Search Worlds Without End

The city of Leiodare is unlike any other in the post-climate change United States. Within its boundaries, birds are outlawed and what was once a crater in Appalachia is now a tropical, glittering metropolis where Anna Armour is waiting. An artist by passion and a factory worker by trade, Anna is a woman of special gifts. She has chosen this beautiful, traumatized city to wait for the woman she's lost, the one she believes can save her from her troubled past and uncertain future.

When one night Anna creates life out of thin air and desperation, no one is prepared for what comes next - not Lucine, a smooth talking soothsayer with plans for the city; Lucine's brother Eugenio who has designs of his own; Seife, a star performer in the Leiodaran cosmos; or Rory, a forefather of the city who's lived through outbreak, heatbreak, and scandal. Told through their interlocking stories, Smoketown delves into the invisible connections that rival magic, and the copst of redemption.

"One of the most compelling aspects of speculative fiction is its ability to fulfill otherwise unattainable desires--whether one wants to create a magical society or travel through time, visit an alien civilization or remake history. It also satisfies more mundane reader desires, the ones it would not seem so hard to fulfill. To call a few of these out, I'll willingly step on this mine: the explosion of 'should.' It should not be easier to find a zombie apocalypse than it is to find a lesbian protagonist in the aisles of your local bookstore. Falling for werewolves and shape shifters should not be more accepted than a transgendered love affair; marginalized people really will still exist in the future; more folks should know that, and more so create like they know it. Someone then must step into the gap, or to be more accurate the gaping holes in the collective visions of our possibilities as human beings. In these pages, someone has. Seventeen someones to be exact."
--from the Introduction by Tenea D. Johnson

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Tenea D. Johnson
• One True Love - (2012) - novelette by Malinda Lo
• Saint Louis 1990 - (2012) - novelette by Jewelle Gomez
• Elm - (2012) - novelette by Jamie Killen
• Winter Scheming - (2012) - shortstory by Brit Mandelo
• Reality Girl - (2012) - novelette by Richard Bowes
• Oracle Gretel - (2012) - shortstory by Julia Rios
• Otherwise - (2012) - novelette by Nisi Shawl
• Harrowing Emily - (2012) - shortstory by Megan Arkenberg
• The Witch Sea - (2012) - novelette by Sarah Diemer
• Barnstormers - (2012) - shortstory by Wendy N. Wagner
• Nightfall in the Scent Garden - (2012) - shortstory by Claire Humphrey
• Beneath Impossible Circumstances - (2012) - shortstory by Andrea Kneeland
• Feed Me the Bones of Our Saints - (2012) - shortstory by Alex Dally MacFarlane
• Narrative Only - (2012) - shortstory by Kate Harrad
• Nine Days and Seven Tears - (2012) - shortstory by JL Merrow
• Chang'e Dashes from the Moon - (2012) - shortstory by Benjanun Sriduangkaew
• Astrophilia - (2012) - novelette by Carrie Vaughn