Grimm Retold Author Feature: Ef Deal
Story: “Fitcher’s Chick,” a retelling of “Fitcher’s Bird”
Ef Deal is a musician, a poet, an editor, a video editor, and an author of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. A member of SFWA and HWA, she’s been writing and composing since she was nine years old. Her short fiction has been published in numerous online zines and print anthologies including The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, A Cast of Crows from eSpec Books, Dangerous Waters from Brigid’s Gate, Chris Ryan’s Soul Scream Antholozine, two anthologies from Speculation Publications, and most recently in eSpec Books’ A Cry of Hounds and Other Aether.
She is currently public relation coordinator for eSpec Books, assistant fiction editor at Abyss&Apex magazine, and video editor for Strong Women ~ Strange Worlds. Her novel Esprit de Corpse from eSpec Books is the first in a steampunk paranormal romance series set in France, featuring the gifted Twins of Bellefées, who tend to show up in other eSpec Books anthologies. When she’s not writing, she plays bugle in the Blessed Sacrament Golden Knights drum and bugle corps, and is a member of the Buglers Hall of Fame and the New Jersey Drum Corps Hall of Fame, honored for her contribution to playing, teaching, directing, and arranging. She lives in Haddonfield, NJ, with her husband and her chow chows Corbin and Rory.
Regarding “Fitcher's Chick" she says, "This story may be a re-conception of the fairy-tale “Fitcher's Bird” by the Brothers Grimm, but it comes from a place of raw reality at a time when such realities were brushed aside, hushed up, accepted as 'the way things are.' A time when women told their daughters, 'Things like this happen. Let it go. Don't make waves. And (most insidiously), Are you sure it wasn't your fault?' I will never understand those women. I ache to know what led them to such hopeless acquiescence, and I curse myself that I kept that same conspiratorial silence for thirty years before recognizing my own complicity, long after I could reap any satisfaction."
For all of you who kept silent for too long, buk 'em.
Her website is www.efdeal.net. Follow her blog Talespinner at efdeal.blogspot.com.