Ann Downer » For Readers » My Other Writings

Short Stories

I also write short stories, most recently “Bread-and-Butterflies,” in the Alice in Wonderland themed anthology Alice Redux, edited by Richard Peabody and published by Paycock Press. (Note: while my own story in this collection is squarely rated G, other stories in the collection range widely from PG to R, so use your judgment about whether these books are right for you, your kid, your student.)

Another reimagined fairy tale—a radical Regency retelling of Sleeping Beauty called “Somnus’ Fair Maid,” is still in print in the anthology Black Thorn, White Rose, edited by Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow. First published in 1994 by Avon/Morrow, the anthology is being re-released in this new edition by the Prime Books imprint of Wildside Press, based in Rockville, Maryland. Again, my story is G, others not. Teens and up.

Read a pdf of "Noli Me Tangere," an early short story set in Bangkok. It originally appeared in Gargoyle 24.

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Alice Redux

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Read a pdf of "Noli Me Tangere," an early short story set in Bangkok. It originally appeared in Gargoyle 24.

Poetry

Throughout high school, college, and my twenties, I wrote reams and reams of poetry and short stories, and a story-cycle/novel called Zoetrope, that remains in the proverbial drawer. I did have success getting poems and stories published in so-called "little" magazines like Gargoyle, Mississippi Mud, and Ariel. And I collected a lot of rejection slips from the "big" magazines.

At this point I was just getting interested in women's history and women's rights as well as science and natural history, and those themes emerge in these poems.

Listen to me as my 25-year-old self reading poetry (and yikes! Did I really ever sound like that?!):

The Synaesthete (mp3)
(A poem about synaesthesia, a neurological condition in which people have cross senses, hearing colors, for instance, or tasting shapes)

Eve Named the Whales, I Think (mp3)

Dead Cat (mp3)

I recorded these poems for a special audio issue of Gargoyle. Many thanks to Richard Peabody for allowing me to post the sound files here.

Nonfiction

In the 1990s I tried to break into the field of writing nonfiction biology books for elementary-school kids, and teamed up with an editor at the New England Aquarium in Boston to write two books for their series, Don't Blink Now! and Spring Pool.

The Other Ann Downers

Finally, a few words about what I haven't written. I can't claim credit for any books on physical therapy by Ann H. Downer. She and I corresponded about 15 years ago and figured out we were some kind of cousins. And there is another Ann E. Downer at the University of Washington, also probably descended from the same 17th century English ancestors. So far as I know, we're a club of three.