The Storytellers' Conference (Part 1) - 31 Stories (January 2022)

My first multi-parter of the month! I just couldn't finish this whole thing today, but I have a good idea of where things are going, and it was too much fun to think of the ways an author might need to make herself scarce online for a day or two. Enjoy part one of draft zero of The Storytellers' Conference!

The envelope was fancier than anything I'd seen before, and sealed with wax. I wasn't sure how it had found me, since it had no postmark or return address - it hadn't been processed by our postal service, that much seemed clear. It also hadn't appeared at my PO Box, or in my assistant's hands, which is where all the important mail came from. No, this had appeared on the door of my office, inside my house. That was more than a little frightening, and I was tempted to call the police and have someone check it for explosives or anthrax or something equally insidious.

It was ridiculous to think that way, though - I wasn't anyone famous. I had sold a couple of books, and they'd gotten decent reviews and had good sales, but I wasn't the kind of author that people would seek out to hurt. I wrote fluffy romance novels set on spaceships, for heaven's sake - I wasn't trying to change the world with my stories, I was trying to give people something light to read while they were escaping the horrors of the real world. I wore the label of "escapism" like a badge of honor, and the only people who had a problem with it were the small, vocal minority who seemed to think that anyone who dared put words on a page had the obligation to use those words to fight all of the injustices of the world, and anyone who was writing to make themselves and their audience happy, heaven forbid, was just wasting their time. I had been added to the occasional list of "authors not doing it right," but even then, no one really knew who I was. So why would someone break into my house to leave an envelope at my office door?

My curiosity got the better of me, and I carefully peeled up the seal and opened the envelope. The contents were thick, printed on heavy gold paper that matched the envelope, and reminded me of my cousin's extravagant wedding invitation. I couldn't think of who I knew that was willing to shell out that kind of money for a wedding, and when I fully extracted the contents, I saw that it was an invitation, but not to a wedding.

I could feel that there were additional documents inside the invitation, and so I moved over to my desk and sat down to dissect the contents without dropping everything on the floor. The front of the invitation was printed - possibly hand-written? - with words in heavy black ink and extremely curly calligraphy. "You have been called to join the Storytellers at the Infinite Library," it said, the capital letters sporting the kinds of additional flair that wouldn't seem out of place in an medieval manuscript. Beneath the large text, smaller text in a more plain font read, "Please see the instructions inside for directions to the Infinite Library."

Storytellers? Infinite Library? None of this was ringing a bell. I remembered spending time with some other writers in the different writing classes and intensive clinics I had taken over the years, and there had been rumors of different secret society type things that authors had sworn existed, but we were all people who made things up for a living - there was no reason to believe any of it. I was tempted to call someone, or at least jump online and see if there was anything on the various social media sites about this kind of invitation, but I thought it best to read the rest of the invitation first.

Opening the ornate card, there was a smaller envelope that simply had "Infinite Library, ATTN: Librarian" written on the front. I picked it up and saw that it was open and contained another card - it was an RSVP. There were the usual options for either attending or not, and a short list of things to check if there were food allergies, along with a blank for any accommodation needs. It was thoughtful, and it made no mention of a plus-one, which I would expect in a wedding invitation. Actually, on the back of the card, there was another plainly-printed line: "Please note that this invitation is for the person to whom it was addressed and no one else. If you require someone to attend with you for assistance, please note that on your card, and we will be in contact with further instructions."

There was another page, this time printed on finer paper instead of the heavy card of the invitation, with more plain-text printing. This explained, in detail, that the invitation was not to be distributed, photographed, or shared in any way, on pain of having the invitation revoked and any access to the Infinite Library denied. There was a small map that detailed where to go on the day of the event, and how I would be met by an escort who would take me the rest of the way to the Library. I wouldn't need to bring anything but myself and whatever I would need to get through a day, morning through evening, but I was assured that I would be home that night.

"Photography within the Infinite Library is forbidden, and your cell phone will not have service for the duration of the event. Please make sure your loved ones, and anyone who would be concerned if they are not able to contact you, are informed that you will be completely unavailable through your normal channels for the duration of the event. We will provide you with an emergency number for your loved ones to use while you are unavailable. In case of a life-threatening emergency to you or a loved one, a Librarian will find you and escort you to the place where you are needed."

