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This novelette originally appeared in Uncanny Magazine, Issue 18, September-October 2017.

Read the full story for free at Uncanny.

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Firebirds: An Anthology of Original Fantasy and Science Fiction (2003), edited by Sharyn November. It was reprinted in Lightspeed, August 2012.

Read the full story for free at Lightispeed.

This short story originally appeared in Realms of Fantasy, April 2008. It can also be found in the anthologies Year's Best Fantasy 9 (2009), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, and The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2009, edited by Rich Horton.

In a hilarious tale reminiscent of T. H. White, a lost boy finds himself an unlikely apprentice to the very old, vaguely evil, mostly just grumpy Wizard Smallbone.

When twelve-year-old Nick runs away from his uncle's in the middle of a blizzard, he stumbles onto a very opinionated bookstore. He also meets its guardian, the self-proclaimed Evil Wizard Smallbone, who calls Nick his apprentice and won't let him leave, but won't teach him magic, either. It's a good thing the bookstore takes Nick's magical education in hand, because Smallbone's nemesis--the Evil Wizard Fidelou--and his pack of shape-shifting bikers are howling at the borders. Smallbone might call himself evil, but compared to Fidelou, he's practically a puppy. And he can't handle Fidelou alone. Wildly funny and cozily heartfelt, Delia Sherman's latest is an eccentric fantasy adventure featuring dueling wizards, enchanted animals, and one stray boy with a surprising knack for magic.

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers (1998), edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, December 2014. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Twelfth Annual Collection (1999), edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, So Fey: Queer Fairy Fiction (2007), edited by Steve Berman, and Beyond Binary: Genderqueer and Sexually Fluid Speculative Fiction (2012), edited by Brit Mandelo.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in the anthology The Coyote Road: Trickster Tales (2007), edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Twenty-First Annual Collection (2008), edited by Kelly Link, Gavin J. Grant and Ellen Datlow.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

Thirteen-year-old Sophie isn't happy about spending summer at her grandmother's old house in the Bayou. But the house has a maze Sophie can't resist exploring once she finds it has a secretive and playful inhabitant. When she makes an impulsive wish, she slips one hundred years into the past, to the year 1860. Once she makes her way, bedraggled and tanned, to what will one day be her grandmother's house, she is taken for a slave.

"The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor", by Delia Sherman, is a delightful tale set on the border of Wales. Young Tacy Gof has always wished to see the ghost of Cwmlech Manor, and she may yet get her wish when a new master moves in....

This story originally appeared in the anthology Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories, edited by Kelly Link, Gavin J. Grant.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

When Sir Arthur Cwmlech's home is robbed and the Illogic Engine--his prize invention--stolen, it is only natural that he and his clever assistant Miss Tacy Gof consult with another inventor, the great Mycroft Holmes, about who has taken it. But it is really Mr. Holmes' Reasoning Machine who they are there to see, for it is only fitting for one automaton to opine on a matter concerning the fate of another of its kind. This charming story by award-winning fiction writer Delia Sherman is a delightful romp set within an a slightly altered version of one of our most beloved literary universes.

This story is included in the anthology The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume 11 (2017), edited by Jonathan Strahan.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

WFA nominated short story. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, June 1999. The story can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Thirteenth Annual Collection (2000), edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling.

Berthe Duvet, chambermaid to a French duchess, narrates this tale of eighteenth-century Paris, describing the dazzling world of Marie Antoinette, Beaumarchais, and the Marquis de Sade, already living in the shadow of the guillotine.

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Poe: 19 New Tales of Suspense, Dark Fantasy and Horror (2009), edited by Ellen Datlow, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, August 2016.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

A mirror foretold her execution--yet the sorceress Margaret would deny such a fate..would even sacrifice her daughter Elinor to shatter the mirror's prophecy. A witch, however, cannot spill the blood of her offspring and long remain of this world. And so, Margaret must somehow bring about her daughter's demise without death coming directly from her own hand......

Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, December 2005. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Nineteenth Annual Collection (2006), edited by Ellen Datlow, Gavin J. Grant and Kelly Link, Year's Best Fantasy 6 (2006), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer and Witches: Wicked, Wild & Wonderful (2012), edited by Paula Guran.

In her vivid and sly, gentle and wise long anticipated first collection, Delia Sherman takes seemingly insignificant moments in the lives of artists or sailors—the light out a window, the two strokes it takes to turn a small boat—and finds the ghosts haunting them, the magic surrounding them. Here are the lives that make up larger histories, here are tricksters and gardeners, faeries and musicians, all glittering and sparkling, finding beauty and hope and always unexpected, a touch of wild magic.

