Chandra Fisher
Chandra’s debut sapphic monster romance novella THE DARK SWEETNESS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE WELL is a “lyrical dark fairytale brimming with tart forbidden desire”. (Cate Baumer, author of THE FAITHFUL DARK).
Fisher writes novels and short stories for everyone from kids to adults. She’s a teacher and a mom, and obsessed with textiles, books, and plants.
Her works have won two Canada Council for the Arts grantsand been shortlisted for the Times/Chicken House publishing contest. She has published short stories in many anthologies, and her story “Sink Your Sorrows to the Sea” was shortlisted for an Aurora Award.
Chandra lives in Alberta, Canada, with her spouse, four kids, two black cats and a constantly varying number of plants. Right across the street there are woods, and considering the content she writes, she keeps a very close watch on them at all times. To keep tabs on Chandra, check her out on TikTok or Instagram!
Pronouns: She/They
Elana Allard has been relentlessly, desperately drawn to the well since she was a child. Even in her sleep, she walks toward the final resting place of the shadow eating creature who lies at the bottom.
Her family has kept her safe, ensuring she’s lashed to her bed each night, leather cuffs tight around her ankles. They wish she’d marry a man who could keep her in bed, but Elana has never felt the spark of love the bards sing about with any man she’s met.
When a once in a century storm cracks the stone off the well, Elana’s desire to go there carves her out. She hungers, growing pale and sick, until at last she relents and goes to the well on her own.
There she finds the monster isn’t what she’d thought it was. The Darkness—Nessa—wants what many young women want: a nice place to stay, a nice dress to wear, and a trip into town with Elana.
And Elana feels things with Nessa that she’s never felt for a man. Most of all, she realizes there is no cure for the force that drew her toward the well. Toward the monster.
Toward the darkness.
Like what you see? Get a copy!
Canadian Indie Bookstore THE BOOK ARCHIVE
Ebooks? AMAZON
***(please don’t order paperbacks from the ‘zon if you have any other option, it’s the slowest possible way to get the book!)***
Please join six new authors, and six new artists in celebrating Canadian creativity and imagination in this original collection. From concept to creation, you are invited to experience:
the wayward reflection of a human soul,
the consequences of chemical negligence,
the deception of a tolling bell,
the imaginings of an offbeat youth,
the enigma of what lurks in the forest, ← (this is Chandra’s story)
the secrets of a shrine buried deep.
“Of the six stories in this anthology of the uncanny, my favourite is “Hyphae” by Chandra Fisher: a tale of a struggle both toward and against ecstatic transformation beyond the human."
-Dale Stromberg, author of MÆJ
Deep, mysterious, beautiful . . . dangerous . . .
Women and the sea have been tied together in myth and story from the beginning of time. Tales of women being drawn to the sea or being left on the shore, waiting for their men's return, have been passed down through the ages.
But what mysteries lie beneath the sparkling placid waters? What power drives the wind and waves crashing against the shore? There is transformation and exaltation—magic—in the ocean and women alike. And both know that while the sea gives, the sea also takes.
Sink into the icy depths of the ocean with these stories by: E.E. King; Natalie Cannon; Morgan Melhuish; Paul A. Hamilton; Laura VanArendonk Baugh; Sarah Van Goethem; Adria Laycraft; Dino Parenti; B. Zelkovich; Lisa Carreiro; Lea Storry; Nikoline Kaiser; Elin Olausson; Chandra Fisher; Hayley Stone; V.F. LeSann; Catherine MacLeod; and Jennifer R. Donohue.
Would the contents of your bookshelf get you burned as a witch in the past? Throughout history, women accused of being witches and put to death by burning, stoning, hanging, or drowning were women who were smart, educated, healers, single, widowed, old, overly social, confident, too beautiful, too ugly, sexual, subversive, and deviant. Witches have been most often portrayed as evil, living solitary lives in the forest, eating children, and communing with the devil. But in recent years, women have been reclaiming the word "witch" to symbolize female empowerment. This excites us very much and makes us wonder what stories about witches and the Canadian Prairies could be told!