Shannon Barnsley's Blog

I’ll be honest, Halloween, Samhain, and Allhallowtide have been harder these last few years. In addition to not being able to go anywhere because we live in hell and our official public health policy is “be a Gothic Romance love interest and never leave the house again or die, no one cares, you’re expendable”, the staggering amount of death and loss around us is more than I know how to process, be it intentional plague-spreading, w...

So, I realize I’ve posted here a grand total of once since covidpocalypse began. My apologies. A LOT has happened, both on a micro and macro scale. A million people died in my country alone. I had a stroke. And now there’s a land war in Europe. Shit got real weird, man. More on that later.

Until I can think of something more relevant to share, please appreciate this follow up to the retro fantasy feverdream I previously faithfully transcribed for you.  The following is the first dream I’ve ha...

I wrote this poem back in January, which feels like a thousand years ago now. I held off posting it because I know how hard a year it’s been for doctors and how many of them have also succumb to an illness not yet understood, abandoned and devalued like so many of us chronically ill folks were long before Covid-19. But, given the attitudes towards disabled and chronically ill people in the US and the UK especially (“Just stay home!”...

[image error]This may be a very different St. Patricks Day than many of us are used to, but the story of the Irish people, both in Ireland and for the Irish diaspora abroad, is one of resiliency, survival, and the creativity to keep connections alive and spirits up even in times they have been monstrously threatened. Through famine, war, oppression, poverty, xenophobia, human rights abuses, and all manner of hardship, they have endured. This legacy is what I, as a descendant of Irish immigrants, celebrate...

It’s been a while, my good readers, and I apologize. My health has been in a death spiral this year and I’ve let a lot of things slip, but I shall try to remedy this where and when able. Anyway, to make it up to you all, I have a special treat from the foggy depths of my subconscious. See, most of my dreams are a nonsensical hodgepodge of ideas, concepts, and archetypes, with ever-changing POVs and mixed up characters wandering through tangled plots (if you could even generously call them...

Nothing Without Us

Nothing Without Us is an own-voices, multi-genre collection of short stories where the protagonists identify as disabled, Deaf, neurodiverse, Spoonie, and/or manage mental illness.

Nathan Fréchette, Publishing Director of Renaissance, interviews Shannon Barnsley, author of Search and Seizure, which will appear in the Nothing Without Us anthology this fall.

Story summary: Cassie wants answers to why she’s having seizures, only to be met with the response, “It’s all in...

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WE DID IT! 6 hrs left to go and the Nothing Without Us anthology and all its stretch goals, including an audiobook, an illustrated version, and enhanced author pay, have all been funded! Thanks so much for supporting this own voices project and the disabled authors and publishers trying to change the literary landscape one accurate depiction at a time. If you want to hear more about why this kind of project is so important, check out my author interview where I discuss disability rep, chroni...

[image error]Hey, all. For those of you who aren’t already aware from the constant reblogged author interviews, I have a short story in an upcoming own voices disability themed anthology called Nothing Without Us. What does own voices mean, you ask? In this case it means that all the stories in the anthology feature disabled, deaf, neurodiverse, mentally ill, and/or chronically ill main characters written by actual disabled, deaf, neurodiverse, mentally ill, and/or chronically ill authors! And this anthol...

Nothing Without Us

Nothing Without Us is an own-voices, multi-genre collection of short stories where the protagonists identify as disabled, Deaf, neurodiverse, Spoonie, and/or manage mental illness.

Nathan Fréchette, Publishing Director of Renaissance, interviews Tasha Fierce, author of The Living Among the Dead, which will appear in the Nothing Without Us anthology this fall.

Story summary:What’s it like to feel like you have to ‘pass as alive’ among the living? When nobody wants to...

Nothing Without Us

Nothing Without Us is an own-voices, multi-genre collection of short stories where the protagonists identify as disabled, Deaf, neurodiverse, Spoonie, and/or manage mental illness.

Nathan Fréchette, Publishing Director of Renaissance, interviews Joanna Marsh, author of Bug Hunt, which will appear in the Nothing Without Us anthology this fall.

Story summary: Mina and four other women are given a mission to destroy the best pilot in the Empire, Anna Hyde. Hyde’s leadin...