It sounded incredibly ominous across the board, and more than a little impossible. Going completely offline for an entire day was the definition of problematic in my world - I had children, and a mother who was not in the best health. There were other people who could help, of course - my sister was always wanting to watch the kids, and they were old enough that they could manage a lot of small things on their own. My brother lived closer to Mom than I did, and was the main point of contact for her anyway, so I was just wanting to be available if he needed something, but he wasn't the type to ask for help. And if they gave me a number to give people in case of an emergency, well, wasn't that like it was when I was a kid and my parents would go out to dinner? The babysitter had the number of the restaurant they were going to, in case anything happened - it wasn't like they had immediate access to us the entire time they were gone, and we never even thought of calling them.

Would it really be so bad? Why was I so anxious to go to this thing? I didn't even know what the Infinite Library was, much less what the Storyteller Conference was or who would be there. None of it made any sense. So why did I want to go so badly?

My phone rang, scaring the crap out of me - I'd been daydreaming at my desk and hadn't even finished putting my bag down or getting my day started properly. I reached for my phone and saw that it was my assistant, and frowned. She very rarely called in the morning. "Joanie? What's going on?"

"Lisa! Oh, thank God," she said, her anxiety bubbling over in her voice. "Listen, I don't know what's going on, but you should probably think about laying low for a day or two, OK? There's a new article that just came out, and it's not being too kind to the romance world. Especially not the sci-fi romance world. Um." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "They call you out by name."

I felt my skin grow clammy, and I reached for my laptop, nudging the mysterious invitation to the side as I did so. "What kind of article, Joanie?"

"I mean, they don't say as much about you as they do about some of the others - there are some people that they really go off about, like REALLY go off about, and they only mention you in one paragraph, but, um. It's. Um." I could imagine her moving her hands through the air as she tried to think of something to say - Joanie was a very expressive speaker, especially when she was trying to find the right words.

"Joanie, just tell me where to find this article," I said, booting up my computer and opening the browser to a new tab. "I get that it's going to be bad, so I might as well see how bad it is." I waited, my fingers poised on the keys, for her to give me a name, but got nothing but silence on the other end.

"Joanie," I said in a warning tone. "I know I'm not going to like it, but it's better that I know what's being said than to be blindsided completely. Come on. Out with it. You don't want me to Google myself, do you?"

"No! God, no, not now," she blurted out, and I winced. It had to be pretty bad, and there had to be talk online already if she didn't want me searching for it on my own. "Fine. It's in Locus. It's an editorial, naturally, but it's the one that's at the top of the page right now. It's, um, pretty obvious which one it is."

I headed over to the magazine's website and found the article quickly - "Smut on a Spaceship?" - and groaned. "Seriously? I don't even write that kind of romance!"

"You know how it is," Joanie said, her voice taking on its normal motherly tone now that the news was out there. "If there's a kissing scene, or fade to black, some people figure that means it's all about sex, and that's all they'll focus on." She sighed deeply. "I'll let you go so you can read it, but I don't think you should respond to it right now. That's probably the worst thing you could do at the moment, is respond - you need to give it a few days to sit, and let people forget about it." She said her goodbyes and hung up, and I put down my phone and clicked through to the article.

It started off bad, and just kept getting worse. The author was the type of reader who believed that sci-fi was the sacred ground of the white men that were the pantheon of the golden age, and so any woman who dared come near the hallowed field should be run out of town with a scarlet A on her chest. The fact that some women, and some men (who the author had some incredibly mean-spirited things to say about), dared to make some of their sci-fi stories about characters and their relationships to each other rather than all science all the time, well, that was even more unacceptable.

After he'd laid out his thesis statement, he started naming names. Several of them were bigger names in the sci-fi community, some of which didn't even write books that were commonly considered "romance." They were simply guilty of having characters in loving relationships, and letting those relationships form a part of the book. Those of us who did write romance novels explicitly, well, we were simply the worst of the worst.

"As for Linda Gates, her latest atrocities toward the genre include having a relationship with multiple partners, all of whom engage in an orgy on a generation ship that had children on board. What kind of author would have such depraved behavior in her protagonists, if she herself wasn't filled with depravity?"

I dropped my head to my desk, gently bouncing it off the hard wood of the surface once or twice. The characterization of my book was, naturally, completely inaccurate, but my book did have a polyamorous relationship on a generation ship, and that quad did have a night together that faded to black before things got too spicy. It fit both the characters and the book, but I knew it was a risk. And now, here was the consequence.

When I lifted my head from the desk again, my eyes fell on the invitation. Maybe now was the perfect time to be offline for a little bit... (TO BE CONTINUED!)