Bridget McKenna

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About Bridget McKenna

Bridget McKenna was born a hellish long time ago in Las Vegas, Nevada. She wrote her first--alas, unpublished--novel at the age of nine. In pencil. After taking a few years off to pursue other career options, she returned to the fiction writing racket with the publication of her first short story in 1972.

Since then she has written and edited fiction, nonfiction, computer games, websites, and to-do lists. She has been shortlisted for the Hugo, Nebula, and Shamus awards, and has never taken one home. She lives in Seattle, where she reads, writes, edits, binge-watches TV series, and continues her search for the ultimate butter masala.

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Books By Bridget McKenna

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The Little Book of Self-Editing for Writers: 12 Ways to Take Your Book from Good to Great (Little Books for Writers 1) Feb 25, 2014

by Bridget McKenna

( 40 )

$4.99

12 Ways to Take Your Book from Good to Great

Whether your aim is to seek a publishing contract or to publish your book yourself, you want your writing to be as free of placeholder words, as devoid of verbal crutches, as lean and clean as you can learn to make it. This book will show you how.

Part One: Search and Destroy

Whether it's fish heads, zombie nouns, vampire verbs, or the dread dangling participle, these chapters will show you how to find and eliminate common early-draft mistakes.

Part Two: The Self-Editor's Toolkit

Learn to create richer language, set the pace, and wrangle dialogue tags while pondering "The Most-Hated Writing Advice Ever."

Part Three: Self-Editing Resources

Links to good books and helpful websites for writers, and a handy quick-reference to all the pointers in The Little Book of Self-Editing for Writers.

The Little Things - A Short Story Jan 22, 2012

by Bridget McKenna

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They came in twos and threes and half-dozens, flying above the main street of town on some unknown and unimaginable errand, perhaps twice the size of large butterflies, with pale slender bodies, and dragonfly wings sparkling in the sun.

The children noticed them first, and followed them down the street, looking up in wonder.

“Fairies!” they shouted to their parents inside the cozy houses. “Fairies!” they shrieked to one another in high voices. “Fairies!”

In Morgan's Glen, everything was about to change.

----

"The Little Things" was originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1993. The Ravenscourt Press edition features an afterword by the author: "It's the Little Things."

Quantum Zoo Jun 14, 2014

by Bridget McKenna , R.S. McCoy , John Hindmarsh , A.C. Smyth , Ken Furie , Sarah Stegall , S.E. Batt , Scott Dyson , D.J. Gelner , J.M. Ney-Grimm

( 33 )

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From a ghost park to a time-travel penitentiary of murderers to a menagerie of Egyptian deities, Quantum Zoo presents 12 compelling stories involving 12 very different living exhibitions. Including a wonderfully atmospheric tale by Hugo- and Nebula-nominated Bridget McKenna.

THE STORIES

"A King in Exile" - Lady Penelope Smythe-Everton, a nineteenth century British aristocrat with a penchant for adventures to exotic locales, leads an unconventional life. When she brings home a very curious egg from one such excursion, the unconventional becomes...unique.

"Echoes of Earth" - Tentacle-laden aliens abduct family man Bill when he steps out for an evening jog. He awakens powerless, not in the pulp-classic alien embrace, but displayed in an interstellar zoo and tormented by the diverse alien species that pass through.

"Bestiarum" - Humanity's last survivors hurtle toward a barely-habitable planet light years away in a failing lifeboat, stressed from generations of wear-and-tear. When Zookeeper Thimet meets a group of schoolchildren in the ship's Bestiarum, one little girl's curiosity gets the better of her. What dangerous secret has Thimet been hiding for decades...?

"Ignoble Deeds" - Lila embarks on a disquieting errand to give her dying and troubled mother peace of mind. It takes every bit of craftiness and deceit she can muster to get inside the new tourist attraction that's set up shop in an old, abandoned zoo. You won't believe what happens once she does...

"At Home in the Stars" - When two manicure-loving, jacuzzi-seeking, pink cadillac-admiring friends tangle with the alien masters of the galaxy, who wins? The ladies? The aliens? Or good ol' human nature?

"The Most Dangerous Lies" - A new zoo puts some of history's most evil monsters on display for the public to see in the flesh, but is their newest addition - Jack the Ripper - too dangerous to be left to his own devices?

"Playing Man" - Corporate executive Jordem Lun revisits Earth during his annual vacation. Maintained as a vast safari preserve, the old home planet displays gorgeous scenery and breathtaking wildlife, but something mysterious acts in its shadows.

"You'll Be So Happy, My Dear" - An inexperienced starfarer seeks local help when her spaceship malfunctions near a backwater planet. The most prominent ad on the internet directs her to just the right repair shop. Or does it?

"Skipdrive" - Alien leviathans, discovered floating in space beyond the orbit of Neptune, provoke a "space race" between the competing nations of Earth. Maintenance Chief Eliza, half-cyborg and immune to the strange side effects of the skipdrive, suspects that the first ship on the scene - hers - just made a very big mistake.

"Demon Rising" - A monster lives under little Katherine's bed. She knows he means her no harm, but would anyone else agree?

"Your Day at the Zoo" - What if you inhabited the consciousness of a great cat or a lazily coiled serpent or a great ape for just one day? What would it be like?

"Serpent's Foe" - Bastet, divine protectress of the gods themselves, lies defeated in a cage. Trapped in beast form, imprisoned behind bars, and confused by nightmares, she longs for freedom.

