Volume 6, Issue 2 – February, 2003

Tee Morris: Theatrical Vision

You could call it a match made on the Internet. Only Tee Morris and Lisa Lee didn’t get married. They wrote a book, Morevi, a rollicking, old fashioned swashbuckler that wedded the bittersweet romanticism of Chinese legends to the swagger of Tudor England.

A professional actor trained in historic combat, Morris brought a well-developed sense of theater, detailed knowledge of Renaissance English history and boundless energy to the mix. These qualities serve him well as he attacks the challenges facing all first-time novelists. Two Crescent Blues correspondents caught up with Morris at his second “Signing With Swords” at the Clarendon, Va., Barnes & Noble bookstore. They soon found themselves running to keep up with the interview.

Crescent Blues: Have you and Lisa Lee ever met in person?

Tee Morris: Lisa Lee and I have never met physically. We met at random in an Internet chat room called Nia’s Tavern. It was part of the Web Chat Broadcasting System (WBS).

Nia’s Tavern was a role-playing room dedicated to anybody’s character anybody they wanted to bring in. There were a lot of Nicholas Knights [from Forever Knight]. There were a lot of Duncan Macleods [from Highlander]. There were a lot of Legolases [from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings]. Basically, a lot of the typical characters.

I had just finished playing Rafe Rafton at the Maryland Renaissance Festival, so I thought, let me give this a shot. So I go in as Rafe Rafton. You’ve got all these very noble, very — sorry — uppity characters, and I come in as Errol Flynn. I come in with a little bit of ‘tude — haha!

It really turned the place on its ear. I remember a couple of people said, “Who are you, and do you have a brother?”

It was really a lot of fun playing this character in Nia’s. That’s where Lisa and I met.

Was she playing Askana [the heroine of Morevi]?

She was playing Askana Moldarin. I would describe Askana as the kind of character you would find in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. She was playing this royal character but with a very, very jaded past. I found the Asian background even more appealing.

I thought, I’ve gotta talk to this girl. I’ve gotta do some kind of role play. Her character was heading out of the tavern, so I fired off this greeting: “Well met, Askana Moldarin of the Morevi” — because that was her moniker, Askana Moldarin, the black widow of the Morevi.

Askana answered Rafe: “I do not know you.”

Rafe answered: “No, but I know you.”

Then I got this private message saying: “No. Who the hell are you?”

I went, “No, you don’t ‘know me’ know me, but my character knows your character, because he’s a privateer, and he’s been sacking your supply ships.”

And she wrote, “And you lived to tell about it?”

I replied, “I’m that good.”

Lisa took the bait and fired off the first email that set up the plot line for the role play, which was a political conspiracy, and she was hiring Rafe to find out who was conspiring against her crown. We took off from there.

When you went into that chat room, did you ever intend to start writing a book?

No. It was just for fun. I was temping at the time. I do graphic arts, Web design, stuff like that. This was before I was doing a lot of instruction.

When I was temping, there was a lot of lag time, because I was that efficient. They would just say: “Hurry up; now wait. Hurry up; now wait.” During that waiting period I would go online. I was a frequent visitor to WBS, but when I went into Nia’s, it was just a distraction, a diversion.

I never even thought about being a writer, because whenever I did write stuff, it was always casual. I was a bit of an egomaniac, because it would usually be something I was in. It would be a story about me fulfilling a fantasy, which I guess, in a sense, that’s what this book was. But it was a lot less of an ego issue, because this was a character I played. I just wanted to be able to take the character to a different level.

I never really intended this to happen, and neither did Lisa — and Lisa always wanted to be a writer. So we were both very stunned that this happened, completely at random — and that we made it this far.

When did you, electronically, say to each other: this is a book?

Halfway through the process (in terms of the book around the time we were in Tudor England), I wrote to Lisa and said, “You know, I bet we could get this published. It’s that good. It’s different. It doesn’t have a quest. It doesn’t have any of your typical characters. It’s very Errol Flynn. It’s very martial arts. It’s very Asian in its basis. It’s got a lot going for it.”

And Lisa said, “You’re out of your mind. It’s not that.”

“No, I really think we’ve got a shot.”

But I think the point where we realized that we’d written a novel was the very last page, which we wrote together on the ICQ Chat system, which was a lot of cut/paste, cut/paste.

