K. Bird Lincoln is an ESL professional and writer living on the windswept Minnesota Prairie with family and a huge addiction to frou-frou coffee. Also dark chocolate– without which, the world is a howling void. Originally from Cleveland, she has spent as many years living on the edges of the Pacific Ocean as in the Midwest. Her speculative short stories are published in various online & paper publications such as Strange Horizons. Her medieval Japanese fantasy series, Tiger Lily, is available from Amazon. World Weaver Press released Dream Eater, the first novel in an exciting, multi-cultural Urban Fantasy trilogy set in Portland and Japan, in 2017. She also writes tasty speculative fiction reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. Check her out on Facebook or Twitter.
If you’re looking for a place to buy Tiger Lily, the historical speculative fiction novel with a twist, or Dream Eater, Portland (OR) Urban Fantasy, then try Amazon or World Weaver Press
A List of Short Stores from 1999 to present:
| The Orphic Chronicle (defunct) | Flowers of the Chosen In a land where winter lasts a lifetime, one woman holds the key to her people’s survival. | August, 1999 |
| Jackhammer (defunct) | Dreaming Illicit Ginger Dumplings A man’s quest for the ultimate dumpling on a strictly relegated ship opens the door for one of the deadly vices to invade human society. | November 22, 1999 |
| Transfiguration of Kyoko Yamamoto First Place Winner of the Third Speculations Microstory Contest. Only 400 words, so a synopsis would give it all away! | September 9, 2000 | |
| Parchment Symbols (defunct) | Hands that Hold Moonlight A young teacher in Japan follows her mysterious fellow teacher home one night to find they share not only attraction, but also a special power. | April, 2000 |
| Aphelion | Summoner’s Daughter In a future where humans have colonized a planet by making a terrible pact with the beings that live there, one girl has the courage to break centuries of ignorance and death. | February, 2000 |
| Fables | Red Plum Blossoms In an ancient Japan where kami are real, what happens when a courtier’s daughter promised to the emperor falls in love with the spirit of the plum trees? | Spring, 2000 |
| SpaceWays Weekly (defunct) | Another Tiger Woman (First story ever published in that magazine with homosexual references) Wilting Lily was born in the Tiger year, condeming her to a lonely life of spinsterhood, that is, until she met the Daimyo’s son dying in the forest. (Reader’s Choice Award for March, 2000) | April, 2000 |
| Titan Ezine (defunct) | Leaving Eden (Runner-up in “Millenium Contest”) After a thousand years of stewardship over mankind, an alien benefactor visits his human companion one, last time. | March/April, 2000 |
| Digital Catapult (defunct) | A Question of a Dragon’s Soul Why would a master priest become attached to a irreverent waif? Turnip becomes suspicious when his master takes a mysterious boy under his wing. Little does he know the boy’s soul hangs in the balance… | September, 2011 |
| Jackhammer (defunct) | Transfiguration of Kyoko Yamamoto First Place Winner of the Third Speculations Microstory Contest. Only 400 words, so a synopsis would give it all away! | September 9, 2000 |
| From the Limbo of My Electric Womb “Do you doubt that a machine, a conglomeration of chips and electric signals can rightfully use the word “love?” I challenge you to define love as something other than knowing the secret essence of a person, her every word recorded in your memory, her every action considered and cherished eternally?” | February 15, 2001 | |
| Fables | New Born It is a world of the far future where mankind’s punishment for spoiling the Earth is to be its caretaker- forever. Doomed to lives of unlimited span, most people have resigned themselves to their fate. That is all but Sara, who is New Born, and is the only bearer of a secret that could change everything. | Winter, 2003 |
| Strange Horizons | Valley of Darkness Kuranosuke is a failed Kamikaze pilot returned home to a war-devastated country. His mentor assigns him to discover the murderer of an American Marine at Kuraitani (Valley of Darkness) Hot Springs Resort. Is there something in the Valley of Darkness that can restore his faith? | October, 2000 |
