Literary Agent:
Beth Fleisher of
Clear Sailing Creatives
Published stories:
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Djinn Bottle (due 2012)
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# Floodlust
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# The Loneliness of the Long Distance Panda
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# The Oracle Never Lies
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# The Jet Set
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# The Urbane Fox
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# Mirror Mirror
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# Baron Boscov's Bastard
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# The Jewel of Locaria
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# Aunt Agatha's Agency
What I'm working on :
# The Winterwood Choice - magic, privateers, a quest, a ghost, a tough decision and a touch of romance all set in an aletrnative England in 1800
# 'Your Horse Sees Dead People' a middle grade children's book about magic and horses (not magic horses).
# And a few things on the back-burner .
Jacey Bedford - Writer
Contact: jacey@jaceybedford.co.uk
Agent contact: beth@clearsailingcreatives.com
Jacey Bedford is a compulsive writer who lives a thousand feet up on the edge of the Yorkshire Pennines, in a 200 year old stone house that taked the first hit when the wind howls off the moor. She has been a librarian, a postmistress, a rag-doll maker and a folk singer - performing to 20,000 people at the Philadelphia Folk Festival, 200 people on the gun deck of HMS Victory and 3 people and the landlord's dog at a pub in Kent in the middle of a snowstorm. Her claim to fame is that she once sang live on BBC Radio 4 accompanied by the Doctor (Who?) playing spoons. She's recorded 14 CDs and completed 35 international singing tours, 31 of them to North America. Her present day-job is tour manager and music-mum to several international folk bands. She can ride a horse, make a passable soup from six iron nails (as long as they're magic) and write a web page, but she can't add up a column of figures twice and get the same total, or play more than three chords on a concertina. She loves harmony singing, her family, words and chocolate, and hates cigarettes, fashion, football and 'traveler' spelled with one L, not necessarily all in that order. She has a stationery fetish and truly believes that a blank notebook has unlimited potential for creativity. She's determined that however old she gets she will not grow up, and follows the golden rule that: 'life is too short for housework.
Artisan * Brian Bedford's Recording Studio * Jacey's Music Touring * Birdsedge, Yorkshire
She writes fiction, mostly fantasy and SF. She has completed three novels, and is represented by agent Beth Fleisher of Clear Sailing Creatives in New York.
As light relief she writes the occasional short story, and so far has sold ten of those - to magazines on both sides of the Atlantic, both genre and mainstream, to web-only publications and to print anthologies including four published by DAW, one by Dark Quest and another by Fabulous Albion. Some of her stories are available to buy at www.anthologybuilder.com as part of very affordable customised anthologies. You can customise your own anthology or buy the one Jacey customised with four of her stories plus stories from other writer friends 'Jewels of the Universe Stories by Milford Writers'.
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Entry at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
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Live Journal
Jacey blogs. She says it is nothing momentous and it's not intended for mass public consumption, but it's a great way of keeping in touch with friends who are interested in writing. What does she blog about? Writing, family, friends, local history, family history, reminiscences, music, things that interest her on a local or global scale. What doesn't she blog about? She doesn't use her blog as therapy. Feel free to friend her.
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Milford
She's a graduate (or should that be, survivor) of the Milford SF writer's conference in 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011. It's a week-long event in the UK for published SF writers. She'll be at the next Milford week in September 2012. Here are some of her Milford photos and some information. And here's the offical Milford homepage.
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STORIES
Stories due out in 2012
Djinn Bottle
Due online at buzzymag.com, 2012
Floodlust
In River (anthology), edited by Alma Alexander, published by Dark Quest Books. 2011
ISBN: 978-1-937051-23-5
The river is all things to the People, god, provider and home, but Zanna's deep fear of drowning leads her to walk a knife edge between what she wants and what she knows she can't have.
Review: http://www.abyssapexzine.com
...“Floodlust,” [which is] a failed love quadrangle. A young woman must choose between a river god, an older man it is acceptable to marry, and a younger man she wants to marry. She ends up with none of them. Somehow, writer Jacey Bedford makes this improbable situation work, and work well.
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Panda
Nature: International Weekly Journal of Science, November 17th 2011
Available online here (which is also where the comments live), to download as a pdf here and to listen as a podcast or download as an mp3 (read by Henry Gee) here.
"It's a quirky piece and I had a lot of fun reading it... It isn't a long tale, and I can't think of a way to review it without giving away spoilers that you would not thank me for. Suffice it to say that it's extraordinarily well written, fun in a dark way, and will be over much to soon. Takes about five minutes to read - longer to think about."
- W. S. Swears (via LiveJournal)
The Oracle Never Lies
Online in the April/May 2009 issue of AlienSkin Magazine
Everyone knows the place, date and time of their own death, but the price for this knowledge is that they don't try to evade it. When a young man misses his own death by accident there's a big problem.
