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Stelliform Press, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Origins of Desire in Orchid Fens
Origins of Desire in Orchid Fens is a dark fantasy set in a northern mining town, where spirits sprung from folktales, having followed immigrants across oceans, maintain an uneasy balance of justice. Written in over 100 dreamy mini-chapters, Origins of Desire in Orchid Fens explores the tenuous reality of the Romany diaspora living in troubled times on troubled lands. This novella is lush, heady, surreal, and swampy. Beautiful and dangerous. Coming April 2025.
“Lynn Hutchinson Lee leads us through a delicately perfumed world: notes of orchids, chanterelle mushrooms, plush moss, sterilized and burned bedsheets abound. Girls long-dead slip past us, organza-like. A dizzying, beautiful work about living as a Romany woman in Canada and the flowers we grasp onto in a decaying, capitalism-driven world.”
– Daisuke Shen, author of Funeral and Vague Predictions and Prophecies
Tales from a Hopeful Dystopia
Through the Portal
Edited by Lynn Hutchinson Lee and Nina Munteanu, Exile Editions, Canada
Hopeful dystopias are so much more than an apparent oxymoron: they are in some fundamental way the spearhead of the future – and ironically often a celebration of human spirit by shining a light through the darkness of disaster.
In Through the Portal: Tales from a Hopeful Dystopia, award-winning authors of speculative fiction Lynn Hutchinson Lee and Nina Munteanu present a collection that explores strange new terrains and startling social constructs, quiet morphing landscapes, dark and terrifying warnings, lush newly-told folk and fairy tales.
Featuring: Agata Antonow, Sarah Christina Brown, Mary Burns, K.R. Byggdin, Petra Chambers, Katie Conrad, M.L.D. Curelas, Matthew Freeman, R. Haven, Liam Hogan, Cornelia Hoogland, Vanessa Hua, Jerri Jerreat, Zilla Jones, Katherine Koller, Erin MacNair, Melanie Marttila, Bruce Meyer, Isabella Mori, E. Martin Nolan, Avery Parkinson, Ursula Pflug, Marisca Pichette, Shana Ross, Lynne Sargent, Karen Schauber, Holly Schofield, Anneliese Schultz, Gin Sexsmith, Sara C. Walker, Jade Wallace, and Melissa Yuan-Innes.
These authors show us that now, more than ever, our world urgently needs stories about hope.
“It appears there’s nothing like catastrophe to bring the best out in authors…”– Publishers Weekly
Three poems
KIN:
An Anthology of Poetry, Story and Art by Women from Romani, Traveller and Nomadic Communities
My poems “Found While Cleaning,” “What They Ate on the Ship”, and “Seeing,” in KIN, curated and edited by Raine Geoghegan, co-edited by Fíona Bolger, and published by Salmon Poetry, Ireland
“This is a book that bears witness to the intensity of experience shared by Romani communities worldwide – a glorious anthology which is both deep and mysterious, brimming with joy and sorrows as it celebrates a world and a way of life that has become marginalised – recapturing its passion and uniqueness. A book to treasure and to hold tight, mighty and kushti.”
– Menna Elfyn, Welsh poet, bard, professor emerita, USTSD, President Wales PEN Cymry
The Morning I Died I Flew Over the Tobacco Fields
Prairie Fire
My story “The Morning I Died I Flew Over the Tobacco Fields” in Prairie Fire 50 Over 50
Honouring Women Writers in Canada: Part One, Vol. 45 No. 3, Canada
A woman’s memory of childhood wonder, delight, betrayal, and love of life and family, “The Morning I Died I Flew Over the Tobacco Fields” was inspired by stories of my English Romany aunt, a reclusive healer of birds. “The Morning I Died” is a spin-off reimagined from my forthcoming novel Nightshade (Assembly Press, 2026).
Jane Doe’s Tongue
Northern Nights
My story “Jane Doe’s Tongue” in Northern Nights, edited and published by Michael Kelly, Undertow Publications, Canada
In an eastern Ontario lowland of silent roads, swamps and shadowed forests, where the black veil of the night may slide itself into your quiet garden, a reclusive illustrator of deadly plants finds a woman curled up in the ditch by her mailbox.
“Something stirs in the boundless dark of the Canadian north. Listen. Can you hear it?