When we wrote the last lines of the book, the screen was just blank for a while. Then Lisa wrote: “I’m shaking.”

I wrote back to her, “Congratulations, Lisa, we just wrote a novel.”

Lisa went off to do something that day, and she said she had this big grin on her face all day. For me it was 2 a.m., and I had to go to sleep, because I had a class to teach the next day. But all I did was stare at the ceiling. My brain was trying to compute that we wrote a novel. I think that was when it really sank in.

Then we started marketing it. That was a different obstacle to overcome.

Could you tell us something about your publisher?

Dragon Moon Press is a small press based in Calgary, Alberta, in Canada. They’ve been in business for ten years. For a small press, that’s saying something. They’re very selective on what they publish. Dragon Moon Press publishes hard- and soft-bound books, but mainly soft-bound books. The way I like to describe Morevi is hard-bound quality in a soft cover.

Gwen Gades owns Dragon Moon Press. She’s been a real joy to work with. She really believes in the story. With small presses, I’ve discovered, there’s a lot of work that you take on yourself. But in a way — I’m not saying I would never want to work with a big publisher — but I think it would be kind of tough not to have that hands-on experience of beginning with a small press. I feel I’m learning more than some other authors have learned, because of it.

How did you connect with Dragon Moon Press?

That is a very weird story in itself. I was in a Barnes & Noble, and there was a book that wasn’t even supposed to be on the shelf. It was a hard-bound, out-of-date book called The Second Source Book for Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishers. It was published by Writer’s Digest. They don’t print it anymore.

I looked at the book, and it said, “After this date” — 1998 or whatever it was — “take this book off the shelves and send it to the publishers for recycling.” But it was still on the shelf, and I bought it. It’s out-of-print now. Some of the stuff was out-of-date, but one in the things in there was Dragon Moon Press.

I think I knew we’d struck oil with Gwen, because Gwen and I started up a correspondence. And it was, I think, my third follow-up with her. Gwen had said, “I just came across your proposal. It’s a really interesting proposal. The audio CD — I really enjoyed it. But let me get back to you.”

I said, “We’ve done some retooling of the first three chapters we sent you. So while you wait for me to send you the first three chapters, why don’t you visit our website?”

Less than a day later, I got another email from Gwen. She said, “I went to your Web site. I want to see the whole manuscript now.” That’s when it started.

What’s this about an audio CD? Did you and Lisa mail a CD back and forth from Australia?

That’s not how it worked. This was actually an idea my wife Natalie gave me. One Christmastime after we finished Morevi, I wanted to do something special for Lisa for the holidays. Lisa’s from Malaysia. She’s not a southern Christian kid like me, but it was in the spirt of the holidays. So I thought: what can I do that Lisa would really appreciate?

I’m a professional actor. At that time I was doing a show that went with another show. It was A Civil War Christmas with A Christmas Carol. So there were all these friends of mine — all these wonderful actors — available. I asked them, “Would you guys be interested in doing audio fights from the book as the characters?” If you go to the Morevi Web site, there’s a section called Allies of Morevi. All the actors you see there portrayed characters from the book. We did scenes from the books as audio bytes.

My wife said, “Do you have any idea what kind of a marketing tool you have there? Send this with your proposal, but do earlier scenes from the book.”

[The CD recorded] scenes from one point to the end of the book. So we went back and did scenes from the beginning, and I sent it with the cover letter and all that stuff to different publishers.

Lisa loved the CD. She thought it was a really cool idea. But a lot of the publishers and a lot of the agents really dug the CD. They thought it was a really cool thing, because they’d never seen anything like that before. So they got a kick out of that too. I think that’s one of the reasons why we turned a lot of heads was the audio CD. As everybody knows, it’s easy to go into the slush pile, and it’s hard to stand out. But I felt what I brought to the table was a little different — a bit of an audio experience, if you will. It worked for some. It didn’t work for others.

You studied acting in school, so it’s pretty obvious how you got into the acting business. But how did the stage combat aspect come about? Are you a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism?

No, I’m not. But I was a founding member of Das TeufelsAlpdrücken Fähnlein — the Devil’s Nightmare Regiment. It’s the only Landsknecht regiment in this area. It was founded by Larry and Paula Peterka. Paula was one of the people who helped me out with some of the German in the book. They were really good to me, so I decided to feature Landsknechts. Nobody knows who they were.

