W is for Window

         (My A to Z Blog Challenge theme this year is Bittersweetness & Light, my new collection of hope-filled, joy-inducing fantasy and sci fi short stories, poems, and art.  I’m sharing excerpts of art, stories, and poetry, and I’ve also been sharing some of the background on why we do actually need joyful stories.  If you like strange creatures, magical worlds, and being reminded of the good to be found in the world, join me!)

        Today I’ll post another poem in its entirety: “The Window”

     My kitchen window now and then looks out

     Into another world.  Late afternoon,

     I rinse the lettuce, watching distant dragons

     Twine their gleaming tails in spiraling flight

     Above a golden city which no street

     I know can reach.  Sometimes at night

     That strange sky holds a different moon.

     Today a glowing scarlet bird

     Sang opals in the fragrant, dark-leafed trees

     That do not grow in my back yard.

     Small people clad in glittering beetle shells

     Were beating copper drums in revelry

     While I was scrubbing dinner’s dirty pans.

     Is there a window in that golden town

     Where some small person, copper-clad, looks out

     Onto the otherworldly mystery

     That is my un-mown dandelion lawn?

        People who attempt to sell their art and writing are constantly having to provide short bio blurbs, and this poem happens to illustrate a line I like to put in mine: Anne E.G. Nydam makes relief block prints celebrating the wonders of worlds both real and imaginary, and writes and illustrates books, stories, and poems about adventure, creativity, and finding sometimes unexpected joy.  This poem includes wonders both real and imaginary, and celebrates the joy of the ordinary as well as the fantastical.  (Yep, there’s that magic of ordinary dandelions again!)

        The illustration is another of those digital collages made out of pieces of block prints.  For example, you can recognize the distant city here.

        Marketing Moral: Did I mention reviews?  I could always use more reviews!  (Big thanks to A to Z organizer and storyteller extraordinaire Tarkabarka for a new review, and do check out this lovely long review by A-to-Z’s own Tao Talk!  Thanks, Lisa!)

        Proper Moral: Sometimes a molehill really is someone else’s mountain.  It’s all a matter of perspective.

        What’s the most unexpected or interesting thing you’ve ever glimpsed out a window?

[Pictures: Window digital collage by AEGNydam from Bittersweetness & Light, 2025 (See NydamPrints.com).]

V is for Venusians

         (My A to Z Blog Challenge theme this year is Bittersweetness & Light, my new collection of hope-filled, joy-inducing fantasy and sci fi short stories, poems, and art.  I’m sharing excerpts of art, stories, and poetry, and I’ve also been sharing some of the background on why we urgently need joyful stories.  If you like strange creatures, magical worlds, and being reminded of the good to be found in the world, it’s not too late to come along with me!  It’s also not to late to visit other bloggers, to be found at the A to Z Master List.)

        These Venusian Medusae are one of the pieces of art that stands alone in the book, without illustrating a story or poem.  Or at least, I haven’t written anything that goes with it - but I still think it tells a story, and I invite everyone to imagine what that story might be.

        The title is “Symbiote City,” because I imagine that these diverse species of medusae are living symbiotically in the cloud decks of Venus, relying on each other to make life possible in a very challenging environment.  They are called medusae, by the way, not because of the petrifying Medusa of Greek mythology, but because “medusa” is the scientific name for jellyfish.  (Of course, fun Words-of-the-Month fact, the jellyfish are named after the Gorgon, presumably because of their tentacles.)

        This is one of those posts where, rather than bore myself with repetition, I will simply send you to read a prior post that explains what this rubber block print is all about: Symbiote City.  (And don't miss the link from there to even more speculation about Life on Venus.)

        Marketing Moral: While we’re on the subject of art, how about fan art!  Not only is it wonderful and affirming to the author whose work you’re fanning, but if you share it on-line or with friends it may pique the interest of others.

        Proper Moral: No man is an island.  Nor woman, nor jellyfish, nor any other creature.  And anyone who tells you they accomplished something big without any assistance from anyone else is lying.  So we should all go ahead and embrace our symbioses.

        Do you think there’s life out there somewhere?  What about sentient life?  What about sentient jellyfish life?

[Picture: Symbiote City (Venusian Medusae), rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2020 (Image from Bittersweetness & Light, but originals are still available at NydamPrints.com).]

U is for Utopia

         (My A to Z Blog Challenge theme this year is Bittersweetness & Light, my new collection of hope-filled, joy-inducing fantasy and sci fi short stories, poems, and art.)

        Utopia was written in 1516 by Thomas More, who coined the word from Greek roots meaning “place that is not a place.”  (Fun Words-of-the-Month fact: he had also considered using the Latin roots, which would have given us Nusquama.)  His book described a society that was supposed to be perfect, and while there’s a good deal of debate over just how satirical More was being and how perfect he actually thought his imagined society would be, nevertheless the name he coined has now come to mean any perfect society.  I don’t want to include too much of a spoiler about my own story here, but in “The Scanner’s Tale,” an asteroid scanner crash-lands in a strange, alien mushroom garden, and has to discover whether it’s a utopia or a nightmare.

        Here’s an excerpt.

        I was lying in the dark, leaning against something firm beneath my head.  The air was fresh, with a faint leafy scent.  There was an incredible sense of security.  Of care.  I opened my eyes to a dim, warm, greenish-yellowish glow, like the light of fireflies.  For a moment I thought I’d entered fairyland, with a million sparkling lights sprinkled through a fantasy garden around me.  Green and blue vines looped like party streamers everywhere.  It was beautiful, serene...  But my body was sore, and although I lay relatively comfortably, my left arm stung and throbbed, and I lifted it experimentally.  As I moved, I felt the faintest sense of resistance, as if I were covered in cobwebs.

        I looked down at myself then, and in that weird light I saw tiny threads laced all over my skin, pale and clinging, like I was already dead and a fungus was growing across my rotting flesh.  I think I shrieked, and found a thicker tendril at the corner of my mouth, oozing some sweet liquid.  I scrambled to my feet, rubbing at myself franticly to tear away the sticky network of tendrils, trampling away the slightly heavier webs that had grown across my feet, up to the edges of my boots where they could find my skin, as if they were drawn vampire-like to the blood on my shins.  An acrid smell filled the air from the ripped vines, and I felt as if something were tearing at me, although the growth was off me now.

        I bolted about five panicked steps in some random direction, flailing at the dangling threads that snagged at my face and hair, before I pulled myself together enough to look around and get my bearings.  I was in a cavern, although I could see the purple sky at one end where the cave became the bottom of a deep crevice opening to the surface.  The glimmering light came from some sort of luminous pods scattered through the growth, which wove across the entire space like a jungle.  I could see the place where I had been lying, propped between the roots of the largest plant-like thing.  I would call it a tree, except that it seemed softer and more flexible, and its skin – too soft and smooth to call it bark – was streaked in bright green and turquoise.  Its twigs and leaves were very slightly moving, and while I tried to tell myself that of course my panicked leap had shaken the branches, it looked more as if the leaves were feeling for me.  Or... smelling for me.

        The alien world in the story was inspired by mycorrhyzal networks, and the recent discoveries about these fungal communities have been blowing scientists’ minds.  If you haven’t read about them, go look it up right now!

        To illustrate the story, I collected a bunch of my various past block prints that included mushrooms and other plant life, and digitally collaged bits and pieces into a sort of jungle scene.  Then I added “alien” color to jazz it up.  Plus I made a variety of little mushroomy  bits to brighten up the pages through the story.  You can see some of the originals that donated parts here and here (but several others are sold out and no longer posted).

        If you’re wondering why some of my illustrations are “faux block prints” and others are these collages instead of original “real” block prints, the answer is in the medium itself.  If you remember the history of relief block printing, it was invented as a method of reproduction.  Before the invention of computers and printers, xerox machines, photography, and other simple methods of reproduction, block prints were the best way to print a repeated design on yards and yards of fabric or create hundreds of copies of a book or poster.  Relief block printmaking is a great way to make multiples — but it’s an incredibly inefficient way to make a single image.  There’s no point in my going through all the effort of carving a physical block, rolling with ink, and pressing on paper, all for a single image to scan, if I won’t be creating an entire edition of originals.  If an illustration for a particular story or poem is too specific to have appeal as a free-standing work of art, it doesn’t make sense to create a whole new block just to scan it once.  Instead, if I won’t have any use for actual originals to offer people as artwork in their own right, and all I really need is the digital image to put into my digital document, it makes a lot more sense just to work digitally in the first place.  (You can read more about my “faux block print” process here.)