The Jet Set
In the anthology 'Fabulous Whitby' edited by Sue Thomason and Liz Williams
Fabulous Albion Press, 2008
A future fantasy featuring morris men and the culture police. Ask yourself what might happen if the UK's new licensing laws were taken to extremes and singing and dancing without a licence was an offence likely to lead to people being 'disappeared.' Vic works undercover for the culture police, but when he's sent in to expose the last morris team in England his world is turned upside down. It will soon be mayday and though he never believed - until now - if the morris team doesn't dance up the sun, the world will end. Past sins come back to haunt him as he races through Whitby's smugglers' tunnels and up its famous cliff steps barely ahead of the law, chasing a memory.
The Urbane Fox
In the anthology "Mystery Date",
edited by Denise Little, published by DAW, 2008
A fantasy about sewing, shape-changing and romance.
When John Reynard orders a special outfit from costume designer Izzy, she doesn't realise that she'll be putting blood and soul into the making of it or that she'll be putting her life on the line when he invites her to the midsummer party where he'll be wearing it.
Mirror, Mirror
A new angle on Snow White's wicked queen by Jacey Bedford
from "Rotten Relations"
Edited by Denise Little.
Published by DAW, USA, 2005
And also available in 'Jewels of the Universe Stories by Milford Writers'.
Extract
If I could just hold on a few more years... At sixty-eight Henri was an old man, gout-ridden and mean-tempered, his prowess as a hunter, a sportsman and a lover long past. Unkindly, age had bled him dry of his youthful attributes and had not replaced them with wisdom, so he ruled Alba now with an iron hand, unthinking and not mellowed by kindness. Daily, I saw him make decisions which showed his willingness to surrender long term stability for short term gain. Decisions I would not have taken, and decisions that I would make damn sure his daughter did not take when she stepped into her father's shoes. For Blanche was the future of Alba.
Aunt Agatha's Agency
by Jacey Bedford
from: "Scheherezade #23 " (2002)
The magazine of fantasy, science fiction & gothic romance
edited by Elizabeth Counihan
Published in the UK
And also available in 'Jewels of the Universe - Stories by Milford Writers'.
The wild tale of a bunch of warrior princesses let loose from the agency where they work and allowed a day off in Blackpool circa 1955.
Baron Boscov's Bastard
A Cinderella story by Jacey Bedford
from "Twice
upon a Time"
Edited by Denise Little
Published by DAW, USA, 1999
And also available in 'Jewels of the Universe Stories by Milford Writers'.
"A lighthearted retelling of the Cinderella story with a different Happily Ever After than the one I expected." - Nancy Fulda, www.anthologybuilder.com (Four Stars)
"The other tale I really liked was Jacey Bedford's 'Baron Boscov's Bastard' which was a Cinderella tale of sorts, only without all the cutting off of heels..." - www.klishis.com
"Fun sword and sorcery-type stuff. I especially enjoyed the fact that the princess wasn't magically able to weild a sword and ride into battle with no training, and yet managed to prove herself clever and gutsy anyway." - Mystery Girl at www.anthologybuilder.com (Four stars)
The Jewel of Locaria
by Jacey Bedford
from: "Warrior Princesses"
edited by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
Published by DAW, USA, 1998
And also available in 'Jewels of the Universe Stories by Milford Writers'.
Extract
Euven was waiting for her as she'd commanded. He had with him a small training sword made of wood.
"Forget that," she told him, "I haven't got time to learn anything for real. Teach me how to hold a sword without looking like I'm carrying a bouquet of flowers, and show me how to whirl it round and look impressive without cutting off my own head. If there's time you can try and teach me to do something useful with it, but I guess we don't have much time left. I hear Tixar is getting very close now."
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"Alenza, what are you doing?" Two hours later, the King's voice cut in to her sword swirling practice.
"I'm--learning--how--to--look--like--I--might--know--what--I'm--doing," she said, without breaking the rhythm of swing and thrust.
The king was holding on to Eradice's guiding arm. The Queen whispered something to her husband.
"Child, no-one expects you to go into battle," Ahm'shiraz said, more gently than he had ever said anything to her in his life before.
"If you are truly Ahm'shiraz the Far-Sighted, then you will know I have no choice. Tixar is breathing down our throats. Ohenzee and Locaria stand together, but the rest of the Ten Kingdoms are sitting on their brains and waiting. You can't expect our men to go into battle without a figurehead. I think they might fight for me." She saw the tears leaking from his blind eyes. She wanted to rush into his arms like she had as a child, but her childhood suddenly seemed a long way behind her.
She hardened herself. If I had been second-born he would have cut out my heart, she thought.