Northern Nights is an anthology of strange stories, featuring the dark dreams and feverish imaginations of Canada’s finest speculative authors. Steel yourself for a journey through these northern nights.”
“Not-to-be-missed….chilling work.” – Washington Post
“This Whitman’s sampler of Canadian horror explores so many subgenres that there’s bound to be something here for every reader.” – Publishers Weekly
“Serves as a showcase for the varied landscape of Canadian horror in the twenty-first century.” – Booklist
The Mission House Guests
Weird Horror
My short fiction “The Mission House Guests” in Weird Horror No. 7, edited and published by Michael Kelly, Undertow Publications, Canada
Two women are invited into a house with blurred windows, frantic sounds in the walls, a bridal chamber, and a bride.
Morpho
Fusion Fragment
My short fiction “Morpho”, in Fusion Fragment No. 19, edited and published by Cavan Terrill, Canada
The story of a stolen child; a mine owner’s buried compound; dead butterflies in a private museum; a terrifying companion; a longing for family; a final escape.
Five Poems
This Will Only Take a Minute: 100 Canadian Flashes
My poems “An Anthem to be Sung Before or After Her Death”, “Breakfast at the Aristocrat Palace Executive Motor Motel”, “Past the Dump”, “Something Has Fallen In”, “My Heart Alive as a Sandfly in the Towering Wave” (editors’ choice selected as best flash) in This Will Only Take a Minute: 100 Canadian Flashes, edited by Bruce Meyer and Michael Mirolla, Guernica Editions, Canada
“Lee’s flash revolves around the cosmic force of an advancing, crashing wave. From these apocalyptic moments, “I was made to know that after what may have been seconds or hours or days, something moved.” – Michael Greenstein, Miramichi Reader
Wagtail
The Roma Women's Poetry Anthology
My poem “Tobacco Harvest” in Wagtail: the Roma Women’s Poetry Anthology, edited by Jo Clement, Butcher’s Dog Press, U.K.
“Butcher’s Dog Publishing proudly presents Wagtail, our debut anthology of poetry, with many thanks to the support from ERIAC, the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture. Wagtail celebrates voices and visions from the margins. The book seeks to address historic and ongoing failures by the publishing industry to fairly represent the Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller (GRT) diaspora.”
Nightshade
Tipping Point
My short fiction “Nightshade” in Tipping Point, Room Magazine 45.2
“Nightshade” tells the story of a family of Romanichal women living, working, and travelling with their troupe of puppets in the Ontario tobacco belt.
“Room is Canada’s oldest feminist literary journal, and has published fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, art, interviews, and book reviews for forty-five years. Published quarterly by the West Coast Feminist Literary Magazine Society, also known as the Growing Room Collective, Room showcases writing and art by people of all marginalized genders, including cis and trans women, trans men, nonbinary and two spirit people.”
Plumcake
Food of My People
My short fiction “Plumcake” in Food of My People, edited by Candas Jane Dorsey and Ursula Pflug, Exile Editions, Canada.
“Eating is a symbolic and magical act, a transformation, a covenant, a ritual, a comfort, a necessity. Food is often integral to the magic, the meetings, the processes of fantastic fiction: from myth and legend to high fantasy, from hard-science-fiction to post-modern magic realism. And whether in Hansel and Gretel or Soylent Green, the myth of Persephone or 2001, Alice in Wonderland or Alien, food-themed stories offer a mixed menu of good and evil, light and darkness. In this versatile collection, Candas Jane Dorsey and Ursula Pflug – both award-winning senior writers of literary speculation – have gathered a delectable buffet of genre writing that explores our attraction to the candy coating and our fascination with the poisoned apple. Paired with each story is a recipe, real or fantastical, to consume with pleasure… or at your own risk!”
Night Divers
Cli-Fi: Canadian Tales of Climate Change
My short fiction “Night Divers” in Cli-Fi: Canadian Tales of Climate Change, edited by Bruce Meyer, Exile Editions, Canada.
“Reacting to the warnings sounded by scientists and thinkers, writers are responding imaginatively to the seriousness of changing ocean conditions, the widening disappearance of species, genetically modified organisms, increasing food shortages, mass migrations of refugees, and the hubris behind our provoking Mother Earth herself. These stories of Climate Fiction (Cli-fi) feature perspectives by culturally diverse Canadian writers of short fiction, science fiction, fantasy, and futurist works, and transcend traditional doomsday stories by inspiring us to overcome the bleak forecasted results of our current indifference.”
