Writer Spotlight: Daniel Ausema
Welcome to the 13th installment of Writer Spotlight. This week’s focus is Daniel Ausema. I’ve reviewed 14 of Ausema’s pieces, all of them individually on Inkfoundry’s “Get WYSR” feed. (In case you didn’t know, Inkfoundry is a wonderful and free resource that aggregates short fiction and poetry pieces!)
Recurring Themes:
Gorgeous Prose
Symbolism
Surrealism
Non-Human POVs
Language as Magic
Feral Flora
Day One - March 19
“Among the Sighs of the Violincellos”
A rich and biting tale of a garden full of strange effects.
“Three Days of Unnamed Silence”
The letter you’ve been waiting for comes, but it’s overshadowed by the worst thing you can imagine.
The Pairing: (Spoilers)
Wow, Ausema is coming out swinging with some powerful stuff in these first two! Both of them affected me emotionally in different ways. Both of them involve a need to create a change in leadership.
Individually:
"Among the Sighs of the Violincellos” is a beautiful and biting story, full of whimsy and wit. There’s a lot of meta humor going on, like the bit about the fairytale tree that bears the fruit of the orphan farm boy. There’s also many animals involved, a poetic and interesting use of synesthesia, and playing with time.
"Three Days of Unnamed Silence” is all about overthrowing an unjust and abusive system. It is a chilling dystopia where anyone can become mindless slaves and reflects on themes like dehumanization, the evils of capitalism, and how easy it is for the average person to avoid thinking of topics like slavery even when it’s right in front of them.
Day Two - March 20
Two blood trees fight over the battle-strewn terrain.
4. “The Grammar of City Streets”
Mapmaker Sayya binds the streets each time she makes a new map.
The Pairing: (Spoilers)
These two stories are pretty different!
Individually:
“The Blood Tree War” is a non-human POV story. It has horror/monster vibes with the tree itself and its nature, but the true horror is when it evolves so that it can get more blood. In this way, I see a theme about the balance between survival and morality, and how gray it can get in the middle. It also involved trees and growing, which reminded me of “Violincellos.”
“The Grammar of City Streets” plays with grammar and sentence structure, and maps, finding paths, and making ones, too! I loved this one so much. There’s a theme here of not only helping those in need, but anticipating a need and meeting it before it becomes harmful.
Day Three - March 21
5. “What Passes for Eyes in Dreams and Death”
The narrator is afraid to look in the casket, for they are certain it is their body.
A cloud of bees shaped like a person tries to fit in and do their work.
The Pairing: (Spoilers)
These two stories both have POV characters that are not human! YAY!! ONE OF MY FAVORITE THINGS!! A running tally of nonhuman POVs include; “Violincellos,” (I’m pretty sure the characters are not human, though it is not stated) “Blood Tree,” and now these two.
Individually:
“What Passes For Eyes in Dreams and Death” is decidedly and delightfully surreal, reminding me of “Violincellos” in how I’m not quite sure what’s happening or what will happen next, but I’m gonna sit back and enjoy the ride. There’s a main theme here of life after death, and what comes after, and that did remind me somewhat of “Unnamed Silence” in that the people who become grunts undergo a kind of mental death, if not physical. There’s also a TON of symbolism in “Dreams and Death,” which “Violincellos” and “Grammar” both exhibited. I should also mention that there is also flora in this one, echoing “Violincellos” and “Blood Tree.”
“In the City of the Faced” is a flash fiction with bees, and touches on a little bit of body horror and trying to fit in.
Day Four - March 22
7. “By the Scars Shall You Know”
Catrix must face the labyrinth of thorns so that his scars can be read as divine portents.
Names do not rise from nothing.
The Pairing: (Spoilers)
These two pieces are pretty dissimilar. One is a longer short story, and one is a poem.
Individually:
“By the Scars Shall You Know” has themes exploring the destructive harm that self flagellation does to a mind as well as a body, and how religion can wield its power to keep their followers obedient through pain. There is also a theme about overcoming an oppressive system, which reminded me of “Silence” and “Violincellos.” Something I also noticed is the use of blood / suffering as a source of magic or perceived magic, which also reminded me of “Blood Tree.” Perhaps a continuation of this or a different way of looking at it is bloodthirsty or feral flora.
“The River of Naming” reminded me of “Grammar” through the use and symbolism of naming magic!
Day Five - March 23
9. “The Letter Hidden in the Alphabet”
A hidden letter of the alphabet writes down its account of history.
10. “Scolyard’s ‘The Constructs Foresee Their Doom’”
The narrator recounts the four times they see a painting throughout their life.
The Pairing: (Spoilers)
Both of these stories indicate a certain level of paranoia from their protagonists, and in both stories it is unclear whether that paranoia is justified or not. I also noted that in both of these stories, Ausema reflects on how the meaning of a symbol can change over time either through a change in oneself, or through external circumstances. I definitely see this also in “Scars,” “Naming,” and “What Passes for Eyes.”
Individually:
“The Letter Hidden in the Alphabet” creates a trifecta of Ausema stories centered on magics about language, joining “The River” and “Grammar.” I love this!!
“Scolyard’s ‘The Constructs Foresee Their Doom’” The world building in this story was really cool! I also noticed that it has portents the character believes in, but may or may not be true. This reminded me of “Scars” as well.
Day Six - March 24
11. “Lesser Zodiacs”
Do you know these less popular zodiac signs?
12. “Three Adventures of Simon Says, the Elder”
Simon Says navigates the treacherous lands of the Playground.
The Pairing: (Spoilers)
These two pieces both had elements where the characters were being hunted by others and looking for forgotten information.
