Ruby's Imagine

A butterfly the color of my name did tell me that a Big Spin was coming our way. I was standing by Mr. Grant’s wisteria, which hung over his fence and down into our yard, when Ruby Butterfly, this jeweled metamorphosis of a cattypillar, landed on a bright green wisteria leaf like some kind of winged oracle and looked straight at me; we exchanged glances, you know the way liked-minded and soul-bodied creatures can. We understood each other down deep to our transfigured and transforming cellular parts, and I knew the Big Oaks had told Ruby Butterfly and now she was letting me in on the not-so-secret secret: a storm was coming.

Kim Antieau has written many novels, short stories, poems, and essays. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, both in print and online, including The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Asimov’s SF, The Clinton Street Quarterly, The Journal of Mythic Arts, EarthFirst!, Alternet, Sage Woman, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. She was the founder, editor, and publisher of Daughters of Nyx: A Magazine of Goddess Stories, Mythmaking, and Fairy Tales. Her work has twice been short-listed for the James Tiptree Award and has appeared in many best-of-the-year anthologies. Critics have admired her “literary fearlessness” and her vivid language and imagination. Her first novel, The Jigsaw Woman, is a modern classic of feminist literature. She is also the author of a science fiction novel, The Gaia Websters, and a contemporary tale set in the desert Southwest, Church of the Old Mermaids. Her other novels include Her Frozen Wild, The Fish Wife, and Coyote Cowgirl. Broken Moon, a novel for young adults, was a selection of the Junior Library Guild. She has also written other YA novels, including Deathmark, The Blue Tail, Ruby’s Imagine, and Mercy, Unbound. Kim lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, writer Mario Milosevic. Learn more about Kim and her writing at www.kimantieau.com.