        Marketing Moral: Nominate my book for awards and vote for it - if this is something you encounter.  Maybe most of us don’t get to vote on literary awards, but some awards do

involve nominations or votes from the public, so if the opportunity arises, keep my books in mind!

        Proper Moral: You can tell a tree by its fruit.  A utopian society will increase the happiness of all its inhabitants.

        Do you like mushrooms?  Adorable, gross, or tasty?  (And if you like your mushrooms fictional, check out my previous post Fantasy Fungus.)

[Pictures: Mushroom world digital collages by AEGNydam from Bittersweetness & Light, 2025 (See NydamPrints.com).]

T is for Thing

        (My A to Z Blog Challenge theme this year is Bittersweetness & Light, my new collection of short stories, poems, and art.  I’m sharing excerpts, plus some of the background on why we urgently need joyful stories.  Also, be sure to check out my fellow A to Z bloggers at the Master List.)

        Edgar Allan Poe published his famous story of gothic psychological horror “The Tell-Tale Heart” in 1843.  Emily Dickinson composed her beloved poem “Hope is the thing with feathers” around 1861.  What if these two masterpieces met, and, opposites attracting, fell in love?  Perhaps their child would look something like my short story “The Blue Thing.”  It begins…

        True, I have been nervous, very nervous about the world outside, its dull yellow skies and cracked pavements, and the dark overgrowth held relentlessly at bay.  I had not been outside in some ten years, I suppose, and perhaps this was mere nervousness, but I think you will agree that it was simply being prudent.  Outside the domes the world is wild and uncontrolled.  The temperatures are not regulated for our comfort, nor the air filtered for our health.  Insects are there, and pests of all sorts that may carry disease or vex humanity with their wild and unregulated behavior.  There is rumor of monsters.  Besides, to exit the dome requires permission.  So I stay inside.

        I would often, during a brief break from my work, stand by the transparent wall and look out through the scratched and dusty thermoplastic at the cockroaches who made the outside world their own, unchecked.  I would shudder at their twitching movements, and be glad to be inside where if there is nothing to look forward to, at least there is also nothing to fear…

        What happens next?  To see how I managed to mash-up my two inspirations, you’ll just have to read the story!

        This may come a little late in the alphabet, given my theme, but T is also for Toxic Positivity.  As someone who keeps reminding everyone that yes, there is goodness and love all around, I am aware of the danger of slipping into something that might hit people like Toxic Positivity.  Basically, positivity gets toxic when negative stuff is denied or dismissed instead of being acknowledged, processed, and dealt with.  It’s when you’re drowning and I say “but if you just think positive thoughts, everything will be fine,” or you’re falling off a cliff and I tell you to smile and appreciate the view…  I’m hoping that my book lives somewhere in between the extremes of toxic positivity and wallowing in helpless despair.  According to folklorists Sara Cleto and Brittany Warman, “Storytelling is a way to cultivate personal power and resilience, even when things are awful.”  I hope my stories offer a way for readers to glimpse new possibilities, imagine alternative ways of being in the world, and find positivity that is not a false band-aid pasted over a festering wound, but is, rather, a shot of antibiotics to lift up the work of genuine healing.

        Marketing Moral: Post pictures of my book in the wild.  Is my book out on your coffee table, or sitting by your mug of hot chocolate?  Did you bring it to the beach or curl up with it beside the fireplace?  Did you spot it on the shelf at your library?  Snap a picture and post it - and tag me so I see it!

        Proper Moral: It’s better to be safe than sorry - except when the thing that will make you sorry in the end is trying too hard to be safe.  Sometimes you have to be willing to be a little crazy - but just a little! - or to dig deep before you reach treasure.

        Are you a victim of toxic positivity, always trying to pretend that everything is fine even when it isn’t?  Or are you inclined to constant catastrophizing about the worst in everything?  Or do you have any tips for balancing at a healthier place in the middle?

