I’ll be doing a readings from my short story collection, The Path of Totality and my blog memoir, Meander North at this book fair, which is held just south of Superior, Wisconsin. I’ll also be selling copies of these and my other books, plus puzzles made from my photos. If you’re in the area, please turn out and support local authors!
I’ll be talking about how I weave science into my fiction stories, with a focus on my science background and my latest book, The Path of Totality, which is a collection of short stories. If you’re in/near Duluth MN, come have a pint and a listen!
The April/May issue of Lake Superior Magazine offers an article about my magical realism short story collection, The Path of Totality. It takes the form of a Q&A, so I actually wrote much of it. đ I was tickled to be able to use a word in the article that I recently learned: eponymous. (Thanks to blogger friend Vickie Smith.) It means a person or thing that gives their name to something. In my book’s case, it’s named after the first story. I was even more tickled that the editor kept the word in the article!
One question from the editor gave me pause. It was: What question have you always wished someone would ask you? I replied that I wished people would ask me if my book had a secret.
It does, and it involves the anchor story, “Invisible Connections.” A few other secrets are scattered here and there, but will only make sense to certain people. If you get a chance, check out the magazine to learn the secret! Better yet, read my book. It’s still offered at a discount at this link.
Note: The time on this graphic is incorrect. The event is beginning at 6 p.m., not 5 p.m.!
Hey, this Thursday at 6 p.m. Central, I’ll be one member of a four-author panel for my publisher, Cornerstone Press. The event is being held at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. If you can’t make it in person, it will also be live streamed and available afterward on their YouTube channel.
I’ll be reading from my speculative fiction short story collection, The Path of Totality. We’ll also be doing a panel discussion and taking questions from the audience.
I’m looking forward to meeting my publisher in person for the first time, along with the other authors!
A young man is mystified by why he canât see an eclipse. A scammer falls for a woman heâs targeting. A nondescript gray house hides a secret from a curious woman walking her dog. A girl discovers a mummified Viking bog boy while on a birding tour. A college student gets trapped in a biosphere after hours. Hemingwayâs stolen stories are found in New Jersey. Singing in the shower takes on a whole new meaning. And a librarian develops her own theories about the influence of trees. United by the power of appearances to deceive and captivate, these tales glisten with the magic and menace of everyday lives.
My next book is a collection of short stories and a novella. “The Path of Totality” is a meditation on the power of appearances to deceive and captivate. It’s being published by Cornerstone Press at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and is now available for preorder at a 20% discount. The books will be distributed in February.
It’s already received some endorsements:
These stories concern everyday people discovering who they now are as opposed to who they once were. A grieving couple come to accept the death of their child. A woman pays too large a price for caring about a neighborâs son. And in âBog Boy: A Northern Minnesota Romanceââa gem of a story, a perfect storyâa teen falls in love with someone suspended in time. Not all of Zhuikovâs characters find peace and harmony, for the damned soul and the broken heart and the heartâs longing are nothing to fool with. But the few who find love, for instance, Sheila and Peter in the long final story, enter paradise.
âAnthony Bukoski, author of The Blondes of Wisconsin
Richard Powers meets Gabriel Garcia MĂĄrquez in a collection that nonetheless could have been produced only by a singular sensibilityâ one firmly planted in a fully recognizable, verifiable natural world thatâs also brimming over with mystery, wonder, and the fantastic. I love Marie Zhuikovâs brain. Sheâs both a scientist and a dreamer. These stories, rich in emotional metaphors that play out in magical ways, remind us to tread carefully and to always pay attention.
âCheri Johnson, author of The Girl in Duluth (under the pen name of Sigurd Brown)
In settings strange yet familiar we meet characters who are sincere but possibly duplicitous in this new story collection spun by science writer Marie Zhuikov. Each of the seven, spine-tingling scenarios will delight and surprise, bringing you to unexpected frontiersâin a biodome, a graveyard, the husk of a living treeâall without ever straying far from the yearnings of the human heart. Reader, I defy you not to be curious.
âCarol Dunbar, author of The Net Beneath Us
Marie Zhuikovâs The Path of Totality is a gem of a collection. These speculative stories explore a wide range of unusual situations with humor and insight, with empathy and heart. Readers will get carried awayâjust like these memorable characters get carried awayâinto imaginative worlds full of mystery and wonder. She delves into our longing for connections, how we respond in the face of strangeness and mystery beneath the ordinary.
âJim Daniels, author of The Perp Walk
Please consider preordering while this discount is in place. You’ll be happily surprised come February. And thank you for your support!
Remember the 2017 eclipse? It was a big deal in the U.S. since it covered such a large swath of the land. Here in Minnesota we were not in âthe path of totalityâ — the area that would be totally darkened by the moon blocking the sun. But I was still hopeful weâd see something memorable.
Alas, we did not. It was cloudy that day. The sky darkened enough during the eclipse so that the streetlights came on near my office, and that was it. After all the media hype, the event itself was disappointing.
However, I did take away something memorable, and that was the title for a new short story. I loved the ring of âThe Path of Totality.â I even mentioned to my Facebook friends that it would make a great title for a story. It didnât take me long to realize that I should be the one to write that story.
The idea coalesced during a workshop I took about a year later from William Kent Krueger, a New York Times bestselling author from Minnesota. Mr. Krueger is just a peach of a guy â very down-to-earth and willing to help other writers. The class had something to do with the differences between fictional narrative and plot. As part of it, he had us write opening lines for a story. I was thinking about the path of totality title when I wrote what eventually became:
The problem with Justin Kincaidâs eyes began on August 21, 2017. On a dusty hillside in Oregon, the curve of the moonâs shoulder nudged away pieces of the sun. The crowd of people hurried to don their cardboard eclipse glasses. But to Justin, the sun still shone as whole and bright as ever.
Intriguing, yes? Why canât this man see this celestial event like everyone else? What in his life is blinding him to it?
The story is one of a series I am working on with the theme of deceiving appearances. I am happy to report I am almost done with the final story! Plus, my âPath of Totalityâ story was chosen for publication in the âThunderbird Review,â a literary journal published by the Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College.
If youâd like to hear more of the story, please consider attending the virtual launch party for the journal. I will be reading an excerpt along with other writers in the journal. Iâm sure theyâll also offer info about how to purchase a copy of the journal, too. The event is happening Thursday, April 15 at 7 p.m. Central Time via Zoom. Details are on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/events/2965093270398597
Marie's Meanderings 