BAF in the NYT

It's official. The Bad-Ass Faeries anthologies are part of a trend. I know because the New York Times said so, mentioning the BAF books in the same sentence as Neil Gaiman's Stardust, no less. The thrust of the article in the NYT Sunday Book Review section is the popularity of fairies in YA lit, but BAF gets a mention as a nice sampler of the style. Of course, they're still listing the old Marietta Publishing editions. The new editions of Bad-Ass Faeries and Bad-Ass Faeries: Just Plain Bad are now available from Mundania Press and available via Amazon. The most recent addition to the BAF family is series editor Danielle Ackley-McPhail's new novella, The Halfling's Court: A Bad-Ass Faerie Tale.

In my admittedly biased opinion, the BAF books are really something special. The range of stories in each anthology speaks volumes about how far creative folk can take a simple concept, finding new layers and life in it without falling back onto shopworn conventions. Writing for these anthologies has been a challenge, not only because of the nature of the concept, but because of the level of talent involved. I don't want to be the one guy who didn't pull out all the stops.

The third BAF anthology is in the works now. I finished up a solid draft of my piece for that last week. With this story in particular, I've finally determined that I do, indeed, enjoy writing fantasy. It's taken three BAF stories to convince me, and each one has drifted farther and farther from the dark, horrific sort of tales for which I've become known. In the past I've been tepid about writing fantasy, because of all genre fiction, I find it's conventions to be the most cumbersome. But writing my BAF stories forced me to stop thinking of fantasy in traditional terms (magic, royalty, romance, mythical creatures, poor peasants undertaking world-shaking quests, and so on), and look at it in the truest terms of the word.

So my latest BAF story blends traditional fairy folklore with some of the legends surrounding the blues, in particular the kings of the Delta blues, like Robert Johnson. It may be one of the best pieces of fiction I've ever written. I only hope my editors like it as much as I do.

Coming up this weekend, I'll be appearing at Philcon in Cherry Hill, NJ, promoting Resurrection House, BAF, and lots of other stuff, as well as hanging out with writers, readers, and other cool people. Come by if you live in the area.