Chattering

AGGY WILCOCKS SURFACED, gasping and coughing. The surging flood had taken her by surprise, separating her from her family, pushing her right through town and slamming her against the tin veranda of the transit station.

Winded, she sucked desperately for air before diving down into the murky water in a frantic search for Uncle or the children. She came back up, still breathless and alone. Aggy dove again, pushing at the shifting debris. Lots of branches, a tractor battery, two dolls and some hydroponic drip-feeding tubes. Nothing important or useful.

Bobbing atop the water-line and blinking back tears, she squinted towards the horizon. The familiar landmarks were missing. No more grain silo or McWilliam’s two-storey Pub. Even the town hall, where she had hoped to attend her first harvest dance with Stevie Bennet, had gone. Swirling, turgid water had swallowed everything and everyone; so quickly.

Aggy grabbed a wooden table…

Prologues can be a contentious issue. Everybody has a different opinion on them. I’ve known of readers who love them, agents who hate them, and everything in between! The last novel I wrote started with a prologue, even though as a reader I’m not a huge fan of them. Sometimes you just have to do what works for your novel. But for anyone who’s not sure, I’ve listed some of the pros and cons of prologues below.

The Pros:

You can hook the reader
Prologues tend to be short and sweet, and so it gives you the opportunity to really hook the reader with a gritty opening. You don’t need to introduce the characters involved in any depth, which gives you the chance to create a real air of mystery.

Chance to use a different POV
The prologue doesn’t have to follow the pattern of the rest of your story…

A short story about an opera singer stranded on one of Saturn’s moons, the tough choices of motherhood and some very musical Dugongs.

Available February 2020 in ASF’s Aquarius Anthology.

“National parks are the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst.” Wallace Stegner said that, in 1983. That viewpoint, however, has come under ever greater scrutiny as we move into a century that will see a white minority by the year 2044 or 2045, according to U.S. Census data projections. The National Park Service has taken note of this and have consequently initiated outreach programs to minority groups in an effort to save their own lives. Why? Because outdoors spaces, national parks specifically, are and have been predominantly white, straight, cisgendered spaces. In recent decades this has become an unconscious trend, where minorities simply don’t see themselves reflected in the park advertisements or in park employment; on the other hand, this stems from a long history of racism that includes a park ranger telling Henry X. Finney…