Read this thread. This is completely unacceptable, what DHS is doing. It's so important to document it, to make sure everyone knows what's happening. Mwen fache. Fè kòlè, tout moun.

I loved this story! It has a fabulist touch and is beautifully told--definitely check it out:

New story up in Adventitious! It's the story of a former leader of a multi-dimensional university, her legacy evoked through the changing of art styles and commemorations, with a backdrop of uncanny Provosts and Regents, student rebels and an authoritarian, usurping president.

Lots to look forward to here!

I'm so emotional that this story is out now, in the wonderful Tiny Gods issue of FFO. So many amazing stories, so many great authors. Read, cheer, share, subscribe. FFO is a wonderful place to lose yourself in, for a few minutes or many, many hours. I'm honored to join them on their journey ❤️

If you missed my announcement last week, be sure to check back the past couple of posts to get more info about the novella-in-verse The Fall of the City of Bells. And now I wanted to share a bit more about the background of the collection as well as a peek at the poems:

A new story from Elis is always worth checking out!

The format is perfect for dipping in and out, reading a bit here and a bit there as the narrative takes shape. Whether you love poetry (in all its liberated, alliterative and elusive ways) or are leery of poems but enjoy the magic and beauty of a secondary fantasy world, I hope you'll check it out!

Decades after the city falls, she leads a band of wandering traders who fled the city, hiding their past and coping with their part in both the atrocities and the beauty of their fallen home. These poems trace her life and theirs, guilt and survival, the magic and betrayals and what might persist.

It's the story of the fall of a once-powerful city (hardly a spoiler...). And it's primarily the story of one person we know only as the Charm Binder. Before the city fell, she was an apprentice, learning to create minor magic with small bells and chimes. Into this world comes a silent stranger.

So, if you're unsure about poetry, don't know the forms or terms poets throw around, don't worry. No special knowledge required. It's a secondary fantasy story at its heart, a story built through the kaleidoscopic prisms of these different individual poems. A story of magic that comes from bells.

I suspect that "novella in verse" might mean different things to different people. So what even is this? Well, it's poetry, but I submitted it as a collection, not as a single long poem. It's 65 poems, in fact, from a page to a couple pages long each. Primarily written in free verse.

"A novella told in verse, swinging like a clapper between the ringing splendor of before the fall and the haunted quiet after, The Fall of the City of Bells is a story of empire and exile, complicity and grief, and of learning what music is worth making after the power of the old song has failed."

I've been quiet about this one until I had some definite news, but this book is available now!! It's a book that's both taken a long time to come to fruition and a whirlwind of a rush at the same time. Published by Island of Wak-Wak, the same as my poetry chapbook from two years ago.

Can’t wait for people to read this story!