We love a multi-update entry. Two exciting things falling on one day is almost too much excitement for my decrepit little heart to take. Almost, but not quite. I lost my monthly streak. Last month, I had nothing in the way of news, but I think this being a double-whammy makes up for it. I hope it makes up for it, anyway. Before we get to the aforementioned double-whammy, however, another update: I am officially querying the novel. It’s real. It’s out there. It’s terrifying.
I sent my first query on 29th August and received a partial request for it yesterday—I am thrilled and scared and feeling absolutely everything. If nothing else, I’m very happy to have had a positive response to my very first query. Eeee!
While the Dream book is being queried I, in my usual chaotic, non-chronological, goblin way, am working on: its sequel, which I shall dub the Witch book for the purposes of … discussing it in a public place; a standalone YA novel, which I am referring to as the House book; and a standalone adult fairy tale retelling, which I am referring to as the Crow book. That and my normal host of short stories, and a novella, which we’ll nickname… the Fruit book?
I just love telling stories. I don’t know what to tell you.
This is a special update. This is one of those updates that I am going to hold in my heart for a good long while. I’ve been wanting to talk about this for over a year, but I’ve held my tongue like a good little author—but now I don’t have to!
Back in May 2023, I received an email from the lovely Todd Sanders at Air and Nothingness Press inviting me to write for a very special anthology. Fathoms in the Earth invites its authors to reimagine the archetypal characters of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. I’m convinced Todd might be a mind-reader. The Tempest is arguably my favourite Shakespeare play (followed very closely by A Midsummer Night’s Dream, then Hamlet, then Macbeth, if you wondered), and he’d already come up with an earlier anthology concept that was so very me and that I was lucky enough to appear in (Spirit Machine will always be one of my favourite publications). I’m 100% up for anything Air and Nothingness Press might throw at me, quite honestly.
The anthology, inventively, uses titles of books that appear in the 1991 film, Prospero’s Books, to title its stories. (Serendipitously, 1991 happens to be the year I was born!) Each of us was assigned a title and then let loose to create as we saw fit.
My story, “A Book of Mythologies”, is from the perspective of Ariel and seeks to ‘correct’ its own mythology—that is to say, the plot of The Tempest. I had a lot of fun writing it, and it contains some of my favourite sentences in any of my writing to date. I enjoy it, and I hope you will too!
You can order Fathoms in the Earth here!
If there is a choice to be made, I am the one to choose. If I am the one to choose, I will shape the world.
Or break it.
—ELOU CARROLL, “A BOOK OF MYTHOLOGIES”, FATHOMS IN THE EARTH
Today also saw the release of a wonderful podcast! The excellent folks at Lunatics Radio Hour are hosting a little library of spooky sea-faring stories across two episodes, and I am so pleased to have one appearing in their number. My story appears with stories by writing friends, Warren Benedetto and Marisca Pichette, and new-to-me writers in the form of Mathew Gostelow and Alex Grehy. Each story is different and great and it’s a pleasure to be featured alongside them
Heading up the episode, “Lorelee” was originally published in Seaborne Magazine, a venue that seems to have disappeared (alas). It’s lovely to be able to resurrect in audio form, read by the brilliant Tessa McKnight, who brings the story to life so wonderfully—I’ve listened to it more than once and I will listen to it again!
You can listen in the player below, or on any of the usual podcasting places.
She is on the beach again, hair tangled with salt and sand. Fingers gritty and bloodied, she digs and digs and pulls up each shell in turn, holds them close to her ear and casts them away. With every empty carapace she howls and screams until her voice breaks like a wave on the shore.
—ELOU CARROLL, “LORELEE”, LUNATICS RADIO HOUR
elou carroll 
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