Welcome to November...

Where did the year go?

Let’s jump right into it.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

My story, “Once Upon a Time at The Oakmont,” was officially published in Fantasy Magazine’s final issue on October 1, but wasn’t free to read until October 24. If you missed it, you can read it here, and if you prefer your fiction in audio, it’s also available in that format via the same link. I have to say, I absolutely loved Nan McNamara’s audio version. Not ashamed to say I got misty listening to it at multiple points.

*This month’s Story Behind the Story is all about “Once Upon a Time at The Oakmont,” so make sure you read the story first.

FORTHCOMING FICTION

As you know, publishing can be unpredictable, so I’ve recently gotten a few updates on some reprints I have coming out:

First, the reprint of “One Last Payday” in The Binge-Watching Cure III: Science Fiction Edition was originally slated for October. Due to some issues that actually don’t have much to do with the publishing industry, but that are out of the publishers’ hands, that’s now been slightly delayed. But assuming there are no further setbacks, that’ll probably be out this month.

The reprint of “The Body Remembers” in PseudoPod is still right on schedule, as far as I know, and still slated for around November 11.

The reprint of “Things Most Meaningful” in the Worlds of Possibility anthology is now slated for late November. Editor Julia Rios tells me likely around November 21, so keep an eye out for that.

The reprint of “Into the Frozen Wilds” in Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy & Science Fiction: Vol. 1 is now slated for early December. According to editor Stephen Kotowych, likely around December 5.

AWARD ELIGIBILITY

A reminder that I have 11 stories eligible for various awards this year. If you’re reading for awards consideration, you’ll find my eligibility post here.

INTERVIEWS

I recently recorded a second episode of Deborah Davitt’s podcast, Shining Moon. This time the topic was “Military Science Fiction and Fantasy.” Among the stories we discuss is the above-mentioned, “The Body Remembers.” We were joined by Jonathan Brazee and Derrick Boden. New episodes come out Wednesdays, so while I don’t have an exact air date for this, there’s a chance it might be out today. You can find the podcast here with all recent episodes listed, so just look for the one on military SFF.

Also, Fantasy Magazine published an Author Spotlight interview to run alongside, “Once Upon a Time at The Oakmont.” Phoebe Barton had some great questions for me in this companion piece to my story. You can find it here but be sure to read the story first as the interview refers back to it.

WHAT I’VE BEEN UP TO

As you may recall from last month, I entered my novella, Lost Cargo, into the SFINCS competition. Many of the judges who read for SFINCS also review the books as they go. Here’s a new review for my book courtesy of Team JamReads judge, Jamedi.

I also attended Can*Con, Canada’s speculative fiction convention, as a panelist. Here are a couple of pictures of myself and fellow panelists and moderators. The first is from the panel on “Advice for Aspiring Writers on the Craft” and the second from, “Staying Connected in a Post-Twitter World.” Both panels went very well, and we were quite pleased with the turnout, despite the final panel being on the last day of the convention.

THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY: “Once Upon a Time at The Oakmont”

On February 5, 2023, I woke from a dead sleep with the words, “On the island of Manhattan, there’s a building out of time,” in my head. I don’t know where that came from, and as I usually do when something wakes me in the middle of the night, I tried to ignore it and go back to sleep. But the words kept nagging me and as an experienced insomniac, I knew they weren’t going to let up. As I’ve done on other occasions, I got up and started writing while my family slept.

The first draft wasn’t too different from what you read in Fantasy Magazine. This story that I never planned on writing just appeared, and I wrote it as if I were simply channeling the muse. I know that sounds corny, but I can’t really explain it any other way. There was never a plan or outline. There wasn’t really a theme or idea I was trying to convey. I just sat down and started typing, and several hours later, I had this piece about a building that exists across time periods, and the residents who live there. Like I wrote in the story, “You don’t find The Oakmont, it finds you.”

This story has more of me in it than perhaps any other I’ve written. It plays with time, of course, which as you know if you’ve been reading my work or this newsletter for a while, is something I enjoy. But more than that it also includes a number of “Easter Eggs” that reference things that are important to me or interest me in some way. Things that I wouldn’t have thought could even be combined in a single story. I’ll address those here as I go.

