A Scent of Roses – KEYAN BOWES

My New Stories Published in 2019

It’s that time of the year, and I thought I’d list the new stories I’ve had published. The score for this year may be my best ever, with four new stories published and four edifying reprints.

NEW STORIES

A Scent of Roses in Constellary Tales, February 2019. In a deeply traditional world, a newborn child isn’t allowed to survive.
Octonet in Escape Pod, March 2019. This is my Octopuses get Smartphones short story. It’s also a sweet love story in around 5K words.
In Dreams Awake in Flame Tree Fiction Newsletter, August 2019. Virtual Reality for a small child as the world ends. It’s flash fiction, about 1000 words.
Dilemma, with Omnivore in Little Blue Marble, September 2019. A light-hearted Litttle Green Monster story, with a darker environmental subtext. Also a flash short story, about 1000 words.

Illustration - cute monster — Dilemma, with Omnivore

REPRINTS

I was delighted when Escape Pod republished my story, Light and Death on the Indian Battle Station, and did a fabulous podcast of it. And I was thrilled that Working Futures anthology chose to republish my story Genetic Changelings. And when the Two Hour Transport anthology republished my story, Nor Yet Feed the Swine. Finally, Mysterion republished my story Lepers, which might now be my most-republished story.

“A Scent of Roses” reviewed in Locus Magazine

My story, A Scent of Roses, that was published earlier this year in Constellary Tales. I was delighted to find it reviewed in Locus by Karen Burnham. Here’s the LINK.

“A Scent of Roses” in Constellary Tales

Constellary Tales has accepted my short story, A Scent of Roses.

This story has been through many name changes. It started out as The Scent of a Dead Rose. (It actually was inspired by the intense perfume of a bouquet of dying roses in my room.) Then I changed it to A Duty of Grief, which better represented the story as I’d written it. Finally, I submitted it as A Haunting Scent of Grief... and Constellary Tales accepted it!

In the edits, they asked me to change the name to A Scent of Roses. They felt that the title I’d used gave away too much. I agreed, because why not?

I’m looking forward to seeing it published in Constellary Tales – soon.

Edited to Add (Feb 14, 2019): And here it is! A Scent of Roses

“But when his grandfather returned home, too late for the birth, he was furious.”

(Warning: It’s not a romantic story. The earlier title gets the mood of it better. Trigger warning for dead baby.)

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