If you ask me (which you didn't), I'd tell you that I find novels easier to write than short stories, which no doubt accounts for the fact that I've written more novels.  Here is a listing of the short fiction I've published together with a brief description of each story and, in two cases, an excerpt.

"The Memory of Peace"

This may be my favorite of my published short stories.  It was written as a response to the destruction of Sarajevo.

Weird Tales from Shakespeare
    edited by Katharine Kerr and Martin H. Greenberg
DAW Books, USA
Cover art by John Howe

"My Voice is in My Sword"

"We knew we were in trouble when Macbeth insisted on seeing the witches first."

Black comedy about an acting troupe performing for aliens, although it's really a wishful-thinking revenge play.

Return to Avalon
    edited by Jennifer Roberson
DAW Books, USA
Goldmann, Germany as Marion Zimmer Bradley's Ruekkehr nach Avalon
Cover art by John Jude Pallencar

"With God to Guard Her"

This story, written for a tribute anthology for Marion Zimmer Bradley, is a re-telling of a story told originally by Gregory of Tours about a young woman who saves herself from a rapist and his family.

The Shimmering Door
    edited by Katharine Kerr
HarperPrism, USA
published as Sorceries in the U.K. by HarperCollins
(both of these editions are out of print)

"A Simple Act of Kindness"

I'm posting this in full because it has now become a curiosity.  Written when I was still working on King's Dragon (which was then titled Dragon's Heart), I thought this episode would be part of the third volume of the series, The Burning Stone.  Not only was I wrong (if it were to have been put in one of the books, it would be in volume four, Child of Flame), but in the intervening time the story changed so radically that this is now an alternate history of the actual Crown of Stars story!

TarotFantastic
    edited by Lawrence Schimel and Martin H. Greenberg
DAW Books, USA
Cover art by Jean-Francois Podevin

"The Gates of Joriun"

This is another story inspired by a real historical event – in this case that of Mary Bruce, the sister of the Scots king Robert the Bruce.  She and other women associated with his court (including his wife) were captured by the English.  King Edward "conceived for them a punishment peculiarly humiliating to their sex.  The Countess of Buchan . . . and Mary Bruce . . . were the objects of his greatest displeasure.  For them he ordained that wooden cages should be built jutting from the battlements of Berwick and Roxburgh castles respectively, and that within them they shuld be shut up as animals in a zoo, exposed to the gaze of passers-by with the only concession to their modesty the provision of privies within the walls.  There for the next four years these two heroic young women each endured their solitary confinement with no communication except to the English maidservants who brought them their food and drink." [From Robert the Bruce: King of Scots by Ronald McNair Scott, Peter Bedrick Books]

ZodiacFantastic
    edited by Martin H. Greenberg and A.R. Morlan
DAW Books, USA
Cover art by Jean-Francois Podevin

"Making the World Live Again"

A journey back to early Sumeria.

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All material Copyright Katrina Elliott 2000. All rights reserved.