A rain cloud, a crane on wing
Issue 27 of Electric Velocipede comes out today for Nook and Kindle, and my story “The Girls of the Forest” is part of it. I’m happy to announce this, but it’s still a sad occasion, because this is the last issue of Electric Velocipede. It’s a shame, because it’s a fantastic magazine, and while I can understand the reasons for closing it (time and money, the usual culprits), it’s still sad to see it go. I’m honored to have been a part of Electric Velocipede’s run, even if I came in at the very last minute.
A few notes about the story:
A lot of my story ideas come from two things banging together in my brain: the RAF and King Arthur, flying snakes and clockwork, superheroes and freedom of information. This one started out no different, being the result of 1) listening to the Decembrists’ “The Crane Wife Part 3” over and over again and 2) the birth of my nephew — or, more specifically, my brother-in-law describing the birth of my nephew, complete with sound effects. As is often the case, the story followed a path that led away from these, and as I wrote it, it became clear that I was putting together some of my thoughts about motherhood.
But the story was finished, and I sent it out into the world, and for a time it was set aside in my mind.
And then, in one of those coincidences that would be difficult to swallow if it were fiction, Electric Velocipede bought the story about a week after my daughter was born.
So there I was, nursing and sleepless and going through the story to see what I wanted to change before calling it final, reading what I’d written about motherhood when it was far off for me. And though there are parts of the story that scare me even more than they did when I wrote them, I think it still fits.
As I write this, my daughter is snoozing in her crib. Strange and uncertain and ambivalent as it is, this story is for her, who was not even dreamt of when it began.
Margaret Ronald 