That Halloween is soon here, it's the perfect time to wail about WHEN THE WORLD WOUNDS (TMB012) by Kiini Ibura Salaam, witch is our October Book-of-the-Month. Published in 201666, WWW marked the first time Third Man published fiction. Featuring short-gories of ghosts, faeries, wolves, and more hauntings, award winning author, Kiini Ibura Salaam, takes readers into otherworlds that leave a mark. When I asked Salaam about what inspired her book, her answer reminded me of something I heard author Margaret Atwood slay while speaking in Nashville: she said her terrifying, dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale had nothing unreal in its pages. That everything witch happened to her characters was based on real occurrences in history, all she did was retell the stories and set them in the future. About writing SF/F and Horror, Atwood said the scariest, most effective writing was always only reality retold. Now, in all seriousness, think about that as you read Kiini Ibura Salaam's description of her book and the short excerpt from her story Hemmie's Calenture. — Chet Weise

Salaam on the inspiration behind When the World Wounds:

When the World Wounds is dark book. It looks at how people cope and carry on after a wounding--what do we do with our wounded selves? I tend to stay away from history, politics, and the real-world, but in this book concerns of the now were strong and insisting to be heard. I wrote it before the current moment, but it certainly has many echoes across the day-to-day trauma of the past few years--from detention and entrapment, to overcoming abandonment and learning to cope with the mangled bodes and scarred skin we're often left with after (and while) tangling with life.

It also deals with the pull of the past and the pull of home. In Hemmie's Calenture, a witch wanders through the swamp of my home state of Louisiana, and a New Orleans culture bearer tries to put the pieces together after the levee broke following Hurricane Katrina. The Malady of Need is a transformation of personal trauma projected into an unspecified dystopia and The Pull of the Wing goes back into the childhood of characters from my Of Wings, Nectar, and Ancestors trilogy. Going home is often necessary to gain strength and gather fortitude--whether it's because there is a deep well of support and inspiration, or because you need to see what you survived and the self you created out of an untenable situation.

We falter when we can't look at our challenges, our failures, and our scars with clear eyes. We don't take stock of our brokenness to wallow there, weak and defeated. We do it to build a scaffold that we can climb up out of the muck and mire into another reality, a tomorrow where our wounds are our compass, our bodies can be free, and our hearts can sing a new song. —Kiini Ibura Salaam

When the World Wounds is 20% off until November 9th. For Vault members only, we have 13 signed copies. First come, first severed. https://thirdmanstore.com/kiini-ibura-salaam-when-the-world-wounds