A big part of the story deals with war, specifically World War II and the Vietnam War. My dad is a huge history buff, and as you know, a lot of history deals with war. So when I was growing up I spent a lot of time watching documentaries with him—not just about war, but certainly many of them were on this topic. To this day I still love a good doc about virtually any topic. And I have a good deal of general knowledge about these wars in particular. I’m also a sucker for a good 1940s period piece, which is why I put Sarah’s love interest, Roger, in the 40s.

My husband says I was born too late, because he’ll often find me listening to old tunes from the era. I have a 1940s Spotify playlist (among others). That’s the thing about me, I like music from all eras, and separate them by decade from classical music to present day stuff. Good music is good music in any time. At least that’s how I feel. It doesn’t matter if those songs are from my grandparents’ day, or even older—or if they’re stuff my kids would listen to. I don’t really have a favorite music genre either. I’m up for almost anything.

This story gave me a chance to throw in some nods to some 1940s faves. People like the great Billie Holliday, and Glen Miller and His Orchestra. Songs like, “Summertime,” and “Moonlight Serenade.”

In the original draft of this story, when Roger’s looking out the window, he sees an ad for “War Bonds.” While writing this story, I learned that in the early 1940s, they were actually called “Defense Bonds.” The name was changed after the United States entered World War II.

I go back even further in time (and to my childhood again) with the films mentioned. Movie nights at The Oakmont are run by Mr. Thomas, who exists in the silent film era. When I was little, my dad, brother, and I, would occasionally watch silent movies on weekends. My favorites starred Harold Lloyd, in particular his most famous work, Safety Last. As I mentioned in my Author Spotlight, It has always bothered me Lloyd never got as much credit for his contribution to film as Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton did. I vowed a long time ago that one day I’d put him in one of my stories, and this one gave me a chance to do that, with Safety Last fitting perfectly into my time-dependent narrative with Lloyd’s harrowing climb up to the clock.

Fun fact: It was Harold Lloyd’s dangling from the clock face that inspired the scene in Back to the Future in which Doc Brown slips and also ends up hanging from the hands of a clock.

I give Keaton a bit of a nod too though, since I must admit his movie Seven Chances is still funny as hell. If you haven’t watched a lot of silent film, you should. Chaplin’s The Kid, while not a comedy, is also a classic well worth viewing, and stars a young Jackie Coogan, whose legacy includes the famous “Coogan Law” that protects the assets of young performers in modern day.

Now let’s talk about food. If you follow me on Instagram, you know I’m kind of a foodie. I cook all the time, not because I enjoy cooking, but because I enjoy eating well. I also love a good restaurant meal, and often share pictures when I think the plating’s particularly good. For this story, I mention several foods that were popular across the eras. Fondue, from the 70s, for instance, and dim sum (one of my faves.)

But my real fascination has always been with what I lovingly term, “Mid-Century Monstrosities.” I even have a Pinterest board devoted to the worst recipes I can find from this era. Nightmare-inducing foods far worse than the aspic that gets a nod in my story. It’s always been a dream of mine to one day host a pot-luck devoted exclusively to these ghastly—if imaginative—mid-century recipes, just to get a chance to try them and see if they’re really as bad as they look. One day, it’s gonna happen. For now, my potluck in this story is pretty tame.

Roller Palace, the rink Linda’s boyfriend owns, is named after a real roller rink that used to exist not far from where I live now. I don’t think I ever went there, but the name stuck with me, so I threw it in. Linda’s roller skate keychain is based on a favorite one I owned as a kid, when I had a keychain collection in the 1980s. It was red.

I’m an unapologetic space geek and always have been. It’s a huge part of why I primarily write science fiction, and though this story’s technically fantasy, it has a little bit of sci-fi in it with the time element, and of course I had to throw in the Apollo 11 moon landing too. As a kid, one of my biggest regrets was being born too late to have seen the moon landing live on TV. It seriously bothered me. And while I got over that decades ago, I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a little bit of wish fulfillment to have my characters watch it live on July 20, 1969. Sarah gets emotional during this scene because I probably would too. I actually got teary watching the documentary Goodnight, Oppy, about the Opportunity rover’s last days on Mars, so yeah, go ahead and judge me, I don’t care. (It’s a great doc btw. Go watch it. I’ll wait.)

Back to food. Sarah brings with her an assortment of snacks that would be new and unusual to her friends, and she does that in part because I love trying new and unusual (to me) snacks. Again, see my Instagram for evidence. When you’ve got the munchies, nothing else will do. (Canadians of a certain age will get that reference.)

