Author Name: Holly Schofield
Website Address: https://hollyschofield.wordpress.com/
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Please share a short excerpt from your story:
I pictured the scene as a crow might see it: the scarecrow high-stepping under the moon, tails flapping, twisting like the hepcat he would become. NBC’s Palmolive Hour alive with sweet jazz, the hopeful scent of ripening tomatoes, and the moonlight playing among the carrot fronds. The scarecrow tap dancing madly to “California, Here I Come” as it blared out the window of the farmhouse he was never, ever invited into.
What is it about scarecrows that inspired you to write about them?
Scarecrows held no appeal for me at all, the dusty, frumpy old things. That is, until I read Rhonda's suggestion of a _steampunk_ scarecrow. Then I was off and running, like a mouse across a cornfield.
Author Name: Katherine Marzinsky
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Twitter: https://twitter.com/KMarzinsky
Please share a short excerpt from your story/stories:
“So,” Rosa began, her voice the temperature of the water on the bedside tray, “you're still wandering around with that stupid straw-man of yours?”
“Yes,” Vicente replied with equal coldness, studying the IV line running into his wrist. “He's my hermano de tinta. Why wouldn't I be?”
“I'm just a little surprised.” Rosa crossed one leg over the other. “I thought you'd have scrapped him and run off with some new, half-baked story by now.” She met Vicente's eyes. “After all, that's what you did with us, your real brother and sister.”
Vicente looked away.
“… I wasn’t ready to handle all that nonsense.”
“We’re nonsense?” Rosa’s eyes widened. “Your family is nonsense? And just what do you think that damn scarecrow is?”
“I needed time for myself.”
“All you ever think about is yourself.” Rosa uncrossed her legs and braced her palms against her thighs. “Mamá and Papá didn’t raise us to act that way. Do you know how ashamed they’d be if they knew how you abandoned us? Abandoned your life and their memory? Luis is almost a teenager now, and he doesn’t remember anything except Mamá’s coffin and you walking away.”
“Shut up.” Vicente knotted his fists around the bed sheets and squeezed until his veins bulged like worms. “You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. You don’t know me; you never knew me.”
“Who does then?”
Feeling the pain rising from the IV needle on the back of his hand, Vicente let go of the sheets. He closed his eyes for a moment, and then shrugged the best he could in his cocoon of linens, gauze, and plastic tubing.
“Strel’s the only one. Not like you’d ever ask him though.”
“That’s bullshit, Vicente. Your scarecrow can’t even talk.”
“Maybe you just don’t know how to listen.”
There’s a Japanese God who is represented as a scarecrow. It is all-knowing but cannot move. If you could know any one thing, what would it be?Would it be worth learning the answer if you were forever stuck in one place afterward?
I tend to be an extremely anxious person; I worry constantly about everything, and if there’s nothing to worry about, my brain will create something to worry about. With that in mind, if I could know any one thing it would be the secret to perfect mental peace. If I was forever stuck in one place afterward, then I’d be okay with that. I would much rather be peaceful in one spot than a fearful and restless wanderer.
If you were a scarecrow, what would you look like? What would you be stuffed with?
For starters, I would be much thinner, and I would definitely want some kind of animal skull as a head. I originally envisioned Strel, the scarecrow in my story, with a deer skull as his head, so I’ll go with that. A ram skull might be pretty cool too, though. As for my stuffing, I would love to be stuffed with crumpled up pages ripped from literature and art textbooks. That way, I’d always know that I was beautiful on the inside, even if my outside got tangled in thorns and covered in bird droppings.
Do you think you’d make a good scarecrow? Why?
Honestly, I probably wouldn’t make a good scarecrow. I can’t stand the heat, and most crops are grown in the hotter months. I could also see myself stressing about all kinds of potential catastrophes, like a plague of locusts, or a wild fire, or a devastating storm, or falling over and being unable to get back up… I’m sure the crows would learn pretty fast how to take advantage of my distraction.
