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Interview: Rei Rosenquist on “A Worthwhile Sacrifice”

“A Worthwhile Sacrifice” by Rei Rosenquist

Cedar had a simple task: get water from the northern well and bring it back to their town before dark, when all doors are sealed with magical locks to keep everyone safe inside.

Instead of completing the task on time, Cedar got distracted and dawdled.

But the wolves come every night, and tonight is no different.

“A Worthwhile Sacrifice” is one of the 15 tales in the Magicks & Enchantments anthology, which is available for a limited time in the Wild Magic bundle.

There’s the real world…
…and then there are our worlds, secret, wild, and free.

The Wild Magic bundle holds ten volumes of the magic. Ten books about what we find after we have passed through the illusion that we can live without wonder in the world, and come out the other side.

Pack your bags, put on your good walking shoes, and make sure you bring plenty of water. We’re going out into the wilderness, and who knows when we’ll be back?

The Wild Magic bundle is available through July 14th, 2021.

Excerpt

The wolves come every night. Right after dusk. As the sky becomes deep purple-gray and the air fills with the heavy scent of damp grass, we wait with piqued ears for the horn blasts that signal the beasts’ approach. Sealed up in our huts, with our magical locks drawn on every door in time, we watch their ferocity slam useless against meager wooden structures their strong bodies should—by all rights—break. But the magic protects our flesh and blood. A complex set of simple sigils drawn in charcoal on the back of the main door is all it takes to keep the monsters away. But, should any of us fail this one simple task, we are guaranteed a gruesome death.

At the first signs of the sun growing low, the entire town gathers together. Master Lock Maker and five skilled assistants draw the necessary locks on the main doors. The doors click shut just as the sun flashes and disappears. The whole town harbors all together in the sitting rooms of the most central homes. We sit beside the fire, eat and drink, knit or weave, read old scrolls, and talk story. We do everything but delay in our coming to this mandatory nightly gathering.

Today, foolishly, I’ve delayed.

—from “A Worthwhile Sacrifice” by Rei Rosenquist

The Interview

“A Worthwhile Sacrifice” is set in a town where magical locks are drawn anew each evening to keep the inhabitants safe from the wolves who come every night. What inspired you to write this fascinating story?

It all began as a recurring nightmare. The nightmares started out where I was inside a rather antique-style wooden house and someone I cared about was outside. The wolves were coming, and I had to try to get them inside with enough time to “lock” the door. As the dreams progressed, I would be outside while the wolves started coming, and I would have to gather people and try to help get us all to safety. Once I started writing this story, the nightmares slowly stopped coming. But, there were plenty of them! So, this story is actually the first in an upcoming series of short stories which I will later be collecting into a full-length novel.

Love and connection are common themes in your writing, and are key elements in “A Worthwhile Sacrifice.” Why do you so regularly focus on these themes?

The genre of romance is really where I fell in love with reading. I had always been drawn to stories in different forms, but as a child, I struggled with reading. I started learning to read & write in a German public school in the mountains outside of Frankfurt. Then, at age 9, my family returned to the USA, and without any extra tutoring, I was abruptly switched to an all-English education. It wasn’t until I picked up a Harlequin romance book from the local library bookshop that the struggle with words finally melted away. The reason I believe it was the romance genre that drew me in was because connection is another area where I have struggled in life. As a queer, nonbinary individual with undiagnosed neuro-divergency and c-PTSD from childhood trauma, I’ve always found human relationships extremely challenging. Writing about them allows me to explore relationships while at the same time gives me the space to express through my characters how important I truly think they are.

Why do you think so many people are drawn to reading stories about magic?

I think magic reminds us of how big the world is, how there’s so much we don’t know, and also how powerful we are. Magic gives us hope that there are still mysteries out there we haven’t solved, still beauty we haven’t seen, deep truths we haven’t touched. And stories about people discovering magic in themselves and in their world helps us believe that there is something bigger and deeper inside ourselves. It’s a very empowering kind of story, to discover and wrestle with a great powerful force and to overcome by sheer will and determination. Magic reminds us that even when we feel small, we are so much greater than we believe we are. We matter somehow, somewhere, to someone. Even if we feel we can’t answer the how, where, or to whom we matter, magical tales remind us that we each matter in a big way. And that gives us hope to carry on.

You call yourself a semi-nomad. Where haven’t you been yet, but would love to go to—and why?

I have yet to go anywhere on the African continent due to the complicated and negative nature of being a western white tourist there. However, I do hope to be able to travel to several places on the African continent at some point in my life once I am working in wildlife conservation. It would be a privilege to work with the many different cultures there and lend a helping hand to their massive conservation efforts working with elephants and big cats in particular. But, I have a lot of work to do both professionally in the animal field and personally in educating myself more about different African cultures and white privilege before I am prepared to make that journey.