Other Formats: Paperback

The Good Pup - A Short Story Sep 24, 2013

by Bridget McKenna

( 1 )

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A summer rainstorm, a speeding car, and all that’s left for Romer Wills and his family is to build a coffin and hold a funeral for their beloved Pup so the children can feel they’ve done the proper thing. And that would be that, but three nights later something scratches at the door. Pup has come back from the dead, and with him have come happiness and rejoicing, trouble and sorrow, miracles and dark deeds.

The Good Pup was a finalist for the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Short Story. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, edited by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, in March 1993.

Kidnapped by Aliens! - A Short Story Dec 28, 2011

by Bridget McKenna , Marti McKenna

( 7 )

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Suppose you felt trapped in an unhappy marriage. Suppose you saw this ad in a newspaper...

"Have you ever wished your loved one could be kidnapped by aliens? Call 1-800-GOODBYE for more information. No salesmen will call."

If you're Guy Collier, well-meaning but luckless tech writer for a big Los Angeles software company, you might just pick up the phone and call. But that might only be the beginning of your problems.

"Kidnapped by Aliens!" was originally published in June 1995 in Tomorrow SF, edited by Algis Budrys. It includes an essay by the authors, "Writing (and Rewriting) Kidnapped by Aliens!"

Yorrie Rose - A Short Story Feb 15, 2015

by Bridget McKenna

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Yorrie Rose’s mama is dead. She wants to stay with her Aunt Wanda, but Aunt Wanda’s husband—violent and cruel Uncle Ralph—is determined to send her away to live with strangers.

Yorrie needs to keep the only home she has, and her talent for slipping from the world we know into new futures may hold the key to her happiness and ultimately her survival.

A King in Exile - A Short Story Jan 17, 2015

by Bridget McKenna

( 2 )

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Lady Penelope Smythe-Everton is ill-suited to the life of a gentleman’s daughter in mid-19th-century England. She’s independent, courageous, adventurous in the extreme, and not a particularly good risk on the marriage market. After a brush with death in the tropics, she returns to London with a rather large egg, which hatches to reveal a bipedal lizard she christens "Rex." Her life—and that of her dearest friend, solicitor John Maguire—is about to change in ways neither of them can possibly imagine.

The Defiling Jan 14, 2014

by Bridget McKenna

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On a pilgrimage across a pitiless desert, three poets find a small child dying of thirst and exposure. They stop to observe and create art from the moment, for this is the work of true poets—their duty to the world. One will not be changed by the tragedy they are about to witness. One will lose everything she possesses, and the third will feel the weight of her next decision for every moment of her life to come.

The Defiling is a science fiction short story of approximately 3000 words. It originally appeared in Amazing Stories magazine, edited by Patrick L. Price. This edition contains an essay by the author, "Writing The Defiling."

Red Fuji - A Short Story Nov 25, 2013

by Bridget McKenna

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Katsushika Hokusai is dying. His daughter brings him a brush and ink to write his death poem, and he laments “If Heaven could only grant me ten more years! I would become a real painter!” But soon his life and his painting will come to an end, and Heaven has failed to answer his plea. It falls to a visitor from a different realm to make the master an offer he never expected.

Red Fuji is a short-short story of approximately 2200 words.

Evenings, Mornings, Afternoons - A Short Story Apr 29, 2012

by Bridget McKenna

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Jonathan sees something in the waves—something terrifying and wonderful. But he's probably just crazy. There could not possibly be beautiful young men and women playing out beyond the breakers in the frigid winter ocean, festooning their naked bodies with seaweed, singing the songs he hears in his dreams. It's probably only the drugs the doctors give him for the pain that never leaves him alone.

But as he feels death coming nearer, the song grows more insistent, and the sea-people swim closer to shore. Jonathan must know once and for all if he's “a crazy old fairy” as his best friend insists, or if the people in the waves have some message for him.

“Evenings, Mornings, Afternoons” is a short story of about 4000 words. It was originally published in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, edited by Gardner Dozois.

The Old Organ Trail - A Short Story Feb 19, 2012

by Bridget McKenna

$0.99

Pewtie Marshall was the king of the liverleggers back in the days of the gaseaters, when it took balls and brains to drive a car, and the ’leggers in their firebreathing, gaseating hot rods would tear up the blue highways between pickup points and delivery drops, waxing Smokey’s ass with their souped-up Camaros and Zeecars with their Igloos full of livers and hearts and whatnot tucked snug between the front and back seats.

Those days are long behind him, but when Angelo “The Eliminator” Angelini calls upon Pewtie to make one last run to give him a chance at a new life, Pewtie knows it’s not an offer he can refuse.

Now Pewtie and his sorry-looking dog, Dave, need to gas the old hotrod, and burn up the roads to the Oregon border. Between here and there, they're going to need to be invisible to CHiPSat, the murderous traffic-control satellite, and keep a weather eye in the rearview for any sign of Jimmy-Bob “Roadkill” LaRue and the Skullbusters M.C.

“The Old Organ Trail” was originally published in Writers of The Future, Volume 2, edited by Algis Budrys, in 1986. This edition includes the author's afterword, “Finding ‘The Old Organ Trail.’”

A Little Night Music - A Short Story Dec 14, 2011

by Bridget McKenna

( 3 )

$0.99

Richie is a dealer, selling tickets on a steep drop to hopeless addiction. To music. His best friend Vince lives in poverty to support his craving for Mozart. Somewhere in L.A., a virtuoso chemist has targeted them for a brutal experiment. Can either of them survive it?

“Music and drugs have a connection that goes way back. In “A Little Night Music,” Bridget McKenna takes that connection and tightens it down until the words come to mean basically the same thing....” -Kim Mohan, Amazing Stories Magazine

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