I asked fellow Midnight Oil anthology contributors to share some things about themselves prior to publication and those generous enough to do so will be appearing here for the next week or so.
Each entry gives a taste of their contribution, a little about them, how to contact them, how their story came about, and definitely a link to Midnight Oil (which you should purchase because it would make each and every one of us happy.
you do want to make us happy, don’t you?
i mean, considering what we wrote, you want us to know you’re a good person, right?).
And now, Kaye Lynne Booth’s Sangoma, Zombie Elephants, and Tokoloshe, Oh, My!:
Nelwazi and Nhlanhla lazed in the warmth of the jungle floor as they reclined against the jackalberry trees, popping the fruits into their mouths.
“What should we do today?” Nelwazi asked, plucking a piece of buffalo grass and putting it to his lips to blow. A long squeaky sound like a duck came out. “I’m bored.”
“I know of a sangoma (shaman), Ngobizitha, who lives not far from here, who has been sending tokoloshe to cause havoc in the village. Maybe we should pay him a visit and ask him to stop.”
“Tokoloshe!” Nelwazi said, scoffing. The tokoloshe were mythical creatures which liked to torment children. According to the legends, an evil sangoma would capture them and make them do their bidding. “They are not real. The elders just tell those stories to make children behave. Even you must know that.”
“You’d better watch what you say,” Nhlanlha replied. “Ngobizitha is a powerful sangoma. Very old. It is rumored that his training involved a test of such difficulty that, although he triumphed, it left him bitter and angry.
How the story came about:
I’ve never been much for zombie stories because they are so formulaic, and quite frankly, they just never felt like formidable monsters to me. How hard can it be to outrun a zombie that can barely shuffle and lurch along? (And I know that some zombies may have developed super speed, but I could never really buy that either. My first zombie story was Night of the Living Dead, and that image of zombies is forever imbedded in my brain.)
Yet, I always felt that perhaps I might write a story which could change that image, offering a different viewpoint; a story that would be a different kind of zombie story. Then, one day, I read a post about South African elephants which sparked any idea in my brain. An zombie elephant would truly be a formidable monster, indeed.
The story would need to be set in South Africa, because that is where one finds elephants in the wild, and I’d read a few previous blog posts by the same author which addressed the poaching problems in South Africa. Being a victim of poaching would be a good basis for an elephant to become a zombie.
The author of the elephant blog posts is my friend and often partner in publishing, South African author Robbie Cheadle, who also helped guide me to the Zulu legend of the tokoloshe, which are troll-like creatures. When they are captured by a sangoma, (Zulu shaman or medicine man), and turned into zombie-like creatures which poke and prod endlessly the victim at the sangoma’s command. These creatures fascinated me, and I saw a way for them to have a part in my zombie elephant story.
The result is a story about two young Zulu boys looking for adventure, who get more than they bargained for when they come across the hut of a powerful sangoma, who sends his tokoloshe after them. And when they inadvertently create a zombie elephant, well… what would you do?
I had a lot of fun writing “Sangoma, Zombie Elephants, and Tokoloshe, Oh, My!” I hope you’ll have a lot of fun reading it.
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About Kaye Lynne Booth: For Kaye Lynne Booth, writing is a passion. Kaye Lynne is an author with published short fiction and poetry, both online and in print, including her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction; and her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets; Books 1 & 2 of her Women in the West adventure series, Delilah and Sarah, and book 1 in her Time-Travel Adventure series, The Rock Star & The Outlaw, as well as her poetry collection, Small Wonders and The D.I.Y. Author writing resource. Kaye holds a dual M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing with emphasis in genre fiction and screenwriting, and an M.A. in publishing. Kaye Lynne is the founder of WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services and WordCrafter Press, where she edits and publishes two short fiction anthologies and one poetry anthology every year amidst her many writing projects. She also maintains an authors’ blog and website, Writing to be Read, where she publishes content of interest in the literary world. Blog: Writing to be Read | Authors' Blog – Book Reviews, Author Profiles and Reflections on Writing |
See all Midnight Oil stories here.
And for our finale, a teaser to the anthology
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