Elin Gregory

It is with very great pleasure that I introduce the first of the authors who have contributed stories to the Foolish Encounters anthology, which will be available from Wilde City Press on April 1st.

Foolish Encounters began it’s life as a April Fools dare from Marc of Rainbow Gold Book reviews – what’s the silliest story idea you can think of? Naturally everyone pitched in with the daftest scenarios  and we all read each others ideas, cackled with laughter then forgot about it.

A month or so later we were contacted again with the challenge to write our story to be included in an anthology to be produced in time for April first this year. The brave souls at Wilde City Press had agreed to publish it

Months later and the release of the anthology is just a few days away.

As usual with these anthology interviews I will provide a prize for one lucky commenter – their name to be selected old school style with bits of paper drawn out of a hat – it could be a WW2 tin helmet, a pirate hat, or something fetching in straw, depending on the time of day, direction of wind and just how I feel. the more comments the more chances you have to win.

So please join me in welcoming guest number one – Angel Martinez

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What inspired you to write your story for the anthology?
I suppose you could say this anthology is partly my fault, er, that is, partly because of my interference. Wait. This isn’t coming out right at all. Marc was hosting a series of events for Rainbow Gold with authors and their books. Mine just happened to fall around the time that my Brimstone series (science fiction humor) was out and Marc scheduled me for April 1^st. Appropriate. What he did before the day, though, was to ask me to come up with as many outrageous story prompts as I could. There were some doozies. Other authors were encouraged to add prompts as well and later claim them.

Not normally regarded as cuddly

What prompt did I end up with? A cobra shifter who can only come when he sings, which was actually a combination of two prompts. This was not my idea. Marc insisted I had to write this one. Hmm, I said to myself. What the hell have I done? While I have written characters who change form, I’ve never written, and probably never will write, the pop culture shifter story that people would expect. Not that route. But what if this dual-natured person was an alien and what if he was stuck on Earth and what would he need to sing in order to climax? And how could I make his eventual love interest as annoying as possible… Sissal Naganos, alien diplomat in disgrace and sexually troubled cobra shifter, was born in “A Message from the Home Office.”

Could you tell me a little about it?
Sure! For a few years now, Sissal has been assigned as the OIL (Onsite Interspecies Liaison) to Earth, which is considered a backwater, no open contact with the natives world. It’s essentially a career dead end, but he’s willing to be patient. The assignment has to end some day. But his quiet, boring routine is shattered when a certain ship’s captain dumps a new assistant on his doorstep, an assistant who is so regulation bound, high-strung, and OCD that the calm and patient Sissal seriously contemplates violence.

Could you please tell me about your other work?
I write gay fantasy and science fiction, almost exclusively. Some of it like Brimstone and A Message from the Home Office are comedic pieces, while others like the Endangered Fae series and the ESTO novels are deadly serious. I tend toward science fiction plots with biological/neuroscience or anthropological frameworks, while my fantasy tends to explore (read: twist, tilt, mutilate and bend) folktale, myth and legend.

What are you working on at the moment?
Right now, I’m finishing the second in a pair of paranormal humor stories for a new world/series called Offbeat Crimes. This is about a police squad manned entirely by paranormal misfits –the vampire who can only drink “skim blood,” the firestarter who can’t get a spark when it’s damp, the officer who can teleport objects with his mind, but only if those objects are fruit, and so on. The first story, Lime Gelatin and Other Monsters, is complete and with the editors, the second, The Pill Bugs of Time, is about 2/3 complete.

Please could we have an excerpt?
This is a teensy excerpt from A Message from the Home Office:

“What was that?” Rcrred spoke up directly behind him. “The lighting in here is at least a hundred lumens above efficiency recommendations. I don’t understand why you’ve been left here without inspections. Move out of the chair so I can call the PLIC.”

“I am the Planetary Liaison in Charge. There is no one else.”

“No. No…you can’t. This is an outpost. There’s a central office in orbit?”

Sissal rested his aching head in both hands. “Do you even understand what a Class Five outpost is, kid?”

“Covert operations,” Rcrred offered stiffly. “Undetectable to the planetary population. With a need for liaisons to blend in, which, if you would have read my file, you would see I have already begun to do by taking the local name Richard.”

“Great. That’s just perfect.” Sissal managed a sour chuckle.

Rcrred…Richard glared at him. “Why?”

“Don’t suppose in all your pre-assignment work, you figured out that Dick is a common nickname for Richard? Dick the dik dik dick. It’s perfect. Really, bloody perfect.”

Author Bio:

While Angel Martinez is the erotic fiction pen name of a writer of several genres, she writes both kinds of gay romance – Science Fiction and Fantasy. Currently living part time in the hectic sprawl of northern Delaware, (and full time inside the author’s head) Angel has one husband, one son, two cats, a changing variety of other furred and scaled companions, a love of all things beautiful and a terrible addiction to the consumption of both knowledge and chocolate.

Website: Angel Martinez

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amartinez2

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/angelmartinez/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AngelMartinezrr