Collaborative Projects

Falling into the Five Senses

Falling into the Five Senses: An Anthology of Short Stories is the first, formal collaborative project for Ree-Imagined Worlds.

A certain someone knew exactly what she was doing when she approached these particular contributors to ask if they were interested in being part of the ‘five senses anthology’. The contributors, Maria Carvalho, Cedrix E. Clarke and Roger Jackson, are all extremely skilled writers. It’s funny to look back and see how our paths crossed in the unlikeliest of ways.

In the vastness that is social media, there is Twitter. Within the whacky landscape of Twitter, there is the writing community. Within the multi-dimensional writing community, there are aficionados of micro-fiction (an entire story within a single tweet).
Within micro-fiction, there are prompt games, which suggest themes around which to write the micro-fics. Within micro-fic prompt games, is one particular game called ‘Friday Phrases’.

This was where our paths crossed in 2014-5. In Friday Phrases, or “FP”, as it was affectionately called. Maria, Cedrix and Roger regularly awed, flabbergasted and horrified me with FP stories that were in turn brilliant, touching and disgustingly squicky. I read their words, admired, applauded, learnt and practised. They are writers I still look up to and admire and I’m thrilled beyond words they agreed to be part of this anthology.

It was of course no surprise to me when their respective contributions to the anthology came in, all filled with clever, twisted, touching and memorable stories of each of the five senses.

A huge, extra shout-out to Maria in particular, who was also the co-editor, co-copyeditor and chief proofreader of the manuscript, and chief push-project-uphill-er, who made the whole anthology actually come to life. The final book is a thing of beauty thanks primarily to her skilled eyes, her deft diplomacy and her indefatigable zest for words.

Here’s a bit more about each of them:

Maria Carvalho

Maria Carvalho is a multigenre author whose love of words is as fervent as her disdain for math. Her 2013 children’s book Hamster in Space! was lauded by Kirkus Indie Reviews for its “sharp understanding of kids’ wacky sense of humor” and continues to be a best-seller. Maria’s short stories have appeared in a wide array of collections and magazines, including Under the Full Moon’s Light and Cabinet of Curiosities (both published by Owl Hollow Press) and Enchanted Conversation magazine. Her published non-fiction includes a feature in the popular travel guide Connecticut 169 Club (North Country Books).
She lives in Connecticut with her husband, their son, and a pampered pet fish.
Find Maria on:

 

Cedrix E. Clarke

Cedrix E. Clarke is the author of Lucinda’s Ghost, a children’s novel published in the summer of 2019. He has published stories in Deathrealm, Smokelong Quarterly, and Chicago Literati. Cedrix has a professional day job in a small Kentucky town and writes at night and on weekends. Besides being a word wrangler and a personal servant to his family’s cats, Cedrix has dedicated his life to making his home spider-free.
Find Cedrix:

 

Roger Jackson

Roger Jackson lives in England, existing mainly on a diet of energy drinks and questionable Horror movies. Many tales have crawled from the graveyard of his brain, including stories in Equilibrium Overturned from Grey Matter Press, The Flashes of Darkness e-book from Dark Chapter Press and the Manifest Reality anthology from Hair Brained Press, and his novella, Cradle of the Dead, published by Bloodbound Books. Third Person bios like this always make him feel like he’s writing his own obituary.
Find Roger on: