Z is for Zumil

        (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.)

        Here’s the part in the story “The Home for Dispossessed Familiars” where we meet Zumil.  (I’ve added just a couple of inserts for context, where needed.)

        When Trudy arrived home from school on Thursday she found Colly [a crow] standing on the table, examining the papers Great Aunt Gert had sent.  The crow shuffled the top one aside with a claw, cocking her head from side to side as she scanned across the tattered pages.

        “Oh!  You can read?” Trudy exclaimed.  “Sorry, I guess I just assumed that because Grimalkin [a cat] said he couldn’t…”

        “Grimalkin is a heavy,” Colly replied, “I’m the scholarly type.”

        “I’m a man of action,” Grimalkin muttered from where he lay sprawled across the loveseat at the other end of the room.

        Trudy dropped her bag on the table and reached to pull out the chair.  She screamed as her hand touched something that was definitely not wood – something that squeezed out from under her palm and skittered into the shadows under the table.

        “What the…?”

        Colly hopped to the edge of the table and peered down.  “Are you okay, Zumil?  Come on out.”

        “What…?” Trudy repeated weakly, wondering how her life had so suddenly gotten so bizarre.

        A sharp nose poked up from the underside of the tabletop, vanished as the creature and Trudy startled each other again, and then slowly reemerged.  It crept up over the edge to the top of the table.

        Grimalkin jumped down from the loveseat, stretched, sauntered over, and hopped up onto the chair seat.  “Zumil,” he said, indicating the creature with a nod.  This new creature was a yellow-speckled lizard, long-nosed and long-tailed like an anole, but larger than any Trudy had ever seen.

        “A familiar, I presume?” she asked.

        The lizard bobbed his head.

        “And has his witch died recently?”

        Another nod.

        “Someone should probably be looking into the mortality rate of local witches.”

        I wrote this story after realizing, to my astonishment, that I’d actually never written a short story that included familiars or similar animal companions.  This was a great surprise to me because I’d included animal companions in all of my novels, and just assumed that of course I must have written stories about them… But I hadn’t, so I went back to basics and started with your classic witches’ familiars.  But the twist is that they’re gathering at the home of a woman who is not a witch, has no desire to be a witch, and doesn’t even know what to do with them all!  And of course it ends up being another story about cooperation, compassion, and caring for each other.

        Marketing Moral: We end where we began: Buy my Book!  If this series of posts has enticed you to the point where you actually wish to have your very own copy the book, it’s available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or straight from me.

        Proper Moral: Divided we fall, which is why repressive governments work so hard to sow distrust and divide people from each other.  However, as long as we refuse to stop caring for each other, we cannot be truly defeated.  (Also, a friend in need is a friend indeed.)

        If you could have a magical familiar, what animal would you choose?

[Picture: Anole, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2024 (Image from Bittersweetness & Light, but originals are still available at NydamPrints.com).]

Y is for Yem-Thress

         (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.)

        Here’s an excerpt from somewhere in the middle of the short story “A Missionary to the Yem-Thress Zone of Contention.”

        The Facilitator came up behind Mary Fisher and guided her out of the Great Hall, backwards so as not to have to turn around in one direction or the other and thus seem to favor one potentate over the other.  They led her back to her room, and as soon as they were inside with the portal closed, their limbs went slack.

        “You must be trying to get me executed!” they groaned, but the UniTrans marked the tone with a “wry humor” tag.

        “I did warn you.”  She raised both arms in the waving gesture that the UniTrans suggested would indicate friendly affection.  “I’m very grateful for your help.  But now I’ve done my piece and I’ll go home and leave you, hopefully in peace.  I certainly hope you won’t suffer for listening to the message and helping me share it.”

        A buzz on the portal startled them both, making the Facilitator contract so suddenly their elaborate collar slid down over their shoulders.  “You are a wreck!” Mary said, her own tone marked with wry humor as the Facilitator relaxed to normal dimensions and rearranged their collar.  They opened the door and a being entered, wearing the livery of the Thress Emperor and bearing a round box intricately carved from some reddish substance that looked to Mary like coral.

        “For the Ambassador from the Divine Spirit,” they said.  Mary tried to read the Thress courtier’s expression, but the UniTrans marked it only “formal.”  The being opened the box and presented it to Mary.  Inside, nestled on a soft blue cushion, was an object about as large as her open hand and shaped like a rounded star.  It was made of some sort of polished stone with waving gold striations, studded with blue glass bubbles.

        “A shkreth!” the Facilitator breathed in a voice filled with awe.

        The courtier blinked graciously.

