Merry Fates
The Merry Sisters of Fate is a collaborative fiction blog that I ran for four years with Maggie Stiefvater, and Brenna Yovanoff. We wrote YA short stories every week. I tended toward the mythical and bloody, Maggie prefered her monsters with a heavy dose of angst and sarcasm, and Brenna lured readers in with delicate and dangerous sense of the macabre.
Recently, our short story project THE CURIOSITIES: A Collection of Stories came out from Carolrhoda Lab. It’s an exciting not-quite-anthology with behind the scenes conversations and fun illustrations we drew ourselves.
– in our rock star picture, right to left, that’s Maggie, me, and Brenna.
Here are a handful of my favorite stories (that are NOT available in the not-anthology project):
MASK OF PETALS, MASK OF THORNS: If you fall in love with a Beast, can you truly love the man he becomes?
THREE TRUE THINGS: a boy struggles with his sexuality and an old family curse.
HOMEFRONT: Post-traumatic stress, war, and what we fight for.
ONE WING: a boy with an arm covered in a wing tattoo promises a kiss to any girl who guesses why.
DEVILS OF OUR BETTER SELVES: the dark secrets behind those perfect fairy tale castles, and bravery.
DUSK: a vampire falls in love with a teenage girl not because she’s pretty or kind, but because she’s a monster, too.
THE CENTER OF VALOR: loyalty and betrayal and love, and refusing to choose.
JACK’S FIELD OF BARGAINS: finding first love in a junk yard, learning the nature of trade.
LOVE IN IDLENESS: Puck in love, out of love, in love again.
EDGE: My one and only sci-fi tale on the entire website. About angels and outer space and transformation.
STROKE: A modern faerie story, with tarot and self-help and one especially mischievous fool named Amadan.
MAD SIGNS: Amadan returns to hunt on a college campus.
HORSEMAN’S LOVE: obsession and love and death starring Katrina and the Headless Horseman.
THE COLD THAT FLAYS THE SKIN: about a boy whose face changes every year at Christmas.
PIG: what happens when the summer gods forget you.
THE DRAGON OF SAVANNAH: a weird little story about kids and freedom and kissing.
HOW MISS HENINGTON-FINCH CAME TO ACQUIRE A PAIR OF WINGS: Victorians and mutations and arranged marriages and dangerous love.
STAINS: some of my favorite magic, experimenting with past tense, and UNICORNS.
INHERITANCE: a ghost story.
photo by Andrew Karre.