The Rose in Twelve
Petals & Other Stories
Theodora
Goss
First printing,
October 2004
$6
Sold Out
No.9
in the limited
edition Small Beer Press chapbook series
is The Rose in Twelve Petals & Other
Stories by Theodora Goss.Goss is one of the strongest and
most distinctive voices to appear in recent years. She has very
quickly made a name for herself: her stories have been reprinted
in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror as well as Year's
Best Fantasy and her poem "Octavia Is Lost in the Hall of
Masks" has just won the Rhysling Award. Goss's stories reach across
and through genres. She utilizes fairy-tale structures and post-modern
motifs all the while building through increments a beautiful body
of work.
Cover art by Charles
Vess.
Reviews
"Professor Berkowitz Stands on the Threshold"
is a superb oneirism, an opportunity vouchsafed to an obscure,
not overly successful academic to step through the gates of dream
into -- what? transcendent inspiration? death? both? Certainly
out of his scholarly mediocrity. The atmosphere and invention
are quite wonderful.
-- Nick Gevers, Locus
One of the most impressive
debuts I can recall.... Fairy tale retellings are a dime a dozen,
and Sleeping Beauty ones probably as common as any, so this story
has to be special to stand out, and special it is.
-- Rich Horton, Locus
"The poems sing ... the
stories both sing and soar."
-- Matthew Cheney, Locus
"The Rapid Advance of
Sorrow" could hide, camouflaged by style and subject, within
the gems of J. G. Ballard's Vermilion Sands. The story
gracefully describes a bizarre aesthetic revolution in which the
city and concept of "Sorrow" conquers the world in arctic stillness,
with white flowers and post-modern language. The story is haunting,
possessed of its own terrible beauty, and characterized by gorgeous
prose and provocative thought.
-- Tangent Online
A beguiling world of fantasy
and adventure await he reader.... Go. Buy it. Read it.
-- Zine World, 22 supplement.
Contents
The
Rose in Twelve Petals
The
Rapid Advance of Sorrow
Professor Berkowitz Stands on the Threshold
Lily, With Clouds
Her Mother's
Ghosts
What
Her Mother Said
Chrysanthemums
The Ophelia Cantos
That Year
The
Bear's Daughter
Bears
Helen in Sparta
By Tidal Pools
The
Changeling
Advance Praise
"Theodora
began publishing in 2002, and already she's become one of my
favorite writers. Her stories and poems are beautifully written,
deliciously spiced with the flavors of fairy tales, folklore,
myth, and 19th century gothic literature. This book is a feast
-- and one I intend to savor slowly, to make it last."
-- Terri Windling, author of The Wood Wife
"These stories are
poetic, sad, hopeful, brave. And very, very beautiful. There's
no one, in the field or out of it, who does lyrical simplicity
better, or says more about the mysterious workings of the human
heart, than Theodora Goss."
-- Delia Sherman, author of The Porcelain Dove
"An original voice,
and an original vision: crystalline, precise, mordant and devastating."
-- Ellen Kushner, author of Swordspoint
"By the merest chance,
I had the honor to read Theodora Goss just before she broke
into print. Lucky me - I've devoured everything she's published
since. Here's a writer who commands the common tongue as if
it were meant to serve her alone, even as her passionate stories
spiral upward to surreal glory. Trust me on this: you have never
read anything quite like The Rose in Twelve Petals."
-- James Patrick Kelly, author of Strange But Not a Stranger
About the author:
Theodora
Goss was born in an imaginary city:
at least, it looks nothing like she remembers. (In hers, swallows
built nests under the eaves of apartment houses, and someone
was always playing Liszt.) She grew up in a series of airport
terminals and wonders why, wherever you go, you have to pass
through Frankfurt. This may explain why most of her characters
are from somewhere else, or want to go there. She's been there,
and wants you to know that the mountains are particularly fine.
(She recommends the sour cherry strudel.) She lives in Boston
with her husband and daughter, and the necessary number of cats.
She was a lawyer, but decided it just wouldn't do. She is now
working on a PhD in English literature. She enjoys introducing
unsuspecting freshmen to Lord Dunsany and Philip K. Dick, and
needs more bookshelves. Her stories have appeared in Realms
of Fantasy, Polyphony, Alchemy, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet,
and online at Strange Horizons and Fantastic Metropolis.
Several have been reprinted in The Year's Best Fantasy
and The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Her poems
have appeared in magazines such as Mythic Delirium and
The Lyric. She has won a Rhysling Award for her speculative
poetry.
Some of the stories in The
Rose in Twelve Petals & Other
Stories were previously published in
the following places:
These stories and poems previously appeared
in the following places: The Rose in Twelve Petals, Realms
of Fantasy, April 2002; The Rapid Advance of Sorrow, Lady
Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet 11, November 2002; Lily,
with Clouds, Alchemy 1, December 2003; Professor Berkowitz
Stands on the Threshold, Polyphony 2, April 2003; Her
Mother's Ghosts appears here for the first time. Helen in Sparta,
By Tidal Pools, and Chrysanthemums, LCRW
8, June 2001; The Ophelia Cantos, LCRW
9, November 2001; What Her Mother Said will be published
in The
Journal of Mythic Arts, Autumn 2004; The Bear's Daughter,
The
Journal of Mythic Arts, Winter 2004; The Changeling,
That Year, and Bears appear here for the first time.
Reading: Oct. 16, 3-5 PM
with Vandana Singh & Greer Gilman
Pandemonium Books
& Games
The Garage @ Harvard SQ
36 JFK St.
Cambridge, MA