[Picture: Cockroaches, faux block print by AEGNydam from Bittersweetness & Light, 2025 (See NydamPrints.com).]

S is for Some Assembly Required

        (My A to Z Blog Challenge theme this year is Bittersweetness & Light, my new collection of fantasy and sci fi short stories, poems, and art.  Also, be sure to check out my fellow A to Z bloggers at the Master List.)

        How do you feel about assembling flat-pack furniture?  Love it or hate it?  Personally, I think it’s kind of fun, and I get a kick out of the mostly-wordless iconographic instructions.  I started to wonder what it would be like if you could get instructions like this for the sorts of things that, although at least as important as furniture, can’t simply be put together with a screwdriver.  That wondering inspired my graphic short story “Some Assembly Required.”  Here are the first two images from that story.

1.  Assemble all materials.

2.  Place one or more inspirations (A) in base position to provide foundation.

        Important: Be sure all inspirations are securely tethered before proceeding with assembly.

        Can you guess what these instructions are for building?  Okay, I’ll tell you: it’s your very own Castle in the Air.  This short story was inspired by the instructions for an IKEA bookshelf, which demonstrates that inspiration can come from anywhere.  In fact, inspiration is everywhere, all the time.  We just need to train ourselves to see it, recognize it, expect it, and embrace it.  Here’s another blog post on that idea: “Where Do You Get Your Ideas?”

        This story was first published in the May 2023 issue of Fantasy Magazine, and if you want to see the whole thing, you can find it posted in its entirety on their web site here.  I hope you enjoy it!

        Marketing Moral: Check out other books by me.  If you liked this one, you may well find something else you’ll enjoy.  And even if this book doesn’t sound like quite your thing, one of my other books might be more up your alley (or right on the alley of a child in your life, since I have several titles for kids from pre-school through middle grade).

        Proper Moral: Don’t put off til tomorrow what you can do today.  Go ahead and think about what it will take to build your dreams, and get started assembling the materials.  But to think about it another way, everything you’ve ever experienced in your life so far is assembling the materials that will allow you to take the next step.

        What would you like to be able to buy in a box for easy step-by-step assembly?

[Pictures: LUFTSLOTT Step 1 and Step 2, pen plus digital illustrations by AEGNydam from Bittersweetness & Light, 2025 (See NydamPrints.com).]

R is for Rainlings

        (My A to Z Blog Challenge theme this year is Bittersweetness & Light, my new collection of hope-filled, joy-inducing fantasy and sci fi short stories, poems, and art.  I’m sharing excerpts of art, stories, and poetry, plus some of the background on why we urgently need joyful stories.  Also, be sure to check out my fellow A to Z bloggers at the Master List.)

        “The Rainlings” is another of the short stories in my collection.  As I explain in the End Notes, the roots of the Rainlings go back to my childhood.  When I was about 10 or 11 years old I got on a kick of drawing thatch-roofed cottages with simple perspective.  I was extremely pleased with my little drawings, and I especially enjoyed drawing these cottages enclosed in falling raindrops.  I have no recollection of where that idea originally came from or why I did this.  Many years later I was reminded of these childhood pictures when I was photographing water droplets on the leaves in my yard, and the light and reflections made it look as if some of them contained tiny cities.  This was the idea behind the rubber block print After

Rain (2022).  A little more time passed, and I started to think some more about what sort of person might actually live inside raindrops, and what it might be like if they existed in our world.  And that’s when I wrote the story.

        This series of moments illustrates how there are ideas that I keep revisiting in different ways and through different mediums for years - and in this case for decades.  For some reason this idea just keeps capturing my imagination.

        R is also for Reviews, which are so vitally important for indie authors.  But I already went into that back at F, so for today’s Marketing Moral: Check out my art.  Unlike a book, you don’t have to take a gamble on whether or not you might like a piece of art.  All you have to do is look at it.  And if it makes you happy, you know you could actually buy it and have it for your very own, to gaze at and enjoy any time.  You can always see all my available artwork on my web site NydamPrints.com.

        Proper Moral: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder - but beholders can learn to find beauty in ever more places.  If you look for beauty, you’re more likely to find it.

