Lynne M MacLean
Author of Speculative Fiction
NEWS
Recently Published
"Tarot Fish Visions" now published in On Spec: The Canadian Magazine of the Fantastic, 2024, issue #126, vol 33, no. 4. It’s a surreal short story about pulling together in times of crisis, featuring dreams, tarot cards, and fantastic sea creatures both hopeful and frightening.
​
​
​
"One-Way-Station" is also published in the same issue of On Spec: The Canadian Magazine of the Fantastic,2024, issue #126, vol 33, no. 4. It's a speculative poem about coping with traumatic change, and the realization that you can't go back.
Upcoming
SHORT FICTION & POETRY
I'm delighted to announce that my story, "Fireweed", will be republished in Celticfrog Publishing's Bigfoot Country anthology, Alex McGilvery, ed. "Fireweed," is about a pregnant Sasquatch during the Yukon gold rush. It was originally published 2013 in Hazardous Press's Horrific History anthology (Robert Helmbrecht, editor ).
New Awards
ECW Press's Best New Speculative Novel, 2022
Finalist, The Adventures of Jagged Ass McKraken, 21st Century Pirate, unpublished (as yet) novel.
Alberta Magazine Awards 2020
​
Finalist, Fiction Category, for "Cold War", published in On Spec Magazine, Summer, 2019, #111, 30 (1).
Speculative Literature Foundation Older Writer’s Grant 2019.
​
I’m honoured to announce that I am one of the two co-winners of the Speculative Literature Foundation’s Older Writer’s Grant for 2019 for “Wards”, originally published in Room Magazine, issue 42.1, 2019, and now on Room’s website reading series. Michael Simon is the other grant winner of the 2019 Older Writers Grant. This grant is awarded annually to emerging writers aged 50+ who are beginning to work at a professional level.
​
Many older emerging writers are on fixed incomes. Besides providing a very helpful amount of money that we can put towards furthering our writing, the award also recognizes how hard it is to move forward with serious new professional endeavours when we are over 50 in this ageist world. The SLF does great work in giving concrete help but, as importantly, visibility and encouragement through so many of its grants to various groups. Thank you, SLF!
Novels
THE ADVENTURES OF JAGGED ASS MCKRAKEN, 21ST CENTURY PIRATE:
I'm seeking an agent/publisher for my completed fabulist New Adult crossover novel, The Adventures of Jagged Ass McKraken, 21st Century Pirate. It was a finalist in the recent 2022 ECW Press’s Best New Speculative Novel Contest.
A young pirate, James Auguste McKraken, is given the regrettable pirate name of “Jagged Ass” (or, Jag) through misadventure. He sails the treacherous waters of a contemporary alternate Eastern Ontario and the Beaufort Sea to rescue the Soul of Ottawa before the entire nation is endangered. Jag, his lover and two older brothers pursue the kidnapper to the Beaufort Sea, in a search involving Souls of land and ocean, a telepathic, sentient kraken, wasp armies, and an enchanted grapple. Along the way, he learns lessons about love, family, and independence, and teaches some lessons himself.
LUCK RIDERS:
I'm seeking an agent/publisher for my completed dark contemporary fantasy novel, Luck Riders.
Street smart Gossamer just wants her old life back: a beloved, wealthy husband; happy kids, and an abundance of luck. But with her husband dead, her whiz kid son estranged, and a surly ex-hoodlum dogging her every step to “protect” her, things have careened out of control. Plus, her luck is draining away at a terrifying rate. She is a luck rider, a person with no luck of her own, drawn helplessly into the wake of others, for good or ill. Luck riders need luck, crave luck, and sicken without it. Unless they learn to harness the luck of others, existence is brief and bitter. For Gossamer, a return to the harrowing life on the streets of her youth is a real possibility, one she refuses to allow.
Caught between destiny-obsessed thugs and luck junkies, Gossamer must harness her wits, will, & luck itself to save her son. Tarot and poker, "medicinal" gardens, carnies and mathematicians, plus a psychic Celtic Cosa Nostra: Luck Riders.