Earlier this year I wrote a very short story, “Glimmer.” I recorded the audio last week. It’s 8 minutes.
If you like it, maybe I’ll start a regular audio feature here.
I wrote the story for Particulates, an anthology of very short fiction written in response to Rita McBride’s art installation, Particulates, at DIA:Chelsea, and edited by Nalo Hopkinson. It’s for sale from DIA Books and available for pre-order.
Image description: Photo composite of (left) the green cover of anthology Particulates, and (right) the table of contents: stories by Elizabeth Bear, Samuel Delany, Kameron Hurley, Nicola Griffith, Annalee Newitz, Ken Macleod, Karen Lord, Sofia Samatar, Daniel Jose Older, Minister Faust, Mark Von Schlegell, Victor LaValle, Vandana Singh, Gina Ashcraft, and Nalo Hopkinson.
Nicola Griffith 
Nicola, I so enjoy your writing but when you read it I am enthralled. Your voice and phrasing are wonderful. The reading of your work should be a great addition to your art. My nerve signals to my legs are struggling more with the passage of time but I still refuse the chair though two years ago I gave in to the electric carts in the supermarket. The gym every other day is a part of me and if relegated to a chair I’ll still be at the gym.
Fantastic Nicola. Your words are always so beautiful to read, hearing them in your delicious voice is a special gift. Thank you.
Dar
Sorry your nerve signal is sputtering. But I’d urge you not to let fear of a wheelchair blot out the freedoms it can bring. If not being able to walk somewhere prevents you from doing something you love, use a chair!
I wish I had the extra $3,000 for a fab microphone and the $10,000 for a sound-proof booth to turn my office into a proper studio, then we’d really have fun! Meanwhile, this old mic and free software do a reasonable-for-now job, so yay!
Beautiful…and now I’m going to seek out Particulates and put it on my Wish List. You and Elizabeth Bear together is enough to make me want this, but you, Elizabeth Bear, and Samuel Delany? Got to have this anthology! (tries not to drool and fails)
It amazes me how 17 different writers can take the same input and come up with something so different…
A. God yes a regular audio feature from you would be an unadulterated treat. A friend and I binged So Lucky on audio: two disabled folks five hundred miles apart, needing to stop our devices to scream at one another about the universality and unflinching clarity of so many of your passages, how much they resonated like gongs across marginalized communities. But also about the shocking skill of your narration for a first project, about how many layers it added to the piece. As it does here once more. B. I ache for the protag so much. Perhaps she will get what she seeks, but she may just as easily be plunged into a nightmare. She’s given up all the best things about the known universe, seems to have entirely disregarded the people who need her desperately in the here and now. And I fear she’s done it for snake oil and fool’s gold. And what you’re saying about hope being a burden resonates a lot right now. Because it can also be a goad, can push us to incredible heights, but only if we can remain on that tight-rope between hoping and not letting that hope be so all-consuming we can’t see other options. Am currently in a round of PT, trying to regain some mobility, and not fall into the protag’s abyss, so yeah, this whole tale was a bit of a necessary gut-punch.
Such great use of language, it’s always a pleasure to listen to you. Thanks for sharing that, and yes, please consider adding more audio clips to your online presence.
Funny vignette: I couldn’t find my headphones when I finally got a chance to listen to this, and it was midnight with a house full of visiting relatives, so I wound up turning down the volume to a whisper and propping the laptop next to my head on the couch, so I could listen to it without bothering the sleeping masses. Which meant when my brother walked through the living room to the bathroom, he found me with my head resting on the computer as though I was trying to type with my ear.
I’m so pleased you liked So Lucky. Yes, I think the narration adds all kinds of layers. I love doing it.
What’s going on for the protagonist of “Glimmer” is I suppose a kind of lottery: no one knows how it will turn out but the reward feels equal to the risk. As for PT, I so hear you…
:)