Of “Night Divers”, Derek Neuman-Stille writes: “In beautiful prose, Lynn Hutchinson Lee reveals the ritual magic of submersion in water. “I felt my hands, my palms, nerves, fingertips, really felt them. Something had been moved around. Everything out there, inside me. My lungs, voice, bones, skin, all made of water and stars”.
Tillsonburg
A Romani Women’s Anthology: Spectrum of the Blue Water
My creative non-fiction “Tillsonburg” in A Romani Women’s Anthology: Spectrum of the Blue Water, edited by Hedina Tahirović Sijerčić and Cynthia Levine-Rasky, Inanna Publications. “Tillsonburg” interweaves the story of my father’s family in the Ontario tobacco belt with historical and contemporary narratives of anti-Romani racism in England.
“A Romani Women’s Anthology: Spectrum of the Blue Water is grounded upon Romani women’s lived experiences, and confers epistemic privilege on critical insights that derive from their authentic and personal knowledge. Romani women are impressively diverse in their attachments, status, beliefs, and identities. The chapters in this book illustrate this multiplicity by traversing writing motifs. The book is a dynamic blend of life writing, creative work, research essays about identity, childhood, immigration, work, art, memory, love, spirituality, activism, advocacy, leadership, and other themes affecting the lives of Romani women.”
One-Eyed Daddy
Sar o Paj/ Like Water
My poem “One-Eyed Daddy” in Sar o Paj/ Like Water
Anthology of poetry by Romani women, edited by Hedina Tahirović Sijerčić, published by Kafla Intercontinental (India) and Amber Press (Australia). Cover illustration from Rosa at the Lido, my painting in Red Tree’s mural Greeting to Taniperla, Scarborough, Ontario.
http://www.romnja-power.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/like-water-sar-o-paj.pdf
“Cornelia in the Water” appeared last year in India’s State of Matter online speculative fiction journal. Two poems, “Five Songs for Daddy” and “On a Train, 1996 (Lancashire),” were published in Romani Folio, Drunken Boat International Journal of Literature and the Arts (U.S.). My flash fiction “The Raw Meat Motel” is forthcoming from Book of Matches Literary Mag, Issue 8 (U.S.), and my short fiction “The Mission House Guests” appears in the September 2023 issue of Weird Horror (Canada.) In 2024, “Vestigial Structures” will be published in the anthology Stone to Stone: Writings by Romani Women, Propertius Press (U.S.).
My writing has also appeared in literary journals.
My writing has also appeared in literary journals. You’ll find my short fiction “Fluttering,” about a woman who discovers glorious pleasure late in her life, on page 71 of Monofiction, Issue 3 (U.K.).
Five Songs for Daddy
A lament for the death of memory, “Five Songs for Daddy”– first written for the Sar o Paj/Like Water anthology edited by Hedina Tahirović Sijerčić – was reworked as a spoken word piece and produced by Norman Verrall for the sound installation “Canada Without Shadows.”
A project of chirikli collective and Red Tree Collective, “Canada Without Shadows” was conceptualised and developed by Hedina and me. “Canada Without Shadows” was installed at BAK (Basis voor aktuelle kunst), Utrecht, Netherlands, and in Call the Witness at the Roma Pavilion, 54th Venice Biennale, in Venice, Italy, 2011. In 2013, “Canada Without Shadows” was curated into “Good Girls – Memory, Desire, Power” at the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest, Romania.
“Five Songs” was a component of the four-part sound installation which included “Suno 1, Suno 2” (Dream 1, Dream 2) by Hedina; the stories of Ilona, Timea, Monika V., Gizella, and Monika B., five Hungarian Romani women in Canada; and birdsong. In 2019, “Five Songs” was installed in “Audio Out” at the Art Gallery of York University.
“Five Songs” tells the story of my father, from his childhood in northern England to the family’s arrival in the southern Ontario tobacco belt, where they picked tobacco, built houses, painted signs, tarred roofs, and, as they had done in England, continued to work as travelling entertainers with their troupe of puppets.
Listen to “Five Songs for Daddy” here.