Is there something from a legend, fairy or folk tale, or myth that you haven’t yet used in your writing, but would like to?

Yes! I have just started retelling several of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales, and the more research I do into the origins of these stories, the more I have uncovered lore that I would love to write about. I am drawn to the darker tellings of “children’s stories,” as these were always the narratives I resonated with as a child. There are only a handful of the Grimm stories that have reached pop culture, and I am excited to retell some of the darker, grittier ones that deal with difficult themes such as cannabalism and child abuse.

You rescue birds! How has this impacted your life?

One really interesting impact that rescuing birds has had was that it made me turn an eye inward to my own childhood damage. As I did so, I began examining the kinds of stories I was telling. I read through several unpublished stories I’d written long ago and examined how I expressed relationships in them. What I was surprised to see was how similar the main character’s narrative was to the story of my rescue birds. Terrified of others, turning to aggression out of a need to protect oneself, and this resulting in an isolated, lonely, and powerless existence. To bring this back to your previous question, I think a big part of being able to start telling stories about love and connection instead of isolation and despair has been largely because of my work in learning to rescue birds.

What are you working on now, and what’s fun about what you’re writing??

One of the projects I’m really excited about right now is a series of short fantasy stories that I will be releasing over the next several months. What’s fun about these stories is that while they’re not connected by main characters or even worlds, they are connected in the theme of coming of age and identity. Each one deals with a nonbinary character who sees their identity in a unique way. Each face a unique struggle and find their identity to be key in their success as individuals in the bigger world. It’s an exploration that I feel very deeply, and it’s great fun to experiment with different ways of being in wildly different worlds from our own!

About Rei

Rei Rosenquist is a queer agender (they/them) speculative fiction and romance writer who depicts a wide variety of identities struggling to find a place in a wide variety of worlds. They are also a barista, baker, musician, and lifelong semi-nomad.

Rei first remembers life as seen out the high window of a hotel balcony. Down below is a courtyard, swarms of brightly dressed tourists, and the beach. The memory is nothing but a blue-green washed image. Warmth and sunlight. Here, they are three years old, and this is the beginning of a storyteller’s life. Over the years, Rei has  traveled to many countries, engaged many peoples, picked up new habits, and learned new languages. Across lands, they find constant inspiration in the stories we tell each other, the food we share with one another, the music we make together, and the world we can build when we allow ourselves to dream.

Find Rei

Website ~ Facebook ~ Twitter ~ Goodreads

Find the Wild Magic bundle!

The Wild Magic bundle is available for a limited time at StoryBundle.com/Fantasy.

Bundle buyers have a chance to donate a portion of the purchase price to the charities Mighty Writers and Girls Write Now.

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Story spotlight: “Friends” by Rei Rosenquist

Below the pristine mountains of Portugal’s countryside, a war rages on in Rei Rosenquist’s “Friends.” Thrown together in a dismal war camp, imported refugees share nothing but their suffering. No common culture. No common tongue. But friendship can spring up even in the toughest of times.

~ ~ ~

“Friends” appears in The Golden Door, a collection of stories showing the impact on people when they’re treated as “the other,” whether they’re immigrants to a country, a group of targeted within their own country, or something else besides. The title refers to Emma Lazarus’s welcoming words inscribed on the plaque on Statue of Liberty, “I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Tales of mistreatment of “the other” abound in historical or religious writings from around the world and through all time. But there are also plenty of examples of people helping each other, caring for one another, learning about each other. Sometimes in big ways, sometimes in small—but they all add up.

All proceeds will be donated to Doctors Without Borders and the ACLU.

Find The Golden Door

Universal Book Link ~ Amazon ~ Apple Books ~ Barnes & Noble ~ Kobo ~ BookBub ~ Goodreads

Excerpt

The air was a confused hum. Everyone who spoke Português was from a different place in the country: different dialect, accent, vernacular. I saw nobody from home. Everyone, a frightened stranger. At least half the people spoke a tongue that confused my ears entirely.

“Nihongo,” someone with a Português accent whispered.

I got the gist. Refugees who’d been shipped in.

More strangers, harder to get.

We were being forced apart, separated at the very seams.

I rebelled at the idea. If nothing else, we were humans and that would be enough.

I looked at the nearest fellow inmate and forced myself to look for—not the differences: hair color, eye shape, skin color—but the similarities. The sameness. Something to give me grounding. What I found were identical expressions. The same tight broken frown, brow knitted up, eyes narrow and without trust.

Our humanity, reduced to isolation and fear.