Individually:
“Lesser Zodiacs” is a poem that talks about not fitting in, and those who are hunted by others, and forgotten information. The last of these reminded me of “Letter Hidden.”
“Three Adventures of Simon Says, the Elder” absolutely reminded me of “Scolyard’s” for the unique world building elements. There is a sense of an epic quest in this one! The naming conventions were very interesting, based off of children’s rhymes and games. Technically, these characters seem human, though the perspective is still very different from normal humans, so I think it counts.
Day Seven - March 25
A sea sprite attempts to take warmth from the thermal vent.
14. “In the Sloth Tunnels, at a Time of War”
An unnamed people escape into giant tunnels made by ancient sloths.
The Pairing: (Spoilers)
Both of these stories include animals and a kind of legend that surrounds them.
Individually:
“A Benthic Myth of the Deep Sea” is a delightful flash fiction that reminds me of “Simon Says,” because of the mythical element, the “I’m gonna tell you a story” feeling. Also, it’s another from a non-human POV, and I feel so spoiled at all these unique and wonderful perspectives. :) :) :)
“In the Sloth Tunnels, at a Time of War” I gotta say, I picked this poem to read because of the title and I was not disappointed. There is a theme here about the horrors of war, and giant, intelligent animals, which reminded me “Simon Says.”
Emmie’s Personal Favorite: “The Grammar of City Streets”
Summary!
If I were to summarize Ausema’s style in one sentence, I would say he often works with non-human or otherwise unique points of view and loves to reflect on the magic inherent in language and art, while utilizing tools like surrealism and symbolism.
Interview Questions
What are the themes you tend to return to the most in your work overall? Why do think that is?
Ausema: The strange and the unfamiliar. Especially animals and plants, as these stories show. I’m insatiably curious about all kinds of things, and something about weird animals and plants (as well as strange geography) tickles my fancy. That shows up in the beetle-drawn carriages of my Spire City stories and the swarming moths of the Moth Plateau series. But also isopods and carnivorous plants, the Marquesa’s gardens, a body made of bees, and an impenetrable forest of thorns. How fascinating and trippy each of them can be. Recently I took a dive into learning about ferns. Did you know…well, I’ll save that for another day.
That fascination with the unfamiliar often develops into a fascination with the cultures that might develop, given certain bizarre circumstances. So that shows up in my writing a lot, too. I love Ursula LeGuin’s anthropological eye as she creates her settings and often try to do the same. How would people (collectively) respond if the world worked differently? is an endlessly fascinating question.
I see less of it in these stories than I might expect, but a third theme that I find often cropping up in my work is immigration and exile, of different peoples and cultures coming together and changing each other in the process. I grew up with stories of previous generations of my family immigrating and have worked with immigrants and refugees from a lot of different cultures, so their stories permeate my imagination as well.
2. What is one of the characters in your short stories/flash pieces that you relate to the most, and why?
Ausema: You know, each of them has something of me in them (except, hopefully not the Marquesa–but that story is more about her garden, not her as a character, so maybe I identify with her plants; or her mistreated workers…). But looking through these, I don’t see any that jump out at me as the characters being stand-ins for me. They all take something from me, but each of them draws on other aspects of who they are that definitely are not-me, as well.
3. What short fiction author do you look up to? Why?
Ausema: All my Codex friends… And that feels like cheating to pick them. Umm, if I see that an issue of a magazine has a story by Catherynne Valente, Yoon Ha Lee, or Aliette de Bodard, that’s definitely going to catch my notice. Stories that make me sit up often are very imaginative, evoking some part of this imagined world/future setting in surprising ways, and yet…there’s a catch to them, a hook that pulls at things in our world and lays them bare to force us to see them more clearly or to remember to see them at all. I’m trying to increase my short story reading this year, and actually track it for once, so by the end of the year, I imagine I’ll have more names to add to that!
4. Anything else you’d like to say about your work?
Ausema: This is just scratching the surface of what I’ve had published, so check out more at https://danielausema.com. I also post a free reprint and send it to my newsletter subscribers every month (ish), sometimes stories that aren’t available anywhere else at this time. So, if you want more, subscribe to Lyrical Worlds while you’re visiting.
5. Do you have any piece, listed here or otherwise, that you would like to promote?
Ausema: I’m currently in the middle of releasing a series of novellas set in the previously mentioned Moth Plateau [Moth Plateau], with two published and three more to come out over the next three months. It’s a weird western/steampunk/fantasy mash-up story of cowpokes and bicycles and the uncanny ruins of a last civilization, set in land so thick with moths that people need a way to part the swarms just to pass through. It started with the idea of Young Riders, but make it Weird, went through San Manuel Bueno, mártir but make it Weird, and then True Grit but make it Weird. Which is a whiplash of inspirations…but I’d like to think I pulled it off.
Each novella stands mostly on its own, with a different main character and arc, but they build up to something…well, something Weird. (These novellas are a sort of spin-off from the Spire City stories [Spire City] I mentioned earlier, as well, which consists of four novels and a variety of shorter works.) Anyone who enjoyed some of the stories above, I think you’ll find a lot to love in the Moth Plateau (and Spire City) series as well.
And of course, if it’s less the weirdness and more the anthropological eye of cultures meeting/clashing/adapting, The Arcist Chronicles[The Arcist Chronicles], published by Guardbridge Books, is a fantasy trilogy that takes place in an isolated, caste-bound land on the brink of a revolution, exploring what happens when a new kind of magic, a storytelling magic, enters that world. It’s a grand sweep of a story with a wide-ranging cast of characters and a powerful ending.