{"id":1487,"date":"2020-06-16T10:40:44","date_gmt":"2020-06-16T14:40:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/?p=1487"},"modified":"2020-06-16T10:40:44","modified_gmt":"2020-06-16T14:40:44","slug":"a-quiet-afternoon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/2020\/06\/16\/a-quiet-afternoon\/","title":{"rendered":"A Quiet Afternoon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Back in the summer of 2019&#8211;oh how long ago that seems!&#8211;The Pillbug and I were lamenting a dearth of SF that was&#8230; not stressful. SF, particularly now, is full of Chosen Ones and Saves The Universe and Deaths to Show It&#8217;s Serious and lots of other great, tension-building, page-turning action. It&#8217;s escapism, sure, but&#8230; what if you want to escape into something less stressful?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Literary fiction, on the other hand, often eshews such tension to gently meander through a garden of metaphor. And it&#8217;s much more relaxed, but&#8230; maybe <em>too much so<\/em>. There are, of course, novels that straddle that divide, but short stories? Hard to find. Probably hard to sell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So we decided to test that hypothesis. We put out a call in December for what we term &#8220;Low-Fi&#8221;: low stakes fantasy and science fiction. Cosy, warm-sweater, mug of tea fiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And now that anthology is launching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"http:\/\/graceandvictory.ca\/\">Coming July 1st, from Grace&amp;Victory Publications, is our new anthology, <em>A Quiet Afternoon<\/em>, featuring 13 low-fi stories from a great group of authors.<\/a> Magic ink? Yes. Magic robots? We got &#8217;em. Dragons? Fairies? Strigoi? Oh yes. And more. Edited by Liane Tsui and Grace Seybold, and the stories selected by the Pillbug and me, <em>A Quiet Afternoon<\/em> is a peaceful break from a stressful world, and I hope you&#8217;ll check it out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure data-wp-context=\"{&quot;imageId&quot;:&quot;6a691df863dd1&quot;}\" data-wp-interactive=\"core\/image\" data-wp-key=\"6a691df863dd1\" class=\"wp-block-image size-large wp-lightbox-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"360\" height=\"576\" data-wp-class--hide=\"state.isContentHidden\" data-wp-class--show=\"state.isContentVisible\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.setButtonStyles\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.showLightbox\" data-wp-on--load=\"callbacks.setButtonStyles\" data-wp-on--pointerdown=\"actions.preloadImage\" data-wp-on--pointerenter=\"actions.preloadImageWithDelay\" data-wp-on--pointerleave=\"actions.cancelPreload\" data-wp-on-window--resize=\"callbacks.setButtonStyles\" src=\"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/AQA_cover_360x576.jpg\" alt=\"The cover of the &quot;A Quiet Afternoon&quot; anthology\" class=\"wp-image-1489\" srcset=\"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/AQA_cover_360x576.jpg 360w, https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/AQA_cover_360x576-188x300.jpg 188w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 360px) 100vw, 360px\" \/><button\n\t\t\tclass=\"lightbox-trigger\"\n\t\t\ttype=\"button\"\n\t\t\taria-haspopup=\"dialog\"\n\t\t\tdata-wp-bind--aria-label=\"state.thisImage.triggerButtonAriaLabel\"\n\t\t\tdata-wp-init=\"callbacks.initTriggerButton\"\n\t\t\tdata-wp-on--click=\"actions.showLightbox\"\n\t\t\tdata-wp-style--right=\"state.thisImage.buttonRight\"\n\t\t\tdata-wp-style--top=\"state.thisImage.buttonTop\"\n\t\t>\n\t\t\t<svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"12\" height=\"12\" fill=\"none\" viewBox=\"0 0 12 12\">\n\t\t\t\t<path fill=\"#fff\" d=\"M2 0a2 2 0 0 0-2 2v2h1.5V2a.5.5 0 0 1 .5-.5h2V0H2Zm2 10.5H2a.5.5 0 0 1-.5-.5V8H0v2a2 2 0 0 0 2 2h2v-1.5ZM8 12v-1.5h2a.5.5 0 0 0 .5-.5V8H12v2a2 2 0 0 1-2 2H8Zm2-12a2 2 0 0 1 2 2v2h-1.5V2a.5.5 0 0 0-.5-.5H8V0h2Z\" \/>\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Coming soon from Grace&#038;Victory Publications: The stakes have never been milder or more reasonable!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,179],"tags":[221,247],"class_list":["post-1487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-news","tag-a-quiet-afternoon","tag-promo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1487"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1491,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1487\/revisions\/1491"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}