Touch of Tides - Crossed Genres

I am exceptionally excited to announce that my story, Touch of Tides, was just published in Crossed Genres magazine. Please check it out, and while you're there, read the other two stories by DeAnna Knippling and Michael Ben Silva III.

In Touch of Tides, a xenobiologist explores the oceans of Europa. Mara has synesthesia, meaning her senses are crossed -- what she feels on her skin she also sees with her eyes. Her passion is studying Europan life, hands-on. Until she finds something dangerous.

Here are the opening paragraphs:

I swim with no light, artificial or natural. A solid ice shell, seven kilometers thick, floats above me in this single ocean that covers the entire moon of Europa. All I can hear is liquid gurgling in my ears and I taste residual salt that leaks in around my gill breather.

My name is Mara. I am naked except for my equipment belt and a molecule-thin coating of nanoscale to protect me from the chill. The other biologists at my barnacle wear full wetsuits when they dive, relying on augmented reality. My gill could report water conditions, geolocation data, and radar sight, if I let it distract me.

I prefer to let the touch-colors lead...

- See more at Crossed Genres.

Crossed Genres also gave me the spotlight interview, in which I answer questions about Touch of Tides, synesthesia, autism, and more.

I am particularly proud of this one, because it is my first hard science fiction story. I spent a lot of time researching, asking experts, sketching, and even doing math, to make sure the details of the story were realistic. Science is very central to the plot, and all of this could actually happen. (Meaning all my other stories are completely impossible, I guess.) It also marks my first pro-rate sale.

I wrote it for you. Please enjoy reading it.