The Landsknecht were bodyguards. They were German mercenaries hired by Henry VIII, because they were the most lethal, the most ruthless… For lack of a better term, they were killing machines for the right price. They were really colorful characters.

Literally. Weren’t they the ones who started the fashion of slashing their breeches and doublets to show the bright silk linings?

Yeah, they were a nasty bunch. You wanted to be on their side. They were among the people who ended the medieval tradition of fighting on horseback, because the Landsknechts came up with this brilliant idea: take a bunch of pikes and hold them [braced by the foot at an angle]. A horse is basically smarter than its rider. A horse is going to see those pikes and go, “Stop!” The horse stops, but the rider doesn’t always. Then you’ve got knight shish-ka-bob.

I was one of the founding members of Das TeufelsAlpdrücken Fähnlein, and I did seven seasons at the Maryland Renaissance Festival. Now the Maryland Renaissance Fair has a historian on staff by the name of Marianne Jung. She has her bachelors from the University of Maryland in Tudor history. (She also helped me out with the book from the historical aspect.)

The Maryland Renaissance Festival drums Tudor history into the performers’ heads, because if some patron asks us something we have to [snaps his fingers] fire off the answer. We have to know every little detail. Seven seasons of that and you get to know Tudor history really, really well.

Being an actor, though, I’m used to research. I’m used to researching characters and things like that.

How did you get into acting, and how did the acting take this historical bent?

I’ve been an actor since high school. I did it, because I really like making people laugh. I studied at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va. I got my degree in mass communication and theater. I’ve been very, very fortunate to appear in all different types of shows.

Ironically, if you were to ask me when did you start taking that trek, it would have to be somewhere around the time I got back from studying a semester in England. After I got back I was just hungry to do something historic. I was very, very fortunate to appear in a show called Our Country’s Good written by a lady named Timberlake Wertenbaker. You want to talk about a really neat idea for a script. It was based on a book called The Playmaker, and I play Second Leftenant Ralph Clarke. This guy actually existed. In fact, everyone in the book actually existed.

Where is the book set?

It is set in the penal colony of Australia. It is set right after the Revolutionary War, and the guys that lost the war were sent down to Oz to oversee these prisoners — and the prisoners are no better than animals.

Well, Ralph Clarke says, “I’ve got an idea. If we’re going to make this colony into a country or establish some kind of civilization here we need to do something civilized. Let’s put on a play.” So Ralph Clarke gets a copy of The Recruiting Officer, which is one of the Restoration plays popular at the time.

Wait — I’ve done this interview before. John Rhys Davies talked about that book at DragonCon 2001.

OK, I just got major goosebumps, because to have something in common with John Rhys Davies…that’s a transcendental moment. If you were to ask me of all the characters I’ve seen on the screen, which one do I do the most impersonations of — and I always smile when I see him — is John Rhys Davies as Sala [from the Indiana Jones movies]. “Cairo, city of the living, a paradise on earth!”

And when he was cast as Gimli [in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy], I was like: “Get out of town. This guy’s a horse!” He’s about as big as Kevin Robertson of the Noble Blades. He’s a big man.

Getting back to Our Country’s Good…

I think that was the first time I got a historical role and had to do a little research on it to find out what it was like being in the penal colony and stuff like that. It was then I noticed that I started taking a historical turn. That, along with my love of Shakespeare.

I mean, c’mon, if you don’t know your history, you only get about 50 percent of the plays. You need to know your history to understand your Shakespeare. In fact, there’s a lot of Shakespeare-inspired stuff in Morevi.

There’s this point when Rafe says (I’m paraphrasing here): “Lads, I realize the odds are against us. But if we do pull off this one raid — one ship against fifty — there will be plenty of stories in the pubs. They will talk about us in England, and our names will live on forever.”

While I’m writing this, I’m hearing the score that Patrick Doyle wrote for Kevin Branagh’s Henry V. And I went, “My God, this is the St. Crispin’s Day speech said by a pirate!”

So I think that’s where it started for me as an actor. But I’ve always been a history buff, so I find myself drawn to it anyway.

Was that when you started getting involved with the Landsknechts and other re-enactment groups?

The only re-enactment group I got involved with was the Landesknechts, and that only for a very limited time. As an actor, I go around to a lot of different gigs and rehearsals, and that tends to be rough.

