I just received word that Knight Writing Press accepted a story called “Hide Like the Blueies” for publication. Yes–very exciting!!! It will end up in their Enrapturing Tales anthology with a focus on….mermaids 🙂
A huge thanks to Knight Writing Press for thinking enough of the story to pick it up! You can check them out below:
I do have a fascination with mermaids. Not the cutesy Disney versions or even the popular ideas of beautiful women sunbathing on rocks with fish tales. No, it’s the persistent stories and accounts of people still supposedly seeing and encountering them even into the 21st century which piques my curiosity. How could such a thing be? Obviously people are mistaking manatees and fish in these encounters. Right?
Quite possibly. For most accounts, that’s plausible and probable. On the other hand, I seriously see no similarities between a manatee and a human. Maybe vaguely in the face, but it’s a stretch. And certainly not in the size. Manatees and dugongs are slow moving, methodical creatures and their size and shape does not lend itself to mistaking one for an actual person (trust me, I’ve got a great imagination and even I have a hard time getting there). And manatees are not quick. Most accounts I’ve read talk about what they’ve seen as moving fast.
So what are people seeing? I honestly do not know. But people are seeing something. You’ll have to do some digging, but there are current reports and reports within the last five years. The interesting thing is that there seem to be a lot of reports around Indonesia. And Alaska. At first thought you might be inclined to think a lot of those accounts are made by people not in the know. However, think about it–fishing is a big industry and a lot of people spend a good chunk of their lives on the water. I’d trust them to know the difference between whales, sharks and an entire menagerie of sea life. They certainly know the seas better than most of us. So if they’re seeing something odd, then they’re seeing something odd.
Is it an actual mermaid? IS such a thing even possible? Evolution is a strange thing but we’ve seen it in action with other animals. And it’s generally accepted we actually no very little about all of the creatures living in the world’s oceans (5-10% is what I most often hear). So could there be something down there that has evolved that looks humanoid we’re unaware of? While I can’t give a categorical yes, it’s always a possibility. And it’s plausible. Sea faring people in the North Sea and other places knew all about giant squids before they were ever documented. In 2010 a sting ray with a circumference of 10 feet was discovered in the rivers in Asia.
We could debate this all day, but the important thing is that the idea of a “real” mermaid teases my imagination enough I’ve written three stories about them, and well enough that all three are either published or will come out this year. Lore, mythology and fringe topics like cryptozoology are great story starters. If you’re into horror and speculative fiction and you haven’t explored those less traveled roads, you need to.
I’m just waiting for my imagination to give me a story for ‘Water babes.’ Go look them up 🙂
Craig