My story, “To the Moon,” appears in the inaugural issue of Fireside magazine. The founder and publisher, Brian White, has been amazing to work with. And I really like his vision for Fireside as a magazine of “many genres, no limits, just good stories.”
And it’s not just real. It’s really good. The first story, To the Moon by Ken Liu, follows the struggles of a young lawyer and the stories we tell ourselves to validate our illusions. Next is Chuck Wendig’s Emerald Lakes, a prequel to his Atlanta Burns novella Shotgun Gravy. In our story, Atlanta is dealing out more justice with a mix of brains and blood. Our comic, Snow Ninjas of the Himalayas, written by Adam P. Knave and D.J. Kirkbride, drawn by Michael Lee Harris, and lettered by Frank Cvetkovic, is a story about why some secrets are best left unrevealed. Then we have Christie Yant’s Temperance, a story about a drunk, an intolerant town, and a mysterious woman. And we close with Press Enter to Execute by Tobias Buckell, a near-future sci-fi thriller set in a world where someone is finally doing something about all that spam in our inboxes.
Please consider supporting him and the writers and artists appearing in the magazine by purchasing the first issue.
“To the Moon” is a little unusual for me because it’s not a fantasy/scifi story at all. But the themes it explores are ones that have long fascinated me. It’s mainly based on my experiences working on asylum cases and my thoughts about what it means to be American.
I’m really pleased that artist Amy Houser did the cover image based on “To the Moon.” It’s gorgeous and lovely and captures exactly the mood I wanted for the story.