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Northern Lights: 20 MinnSpec Tales ToC: #1. "Kissing Frogs" by Jaye Lawrence
The first time I met Jaye was at a MinnSpec meeting and afterward I was pretty sure she wasn't going to come back. Which filled me with dread, because the story she read us that afternoon at Betsy's Back Porch was lovely. I knew then she was something special as a writer. I made sure I stopped and spoke with her on the way out, encouraging her to come back again. I don't know if my words had any effect, but she come back and became a big part of MinnSpec, running the group's primary writing workshop.
I knew from the moment I read "Kissing Frogs" that I wanted it to be the lead-off story for the anthology. Quirky, surprising, by turns funny and sad, always gentle, I wanted to use this story to set the tone for the anthology. This would not just be a bunch of stories tossed together between some covers. These are stories that will take you places you've never been before. This Tiptree Award nominated story had the feel and tone I wanted with its two unlikely and likable characters. Lawrence takes an idea and theme that in the hands of a lesser writer would have been played for jokes or come across as silly and trite, and gives the characters real warmth and humanity. If you have not read a story by Jaye Lawrence before, you are in for a treat.
"Kissing Frogs" was originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, May 2004 and reprinted in James Tiptree Award Anthology #2, November 2005.
Purchase Northern Lights: 20 MinnSpec Tales here.
The first time I met Jaye was at a MinnSpec meeting and afterward I was pretty sure she wasn't going to come back. Which filled me with dread, because the story she read us that afternoon at Betsy's Back Porch was lovely. I knew then she was something special as a writer. I made sure I stopped and spoke with her on the way out, encouraging her to come back again. I don't know if my words had any effect, but she come back and became a big part of MinnSpec, running the group's primary writing workshop.
I knew from the moment I read "Kissing Frogs" that I wanted it to be the lead-off story for the anthology. Quirky, surprising, by turns funny and sad, always gentle, I wanted to use this story to set the tone for the anthology. This would not just be a bunch of stories tossed together between some covers. These are stories that will take you places you've never been before. This Tiptree Award nominated story had the feel and tone I wanted with its two unlikely and likable characters. Lawrence takes an idea and theme that in the hands of a lesser writer would have been played for jokes or come across as silly and trite, and gives the characters real warmth and humanity. If you have not read a story by Jaye Lawrence before, you are in for a treat.
"Kissing Frogs" was originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, May 2004 and reprinted in James Tiptree Award Anthology #2, November 2005.
Purchase Northern Lights: 20 MinnSpec Tales here.
