Who Am I?

Somebody once asked me “When did you decide to become a writer?” and I didn’t have an answer.  Because, honestly, I have no idea.  It might have been in fourth grade, because that’s the year my teacher assigned us a story to write every day.  After that, I kept on writing them, though not regularly.  Or maybe it was when I was in junior high and I fell in love with The Lord of the Rings and developed an itch to write a novel of my own.

However, I can tell you when I decided it was time to become a professional writer.  It was my senior year in college, and I figured if other people got paid to write, then there was no reason I shouldn’t be paid for it, too.  After all, I’d been writing stories in my spare time for years.  Of course, my stories were completely awful.  But, like most beginners, I didn’t know it at the time.

That was 1987.

By 1990, I had graduated with an M.A. from Kent State University in Anthropology, had returned home to St. Louis to try to figure out what to do with my non-writing life, and I was still writing crap.  Still didn’t know it.  However, I had some luck.  I submitted a story to Mark Sumner, who, at the time, was editing a magazine called Fresh Ink.  He didn’t buy the story, but he did buy a poem and he thought the story showed enough promise to invite me to try out to be in the Alternate Historians.  I had heard vague stories about them — local writers who kept their group’s membership small and who were very serious about their writing.  I was intimidated, but, hey, what the heck, right?  I met Mark in a local WaldenBooks so I could hand off my stories — no email in those days! — and we talked for an hour and a half about all kinds of things.  A few weeks later I got the news.  The group had read my stories and had decided to let me in.  I was now an Alternate Historian.

That’s when I started getting an idea of the amount of work it was going to take to write salable prose.  Oof!  I kept submitting stories and kept getting tons of comments on them.  So I buckled down and started writing new stories, revising old ones, and submitting to magazines.  Within eight months I had my first sale.  Two years later, I sold two more stories, and the year after that, I got an agent and she sold Sky Knife and Serpent and Storm to Tor.

That was 1994, and the end of my luck.  Since then, I’ve parted ways with my agent.  I’ve found work in non-fiction, and lately, I’ve sold stories to several anthologies.

In 2014, members of my writers group decided to take matters into our own hands and to begin publishing our own works. The imprint we developed is Word Posse. I now have several books available there. The five books published by Ring of Fire Press are about to be re-issued by Untreed Reads. They are set in an alternate United States where the country broke into pieces after the Civil War.

 I am currently researching the next Escaping Normal book as well as another alternate history, this one set in West Africa.

Here is a list of my professional credits:

Sands, Marella 

___. “Europa’s Children. In Merciless Mermaids, edited by Kevin J. Anderson, 2023.

___. “Golden Eyes.” In Jewels of Darkover, edited by Deborah J. Ross, 2023.

___. A Heap of Broken Images (Tales from the Angels’ Share Vol 8.) Word Posse, 2023. (Forthcoming)

___. Twi-English Dictionary, 2nd Ed. Word Posse, 2022.

___. Promised Land. Ring of Fire Press, 2022.

___. Drifting Souls (Escaping Normal Vol. 3). Word Posse, 2021.

___. Feeding the Bird of Tondal (Tales from the Angels’ Share Vol 7.) Word Posse, 2021.

___. Paradise. Ring of Fire Press, 2021.

___. Visiting Strangers (Escaping Normal Vol. 2). Word Posse, 2021.

___. Descending Skies (Escaping Normal Vol. 1). Word Posse, 2021.

___. Twi-English Dictionary. Word Posse, 2021.

___. When We Had Feathers (Tales from the Angels’ Share Vol. 6.) Word Posse, 2021.

___. Perfection. Ring of Fire Press, 2020.

___. Past the Isle of Dogs (Tales from the Angels’ Share Vol. 5). Word Posse, 2020.

___. With Sleepless Eye (Tales from the Angels’ Share Vol. 4). Word Posse, 2020.

___. The Chair She Sat In (Tales from the Angels’ Share Vol. 3). Word Posse, January 2020.

___.  Purgatory. Ring of Fire Press, October 2019.

___. “The Ghost He Knew Best.” In The Grantville Gazette #85, edited by Walt Boyes. September 2019.

___. “Banshee Cry.” In Citadels of Darkover, edited by Deborah J. Ross. 2019.

___. “Spire Witch.” In Lace & Blade 5, edited by Deborah J. Ross. 2019.

___. “Balancing Act.” In Sword & Sorceress XXXIII, edited by Lisa Waters. 2018.

___.  Perdition. Ring of Fire Press, August 2018.

___. “The Song of Star Girl.” In Crossroads of Darkover, edited by Deborah J. Ross. May 2018.

___. “The Game of Lions.” In Lace & Blade 4, edited by Deborah J. Ross. February 2018.

___.“Bone of My Bone.” In Masques of Darkover, edited by Deborah J. Ross. June 2017

___. What the Thunder Said (Tales from the Angels’ Share Vol. 2). Word Posse, February 2017.

___. Through a Keyhole, Darkly (Tales from the Angels’ Share Vol. 1). Word Posse, September 2016.

___. “Impossible Tasks.” In Realms of Darkover, edited by Deborah J. Ross. June 2016.

___. Restless Bones. Word Posse, October 2015.

___. “Stonefell Gift.” In Gifts of Darkover, edited by Deborah J. Ross. June 2015

___. Fortune’s Daughter. Word Posse, May 2015.

___. Pandora’s Mirror. Word Posse, November 2014.

___. “Bon Rapports,” in Ardeur: 14 Writers on the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter Series, edited by Laurell K. Hamilton and Leah Wilson, April 2010.

___. “Vampires” in Storytelling; An Encyclopedia of Mythology and Folklore, edited by Josepha Sherman, 2008.

___. “Werewolves” in Storytelling; An Encyclopedia of Mythology and Folklore, edited by Josepha Sherman, 2008.

___. Serpent and Storm. New York: Tor Books, 2001.

___. “Beginning Manuscript Writing,” selfhelpguides.com. March 2001.

___. “Writing Your First Novel,” selfhelpguides.com. March 2001.

___. “Writing Groups,” selfhelpguides.com. March 2001.

___. Sky Knife. New York: Tor Books, 1999.

___. “Tortoise Weeps.”  In Sword and Sorceress XIII, edited by Marion Zimmer Bradley.  New York: DAW Books, Inc., 1996.

___. “Star Byte, Star Bright.”  In Cthulhu’s Heirs, edited by Thomas M.K. Stratman. Oakland CA: Chaosium, Inc., 1994.

___. “Frog Prince.” Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine, vol. 4, no. 2, 1991.

Morr, Kenyon. (collaborative pseudonym with Mark Sumner).

___. Kingdom of Sorrow.  New York: Boulevard Books, 1996.

___. See No Weevil.  New York: Boulevard Books, 1996.