C.S.E. Cooney

TONIGHT! Monday March 10th! 7 PM EASTERN! On Twitch.Tv/csescooney !!!!

WELCOME FICTION IMPOSSIBLE, the SFF fiction and gaming talk show. This week, hosts C. S. E. Cooney and Carlos Hernandez welcome horror scion and narrative designer nonpareil Cassandra Khaw to discuss what counts as scary, the CRPG renaissance we’re living through, and why they like to break narratives when they’re the one playing.

We’ll also discuss Khaw’s forthcoming book The Library at Hellebore as well as recent Cooney/Hernandenez reads: Pony Confidential and the rise of “Oops, It’s Fantasy” fiction in popular and literary fiction, Tomb of Dragons and how a series becomes beloved, and Kingdom Come II: Deliverance and why sometimes, slower is better.

See you tonight, and remember to eat this message after reading.

I recorded Chapters 7 & 8 of DARK BREAKERS, Book 1, “The Breakerr Queen” on twitch.tv/csecooney today, in my “Phoenix Quill Tavern” space.

Carlos helped me get the GREEN SCREEN working, so I actually LOOK like I’m INSIDE the tavern! LOVE!

I uploaded them to YouTube the DARK BREAKERS playlist as well!

The glorious genius Brett Massé is designing a logo for us! WHICH REMINDS ME! I MUST EMAIL HIM!

Chapter 7 “Piercing the Veil”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCOXlIj1RNY
Chapter 8 “Heartsease and Mercury”: https://youtu.be/A6v4whOQ_Tg

First, I have a new newsletter up on Substack! In it, I:

– link to Virtuous Con’s list of BIPOC creators and vendors, courtesy of Cerece Rennie Murphy’s fabulous newsletter;

– celebrate poet Gerald L. Coleman, and talks a bit about his Kickstarter for INCENDIARY: a collection of poems and essays;

– and BOUNCE WITH GLEE about the forthcoming Black Men Reading Speculative Fiction 2 event. Sign up for this amazing virtual event for free!

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Today, I read two more chapters of Dark Breakers, Book 1 “The Breaker Queen,” on my nascent Twitch Channel.

You can ALSO find the whole playlist on YouTube here!

More soon. Boskone’s coming up! Eek! I will post my schedule anon.

Dear friends,

I have started my experiment on TWITCH! For ease of entry, I’m doing a weekly Tuesday morning read-along of my novella “The Breaker Queen” from my collection Dark Breakers.

I’m here at twitch.tv/csecooney

This morning, my first attempt, I made it through Chapters 1 and 2.

The video buffering is a bit… buffoonish. Alas! A problem for Future Claire to solve, possibly with a more robust desktop computer! I think my little laptop can’t quite handle OBS.

But AT LEAST the audio is pretty clear, so I’m hopeful it will make a nice listen whilst friends are doing dishes or laundry or or want some company while they eat lunch.

Chapters 1 & 2 can be found here: https://www.twitch.tv/csecooney/videos

Or, if you prefer YouTube, I’m uploading them to my channel there as well: https://www.youtube.com/@c.s.e.cooney/videos

If you want to READ ALONG with Dark Breakers, but don’t have your copy yet, find it at Mythic Delirium, or wherever books are sold!

On my Substack. I thought about just copy/pasting it here. But it feels disheartening, somehow, to do that.

Here is where I’ll write poems, or wanderings, or schedule updates for cons. There is where I write great big swooping newsy infodumps. Not that I don’t do that here too… But, ah. Not mirroring. Not today. No.

Anyway, here’s a link. https://csecooney.substack.com/p/butreally-you-know-mr-stryver

It’s Subheadings are:

• Things You Should Know (TL;DR, the Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic has opened enrollment for their Fairy Tale Heroines course, and you should, you know, check it out)
• Twitch Channel (I have one: find me at twitch.tv/csecooney
• Gaming (Hearthglow actual play updates)
• Writing (so much, not enough)
• Sadness.

I’ll pause here for that. On Sadness. Briefly, our friend Howard died on the 16th of this month. I just… I want to thank all of you who helped his family on their GoFundMe page we started for him a few months ago.

Death is ruinous. Sometimes it ruins everything. And sometimes enough of us step in that something can be salvaged from the wreckage.

Let us please look for more ways to help as many as we can.

Dear friends,

A little while ago, our buddy Deborah J. Brannon went in for major surgery: a hysterectomy for endometriosis.

GREAT GOOD NEWS: she has been RECOVERING WELL!!! As they say in Oz, “THANK GOODNESS!”

However, job security is a thing, and our darling Deborah is looking for it. Her skills are thus–dear friends, DO YOU KNOW ANYONE WHO NEEDS THEM? Please leave a note for Deborah in the comments here or contact her directly on Bluesky as @ourladyjack.bsky.social

“My primary skills are in writing and editing. I have experience writing features, for blogs, copy for social media or products, ghostwriting, etc. I’ve edited both fiction and nonfiction books. I also have experience as a social media manager. Farther afield, I also have experience in operations and education.”

What she’s looking for:

“Short-term freelance, one-off assignments, proper work-from-home employment, all welcome.”

If you know of anything that might suit, please let us know! And if you want to help another way, here’s her GoFundMe for recovering from surgery.

