Hi, Liam. Thanks for talking with us. Can you tell us a little what your story, "The Dance of a Thousand Cuts," is about?
What if the swordmaster was the sword? What if this "magical" sword was found by a young girl? And what if the remarkable skills she gains through its tutelage lead her into a contest with the heir to a throne?
How did you come up with the idea?
"The Dance of a Thousand Cuts" almost certainly (things are never QUITE certain...) started from the Liars' League prompt, "Cut&Thrust." After that, a desire to put a magical sword in the hands of a female protagonist, a bit of inspiration from my childhood favourite, "Bridge of Birds" (Barry Hughart), and my tendency to somehow always miss the happy ending... and it was all inevitable, I suppose!
What is your inspiration for writing as a whole?
My stories are almost all ideas-driven and in most, that idea isn't quite plausible, leading me lightly down the speculative fiction path. That, plus a love (and aspiration to create) of a perfectly formed short story, the lessons learnt by osmosis from the relatively straight forward tales read in charity shop purchased sci-fi compilations from the likes of Isaac Asimov, and an odd desire not to give heroes any more page-time than they deserve... "Heroes? Pah!"
Could you tell us a bit about yourself?
I had my first story published at the age of 9, in the kid's section of the local paper, and was paid in book tokens. GLORIOUS! This (alas) MIGHT have given me unjustified views on the profitability of short story writing. Subsequence follow up success waited until I discovered Liars' League, with their themes and deadlines a self-applied rod to my back, and only by sending them so many stories they eventually caved in and invited me into the League, (I now host their live, London event) did I hone my short story writing skills enough to repeat what came oh so easily at 9...
https://liarsleague.typepad.com/
Since then, I've also tried to pay my way back, by volunteering as a writing mentor at the excellent creative writing charity, Ministry of Stories.
http://www.ministryofstories.org/
Where can listeners find more of your work?
Fortunately, I keep a "biblio-blog-raphy" of all the stories in one place, here:
http://happyendingnotguaranteed.blogspot.com/
But if you want a highlight (other of course than the two stories in Third Flatiron!) then how's the Scientific American for size?
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/physics-fiction-quantum-shorts-2015-winner/
Any new work we should keep an eye out for?
The kickstarter for Gunsmoke&DragonFire is about to launch, and features my steampunk tale, "Pinkerton," and sometime in 2019 you might read me in Analog, the venerable science fiction publication that got first credit for any number of those short stories I was reading way back when I was 9... Everything, including it appears me, goes full circle.
(And just for Juli's curiosity: What are you reading now?)
Slogging my way through Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. With a book club deadline, and WAY behind where I need to be to get it read in time! Oh well...
If you enjoyed this story, please grab the anthology it appeared in, Terra! Tara! Terror! It's available via Amazon
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