Signing Announcement: Colleen Anderson and Undertaker Books prepare to let AWAKING PANDORA out of the box in April 2027!
Who's ready for an experimental novella packed with weird, near-future cli-fi, mythological allusions, body horror and more, all narrated with the kind of gorgeous, efficient prose only a poet can write?
All of us at Undertaker Books, for three, plus the novella's author, Colleen Anderson, but we know we aren't alone. Readers will be hooked right away by the novella's story-in-stories premise, as well as what inspired it.
"It's a mosaic novella," Anderson said, "similar to other mosaic novellas where the stories inform the same world. The protagonist in each story must deal with survival and a loved one’s death in a world affected by a strange miasma and toxic climate change. Each story references a Greek myth."
She first found inspiration for the story in New York City, when she learned there were prison barges.
"Already, we knew of the garbage barges where no one would allow them to dock. 'Awaking Pandora' (the story) was written from that," Anderson said. "Then as I faced how long it took me to write a novel, I reworked 'Awaking Pandora,' then started writing other eco stories."
What prison barges started, bereavement continued.
"Some of these [stories] were written during the two years in which my mother and brother died, and Covid coming along," Anderson said. "I didn’t realize at first that I was dealing with grief and loss, but it came out in my stories."
The novella is populated by characters from different walks of life, from a young child to a senior citizen. Anderson regularly asked herself what the challenges would be for each of these people and how they'd react.
"Plus, I wanted to show different situations since our world, our cities and our experiences are never homogenous," she said. "I often keep a blank book and write out questions about my characters: what they want, or need; what might stop them, what they like."
All of us at Undertaker Books, for three, plus the novella's author, Colleen Anderson, but we know we aren't alone. Readers will be hooked right away by the novella's story-in-stories premise, as well as what inspired it.
"It's a mosaic novella," Anderson said, "similar to other mosaic novellas where the stories inform the same world. The protagonist in each story must deal with survival and a loved one’s death in a world affected by a strange miasma and toxic climate change. Each story references a Greek myth."
She first found inspiration for the story in New York City, when she learned there were prison barges.
"Already, we knew of the garbage barges where no one would allow them to dock. 'Awaking Pandora' (the story) was written from that," Anderson said. "Then as I faced how long it took me to write a novel, I reworked 'Awaking Pandora,' then started writing other eco stories."
What prison barges started, bereavement continued.
"Some of these [stories] were written during the two years in which my mother and brother died, and Covid coming along," Anderson said. "I didn’t realize at first that I was dealing with grief and loss, but it came out in my stories."
The novella is populated by characters from different walks of life, from a young child to a senior citizen. Anderson regularly asked herself what the challenges would be for each of these people and how they'd react.
"Plus, I wanted to show different situations since our world, our cities and our experiences are never homogenous," she said. "I often keep a blank book and write out questions about my characters: what they want, or need; what might stop them, what they like."
Fans of Jeff VanderMeer's Strange Bird and Tanith Lee's Storyteller anthology should definitely put Awaking Pandora on their TBR lists, as well as those who already love Anderson's work. Her titles include I Dreamed a World, The Lore of Inscrutable Dreams, Weird Worlds, and Vellum Leaves and Lettered Skins (poetry collections); Embers Amongst the Fallen and A Body of Work (fiction collections). She is working on two additional poetry collections.
Awaking Pandora will be available from Undertaker Books in paperback and ebook forms on April 2, 2027. Preorders will be available before then!
More on Colleen Anderson:
Colleen Anderson, a Ladies of Horror Fiction, Canada Council, and BC Arts Council grant recipient, has been published in eight countries. An award-winning author, her works appear in Amazing, Cemetery Dance, Weird Tales, and the HWA Poetry Showcase. She is a Rhysling Award winner for “Machine (r)Evolution” and a two-time winner of the SFPA’s dwarf poetry contest. Colleen freelances as an editor, and has served on the SFPA executive board as well as the British Fantasy Award and Stoker juries. She lives in Vancouver, BC where she searches for mermaids.