First of all:

Solaris Books has a “start a series” book sale—featuring books that have series continuations coming out THIS YEAR! My first book SAINT DEATH’S DAUGHTER is now on sale, in anticipation of the APRIL release of SAINT DEATH’S HERALD! If you’re interested: https://rebellionpublishing.com/sale/

Second of all, I heard about these awesome submission opportunities you might be totally interested in:

For playwrights: RED BULL THEATRE’S SHORT NEW PLAYFESTIVAL 2025:
https://www.redbulltheater.com/submissions-open
Friends, the theme is DEFIANCE! Read the guidelines carefully, do your Red Bull research, and submit!
The world needs your art!

For writers in general, F(r)iction Lit is holding their Spring 2025 writing contest at https://frictionlit.org/contests/

For my fairy tale writers, poets, and essayist, the next issue of F(r)iction is themed BROTHERS GRIMM. Sub your fairy tale stuff here! https://frictionlit.submittable.com/submit/294821/friction-fairy-tales-submissions

GO FORTH! BE BOLD! BE BOLD! AND YES, TOO BOLD! (Except in the use of AI. Just don’t.) (Also please read the guidelines and be polite to the nice editors! They’re working their tushes off!)

To my dear Amalface!

This year, your birthday poem is actually a SONG!!! Actually, it’s the song I began sort of singing as a joke when a fan of yours asked you to sign their copy of Book of Witches at Can*Con in the lobby, on the title page of your story “John Hollowback and the Witch.”

I started joke-humming something like, “Old John Hollowback, better beware…” and you glanced over at me with your mighty Dark Elf Prince look and said, “I’d be so honored if you wrote a song about it.”

LOL CHALLENGE ACCEPTED, DARK ELF PRINCE!

So I did write it—when I was staying over at your house that week! I asked to borrow your copy of Book of Witches, and then spent my morning writing hours at your kitchen table, in a silent Google Meet chat with Patty Templeton, scribbling out the lyrics.

THEN I wrote to my friend, the amazing filk artist Dr. Mary Crowell to collaborate on it with me to make it a fully realized song for your birthday!

Mary, as you probably remember from me telling you (oh! And I think you met her this year at WORLDCON!), is a Doctor of Music, specializing in opera and jazz. She’s a piano teacher, as well as performer in several musical groups that play at cons and concerts across the world, and she plays ever so many instruments, AND SHE SINGS, and she often writes songs about D&D and the books she likes to read!

She wrote the album Scattering Seeds on the Pomegranate Tour, as well as others that you can find on her Bandcamp page. Her Patreon is TOPS!

Last year, when Carlos and I Kickstarted for Negocios Infernales, Mary wrote an entire EP’s worth of songs based on our Baraja del Destino cards. She calls them her “Octimbre” songs! All nine are collected here on Soundcloud if you want some fun listening.

For the last few years, I’ve been collaborating with Mary and Tina Connolly on a long-form podcast musical called The Devil and Lady Midnight. Mary’s constantly posting thoughtful essays and new musical material on her Patreon, some of which come from our collaboration.

Mary so kindly wrote the melody for “Old John Hollowback” and ALL those eerie harmonies. What’s more, her daughter Lily joined us when we recorded it, so we have three very distinct voices singing the verses and the harmonies!!! (Lily is also a fantasy writer, among her other talents! Here’s some of her writing!) Then Mary did ALL THE MIXING on top of everything else! Truly, she worked harder on your birthday present than I did! (She also loved your story!)

Well, that’s my birthday letter to you. Without any further ado, here are the tune and lyrics to “Old John Hollowback.”

And over at Mary’s Patreon, she provides the recorded music, lyrics AND CHORD CHARTS!

Listen to the song HERE!

So much love,

Claire

Old John Hollowback

Lyrics by C. S. E. Cooney
Music by Dr. Mary C. Crowell
Performed by C. S. E. Cooney, Dr. Mary C. Crowell, and Lily Crowell

For our darling Amal, on her 40th birthday, off her story “John Hollowback and the Witch” in The Book of Witches

1.
Old John Hollowback, better beware
Caught by a witch 
In her wicked witch lair
What will you give her? 
What will you dare? 
To grow a skin (grow a skin)
Be whole again (be whole again)
So fine and so fair? 

2.
Old John Hollowback, what is your scheme? 
Is this a nightmare—
Or is this a dream? 
Don’t see no stitches, 
Don’t see no seam 
But in your back (in your back)
There is a lack (is a lack)
That you must redeem 

REFRAIN
Oh, so—
You think you’re a hero? 
Oh, no
It doesn’t appear so 
Fellow, 
You’re starting from zero
Blank as a hollow
Shaded and shallow

3.
Old John Hollowback, what will you give?
What will you trade
For this life you would live? 
Pluck what remains
From your memory’s sieve 
You brought a book (brought a book)
It’s blank, but look!
Regenerative 

4.
Old John Hollowback, what did you snitch
Scalded by envy
Your hate fever-pitch?
You stole from a woman
To make you feel rich
But the more you raid
The more a maid
Becomes a true witch

REFRAIN
Oh, so—
You think you’re a hero? 
Oh, no
It doesn’t appear so 
Fellow, 
You’re starting from zero
Blank as a hollow
Shaded and shallow

Coda
Old John Hollowback 
Here, let me help you 
Old John Hollowback 
Mark you and mend you
Old John Hollowback
Heal you and send you
Far far away
Far far away

Old John Hollowback 
Here, let me help you 
Old John Hollowback 
Mark you and mend you
Old John Hollowback
Heal you and send you
Far far away
Far far away

Never to darken the bright of our days
Far far away
Far far away
Never show your face again
Go on, be a better man 
Far far away
Far far away
Far far away