        Do you like long walks in the rain?  Or would you rather curl up inside while the rain patters on the windows?

[Pictures: Raindrop Cottage, pencil drawing by AEGNydam, ca. 1982;

Raindrop Cities, photograph by AEGNydam, 2021;

After Rain, rubber block print by AEGNydam from Bittersweetness & Light, 2025 (See NydamPrints.com).]

Q is for Quaker

        (My A to Z Blog Challenge theme this year is Bittersweetness & Light, my new collection of short stories, poems, and art.  Also, be sure to check out my fellow A to Z bloggers at the Master List.)

        As a Quaker, threads of Quakerism are inevitably woven subtly into just about everything I write, yet I almost never mention Quakerism explicitly.  There are a few reasons for this.  Sometimes it’s wholly irrelevant, of course.  Sometimes I’m writing about fictional worlds in which there’s no such things as Earth religions.  Sometimes I’m trying to depict an average-ish relatable sort of setting in which Quakerism would seem conspicuously unusual.  Even when I’m quite consciously trying to get people to think about issues that are tied to my faith, I want to express them in ways that are as inclusive as possible, without causing anyone’s defenses to shoot up.  I’m always trying to keep a delicate balance between being forthright about my own beliefs, without being one of those people who try to force their beliefs on others.  So I almost never actually mention Quakerism explicitly.

        In Bittersweetness & Light, however, “The Conduits” is a story set in a Quaker meeting.

        The first time Maggie saw the conduits she must have been about six years old.  She was sitting in meeting for worship, bored by the stillness and the silence, as always, and idly counting the little flowers printed on her mother’s skirt, when Vera Penny stood up.

        “Dear Friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God,” the old woman said, her thin hand making a little gesture in the air as if she were tossing a frisbee or scattering a handful of birdseed.  “Dear Friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and God’s love is made complete in us.”

        Maggie blinked at the glowing ripple that spread through the air where Vera’s fingers had traced their arc.  She rubbed her eyes and stared as the conduits came into focus: glowing lines spreading out from Vera’s hands and face and powder-blue cardigan toward everyone else in the meeting room.

        The story may be a fantasy with its magic rooted explicitly in Quakerism, but like all fantasy, I hope it will invite people to imagine some new possibilities.  In the End Notes I encourage anyone who dislikes all this “God” talk to try substituting a different word, such as “love,” and considering whether you can still imagine the impact of actually seeing the connections between us.  It’s very easy to throw up barriers, and sometimes takes real courage to listen to the truth someone may be trying to express, even if they use different words.  Real connections come when we try to hear where words come from.  Practice it, and tell me how it goes.

        The first image here is one of the illustrations that goes with the story, but it’s small, so I also include one from another poem, but which also alludes to the threads that connect us all.  By the way, this story (in a slightly abridged version) was first published by Friends Journal, and you can read it on their web site here.

        Marketing Moral: Recommend me as a speaker or workshop leader.  I don’t generally travel far to present, but I am available for virtual events, which opens up the whole world.  You can see some of the talks and workshops I’ve given here on my web site.  I’d love to connect with you!

        Proper Moral: Practice makes perfect.  (Or at least, practice makes permanent.)  You can’t expect to improve at anything without putting in the time to work on it - and that includes being able to find the good in challenging people, and being able to express the good in yourself.

        Did you know that Quaker Oats has nothing to do with Quakers?  Do you know the difference between Quakers and Shakers?  Have you ever been to a Quaker meeting?  (At the very least, Quakerism is always good for trivia knowledge!)

[Pictures: The Conduits, digital art by AEGNydam;

Magic Wands and Warm Wishes, rubber block prints by AEGNydam, 2023, 2024 (Image from Bittersweetness & Light, but originals are still available at NydamPrints.com).]

P is for Pearl

        (My A to Z Blog Challenge theme this year is Bittersweetness & Light, my new collection of hope-filled, joy-inducing fantasy and sci fi short stories, poems, and art.  Also, be sure to check out my fellow A to Z bloggers at the Master List.)

        P is for Pearl and Poetry, so here’s a poem about a pearl…

If your world is a pearl,

Wrapped in moist and briny clouds,

Enclosed in opalescent heavens,

Do you dance in the lucent twilight

In delight?

