless –and old as they are, somehow references to them are still a deep part of the modern society hive mind. (Case in point – Aimo sent me a slew of limited edition Hello Kitty fairy tale plushies that were Malaysian specials from her local McDonald’s – the Snow White, I would have expected. The Singing Bone, I would not – but now I have a Singing Bone Hello Kitty plush, and It. Is. Amazing.)

Fox & Willow has been a long work in process and a labor of love – over ten years now, of two pages a week, all for free, with the occasional hiatus. The world has changed so much in the last decade, but we’re still here and we’re still writing this fairy tale. Now we’re getting a chance to bring these tales into physical hardcopy thanks to Outland Entertainment and KickStarter, and we look forward to continuing to do so.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Allison is the author of the Urban Fantasy Abby Sinclair series, the steampunk IronHeart Chronicles series and also the writer for the webcomic Fox & Willow. She likes LEGOS, elves, LEGO elves…and bacon.

To learn more about Allison, go to https://www.heartofthedreaming.com/.

To support Allison and Aimo, preorder your copy of Fox & Willow: Blinded by the Light at KICKSTARTER. The book will be a 140 page, full color, hardcover at 6″x 8.5″. This KICKSTARTER ends on February 8TH.