Going back to what I said earlier, though, the nice thing about Shakespeare is you can really do anything you want with it. I think Shakespeare indirectly inspired me to work on my solo novel.

The solo novel I’m working on is called Billibub Baddings and the Case of the Singing Sword. I’ve described Morevi as “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon meets Errol Flynn.” Billibub is “What if Mickey Spillane wrote The Lord of the Rings?” The reason why I went for that type of novel is that while I was working on Morevi, I was acting in a production of The Merchant of Venice. The director set it in a 1930s – 1940s, film noir setting.

We all wore pinstripes. We all had fedoras. My character was a bunch of other characters combined into one that the director had me playing as a reporter. It was basically Shakespeare writing L.A. Confidential. At one point, I’m sitting at a typewriter, doing my monologue as I’m typing it, because I’m supposed to be writing an article. From time to time, I take a break and talk to the audience, then I go back and finish the article, and that’s the end of my monologue.

I found myself drawn to that whole film noir thing. I also think that’s why my love of history was perpetuated, even though I couldn’t do the re-enactment groups. And I was still working with the Maryland Renaissance Festival. My last season was in 1999 as Rafe.

Did you ever work the fair as a Landesknecht?

No, I was with them as several types of characters. I was what was called a “villager” or village performer.

So you were hired as an actor by the Maryland Renaissance Festival. I didn’t catch that.

Yes, you’re hired as an actor. They either assign you a character that you research your own, or you can create your own character and get it approved. One year I played the town inventor. So I did a lot of research on Leonardo da Vinci, which was a lot of fun and is actually going to come into play in the next book.

Rafe Rafton was a character who was assigned to me, so I did a lot of research on the difference between a pirate and privateer. There is a difference. I also did a lot of research on how to navigate and the types of navigation, because if I had talked about the last time I picked up my sextant, somebody would’ve busted me on that. A sextant wasn’t around until the 17th/18th centuries. In the 15th/16th centuries they used something called the “whip staff” to guide ships. This is the kind of trivia you need to know, because otherwise, people will nail you to the wall like a poster.

Is Rafe a pirate or a privateer?

He is a privateer. That was part of the challenge of writing Morevi. In the prologue I had to explain what privateers were and what privateering was considered.

Privateering was nicknamed “gentlemen’s piracy,” because in a sense, a privateer got a “get out of jail free” card with this thing called “letters of marque.” It was almost like a combination of being a mercenary and being part of the Mission Impossible force, because if you were caught, King Henry disavowed you: “This permission will self-destruct in five seconds.”

So much for the letters of marque.

Exactly. I even made a mention of that. I said: “If you’re caught, the letters of marque aren’t even worth the price of the rope they use to hang you.” That’s something I’m rather proud of. It’s OK to pat your back when you come up with something good.

You wore costumes when you performed at Renaissance fairs. Have you gone to any conventions in costume?

The reason I do not go to cons as Rafe Rafton is I don’t want people to think Morevi was some kind of ego trip — that I am Rafe Rafton. At the same time , I am also author Tee Morris — which I’m not yet used to hearing, because I’m professional actor Tee Morris, not author Tee Morris.

I was afraid that if I went to the cons in costume, and did signings and panels in costume, I would not be taken seriously. This is my first venture [as a novelist], so I have to be very careful when I do and do not appear as Rafe Rafton. The only time I appear as Rafe Rafton is when I’m doing “Signing with Swords,” which is something I worked out with the Noble Blades.

I’m very, very lucky to be friends with the Noble Blades, because they would probably be charging me for their services. They really do believe in Morevi that much. It was the Noble Blades who said: “Hey, we could take this to conventions.”

When I’m in the costume, yeah, I take on the Rafe Rafton persona. But at cons, I want to be taken seriously, not only by the other authors but by the con-goers as well. Some people can really get into it. But other people are looking through Morevi and looking for something wrong with it, because I’m the new guy. And the only person who’s going to fend for the new guy is the new guy.

But I’m very, very fortunate and very blessed to have the friends and — I don’t want to say “fans,” I want to say people who’ve taken that leap of faith with the book, who believe in the book and the story.

Do you and Lisa plan to write any more novels about Morevi?

