Alara Rogers

Backstage: Amaldis

Backstage for Amaldis.

I do not remember why, in college, I suddenly got so incredibly butthurt about the genre of sword and sorcery in which noble ...

Backstage: Five Minutes

Backstage for Five Minutes. 

This story isn't actually wholly original to the Internet. Years and years ago, when I was deep within X-Men comic...

I Suddenly Find Myself In Class With Amnesia, But I'm the Teacher?!

I couldn’t tell you what the last thing I remembered was, because I couldn’t tell what order any of them had happened in. Was the last thing I remembered sitting in the back of the English classroom, gossiping with Suzy and Chantel, q...

52 Project #49: She's Got Diplomatic Immunity, She's Got A Lethal Weapon That Nobody Sees

The sky was completely dark – no sun, despite i

Well, damn.

Sorry, guys, got a new job in November 2023 and I fell off the face of the Earth again. Gonna catch up with the 52 Project finally this month, and start posting new stuff no one has yet seen.

Deirdre

Here's a treat for the patrons!

Originall

52 Project #48: Hoodie

Perhaps you have heard a story, much like but not exactly the same as this one, about twin sisters, one beautiful and one very strange. These sisters were not princesses, but the daughters of a Congresswoman, which is a little bit like princesses,...

Backstage: Survival Traits

Backstage for Survival Traits.

This came from a nightmare I had, and remains the most terrifying, to me, story I have ever written. I wrote the stor...

52 Project #47: Nobody Believes Cassandra

The night after he’d failed to persuade the res

Song of Jane

My crappy attempt at a tribute to my mother, written in iambic pentameter in the style of translations of the Greek epics she loved, as an introduction to my story "Nobody Believes Cassandra."

I speak of brown eyed Jane, who bore me, child 2023-11-26 17:23:22 +0000 UTC View Post

November Report On Real Life

Did not, in fact, do any Nano, or any writing at all; I've spent the entire month preparing for the job (which I did in fact get) by cleaning up and reorganizing my home office, doing chores I'd been putting off for months, etc. 

But no...

Been very busy in October

I've been working very hard at getting a job, and I may have landed one, finally; I was told the client had accepted me and as long as I pass the background check, I'm in. I'll know in another week or so. Pretty sure I will pass the background che...

52 Project #46: To The End of the World

I first visited the Rismel Tower with my father when I was about 10. It wasn’t my first time out of the country, but it was the first time I’d visited the Risilon Archipelago. It’s a beautiful place, warm all year round, with incredible beac...

52 Project #45: No Rescue

Meg Santoro was enormously tired of plane crashes.

She had joined this hero team because they focused on rescue, not on stopping crime, and she wanted to be able to use her powers to heal, openly and freely. She’d spent too long using them...

Backstage: Everybody's Happy As The Dead Come Home

Backstage for Everybody's Happy As The Dead Come Home.

I am not actually a giant fan of Shriekback. I loved the really quiet stuff they did for t...

52 Project #44: A Doll for Vasilisa

The sick woman made her way slowly through the forest, stopping to rest many more times than she thought she should have to. Her eyes moved automatically over the herbs and vines and leaves she saw, checking for anything that would have value to h...

52 Project #43: Dev Environment

People always want to know, how did I come up with it? And what they mean is, it’s so obvious, why was I the first, in centuries, millennia, of people practicing magic? Yeah, so the fact that magic became obscenely hard between the 15th...

Backstage: The Last Boy

Backstage for the story "The Last Boy":

I have been haunted by James Tiptree Jr's "The Screwfly Solution" since I first read it. The story presents ...

52 Project #42: Lineage

The air outside Jiangpao International Airport

52 Project #41: The Blood Mage

Ailurin was five when she learned what she was.

Her older brother, a lanky eight, had just run away with her favorite doll, laughing. Ailurin ran after him, screaming “Give her back!”, but the boy was too entertained by his sister’s im...

Didn't fall off the face of the Earth again

I've just been busting ass on trying to finish Cold Light (The Cold At The Heart of the Light, my novel about a supervillain trying to save her nemeses' mentor's baby.) I did really well in the earlier part of the month, but work obligati...

Backstage: The Court of the Lion King

This backstage is for The Court of the Lion King, story #28 of the 52 Project.

I had a dream, related to the song "Drawn to the Rhythm" by Sarah ...

Backstage: The Pale Bro

Here's what I wrote about The Pale Bro when it was still in concept phase:

I was talking with 2023-09-11 20:09:20 +0000 UTC View Post

52 Project #40: Angel of Darkness, Demon of Light

Tala par Kyleth, Darkchild, had been on the road for 12 nights, heading home. There had been no unpleasant incidents thus far, and she fervently hoped things would stay that way. Tonight, however, was a warm, moonless night, the kind the creatures...

52 Project #39: Seista Nikita

Once upon a time, in a distant province that never appeared on any map, probably because either a. it was too small to bother with or b. someone bribed the mapmaker, or possibly both, an evil beast called the Culare reigned. (It was pronounced lik...

Backstage for "Marc Snowfrolic and the Quest for Biscuits"

Backstage for Marc Snowfrolic and the Quest for Biscuits, #26 of the 52 Project. I was halfway there at this point, still trucking along at 1 story a week...

Backstage for "Where The Winds of Limbo Roar"

Backstage for Where the Winds of Limbo Roar, #25 of the 52 Project. The title is based on "Veteran of the Psychic Wars" by Blue Oyster Cult, and that w...

52 Project #38: All We Wanna Do Is Eat Your Brains

This is a songfic based on Jonathan Coulton's "Re: Your Brains". Trigger warning for zombies, but this is more comedic than dark.

***

The fifth floor of the six-story Peaceful Pines Towne Centre shopping mall was entirely occupied by t...

Backstage for "The Princesses and the Peas"

This is one of my most popular stories, "The Princesses and the Peas", #24 of the 52 Project.

It's a really popular meme on Tumblr that the princess...

Backstage for Firedance

Backstage for Firedance, #23 of the 52 Project.

As a preteen I read Harlan Ellison's "Again, Dangerous Visions", a collection of New Wave, absolutel...