Come Selahway With Me…

Since today is my birthday (feel free to leave your gratuitous praise and adoration in the comments), I figured I’d post something appropriate. Since it’s a con week, I am going to be lazy and totally pimp my excerpts all this week because I am old and I can.

It is a known fact that people born in September are the best. They just are. No argument. Any argument just means you’re jealous. Other September babies have read this and totally agree with me, so we win. Granted, I find this month interesting because it can straddle summer and fall, though I identify more with the fall side. Without getting into the whole myth and legend of the birthing of SJ, here is a little short from Lost in the Shadows, all about my feelings on September.

You should totally buy the book, by the way. Since it’s my birthday and all.

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September children are full of the light of the harvest moon. They are permeated by the sweet acrid musk of the smoke from burning leaves and the last of the barbecues. A child born in September acknowledges summer, relaxes in winter, but knows the real magic of the year comes with the falling of leaves and planting of pumpkins. They feel the pressure to like the start of school and they do for a week. But the distractions of the colors, the impending crisp air are enough to drive a true September child away from the books to walk down little side streets and paths in the woods to search for the remaining chipmunks and squirrels.

A September child always feels a little cheated that their mothers couldn’t keep them in the womb till October, but feel blessed that they came before the disappointment of November, the end of the real magic time of year. The winter may have its holidays, but it relies on marketing and icons to make it inviting.

A September child’s lips are kissed with cider and their cheeks are made for stuffing away doughnuts and sugary cookies. Their hair smells like deep sapphire sky no matter what the color and they haunt apple orchards, cemeteries, and destroy piles of leaves left carelessly to be crunched under their delighted feet.

September children are broody, stuck in a transition month with no real holidays. Labor Day and Grandparents Day pale in comparison to Halloween or Christmas. Being part summer and part autumn have made them determined. They watch for opportunity and adventure in their introverted hideaways in backyards. They feel no apologies for their month ending summer freedom and only a little jealousy at the months to come. But a smile from a September child means promise of things lurking in the future. They get things done. You can see possibility and fall sky in their open, wide eyes. They’re overlooked like so many others, but it helps their dreams and plottings for everyone else to be so distracted.

Their wrath is the lick of trash-burning flames, laughter the incoming of crows, their pleasure that of children playing tag on the way home from the first lazy week of school before the work really starts. September children are often ignored but full of possibility, the inhalation of breath before the year continues on, the thoughts and empty space before meditation. September children know how to live, most of all

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Various Speculative Genres/Short Fiction: Flash, Complete Shorts, Horror, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, and others

Journey with authors Selah Janel and S.H. Roddey to a world where every idea is a possibility and every genre an invitation.

In this collection of forty-seven short stories, lines blur and worlds collide in strange and wonderful new ways.

Get lost with the authors as they wander among fantasy, horror, science fiction, and other speculative musings.

Shadows can’t hurt you, and sometimes it’s all right to venture off the path.

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In the Louisville area this weekend? Come see me at Imaginarium Convention and get a signed copy of Lost in the Shadows for your very own!

Also, be sure to go hunting for the hidden word on my blog and enter the Night Owl Reviews scavenger hunt before Sept 17! (hint: go look through the links at the top of the page…)