Lisa and I aren’t taking anything for granted. At one point, right before Morevi was set to roll off the press, Lisa said to me, “I just want to check something with you: you do want to write together again, right?”

I said, “Yes. Sure!”

Just recently, we were talking and I really wanted to talk to her about a sequel. I said, “I just want to check something with you, Lisa. You’re OK with writing again, right?”

And Lisa said, “Ah, Tee, we have two chapters done. Duh!”

OK, I’ll take that as a “yes.” We are planning to write together. I’m still working on my solo novel. Lisa is working on some solo projects. I’m also trying to nudge Lisa in the direction of doing one Morevi-related project as a solo project.

There was one character in Morevi called Lubria, and that’s the character that more people have talked to us about. “We’d love to see a solo novel about Lubria.” I have told people that if anyone’s going to write about it, it’s going to be Lisa, because I think she is more connected to that character than I am. I think Lubria would make a great solo novel for Lisa. Does Lisa agree with me? I don’t know, but I’ve told her that if anyone is going to write a novel about Lubria, it’s going to be her.

How do you write together? For example, does Lisa write a part, then you write a part?

The way we work is that we find a stopping point and a cliffhanger ending, then pick it up from there. That was how we wrote Morevi. We basically wrote until one of us found a point where there was a good cliffhanger ending. At that point, I would go: “Let’s see what Lisa will do with this.”

Then Lisa would take it and say, “Let’s see what Tee does with this.” Near the end it became more about chapter versus chapter. On some of the chapters, I would write half, and Lisa would write half. There were certain scenes that Lisa and I flat-out wrote together. A couple of the dream sequences and the love scenes we wrote together. The ending we wrote together, which I thought was important.

Was this over the Internet?

Yeah, this was over ICQ chat. And I tell people, point-blank, this was a professional setting. When we wrote the love scene together, I was using both hands, thank you very much.

Lisa was very funny when she said at the end of that, “OK, I’m going to take a cold shower now.” I wrote back: “You’re lucky. I’m temping right now. I have several more hours to go on my shift.”

And you called your wife right away and said…

“I love you, dear.” As a matter of fact, I did. “I just want to let you know…”

Please, go buy a bottle of wine…

“Buy a bottle of wine, light the candles, Daddy’s coming home…”

I will say that having my wife and my mother-in-law as my support team… My mother-in-law — my second mom — read the original draft and helped me edit it. My wife Natalie helped me write the final draft. I was afraid they were going to get burned out by me talking about this book. But they’re starting to bring it up in conversation, and I’m starting to get burned out. But that kind of support is essential, and again, I feel very blessed that I’ve got that kind of support.

The Internet plays a big role in your life. You met Natalie on the Internet, didn’t you?

You’ve been talking to Natalie. In fact, my best friend (His name is Ron and he lives in this area. His nickname is Orien) met online. Ron and I were on WBSNet in the 22nd chat terrace, and we hit it off as big pals.

Natalie and I met on America-On-Line. What was very funny is that it was right after a week where I had been stood up and ditched on several dates. So I said, “You know what, I’ve got nothing to lose.” I posted a classified on AOL, and some of the responses I got were yeez!

But I didn’t get Natalie’s reply through AOL. She didn’t go through the proper channels. She actually went to my website, surfed the site, then wrote me, not through AOL, but through my Web site and said, “You’re a lot of fun. I want to get to know you and just be pals.” The next thing I knew, we were hitting it off big-time.

Is Natalie from this area?

No! She’s from Kansas City, Mo. She’s a Kansas City girl, and she’s twice the man I’ll ever be. She was a farmer’s daughter. She’s broken horses. She’s pitched hay.

Of course, I’m a city boy. I’m like duh. Meanwhile, if there’s a problem with the car or there’s something that needs to be fixed around the house it’s: “Honey…” And she goes, “I’m on it, dear. Don’t worry.” I’m surprised she doesn’t walk around the house going: “Uh huh huh huh.”

Right now, she wants a set of power tools. [To his wife] I love you, dear! Natalie got me over my fear of walking into Lowe’s and Home Depot. I’m happy about that. The first time I ever went into a Home Depot, I went pale. That’s how intimidated I was. Natalie got me over that.

How long have you been married?

We got married on May 8, 1998. Aha! I sleep well tonight! As you can see, a sense of humor is essential in my family. As Natalie likes to say, “I just wind him up and let him go. I rent him out for parties too.”

