With my third book, Promise: A Collection of Weird Science Fiction Short Stories, about to come out on September 12, and the anthology co-edited with Ai Jiang, Wilted Pages: An Anthology of Dark Academia following on September 19, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on getting started early and then needing to start again as a middle-aged writer and editor—and what a wonderful experience this has been so far.
Promise and Wilted Pages are still in preorders, and One Eye Opened in that Other Place is in preorders until March 12! You can order with 25% off from Barnes and Noble until September 8. Scroll down for more ways to order.
I wrote my very first short story in an undergraduate fiction writing class with Mitch Weiland in 1999. I remember struggling with the assignment, starting with a story that had no point and no real narrative arc but which was trying to mimic the sound of some of the pieces the class had been reading in The Best American Short Stories. I worked on it forever and grew increasingly frustrated, finally throwing it away and starting over two or three days before my story was due to be turned in for a whole-class workshop. Very nerve-wracking!
The new story, the first I completed (eventually published, over fifteen years later, as “The Drought, 1983” in Dappled Things), was my attempt to talk about my unusual childhood in a way that readers could understand and empathize with. In a way it’s a wish-fulfillment story—the mother and daughter get away from their abusive man quite a bit easier than my mom and I actually did—but at the same time, there is a lot of my own experience in it.
I felt so gratified by the experience of writing the story and hearing feedback that in the next few years I went on to take several more fiction writing classes, write more than a dozen short stories, buy and study a copy of The Writer’s Market (an approximately ten-pound print version of today’s Duotrope and Submission Grinder), and join an online workshop group called the Zoetrope Writer’s Studio. Unfortunately, I lacked the confidence to actually print the stories, write a cover letter, and them mail to magazines. My fiction stayed in workshop rooms and discussion boards, then in drawers, and by 2001 or 2002, I had stopped writing it. So many other tasks needed my attention every day, and the writing just didn’t seem to be going anywhere.
The power of community is what got me doing it again: In 2015, Elizabeth Barnes invited me (a non-writer!) to the retreat for the Sawtooth Alliance of Women Writers in 2015. I went expecting to just read and hang out, but in listening to the others discuss their goals for the weekend, I realized I had always wanted to try writing a horror story. I did not think about submitting it anywhere, but when at the next year’s retreat Elizabeth reminded me, I began researching how to submit things. This story, “In the Country,” was eventually published on PseudoPod a mere two years later!
And then what happened after that?
I didn’t stop.
I joined Codex Writer’s Group, then the Horror Writer’s Association and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Association, and several informal writing groups. Was mentored, mentored others, read slush for a magazine and then a podcast and then an anthology, attended online conventions, took LitReactor courses, wrote an actual book (!), co-edited an anthology with Willow Dawn Becker and then another with Ai Jiang, attended in-person conventions, taught horror writing workshops, was nominated for an award, actually won an award (!!), and so on. One of the most exciting milestones was having Flame Tree Press take on three short story collections for publication.
None of this would have been possible without the other writers I have had to lean on. The positive and supportive people in these groups kept giving me encouragement and feedback. Seriously, there is such love, generosity, and dedication to be seen in these communities every day!
On March 12, 2024, my third collection One Eye Opened in That Other Place will appear, and at that time I’ll have at least 92 published stories out in the world (many available to read online, linked at my Short Fiction page and my Audio Fiction page).
I absolutely did give up—for a long time—but I am so glad it was not forever. Writing and being around other writers is one of the best things I’ve ever done. I have been tremendously lucky to place so many stories and privileged to be able to even pursue interests such as reading, writing, and art—there were many years I did not have either the time or the ability to concentrate.
So, if you’re a writer who’s given up or spent many years unable to concentrate on writing, just keep in mind that it’s something you can return to, even many years later. Keep trying to find your community, and once there, do what you can to help others.
Before I go, I wanted to share some blurbs for Promise. Reading advance copies and giving blurbs has been another writerly activity I have enjoyed, and it feels good to receive them too:
“PROMISE is a collection filled with surreal, dream-like, whispered tales that read like thread unspooling and a spindle waiting to prick and wake us—the shocking sting from a scorpion’s tail. Nogle weaves together strange musings that infect and reveal the uncanniness of the human body that makes us feel uncomfortable in our own skin.”
—Ai Jiang, Nebula finalist and author of LINGHUN
“Nogle writes of technology and strange science and horrific futures, of the all too human propensity to turn dreams into strife and heartbreak. She conveys vast universes in terse, pristine prose with tales that roam the imagination and haunt like a spirit contemplating humanity's place in this world. Uncanny speculative fiction enriched with poetic beauty, the stories Nogle creates are both familiar and alien, as mysterious and illuminating as the Voyager's Golden Records as perused through the eyes of a non-human intelligence. An astounding collection.”
—Christopher Slatsky, author of Alectryomancer and Other Weird Tales and The Immeasurable Corpse of Nature
”There's a melancholy underneath every Nogle story, a creeping dread willing to fill any absence it can find. Promise is an exploration of our strange futures all tethered to this unmistakable voice, one that will guide you home through the void it knows all too well."
--Andrew F. Sullivan, author of The Marigold
"Beautifully written tales of the strange possible futures threatening to impinge on us. By turns strange and tender, Nogle's weird SF captures that feeling of disorientation that is at the heart of what it means to be (or to try to be) human in a transforming, damaged world and in all the worlds adjacent to it."
—Brian Evenson, author of The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell
"PROMISE more than delivers on its premise: weird science fiction. Like many of the characters within the included stories, you’ll find more slithering in shadowy corners, and at the edge of your peripheral, than initially meets the eye. Christi’s voice is wholly unique and shines equally during extraordinary moments of despair, love, yearning, curiosity… and beyond. Don’t wait for some glowing orb or anatomically-correct android to deliver the message telepathically; listen to me: pick up this collection today."
—Alan Lastufka, author of Face the Night
“Like all the great fabulists of the past, Nogle weaves the real and fantastic to create moody tableaus of unreality that are equal parts heartfelt and strange. Her stories ask big questions in small spaces, because this is where the human heart resides."
--Rob Carroll, Editor-in-Chief of Dark Matter Magazine and Dark Matter INK
And as always in Noglesque, some recent publishing news and upcoming events:
I wrote a nonfiction piece for Idaho Magazine about how landscape inspired my novel Beulah: "Ghosts in the Dessert"
On September 29-October 1 will be selling books with The Vein author Steph Nelson at the Comics Arts Festival in Boise.
I will be signing books at Rediscovered Books in Boise, Idaho on October 12. More info to come.
I will be teaching a workshop as part of Alex Davis’s series Darkest Nights 6-week online horror writing school.
Book Order Info:
You can order a signed copy of the new collection Promise: A Collection of Weird Science Fiction Short Stories or any of my books (as well as the book I co-edited, Mother: Tales of Love and Terror) using the form at http://christinogle.com or just reach out with a DM if you are a mutual on FB, X, or IG.
If you would like to order elsewhere:
Beulah: Amazon only
The Best of Our Past, the Worst of Our Future: All sellers linked here: Simon and Schuster page
Promise
25% off through September 8: Barnes and Noble
Elsewhere: All sellers are linked at Simon and Schuster
One Eye Opened in That Other Place
25% off through Sept 8: Barnes and Noble
Elsewhere: All sellers are linked at Simon and Schuster
Mother: Tales of Love and Terror: Weird Little Worlds
Wilted Pages: an Anthology of Dark Academia: Shortwave Publishing and most online sellers!