        This story pulls on a lot of threads that interest me.  It’s a Quaker story in disguise (actually based on a true story from 1658, reimagined as some kind of far-future sci fi).  It’s full of linguistic explorations, as the characters attempt to communicate difficult philosophical concepts across widely alien cultures, relying on some sort of universal translator.  It’s imagining some of the different ways the universe could be viewed by creatures with very different biology (including pentaradial symmetry).  It’s about the possibility of connection and cooperation.

        Today’s illustrations are two shkreth and a very rough sketch of what I imagine the Yem-Thress might look like.

        Marketing Moral: My marketing “morals” have all been about things you could do for me, so how about for once I offer you some free stuff?  Some of the offers are tit-for-tat:

• Sign up for my newsletter and I’ll send you a pdf sampler of some of my art and poetry concerning dragons.

• If you own or have read my book On the Virtues of Beasts of the Realms of Imagination, leave a review somewhere (and let me know where) and I’ll send you a pdf of a bonus page for the book that includes new creatures.

• There’s a giveaway right now on Bookfunnel where you can get lots of free ebooks, including a collection of Round Robin Stories (Volume Three), one of which I collaborated on.

        Plus a few other things are straight-up, no-strings-attached free:

• If you go to my Books and Writing page, you’ll find links to 7 of my stories and poems that are published on-line and available to read any time.  (Some of them were already linked during the alphabet, but there are also a few others that aren’t from this book.)

• Do you like coloring pages?  You can download several here.  Plus, in the same folder there's also a memory game you can print out.

        Proper Moral: Fortune favors the bold – but perhaps even more, karma favors those with integrity.

        Have you ever been able to reach across a cultural divide and make a connection with someone you expected to be very different?

[Pictures, Shkreth, rubber block prints with digital manipulation;

The Facilitator, pen on paper by AEGNydam from Bittersweetness & Light, 2025 (See NydamPrints.com).]

X is for Xyblik

         (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.  It’s not too late to see what my fellow A to Z bloggers are up to, by checking out the Master List.)

        Time for another excerpt from another story.  Here’s the beginning of “Love Potion.”

        Xyblik’s Cosmic Emporium stood for as long as anyone could remember at the corner of Elm Street and Hillside.  The proprietor was an Old One made of tentacles and slime, who bubbled cheerfully at all his customers and loved nothing better than a good gossip when anyone came in to buy a box of interdimensional nails or a packet of eldritch biscuits.  Abby Dimmock took this into consideration when deciding the best time to purchase a love potion.  She knew Xyblik would chat if she came when the Emporium was empty, and she was in no mood to chat with anyone about the sorry state of her love life.  On the other hand, this still seemed preferable to asking for a love potion in front of half her fellow townsfolk on a busy Saturday afternoon.

        She winced as the cracked iron bell in the doorway clanged, announcing her entrance.  So much for subtlety.  At least the sparkling and warbling of the ineffable feathersquids in the corner always made her smile.

        “Ah, Dear Lady Dimmock!” Xyblik greeted her brightly from the high counter of polished mahogany in front of the shelves of dusty bottles, lead-sealed urns, and other dark and mysterious items.  The air sac inside his semitransparent greenish body swelled and pulsed as he spoke, amplifying his voice to a tone suitable for Dark Proclamations.  “What service may be rendered unto you on this fateful day?”

        “I’m looking for a love potion, please,” she mumbled.

        “What’s that?  A Potion of Inexorable Love?” the Old One bellowed, making Abby profoundly grateful that she was indeed the only customer in the shop at the moment. 

        This is one of those rare stories that sprang into my head pretty much fully formed, and was super fun and easy to write.  The illustration of Xyblik is a proper rubber block print (originals still available, at the link below), while the illustration of the ineffable feathersquid was done digitally, by request of the editors of Cosmic Roots & Eldritch Shores, where the story was first published.  You can still read the entire story on their web site here.  (That version is very slightly different from what appears in my book.)  You can also read much more about the whole process of story and illustrations at my previous post How to Make a Love Potion.

        (Past Me was very clever to name a character starting with X long before Present Me was going to need it for an A to Z blog post!)

        Marketing Moral:  Attack people on public transportation with a copy of your favorite indie author’s book, so that the cover gets featured on the news.  (Okay, I don’t really advocate this, but I saw it on another author’s list and it cracked me up.  I guess the real marketing moral is to be a little creative about how to catch people’s eyes, but I confess that my creativity doesn’t seem to get very fired up about promotion, alas, when it would rather be writing and making art.)

        Proper Moral: Two wrongs don’t make a right – but two ineffable feathersquids do!

        What’s the most outrageous thing you’ve ever done to catch the eye of a love interest (or to promote a book)?

[Picture: Love Potion, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2021;

Ineffable Feathersquid, digital illustration by AEGNydam (Images from Bittersweetness & Light, but originals of Love Potion are still available at NydamPrints.com).]

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).]