What’s the next con you plan to attend?

Arisia in Boston, Mass. I’ll also be going to Ad Astria and returning to Madicon. Toronto Trek is talking to me about possibly being there for Toronto Trek 17. Toronto Trek 16 was a terrific experience.

Are you planning to attend World Fantasy Con 2003?

I’m trying. I’m trying. The two cons which are the hardest to get a response from and involvement with have been World Con and World Fantasy Con. One thing I picked up from CapClave was if you are only available for panels, how about doing a workshop? A workshop could get your foot in the door.

Somebody did say to me that you shouldn’t limit yourself. You shouldn’t say, “I won’t do your convention if I can’t be on the panels.” But being a new author, if I just show up, no one’s going to pay me a lot of attention. Maybe I’m selling myself short, but it’s the honest truth.

I just went to Astrinomicon in Rochester, N.Y. Wonderful experience. Terrifically run con. Very nice people. But one girl who bought the book said flat-out, “I would’ve never bought the book. I would’ve picked it up and gone, ‘Oh, pretty cover,’ and put it down and walked away. But because I met you, and we talked, because we’re an intelligent guy, I bought the book.” Panels sell books.

But since World Fantasy Con 2003 is a local convention, it might be worthwhile to attend, regardless.

I’ve heard that too, and I have been consciously setting aside time to attend, because I also have some friends who are going to be at World Fantasy Con. One of them is a lady named Julie Czernada — a very smart lady. I call her “Obi Czernada,” because she took me under her wing. I would love to just hang around with her again, because she knows good scotch, and she’s just good people altogether.

But one thing I would like to be able to do — if I could do a workshop for people who would be giving readings. Because I’ve heard a lot of authors pooh pooh their readings. “Oh, it’s not worth the time!” I think the problem is some authors don’t know how to do readings.

If you’re doing a reading all in one voice, and you’re looking down [at the page] and never make eye contact with your audience, you’re not doing your reading right. Of course, someone could say, “What does this guy know about readings? He’s a first time author.” Well, there’s the acting degree. There’s also the fact that in high school, I did high school forensics, and one of the high school events that I did was reading.

Anything you’d like to add?

The most frequent criticisms I hear about Morevi are: 1) its price and 2) the type size. The thing about the type size is this was a way of keeping costs down. Dragon Moon Press is a small press. Plus, we didn’t want to intimidate people by making Morevi a huge brick of a book, because it could’ve been.

Lisa and I could’ve broken Morevi into two books. But I prefer that first book — and pretty much any book I read — to have a beginning, a middle and an end. If you leave on or two things unresolved [at the end of a book] that’s one thing. But if you do a huge plotline, and you go: “OK, we’re done.” C’mon! If I’m going to start a book, I want to finish it. Then if you want lead readers into another story, OK, but don’t break up a single story.

That’s just my personal opinion. But Lisa backed me up with that on Morevi.

The other thing was the price: it’s $23.95 for the book. What I tell people is if you go to www.morevi.com you can download the first two chapters. Now if you don’t like it after those first two chapters, fine. But I’ve heard and seen more people who, after they got the first two chapters, say, “Give me a copy of the book.” If you want a good story, it will be worth the investment. I realize $23.95 is extremely expensive for a trade paperback, but you know what, in my opinion, it’s worth every penny.

Teri Smith and Jean Marie Ward 

Raising hell for fifty years from Alaska to the Azores and all points in between, Teri Smith was an Air Force brat who never stopped traveling. She was also a mother, a grandmother (of ten!), a help desk wizard, a financial assistant, acquisitions editor for Samhain Publishing and, most importantly, the Queen Nag of the Known Universe. A multi-published short story writer, her first novel, With Nine You Get Vanyr, written with Jean Marie Ward, was published in 2007. Contrary to common belief, she never stopped living. 

In addition to editing Crescent Blues, Jean Marie Ward writes for a number of Web-based and print magazines, including Science Fiction Weekly. She is the author of Illumina: the Art of Jean Pierre Targete (Paper Tiger) and several short stories, including “Most Dead Bodies in a Confined Space” in Strange Pleasures 2 (Prime Books). Her first novel, With Nine You Get Vanyr, written with Teri Smith, was published by Samhain Publishing in 2007.