Table of Contents:

• "Young Woman in a Garden"
• "The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor"
• "The Red Piano"
• "La Fée Verte"
• "Walpurgis Afternoon"
• "The Parwat Ruby"
• "The Fairy Cony-Catcher"
• "Sacred Harp"
• "The Printer's Daughter"
• "Nanny Peters and the Feathery Bride"
• "Miss Carstairs and the Merman"
• "The Maid on the Shore"
• "The Fiddler of Bayou Teche"
• "Land's End"

This story can be found in the collection Young Woman in a Garden (2014) and is anthologized in Flying Cups and Saucers: Gender Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy (1998) and Xanadu 2 (1994).

Read the full story for free at Uncanny.

Neef is a changeling, a human baby stolen by fairies and replaced with one of their own. She lives in "New York Between," a parallel Manhattan of elves, fairies, demons, and mythological spirits. Neef has always been protected by her (rat) nursemaid,Astris, until she winds up breaking Fairy Law. Now, unless she can meet the challenge of the Lady of Central Park, she'll be sacrificed to the bloodthirsty Wild Hunt. But Neef is a native New Yorker, streetwise and sharp, and she's determined to beat the rap.

Neef, the official Changeling of Central Park, has survived a life-threatening quest, but that's nothing compared to her first experiences at Changeling school. At Miss Van Loon's, she meets her counterparts from all over Manhattan, learns the basics of diplomacy, and, of course, gets in trouble. This time Neef must recover the Magic Mirror, or else New York Harbor's Mermaid Queen will turn all of the city's fresh water to salt—and everything will die.

Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Terri Windling
• From the World to the Border - essay by Terri Windling
• Oak Hill - (1998) - short story by Patricia A. McKillip
• The Path from the True and Only Realm to the False Lands and the City of Illusion (Translation for Humans: How to Get from Elfland to Bordertown) - essay by Terri Windling
• Dragon Child - (1998) - novelette by Midori Snyder
• First Things First: So You Need a Place to Stay - essay by Terri Windling
• Socks - novelette by Delia Sherman
• The Gangs: And Life's Other Little Annoyances - essay by Terri Windling
• Half Life - novelette by Donnárd Sturgis
• What to Eat: A Tasteful Guide to Border Cuisine - essay by Terri Windling and Teresa Nielsen Hayden
• Hot Water: A Bordertown Romance - short story by Ellen Kushner
• The Music Scene: What's Up and What Ain't - essay by Terri Windling and Teresa Nielsen Hayden
• Arcadia - short story by Michael Korolenko
• Nightlife: Where to Find It - essay by Terri Windling
• Changeling - novelette by Elisabeth Kushner
• So You Want to Be a Star: Get Real - essay by Terri Windling
• May This Be Your Last Sorrow - short story by Charles de Lint
• Uptown: How the Other Half Lives - essay by Terri Windling
• Rag - short story by Caroline Stevermer
• The Peculiar Joy of Cooking on the Border - essay by Terri Windling and Teresa Nielsen Hayden
• When the Bow Breaks - short story by Steven Brust
• A Human Guide to Elvin Etiquette - essay by Terri Windling and Mimi Panitch
• Argentine - novelette by Ellen Steiber
• A Trueblood Guide to Human Peccadillos - essay by Terri Windling
• Cover Up My Tracks with Rain - novelette by Micole Sudberg
• Famous Last Words - essay by Terri Windling
• How Shannaro Tolkinson Lost and Found His Heart - novelette by Felicity Savage

Nineteen writers dig into the imaginative spaces between conventional genres--realistic and fantastical, scholarly and poetic, personal and political--and bring up gems of new fiction: interstitial fiction.

This is the literary mode of the new century, a reflection of the complex, ambiguous, and challenging world that we live in. These nineteen stories, by some of the most interesting and innovative writers working today, will change your mind about what stories can and should do as they explore the imaginative space between conventional genres. The editors garnered stories from new and established authors in the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom, and also fiction translated from Spanish, Hungarian, and French. The collection features stories from Christopher Barzak, Colin Greenland, Holly Phillips, Rachel Pollack, Vandana Singh, Anna Tambour, Catherynne Valente, Leslie What, and others.

Contents:

• Introduction (Interfictions: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing) - essay by Heinz Insu Fenkl
• Alternate Anxieties - shortstory by Karen Jordan Allen
• What We Know About the Lost Families of -- -- House - shortstory by Christopher Barzak
• Black Feather - shortstory by K. Tempest Bradford
• A Map of the Everywhere - shortstory by Matthew Cheney
• The Utter Proximity of God - shortstory by Michael J. DeLuca
• When It Rains, You'd Better Get Out of Ulga - shortstory by Adrián Ferrero
• Timothy - shortstory by Colin Greenland
• A Drop of Raspberry - shortstory by Csilla Kleinheincz
• Queen of the Butterfly Kingdom - shortstory by Holly Phillips
• Burning Beard: The Dreams and Visions of Joseph Ben Jacob, Lord Viceroy of Egypt - shortstory by Rachel Pollack
• Pallas at Noon - shortstory by Joy Marchand [as by Joy Remy ]
• The Shoe in SHOES' Window - shortstory by Anna Tambour
• Rats - shortstory by Veronica Schanoes
• Emblemata - shortstory by Léa Silhol
• Willow Pattern - shortstory by Jon Singer
• Hunger - shortstory by Vandana Singh
• Climbing Redemption Mountain - shortstory by Mikal Trimm
• A Dirge for Prester John - shortstory by Catherynne M. Valente
• Post hoc - shortstory by Leslie What
• Afterword: The Space Between - essay by Delia Sherman and Theodora Goss