What is it about scarecrows that inspired you to write about them?
I think my affinity for scarecrows began after playing “The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask” when I was a kid. The antagonist in that game is a creature called the Skull Kid, and although I don’t think he actually is a scarecrow, he certainly looks like one. The combination of creepiness and vulnerability that his character, and scarecrows in general, represents has continued to fascinate me to this day.
Author Name: Scott Burtness
Social Media Links:
Twitter: www.twitter.com/SWBauthor
Facebook: www.facebook.com/SWBauthor
Other: www.goodreads.com/SWBauthor
Please share a short excerpt from your story/stories:
Clots of mud and foliage stained with dark vital-fluid marked Scarecrow’s path from the airlock. Initiating a physical-assessment scan, it analyzed the extent of its injuries, categorizing them by degree of severity. Despite openly weeping vital fluid, none were terminal, nor were any severe enough to degrade its capabilities. Shifting its awareness, Scarecrow observed Jorry, the human wet-tech assigned as its Tin Man. The human’s posture, facial expressions and bio-signatures indicated that he also did not believe Scarecrow’s wounds to be severe. Applying the relevant pre-loaded decision matrix, it determined that updating the Dorothy took precedence, and established a communication link.
“Scarecrow to mining site.” It formed the words slowly, hindered by facial muscles not well-shaped for Consortium Standard. “Mission accomplished.”
There’s a Japanese God who is represented as a scarecrow. It is all-knowing but cannot move. If you could know any one thing, what would it be?
How to eat hot pizza without burning the roof of my mouth.
Would it be worth learning the answer if you were forever stuck in one place afterward?
Only if I was stuck in a pizza joint.
If you were a scarecrow, what would you look like? What would you be stuffed with?
If I were a scarecrow, I’d look like Dean Koontz and be stuffed with Stephen King books.
Do you think you’d make a good scarecrow? Why?
I'd be a terrible scarecrow. One, I like crows. They're very clever and sound like Predator when they croak, which is awesome. Two, I have a short attention span. No way could I handle staring at a field for days on end. I'd totally lose focus and… Wait, what was the question? Oh, three, I think unicycles are way cooler than tandem bicycles.
What is it about scarecrows that inspired you to write about them?
All random humor aside, I think scarecrows are fascinating. They present a window into humanity's psyche. There’s a darkness in us, but also a desire to channel that darkness into a clear purpose. Scarecrows provide a focal point of our contradictory nature.
About the Book:
Hay-men, mommets, tattie bogles, kakashi, tao-tao—whether formed of straw or other materials, the tradition of scarecrows is pervasive in farming cultures around the world. The scarecrow serves as decoy, proxy, and effigy—human but not human. We create them in our image and ask them to protect our crops and by extension our very survival, but we refrain from giving them the things a creation might crave—souls, brains, free-will, love. In Scarecrow, fifteen authors of speculative fiction explore what such creatures might do to gain the things they need or, more dangerously, think they want.
Within these pages, ancient enemies join together to destroy a mad mommet, a scarecrow who is a crow protects solar fields and stores long-lost family secrets, a woman falls in love with a scarecrow, and another becomes one. Encounter scarecrows made of straw, imagination, memory, and robotics while being spirited to Oz, mythological Japan, other planets, and a neighbor’s back garden. After experiencing this book, you’ll never look at a hay-man the same.
Featuring all new work by Jane Yolen, Andrew Bud Adams, Laura Blackwood, Amanda Block, Scott Burtness, Virginia Carraway Stark, Amanda C. Davis, Megan Fennell, Kim Goldberg, Katherine Marzinsky, Craig Pay, Sara Puls, Holly Schofield, Laura VanArendonk Baugh, and Kristina Wojtaszek.
Scarecrow on Amazon
Disclosure: this post contains links to an affiliate program (Amazon), for which I receive a few cents if you make purchases.
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