Water Dragon Publishing is releasing their Dragon Gems: Spring 2023 anthology today! It includes my story, “Shadows From the Past.” You may purchase it here. Yay! This is another one of my “fun facts” post that gives the reader a behind-the-scenes look at my story; how it came in being, etc.
The title is sort of borrowed from my grandma’s unpublished autobiography. Years ago, back in 2000/2001, my grandma wrote down some of her life story. She titled her autobiography, “Shadows of the Past.” I thought that title was awesome. So, when it came time to give this story a title, I “borrowed” it, though I did change one word. Of became From. I’m sorry Grandma.
As mentioned in a previous post, this story is a mix of three or four different genres. There’s time travel and a bit of fantasy, a good portion of it takes place in the past making it a historical, and there’s a mystery. I call it my time travel fantasy historical mystery. This story just has everything.
Combined with the mish-mash of different genres, it’s sort of long. It’s 7500 words and that can be considered long for a short story. The sweet spot for short stories is generally 3000 to 5000s words, though it depends on the publication. Needless to say, I wasn’t sure I’d find a home for it. Special thanks to Water Dragon Publishing for publishing it!
If memory serves me right, I wrote it originally in January 2020 and I was in a completely different headspace then. That was before the pandemic hit and times were just different. I probably wouldn’t be able to write this sort of story now. I believe I revised it in March, when everything closed down and considering its length and multiple genres, I waited a bit before sending it out.
“Shadows From the Past” is based in both my home town of Terre Haute and in Krakow, Poland. Those are two polar opposite places. They have absolutely nothing in common.
The parts set in Terre Haute are in the present day of… the late 1990s or early 2000s. So, not really the present day. The parts set in Krakow are in 1941.
There is a smattering of Polish words used in this story. Hopefully they were used in the right context.
The heroine is named Stephanie…and Stefi. You have to read the story to understand. Anyway, she was named after Stefania Podgorska, who has been one of my personal heroes since I was sixteen.
Dubanowski/Dubanowska is a surname used in the story. I’m a huge fan of the show, Superstore and America Ferrera’s character is named Amy Dubanowski (I think she goes back to her maiden name, Sosa, later in the series). Obviously, I borrowed Dubanowski for this story. I told you this story has everything, even a weird Superstore connection.
All for now!
Veronica Leigh 