Delving deeper into the genre-spanning territory explored in Interfictions, the Interstitial Arts Foundation's first groundbreaking anthology, Interfictions 2 showcases twenty-one original and innovative writers. It includes contributions from authors from six countries, including the United States, Poland, Norway, Australia, France, and Great Britain.

Newcomers such as Alaya Dawn Johnson, Theodora Goss, and Alan DeNiro rub shoulders with established visionaries such as Jeffrey Ford (The Drowned Life), Brian Francis Slattery (Liberation),Nin Andrews (The Book of Orgasms), and M. Rickert (Map of Dreams). Also featured are works byWill Ludwigsen, Cecil Castellucci, Ray Vukcevich, Carlos Hernandez, Lavie Tidhar, Elizabeth Ziemska, Peter M. Ball, Camilla Bruce, Amelia Beamer, William Alexander, Shira Lipkin, Lionel Davoust, Stephanie Shaw, and David J. Schwartz.

Colleen Mondor, of the well-known blog Chasing Ray, interviews the editors for the afterword.

Henry Jenkins, ex-director of MIT's Comparative Media Studies program and now a member of USC's Annenberg School for Communication and School of Cinematic Arts, provides a fantastic introduction sure to set readers' imaginations alight.

Interfictions 2 is here and ready to be read, discussed, taught, blogged, taken apart, and re-interpreted.

Contents

• Introduction: On the Pleasures of Not Belonging - essay by Henry Jenkins
• The War Between Heaven and Hell Wallpaper - shortstory by Jeffrey Ford
• Remembrance Is Something Like a House - shortstory by Will Ludwigsen
• The Long and Short of Long-Term Memory - shortstory by Cecil Castellucci
• The Score - novelette by Alaya Dawn Johnson
• The Two of Me - shortstory by Ray Vukcevich
• The Assimilated Cuban's Guide to Quantum Santeria - novelette by Carlos Hernandez
• Shoes - shortstory by Lavie Tidhar
• Interviews After the Revolution - shortstory by Brian Francis Slattery
• Count Poniatowski and the Beautiful Chicken - shortstory by Elizabeth Ziemska
• Black Dog: A Biography - shortstory by Peter M. Ball
• Berry Moon: Laments of a Muse - shortstory by Camilla Bruce
• Morton Goes to the Hospital - shortstory by Amelia Beamer
• After Verona - shortstory by William Alexander
• Valentines - shortstory by Shira Lipkin
• (*_*?) ~ ~ ~ ~ (-_-): The Warp and the Woof - novelette by Alan DeNiro
• The Marriage - shortstory by Nin Andrews
• Child-Empress of Mars - shortstory by Theodora Goss
• L'Isle Close - shortstory by Lionel Davoust
• Afterbirth - novelette by Stephanie Shaw
• The 121 - shortstory by David J. Schwartz
• Afterwords: An Interstitial Interview - essay by Colleen Mondor and Christopher Barzak and Delia Sherman

WFA nominated novelette. It originally appeared in the anthology Bending the Landscape: Fantasy (1997), edited by Nicola Griffith and Stephen Pagel. The story can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Eleventh Annual Collection (1998), edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling.

This stunning follow-up to Ellen Kushner's cult-classic novel, Swordspoint, is set in the same world of labyrinthine intrigue, where sharp swords and even sharper wits rule. Against a rich tapestry of artists and aristocrats, students, strumpets, and spies, a gentleman and a scholar will find themselves playing out an ancient drama destined to explode their society's smug view of itself–and reveal that sometimes the best price of uncovering history is being forced to repeat it.

Generations ago the last king fell, taking with him the final truths about a race of wizards who ruled at his side. But the blood of the kings runs deep in the land and its people, waiting for the coming together of two unusual men, Theron Campion, a young nobleman of royal lineage, is heir to an ancient house and a modern scandal. Tormented by his twin duties to his family and his own bright spirit, he seeks solace in the University. There he meets Basil St. Cloud, a brilliant and charismatic teacher ruled by a passion for knowledge–and a passion for the ancient kings. Of course, everyone now knows that the wizards were charlatans and the kings their dupes and puppets. Only Basil ins not convinced–nor is he convinced that the city has seen its last king…