Rachel Handley's Blog

Hi all

I messed up the links yesterday in my post about moving to Buttondown, sorry!

To make it up to you, here a link to my latest post on Buttondown which includes a poem and my thoughts on dementia: https://buttondown.email/RachelHandley/archive/remembrance-a-poem-and-thoughts-on-dementia/

There are 78 of you subscribing over here, and 16 over on Buttondown.

If you've already subscribed to the substack version of Snippets you'll have to resubscribe to the buttondown version.

That's because I did...

A story, not knowing it was one, finds itself to be a story. The story becomes another story, then another, then another. Stories eating stories as if they are not themselves stories. Stories, endless, forever. Until they are all one quivering thing. A single flame.

The End.

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My poem Woman-Adjacent was published earlier this year by Arlen House in their Washing Windows III anthology.

If the title wasn’t a give away enough, the poem focuses on my feelings of being non-binary. It’s was the first poem I wrote on this topic, and writing it sparked a few more. Happily, it was the first one from my recent work gender to be published.

Woman-Adjacent

Woman-adjacent.

That makes sense, doesn’t

it? A not quite that

shape. If I try her

on she fits me for

a day, then slithers

off like a ...

Hi everyone. On social media I’ve been asking people for thought experiments I should rework into science fiction stories. I told everyone if they picked one I’d already written, then I’d let them read it for free. Mary was first published in my short story collection, Possible Worlds and Other Stories, last year. If you enjoy it, do share it. And if you have suggestions for any thought experiments, let me know in the comments.

So, voilà.

Mary

I am the only human being allergic to the earth. Exposu...

It is spring and my hay fever has kicked in. I’m very glad I am a vegetarian because it means I can focus my revenge on eating as many plants as possible.

I mean, hello.

Hello.

I have not updated this newsletter blog doodle thing for months. I suppose I did promise very sporadic posts. So I guess I’m delivering on my promises. You’re welcome.

Let’s see, what has happened.

My short story The Sound was long listed for the British Science Ficiton Awards. That was neat.

My debut short story collection Pos...

Merry Grey Area Limbo Festive Time to those who celebrate!

Award nominations are still open for the BSFA awards (among others), so I thought I’d make a post with all of my eligible stories published this year!

The Creature (365 Tomorrows, January 2022)

The Spaceship of Theseus (Full House Literary, January 2022)

Heat (Ellipsis Zine, February 2022)

The Sound (Sonder Magazine, Runner Up, Panorama Flash Fiction Competition, April 2022)

Light (Medusa Tales, Issue 1, May 2022)

The Man of the Sand (Bear Cree...

I guess I wasn’t joking when I said my entries for this newsletter would be irregular. Crikey. The pause in entries began with a flood. I opened the bedroom door and water poured in from the corridor. The entire hall was like a little river. I told the water that I did not appreciate a river forming in my home, but it clearly gave no fucks and decided to do it anyway.

It was fixed. Life went on normally, then the ceiling in the bedroom sprung a leak. I decided I was cursed somehow. The plumber sh...

Tonight I’m going to be reading my poem ‘Remembrance’ at the Vital Signs book launch at Books Upstairs! I’m super excited and honoured to have a poem in such a wonderful Poetry Ireland anthology.

My poem was originally published in the Washing Windows Too anthology (Arlen House) earlier this year. I’m hugely grateful to Alan Hayes for giving the poem its first home, and to Vital Signs editor Martin Dyer for giving it a second one.

To read the poem, click here.

Thanks for reading Snippets ! Subscrib...

The birds, quiet.

The sky has lost

the tall rapid

chatter of the

knife sharp summer.

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My Sunday’s are always rest days because they have to be. I suffer from fatigue and breathlessness, so I have to carefully plan active days. I usually spend the day in bed reading, then prepping for my lectures on Monday.

So, there’ll be no additional brain thoughts from me today. Instead, I thought I’d post a short story round up of all the fiction I’ve had published this year. I only started to submit short stories in earnest during the end of 2021, so I’m pretty pleased with how things have go...