Mel Anastasiou – författare

On this particular sun-and-shade April morning at Fairmount Manor, Stella Ryman no more entertained the idea of becoming an amateur sleuth than she did of entering next spring’s Boston Marathon. For not only was Stella eighty-two years old, but she had lately sold her home and a lifetime of gathered possessions and washed up at Fairmount Manor Care Home in such a state that she would have bet her remaining seven pairs of socks that she’d be dead in half a year. But when money goes missing and an innocent woman stands to lose her job at Fairmount; when malicious poison pen letters find their way into the hands of staff and residents; and when a resident vanishes without a trace, Stella takes matters into her own hands. To hell with being elderly — Stella will break every one of the Director’s rules and slash all the institutional red tape in the place in her struggle to solve mysteries and protect the innocent. Over the course of the first five mystery adventures, Mrs Stella Ryman transforms from a woman on her deathbed to a force of nature and intellect. She’s a fish out of water, a stranger in a strange land, and an amateur sleuth trapped in a down-at-the-heels care home. You’d be cranky, too.

Readers are saying “witty and endearing” “beautifully written with humour, grace, and suspense” “You know a story’s good when you keep finding yourself laughing out loud." “Stella Ryman is my new hero!”

Replete with packet chicken noodle soup and grilled cheese, Stella Ryman paused just outside Fairmount Manor’s dining room, where she used the sleeve of her fleece warm-up suit to wipe the condensation from the streaked and fog-edged windows along the corridor.  There was so much springtime glory outside Fairmount — although she was not allowed out on her own to see it — and there was so much gloom inside, that she didn’t want to add to it. But she couldn’t deny that trouble had resurfaced at Fairmount Manor.

When the machineries of institution fail to protect Fairmount Manor, octogenarian amateur sleuth Mrs Stella Ryman rolls up her fleece jacket sleeves to protect Fairmount from a thief, investigate a gun-toting resident, set right a mishandled investigation of a man’s death, pursue spectres and footpads walking at midnight, and discover Thelma Hu’s long-lost fortune.  No good deed goes unpunished, though, and Stella will face struggles, mysteries, and sacrifices that hit her where she lives.

Mrs Stella Ryman is a fish out of water, a stranger in a strange land — an amateur sleuth, trapped in a down-at-heel care home.  You’d be cranky, too.

In this issue: View mortality and morality through a different set of eyes with a classic SF story from Robert Silverberg and a brand-new one from Leo X Robertson; take a timeless bus ride with JTF King; visit 1930s Hollywood with Mel Anastasiou; experience dizzy heights in a comic collaboration from Matthew Nielson and Minna Hakkola; spin in a dangerous dance with Susan Pieters and Cheryl Wolner; hear the danger and magic in music with Kathryn Yelinek and JM Landels; and find gods, devils, and angels in poetry from Heather Christle, David Ly, and Mary Willis, all under the tantalizing cover Purple Siren by Herman Lau.

In this issue:

In this issue

Savoury short fiction from Tomson Highway, Jakob Drud, Kim Harbridge, Hannah Van Didden, Dave Gregory, NRM Roshak and R Daniel Lester. Poetry from Erin Kirsh and Peter Norman.  Further adventures of Frankie Ray in The Extra from Mel Anastasiou and a brand new Allaigna novella from JM Landels.  Plus the winners of the Bumblebee Flash Fiction Contest and the SiWC runner up, capped off with a chilling tale from Kris Sayer.

Our journey begins under the gaze of The Faery Godmother by cover artist Ashley Rose Goentoro. We step into a ghost story ''Man with Golden Helmet'' by feature author Renée Sarojini Saklikar. Dawn Lo in ''Little Snowflake Girls'' and Weiwei Xu in ''Chimera'' introduce us to young people exploring meaningful questions of identity and belonging. Like trailside inukshuks, memories pile up and tumble away in ''Moons of Saturn'' by James Dorr, ''Practising the Art of Forgetting'' by Soramimi Hanarejima, and ''Starry Nights'' by David Milne. AJ Lee, in ''What Kind of Story'', and Magpie winners Charlene Kwiatkowski, Maria Ford, and Cara Waterfall delight with their bewitching words. Solutions to two very different puzzles emerge with Susan Pieters in ''Hoax'' and Cameron MacDonald in ''Mourgadze''. Whether by way of closet or carriage, keeping safe means keeping up appearances for Frankie Ray in ''The Sleuth with the Platinum Hair'' by Mel Anastasiou and Toinette in ''The Shepherdess: Versailles'' by JM Landels.

Vancouver schoolmarm Frankie Ray runs away to Silver Screen Hollywood to test her conviction that an actress who lacks glamour but has talent and an enterprising attitude can make it in the movies. But when a dissolute, womanizing matinee idol turns up dead on her sofa, Frankie''s career hopes shatter. She''ll need all her acting chops to sleuth out the murderer and clear her name.

In this issue, a giant feline swats us into the void with ''Space Cat'' by Bronwyn Schuster. And feature author Kate Heartfield leads us on a daring escape through the universe in ''And in the Arcade, Ego''. Hitch a ride into the heat - and heart - of the desert with Kevin Sandefur''s ''Out in the Sticks''. And it all goes up in flames in ''Paper, Candles, Hearts & Other Combustible Materials'' by Anne Baldo. Natalie Harris-Spencer, in ''The Art of Ironing'', and Cara Waterfall, in ''Vessel'', illustrate ways of navigating relationships and bodily autonomy. And friendship transcends time and place in ''Fate of Chickens'' by Krista Jane May. We delve into familial grief and sacrifice in ''Sap and Seed'', by H Pueyo and Dante Luiz, and the opening chapters of ''Allaigna''s Song: Chorale'' by JM Landels, while ''Pale Pony Express'' by Lulu Keating and ''The Echo of Light Footsteps on Parchment'' by Kimberley Aslett explore memory and loss through storytelling. Strange science brings us ''The Magic Shuffling Machine'' by Derek Salinas Lazarski but can''t explain the tiny home intruder in ''The Switch Fairy'' by Monica Wang or the supernatural occurrences in ''Pretty Lies: Eyes Full of Moon'' by Mel Anastasiou.