A Winter Solstice Sun

Number two as I say a few words about the stories I've just had published. This one has a fun history of sorts. A year ago, one writing community I'm part of held a Secret Santa thing where we could write a flash fiction or a scene or poem or whatever or draw a picture, etc. as a gift for another person--not that then the work belonged to the other person, but that then they received an exclusive read of it.

So that's the most immediate source of this story, written for a writer and artist in Finland (which explains the name of the character, Puu, which is Finnish for 'tree').

So within that context, the other source was an article at Strange Horizons last year about ancient winter traditions, some of which our own Christmas and other traditions draw on...and some not. So that provided the inspiration for the fun little seasonal story, which you can now read at Reflection's Edge, a story of Puu, the walking tree from the land of no winter sun who longs for a glimpse of that light on the winter solstice.

Hmmm, now I have to think of what I should be writing this year as a Secret Santa gift...