Now on to Sarah’s knack for attracting little old ladies. That’s me. I’m not saying I’m Sarah, but she does get this quality from me. Maybe it’s because I’m small and unintimidating, but strangers often come to me to ask directions or just to chat about the crazy escalating cost of produce. I always make time to listen to the little old ladies at the grocery store. I figure, it costs me nothing to be kind. One day in the not-too-distant future I’ll be one of those little old ladies too, and I hope I find a younger woman who’ll smile and listen and be a friendly face in my day.

Don also gets a little bit of me in his personality (truth be told, probably all these characters do.) Don’s your classic hippy who’s against the Vietnam War. Like Don, I’m against war. I understand why wars have been, and continue to be, fought. I understand why Roger’s generation—The Greatest Generation—was so eager to volunteer, and why Don’s generation wasn’t. I respect the values behind both those views. That all said, I’d much prefer we resolved our differences in less destructive ways. Watching all those war docs as a kid and seeing the horror and devastation I very briefly allude to in my story, I couldn’t help but grow up feeling this way. I want more for our species. So does Don.

Now I’ll move on to that famous Life magazine picture of the sailor kissing the nurse, shot by Alfred Eisenstaedt. The picture’s called, “V-J Day in Times Square,” if you want to Google it. I don’t remember when I first saw that image, but I must’ve been quite young. I learned more about it as a photography student in the 1990s, when I chose Eisenstaedt as the subject of my final project. (His pictures set to 40s music that I owned on CD, naturally.)

As a kid, I found that particular image romantic. I assumed the couple pictured was…well, a couple. What I later learned about the image is that the nurse pictured in it (Greta Friedman) was grabbed and kissed very much against her will, which just sucks. I chose to include a reference to this image in my story because it’s so iconic of the end of the war in New York, but I think I owe it to Greta to share her point of view. You can read about the true story behind this photograph here.

P.A.’s recipe for root beer ham: Take one fully-cooked ham. Place in a slow cooker. Pour one can of root beer overtop (Ginger ale and Coca-Cola also work.) Cook on low for 4 hours. Enjoy!

Andy Warhol. I have no idea when I first saw a work of art by Andy Warhol. Was it one of his soup cans? Marilyn Monroe? Who knows. All I know is that one of the things I loved as a kid was flipping through my parents’ collection of art books and falling in love with all the great art periods, including that of Pop Art. Whether you love it or hate it, you have to admit Andy’s work stands out. You know a Warhol as soon as you see it. It stays in your mind. Why a can of soup? You might ask. Turns out it was comfort food from Andy’s childhood. (Learned that from a doc, of course.) A lot of us can probably relate, so I threw some Campbell’s soup into the mix too.

Fun Fact: While The Oakmont has a revolving door, I personally avoid them. I truly despise revolving doors and have a mild fear of getting stuck in them.

In one of the scenes, it’s 1976 and Sarah accidentally makes a Star Wars reference that luckily goes over Linda’s head. That little Easter Egg’s thrown in just for me, because I’ve been a Star Wars fan my whole life. It’s a shame that in recent years so many toxic fans have ruined a good thing. I’m certainly not as big a fan of the franchise as I was when I was a kid, but there’s a lot I still love about it, and so I gave it this little nod. (The name “Harrison” is also a bit of a nod to Star Wars, borrowed of course from Harrison Ford.)

Finally, the announcement over the grocery store speakers about the blue Toyota is inspired by the fact that my husband drives a blue Toyota. So that’s a little wink to him, the first person to read this, and most of my stories.

Well, that’s about it for Easter Eggs. I hope you’ve enjoyed learning about these silly little things I love that I peppered throughout my story. As I mentioned in my Author Spotlight interview, “Once Upon a Time at The Oakmont” is a bit of a departure for me, in that I rarely write about romantic relationships, and this one has a romantic storyline at its core. But this is the story my muse wanted me to tell. I’m grateful to editors Arley Sorg and Christie Yant for including it in Fantasy’s swan song issue so that I could share it with all of you.

“Once Upon a Time at The Oakmont” was originally published in 2023 in Fantasy Magazine.

Thanks as always for reading.

Remember to like, subscribe, and share!

P.A. Cornell