TREE HOUSE TALES is a collection of short fiction & non-fiction written between 1983 & 2014. It was never a planned literary work nor was it a proto-collection awaiting critical mass. It or rather they were files saved in a common folder, once manila & now digital. Short stories, anecdotes, art, poetry and "beats-mes" kept company for as much as 30 years-all that time left to their own devices. Works which originally had little in common--besides being file neighbors--began communicating in ways humans cannot begin to understand. They found they had commonalities they never guessed, not just that "We have a common author" thing. Fantasy, folk tradition & mythic stories about the Fae found they had more in common than an author. Horror & humor agreed to disagree. Maybe even work together. Deities and Demons, not so much. Accounts written by & about aliens compared notes with Tales by & about the Fae. Stoahs, dragons & seabirds debated the existence of humans. Wishbones & bear-eating fish learned about "reality" (whatever that is) at the feet of non-fiction. (Feet?) Since no two of their fellow literary prisoners were alike, the short works suspected that readers must vary in their tastes. There might be 100s, even 1000s of people yearning to read about vengeful trout, queens of the Fae, unlikely aliens kept safe by Witness Protection, what hit men do on their day off & why tech can be as terrifying as hurricanes but sorcerers are much worse! Critical mass just sort of happened. Short stories, anecdotes, artwork, poems, extracts & "beats-mes" discovered that they felt homeless & unread because they were homeless and unread. Every anecdote & each tale from the Faerie Realm began dreaming about living where Ursa Major, Narenta & a Mother Goose pumpkin patch shared the same saunas. Or finding their true home on the bookshelf of a compulsive reader. Or lurking inside a Kindle waiting to scare their reader inside out! Time to take their futures into their own h/a/n/d/s/ titles & become a book! Not just any book but a COLLECTION!!! They vowed never to rest until they had been read, not once but many times! Or until their author became a blithering idiot! Or both! Yes, both! Unread is unknown! Unknown is unread! Tree House Tales-- A collection of short stories, fantasy, humor, suspense, SF & beats me; fantasy artwork, anecdotes (mostly humorous), poems & novel extracts Fantasy, Mostly-- I Need a Horse (flash); A Sailor's Tale (mythic tale); Sisyphus (interlinked horror story); Circles (aliens & daydreams); Garden Mosaic (poems); Daisy & the Paper-Mice (2 sides of a paper trail); The Windowed Door (prose poem); Luckiest Hunter Ever (story outline, story-telling suggestions); The Dragon's Tail Tale (tall tale fantasy); No Substitutions (adoptions, parental love & fantasy); Winter's Season (a what if); Smashed Fairy Song Cycle (humor); Dream, With Joey (strange luck w/ a side of paranoia); A Dream with Bowling (Confidential informant in hitman land. With bowling); The Queen of the Tor Sidhe (poem); Shadow Harper (new take on an old tradition); The Pumpkin Smasher (Mother Goose vs the FBI. With trolls); Gajit's Research Expedition (SF, undergrad research papers & culture shock); Dingle (finish the story challenge); The Last Battle (novelette: faerie tales, horror & war) Reality, Whatever That Is-- Preteens, Horses & Aliens; Baffled by the Green Door; Fandom 101; How I Learned to Hate Telephones; A Fannish Internet Sub-Creation of a Hyper-Dimensional Pocket Universe; Sherry's Cake is Major Hit at Coffee Hour Film at 11; EgoBoogling or what artists, authors, actors & musicians do when they ditch work; Catzis#1 by the human, Catzis#2 by Khiva & Vartha; Rainstorm Coming (scattered drops of poetry); Hurricane Hazel (memories from when I was 8); Between Worlds (poem re Ocean City NJ) END OF REALITY (that's a relief!) How I Write-A Smidge of Plot, A Glob of Character Extracts from 5 Narenta n
About the Author: I'm SherryT, a fantasy author trapped on the U.S. east coast & longing to live on my fantasy world of Narenta but not during a war. I like fantasy & mysteries but these days I write more than I read. My favorite authors are the Inklings: all the writings of Lewis; Tolkien's Hobbit & LotR; Charles Williams' supernatural thrillers like The Greater Trumps& his Arthurian poetry; Barbara Hambly; Madeleine l'Engle; Susan Cooper; Ken Grimwood &Tony Hillerman. I enjoy helping fellow-writers & appreciate being helped; amateur photography; creating art by hand or graphics software; music esp filk, folk & world music ex. Putumayo, soft rock, classical guitar. I watch just a few TV shows a season but I'm very loyal to those I watch. I love 100's of films but I refuse to play favorites by listing a few. Other interests: my faith, ethnic cuisine, dark chocolate, playing servant to my cats and co-authors, Khiva & Vartha, "wasting time with my friends", enjoying nature-except for ice storms. My Past and My Future-- I worked at an academic library for 30 years. What could be better than being around books every day? Writing them. I wrote my first Narenta Tumults fantasy, "Seabird" beginning in 1979. Writing Narenta #1 was such fun that--when I reached the end--I began writing its sequel. And the sequel to the sequel. After retiring from my first career, I focused on writing, networking with other fantasy authors like my Lost Genre Guild colleagues & buddies, catching up on manuscript revisions & of course writing new material. Speaking of which, revised editions of the first two Narenta Tumults fantasy novels--Seabird & Earthbow--will be available in early 2015. Marooned, the 3rd novel set on Narenta will appear later in 2015. Two other Narenta novels still need work. The Gryphon & the Basilisk aka "The Behemoth" aka "Its Wordiness" not so secretly wants to be a trilogy & keeps saying, "Feed me!" G&B looks more like a gigantic plant every day. I'm beginning to worry. Another Narenta novel is having an identity crisis & has asked to be called, "Da Boid, da Tree-Rat 'n' da Loser". As a loving book-mama, I'm giving it time to work through its issues. Writing Long vs. Writing Short-- I wrote most THT short stories in the mid80's because my writing instructors assigned us short works. Wailing "I write long" gained me no sympathy. I've written 40-50 shorts, 33 in this collection but I rarely submit the stuph stuffed in the folder because, well, I write long