—from “Friends” in The Golden Door by Rei Rosenquist

About Rei

Rei Rosenquist is a queer agender (they/them) speculative fiction and romance writer who depicts a wide variety of identities struggling to find a place in a wide variety of worlds. They are also a barista, baker, musician, and lifelong semi-nomad.

Rei first remembers life as seen out the high window of a hotel balcony. Down below is a courtyard, swarms of brightly dressed tourists, and the beach. The memory is nothing but a blue-green washed image. Warmth and sunlight. Here, they are three years old, and this is the beginning of a storyteller’s life. Over the years, Rei has  traveled to many countries, engaged many peoples, picked up new habits, and learned new languages. Across lands, they find constant inspiration in the stories we tell each other, the food we share with one another, the music we make together, and the world we can build when we allow ourselves to dream.

Find Rei

Website ~ Facebook ~ Twitter ~ Goodreads

Find The Golden Door

Universal Book Link ~ Amazon ~ Apple Books ~ Barnes & Noble ~ Kobo ~ BookBub ~ Goodreads

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The Golden Door: 14 Stories of Wisdom, Justice, and Love

The Golden Door is a collection of stories showing the impact on people when they’re treated as “the other,” whether they’re immigrants to a country, a group of targeted within their own country, or something else besides. The title refers to Emma Lazarus’s welcoming words inscribed on the plaque on Statue of Liberty, “I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Tales of mistreatment of “the other” abound in historical or religious writings from around the world and through all time. But there are also plenty of examples of people helping each other, caring for one another, learning about each other. Sometimes in big ways, sometimes in small—but they all add up.

All proceeds will be donated to Doctors Without Borders and the ACLU.

Find The Golden Door

Universal Book Link ~ Amazon ~ Apple Books ~ Barnes & Noble ~ Kobo

The Stories

In Adrianne Aron’s “The Envelope Trick,” an immigrant learns the very system that’s helping him in his new country is also hurting him.

A woman and her young daughter escape death in their home country, only to find themselves separated at the U.S. border in Steve Carr’s “Needle in a Haystack.”

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, a young boy who dreams of emigrating to the U.S. to study at MIT comes across a pair of Soviet officers, and learns there’s more at stake than he’d ever dreamed in Tonya D. Price’s “Spy in the Sky.”

In Lesley L. Smith’s “Ke’s Symphony,” a family of aliens, refugees who escaped a disaster on their own world, is welcomed with both friendship and fear on the planet that took them in.

The president of the United States wishes for peace in “The Un-American President,” by Jason Dias. Sometimes integrity is doing the right thing because everyone is watching.

A little girl leaves her war-torn home with her parents, and learns that life is built on small kindnesses in Bonnie Elizabeth’s “A Used Pair of Shoes.”

Hedi Framm Anton’s “La Despedida” shows two sides of a story of farewell. A young girl lives with her grandmother in Honduras; they wait for a check from her mother, who works in San Francisco, so they can pay the fee the gang members demand every month.

Below the pristine mountains of Portugal’s countryside, a war rages on in Rei Rosenquist’s “Friends.” Thrown together in a dismal war camp, imported refugees share nothing but their suffering. No common culture. No common tongue. But friendship can spring up even in the toughest of times.

An American temporarily loses his sight in an accident in Beirut in Bob Sojka’s “Transient Pains.” While recovering, he tells his nurse stories about growing up in an immigrant family in Chicago in the 1950s, where stereotyped animosities arose among people of different origins.

In Adrianne Aron’s “Like a Snake,” an American is surprised to learn that the man she meets in a poor rural village that doesn’t even have electricity has two sons going to Mission High School in San Francisco. But is it really a surprise?

Jamie Ferguson’s “Something in Common” takes place in a small town in western Pennsylvania in 1910 where a young woman discovers she and a recent immigrant from Austria-Hungary have more in common than she’d realized.

A wealthy actress in Hollywood in the 1920s takes on a pair of immigrant faeries as indentured servants in DeAnna Knippling’s “Myrna and the Thirteen-Year Witch,” but she didn’t realize just how high the cost would be to keep them safe.

In Rob Vagle’s “Dispatch from the Other Side,” a young man who was separated from his family while trying to claim asylum in America follows the instructions on a postcard sent by his long-lost mother, and discovers things about his family he’d never expected to find.

A young woman, who moved from Afghanistan to California with her brother, has to make an important decision in David Stier’s “The Path.” Her choice will change both of their lives, forever.

Inspiration for the title “The Golden Door”

The title for this collection comes from the sonnet “The New Colossus,” which was written by Emma Lazarus in 1883 to raise money for the construction of a pedestal for the Statue of Liberty.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

MOTHER OF EXILES. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”


—“The New Colossus,” by Emma Lazarus