Greetings Everyone,
Welcome to Issue #8 of my quarterly newsletter, posted to csmaccath.com and e-mailed to subscribers on Lughnasadh 2013.
Appearances
I'm off to Harbour Con-Fusion in St. John tomorrow, where I'll be a guest writer and panelist. I'll have copies of The Ruin of Beltany Ring: A Collection of Pagan Poems and Tales on hand along with a few recent anthologies and magazines my work has appeared in, and I'll also be running special, two-hour panels on physical and cultural worldbuilding. Hope to see you there!
The Ruin of Beltany Ring
My first collection continues to do well and is now available for Kobo. You can also download an excerpt at Goodreads, if you like.
Here's what folks are saying about it:
Even after reading the glowing introduction, or maybe even because of it, this collection caught me off guard, wrapped a gnarled hand around my spine, and dragged me into itself. This is the word made magic, or magic made touchable. It is raw, and yet refined and rich, brutal and tender. It makes the soul remember. Each story, each poem, has a unique voice, and yet all speak to any who will listen. Evocative beyond explanation. What an amazing gift! - Chey Miller at Amazon.com
...Yesterday I received and read The Ruin of Beltany Ring: A Collection of Pagan Poems and Tales, written by C. S. MacCath and published by Triskele Media Press (2013). My most favorite MacCath poem is included: “A Path Without Bones“. There is the pain of uprooting and transplanting, despair and coming to terms with irrevocable loss. I wonder what my father’s father’s ancestors felt when they had to leave off following the reindeer to till the ground, and eventually travel across the ocean to a new land. Leaving everything behind, including what you can’t live without, any more than you can breathe without the presence of air.
Good poems. Nice variety of mood and structure. The short stories also are interesting. The ones I enjoyed most were dystopian and apocalyptic, projecting current trends and portends into all too possible futures. They reflect many of my own concerns and increasingly frequent disturbing dreams.
...Anyway, The Ruin of Beltany Ring, which is both book title and lovely, haunting story, is well worth reading. By the end of the day I had read it twice through, and today I went back to taste the special passages again. - Liz Bennefeld at Patchwork Prose
Reviewers can still request a free digital copy in their format of choice. Just send me an email via the contact form on my web site by clicking here.
New Reviews forThe Daemons of Tairdean Town
Scheherazade’s Façade also continues to do well, and so does my wee story, The Daemons of Tairdean Town.
Here's what folks are saying about it:
"The Daemons of Tairdean Town by C. S. MacCath is charming and heartbreaking and full of the unexpected." - Lokifan
"As the title suggests, this anthology features fantasy stories with characters that exist outside the gender binary. Various characters in these stories shift genders at whim, have secret selves of the opposite gender, cross dress to hide their identity, are transgender, or perform other acts of gender bending. Through the book, the stories are consistently good with strong writing, interesting multi-dimensional characters, and fascinating worlds. Here are a few of my favorites:
"The Daemons of Tairdean Town," by CS MacCath — A scarred woman drifts into a small town, singing to plants along the way, breathing life into them and the world with her tunes. She brings with her a secret self, who connects with the secret selves of others and helps them to heal..." - Andrea Blythe
Vegan Recipe of the Quarter
This is absitively, posilutely the best vegan stuffed shells recipe I've ever tasted, and Sean makes it better by halving the tofu in the recipe and mixing it with an equal part of almond meal left over from homemade almond milk.
Here 'tis: Dairy-Free Spinach Stuffed Shells
That's all for now. Thanks for reading, and I'll be back at Samhain with more news and nomz.
All the best,
C.S. MacCath