My short story Python is live on Lightspeed. This story had been reprinted more than any other piece of short fiction I’ve written, possibly excluding The Water Man. John Joseph Adams was courteous and helpful. He altered the contract so the story could stay up on Keith Brooke’s Infinity Plus. Assistant editor Jude Griffin interviewed me as well, and was a joy to work with. Thank you all. Also, Rei Murakami did the cover for the August issue. I really like her work, and she was one of the people we looked at for cover art for Playground of Lost Toys, forthcoming from Exile this fall. Python also appeared in Jeff VanderMeer’s seminal anthology, Album Zutique and in my 2008 Tightrope short story collection, After the Fires, edited by Halli Villegas and Myna Wallin. Lightspeed takes care of authors, so let’s take care of them. If you like what you read, please consider purchasing the issue or subscribing.
From Author Spotlight by JUDE GRIFFIN
How did “Python” come about?
When I wrote “Python” I was living on a farm in eastern Peterborough County in Ontario, looking after small children, a big house, and a large vegetable garden. It was hard to find time to write, partly, I’m sure, because I hung cloth diapers out, more fool me. But I was disciplined and wrote every day — writing was important and I had the role model of my mother, the painter Christiane Pflug, who painted all day, every day, whether she felt like it or not. My partner, the multimedia artist Doug Back, was a devoted dad and played with the kids while I worked if he was home from the city. I had a little room on the second floor overlooking the driveway; across the road lay a swamp where the dogwoods filled with chorus frogs every spring. I had an arts council grant to work on short fiction — never underestimate the importance of funding — especially in Canada where writers and publishers compete for readers with US publishers with far greater resources. Notice I am telling a Woolfian kind of tale here — about a room of one’s own, childcare, and a stipend — it’s still relevant.
“Python” is inspired by a trip I took to New Orleans with a close friend when we were young. New Orleans was a revelation — my one and only trip to the American south. I’m told it’s not representative — that New Orleans isn’t really the south, just as Berlin, where my family is from, isn’t really Germany.
Read more here.