I have a story, The Wizard’s Stairs, in the current isue of EMG-zine. It’s freely available to read throughout June, so go, read, enjoy.
This story came to me while playing with my niece, the Princess. The Princess is three years old, with a three-year-old’s interests. She likes fairy tales, with their particular logic, where ideas have power and magic defies reality. In fairy tales, a phrase like ‘all the towers in the world’ can be meaningful because it catches your imagination – you don’t need to think about the rules of magic or the logic behind the situation. As long as there’s a lesson, it works. So while she may be too young to appreciate it, this one’s for her.
[…] lets call her Ever-ready. Ever-ready is one and a bit years old. She’s seen her sister, the previously-mentioned Princess, reading books. She’s seen mummy reading them, and daddy, and that funny-looking Uncle Andy. […]
[…] They often give me pause for thought on how we interact with books and story, and have sometimes provided inspiration for my own […]
[…] used the Middle East as a setting for a few fantasy and steampunk stories recently, such as The Wizard’s Stairs, and she thought it might be useful for me to read others’ work set in that part of the […]