Made it to ICFA — flight delayed an hour because they needed to change a tire, which just seems like the most mundane thing that could go wrong with an airplane…
I hadn’t actually registered (sorry, everyone who is very startled to see me here), because this has been such a harried and stressful time in our country, and I completely forgot to register.
But they’ve added me to a program item already, so I’ll be on the short fiction editing panel Saturday morning at 8:30 a.m. (whee!), along with Neil Clarke of Clarkesworld and Sheila Williams of Asimov’s — the editors people will actually be there to see, but I can try to make sure they get asked good questions, at least.
I’ll also be signing at 10, so if you happen to be attending and want me to sign something, you can do that then. I happen to have four copies of A Feast of Serendib with me, because I was going to bring them to my dad in CT, but I’m happy to sell them to people here, if you’re wanting a Sri Lankan cookbook — I can always ship more copies to my dad. 
I’ve actually made it to a panel (yay, me!), so I’m here now listening to Andy Duncan, Owl Goingback, and Sarah Pinsker talk about local lore, haunted houses, cemeteries, and generally ‘place’ in horror. I’m interested because one of the novels I’m working on has a sort of haunted house at the heart of it. Not actually haunted, but haunted by grief and betrayal…
Plus, I actually wrote a cemetery ghost story a few decades ago! “At the Gates of City,” which I wrote when I was a grad student in Salt Lake City, and I lived a block from the cemetery, and I used to walk up and wander there, looking at all the old Mormon headstones — so many wives, and so many children, many of whom died tragically young.
I’m going to try to get a fair bit of writing done while I’m here, but that’ll be mostly in my room; I’m probably going to also try to decompress a little by reading in one of the hammocks by the river. If you see me hanging out poolside, I will be in non-work / networking mode, so please feel free to come up and say hi!
“The snow fell gently over the gravestones, piling thick and dense on tall crosses, rectangular stones, low Gothic iron fences. Anjali sat on one of the thicker stones, a heavy coat wrapped around her sturdy frame, her long hair loose and covered in snow. She could no longer read the inscriptions, not with the snow and the nighttime darkness. But she knew them by heart. Beneath her were Mark and Deborah Williams, united at last, a dove blessing their stone. Across the path were Matthew Olsen, beloved of God, and Elizabeth Olsen, faithful wife, married in 1831; both of them died in the 1880s. Two carved books on their stone — the Bible and the Book of Mormon. Next to Elizabeth was Jessica Olsen, also presumably a faithful wife, though her inscription was more discreet than that — only the marriage date of 1849 to tell you that she had been Matthew’s second wife. And a birth date of 1833, a death date of 1852. A fallen tree on the carved granite. That story told itself.
There weren’t as many like that as she had expected. The carefully maintained ground reached upwards through the Avenues, from 3rd Avenue to 9th, and then up even further. Anjali had walked all around it in her three years in Salt Lake, but she still wasn’t sure she had covered every inch. There was a small Jewish enclave, halfway up the hill, but most of the stones in the graveyard were clearly Christian, and even more clearly Mormon. But still, mostly monogamous marriages. She wondered if in the other cities of Utah, you would see more stories like poor Jessica’s.
“It wasn’t what you’re thinking, you know.”…”
Read the rest for free here:
https://maryannemohanraj.com/science-fiction-fantasy/at-the-gates-of-the-city