Do you raise your arms in gratitude

For the seed of sand at the heart,

And lay your palms on the lustrous earth,

Caressing the miracle of coming to be?

Do you lie on your back in the fields

Of silvery sheen,

Looking up at the smoky-violet aurora,

Wondering how there could possibly be

Such generosity of beauty?

Do you feel in the iridescent embrace­­

Of your universe

That love cannot be impossible?

Dance, then,

And wonder.

There are oceans beyond worlds

Within oceans

Beyond worlds,

And they are all children

Of mother-of-pearl –

Grains of sand

Grown into miracles.

        Why poetry, anyway?  Because it offers a way of expression that’s different, richer, and more flexible than ordinary sentences.  It can speak to the ears of the heart.  I keep trying to share with people my sense of the beauty with which we’re surrounded, and this poem is just one more attempt.  I am honored to be serving as the current Poet Laureate of my town, and I’m so excited to have opportunities through that position to use poetry to foster connection.  (You can read more about that here.)

        As for the illustration, it’s a small rubber block print painted with iridescent watercolor and placed on a digital background based on a photo.  I never made a full edition of this block print or offered it for sale because I wasn’t quite sure about it.  Maybe someday I’ll go back and work on it again.  Or, of course, maybe I won’t.  Not everything has to be a masterpiece.

        Marketing Moral: Add my book to your “To Read” shelf on Goodreads or similar sites.  Even if you haven’t read it yet, the algorithms look at which books people say they’re interested in.  And those cursed algorithms do at least have one thing in common with miraculous pearls: they both require a little grain of something to start growing.

        Proper Moral: Sometimes an irritant can turn out to be the impetus that was needed to start creating something precious.  (But to be honest, more often than not an irritant just scratches things up and wears things down!  Sometimes it’s hard to tell which way it’s going to go.)

        Have you ever tried a Gratitude Practice?  Was it in-depth journalling or simply taking a moment every day to consider a few things for which you’re grateful?  Or something else altogether?  (Part of my gratitude practice is posting on Instagram pictures of things that make me happy.)

[Picture: Pearl World, rubber block print with watercolor by AEGNydam from Bittersweetness & Light, 2025 (See NydamPrints.com).]

O is for Ocean

        (My A to Z Blog Challenge theme this year is Bittersweetness & Light, my new collection of hope-filled, joy-inducing fantasy and sci fi short stories, poems, and art.  Join me for excerpts of art, stories, and poetry, plus some of the background on why we urgently need joyful stories.  Also, be sure to check out my fellow A to Z bloggers at the Master List.)

        This illustration, “Ocean of Love,” actually does not appear in the book - which was an Oversight!  It fell through the cracks when I was pulling everything together and never got a place.  However, I did include it as one of the notecards that I sent out as rewards for Kickstarter backers.       

        They say “Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas”… But lie down with the octopus of love, and you just might get a mug of hot tea, a good book, and a purring cat!  The idea for the original rubber block print came from a prompt to respond to another piece of art.  That piece included warm colors, tea, and a fish…  To see the whole chain of artwork of which this octopus was a link (along with the artists’ explanations), check out  Translations: Chains of Positive Energy.

        As for why I made notecards for my Kickstarter rewards, that’s because reaching out to people with a message of connection is always a good thing!  And pretty notecards can help inspire us to send those messages.  (That’s why the notecards I made for the backers, as well as lots of other designs, are also now available on my web site.)

        Marketing Moral: Send me a note!  The messages I’ve received from readers telling me how a poem moved them or a story inspired them or one of my block prints cheered them up during a bad time… That’s what makes it all worthwhile.  I’m really enjoying the comments right here on this very blog, too, of course!  These chains of connection are always powerful, but especially so for authors and artists who put their hearts out into the world and don’t always know whether it’s making any difference at all.

        Proper Moral: (This one comes from Walt Kelly.)  Forewarned is forearmed — and four-armed is half an octopus.

        When was the last time you sent an actual, handwritten, paper letter to someone?  And also, what’s your favorite marine creature?

[Ocean of Love, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2020 (originals sold out, but you can buy love-themed notecards at NydamPrints.com).]