| A View from Outside: A Genre Conversation with Yoshio Kobayashi and Christopher Barzak “In twenty to thirty years science fiction bookshelves will be gone. It will only be mystery, horror, and literature. Here in Japan, I am afraid the bookshelves themselves will be gone.” | August, 2005 | |
| Sometimes We Arrive Home House takes refugees to new worls. Seri knew her day would come, but is she ready? | February 23, 2009 | |
| Gothic.net | The Stone Woman of San Francisco Beth is devastated by the doctor’s diagnosis of breast cancer. She withdraws from work, life, and even her best friend Sira. What Beth doesn’t know is that something in the city of San Francisco feeds on despair, and Beth is falling into it’s trap… | November, 2000 |
| The Witching Hour Anthology | The Garlic Walkers It is summer and in Gilroy, California the garlic fields are sending forth their sharp, earthy smell. A young English teacher becomes involved in ancient magic when one of her migrant worker students is assaulted. Now available from Amazon.com for your ereading device. | February, 2001 |
| Foxfire | Wilting Lily and the Yurei Wilting Lily’s lover, Yoshinori, still doesn’t believe she can see ghosts. But Yoshinori can no longer ignore Wilting Lily when she sees the living spirit of Yoshinori’s mother trying to kill his father. | January, 2001 |
| Darkling Plain | Losing Memory Hana Canales is a half-Japanese linguist in an Asian mainstream world. Her chance of a lifetime comes when she is picked to accompany other scientists to study alien ruins. Once there, she finds it difficult to figure out the strange, hieroglyphs covering every inch of wall space. Then she finds it difficult to understand anything at all… (see Frank Wu’s brilliant illustration on his website) or (actually buy the ‘zine at Project Pulp) | Summer, 2002 |
| Ideomancer | Usher’s Well A mother’s grief makes The Silver Arrow’s pilot risk her life flying close to Derrigan’s Well. The Well is a black hole where some say the dead can be seen… | July, 2002 |
| Peridot Books | Remembering Canaan Lara Suzuki is overshadowed by her grandfather’s legacy, and devastated by his wasting death. On another planet, she must experience her grandfather’s painful death again to prove to Aliens that humanity has a soul. | September, 2002 |
| “Say…Are you dead” | Water-Child Jizo A Japanese picture bride in San Francisco finally finds peace at an internment camp on Angel Island. | Halloween of 2003 |
| Aoife’s Kiss (print) | Tokyo’s Robin Hood A biracial girl in Tokyo makes peace with her identity when she inherits Herne’s legacy. | Summer 2004 |
| Flytrap | The Wind Knew Her Name An ESL teacher, and mother of a bicultural child, in rural Japan runs up against an ancient Japanese spirit trying to woo a modern surfer girl with a dark secret. | Fall 2004 |
| Kurodahan Press | Keepsake of the Grandfather Translation of a story by Juniichiro Kida in Japanese. Published in the Japanese Chthulu Anthologies Hidden Gods, volume 3, “Straight to Darkness.” | August 2006 |
| Forgotten Worlds | The Last Moments of Rapture and Peak A murder at an isolated space station involving an AI means the investigator must confront her crumbling convictions about relationships between humans and AI. | November 2006 |
| Fictitious Force #4 | Putting Down Roots Tension between a farmer finally finding a home and a young girl heading off to the stars | August 2007 |
| Japanese Dreams Anthology | And the Bones Would Keep Speaking A dying Nikkei boy. A white girl who hears ghosts. An old woman looking for the body of her son. A trio of lives intertwines in small town Oregon as they each work through the consequences of war and hatred. Available from Amazon | Summer 2008 |
| Renard’s Menagerie | Kiriko’s Pearl A Tanuki trickster matches wits with an old lady, only to discover that she is more than she seems. | February 2008 |
| Electric Spec | Her Own Skin A ghost who lost her face is forced to help a girl grappling with her identity. | June 2008 |
| Abyss and Apex | A Recipe for Broke-Heart Bread Flash fiction. Emilie is beaking a very special bread for her sister. Can blood and tears heal her broken heart? Podcast by the multi-talented Tina Connolly through her Toasted Cake fiction project. | October 2009 |
| Healing Waves | Exposure at Dejima Find out the further adventures of Lily and her beloved lordling as they fight their way through pirates to reach a barbarian doctor who might Ashikaga’s father. | 2011 |
What I Should Have Said 