Doreen Perrine is stopping by with a guest post in support of the new FF anthology Haunting Muses:
It’s no coincidence that this anthology was released in the nick of time for Halloween. Yet when we think about ghosts, lesbian or otherwise, they surpass or defy time, and defiance is a very much a lesbian thing.
My nephew is a research scientist, and we’ve had an ongoing debate since he was a kid: he believes in aliens but not ghosts. I believe that we ought to suspend our disbelief enough to entertain the possibility of both. And aliens and ghosts can be equally entertaining, if nothing else. For much of my existence on this temporal plane, I’ve been an agnostic fence-sitter in terms of my beliefs. Nonetheless, my love of ghost stories begs the acknowledgement of a supernatural after- or other life. I’m convinced of the existence of ghosts at this stage, and not simply because ghost stories are among my guilty pleasures. I am also convinced, especially in light of this recent presidential election in the U.S., that the living can be far more terrifying than the dead.
Beyond my personal beliefs, this anthology resonated for me at its very heart: the notion of ghost story as story. The messages, the meanings, the more cryptic the juicier, and the tales that ghosts impart can be chilling and at the same time downright fun. I also like to believe that readers will agree that the richly diverse stories—of zombie, gothic, slipstream, and sci-fi ghosts, among others—in this anthology are exactly what the world needs more of. We’re here, we’re everywhere—not only on this mortal realm but in the multidimensional spectrum of the normal and the paranormal.
Enjoy these Haunting Muses, even well after Halloween!
The seventeen bedazzling authors in Haunting Muses are:
Lee Altomaro
Leila Buis
Elaine Burnes
Giovanna Capone
L.K. Early
Sacchi Green
Halee Kirkwood
Andrea Lambert
JL Merrow
Bonnie J. Morris
Doreen Perrine
Sage
Pascal Scott
Amy Sisson
Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam
Deborah Walker
Xequina
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Editor Bio
Doreen Perrine’s novels are published through Bedazzled Ink Publishing Company, and her short stories have appeared in publications such as The Copperfield Review, Lacuna, Raving Dove, Freya’s Bower, Harrington Lesbian Literary Quarterly, Sinister Wisdom, Queer Collection, and recently in the Through the Hourglass, an award-winning anthology of historical fiction. Doreen was a finalist for a Golden Crown Literary Society’s Goldie Award and for South Africa’s Bloody Parchment Literary Festival, and she is a recipient of a PEN Writer’s Relief Award. Doreen’s plays have been performed throughout New York City, and, in her other life, she’s an artist and art teacher who makes a home and a faerie garden in the Hudson Valley of New York. Her website address is: http://www.doreenperrine.com/
Got my copy a couple of weeks ago! Looks good!