inflorescence (n): from the Latin inflorescere — a beginning to bloom
inflorescence publishing is born from two decades of publishing for and with others. Here I stand boldly in front of my own writing — both legacy and other weirder literary adventures.
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Members of my Constellation also have the opportunity to shape future narratives through the Brain’s Trust (eg. naming characters, adding musical flourishes and other details).
New in 2024
This Once Precious Life & Other Stories
short story collection
ISBN 978-0-6486271-3-5
eISBN 978-0-6486271-2-8
Pages: 326
Formats: Hardback & ebook
Release Date: 10th February, 2024
Price: Hardback ($45+p&h) / Ebook $8.99
We were all once precious. Whole. Untouched by the dark edges of life. Hearts without fractures. Spirits with fire and faith.
Minds with thoughts unshattered.
But nothing is as it seems and everything is fleeting.
Our bodies break, distort and are erased by forces beyond us. Our hearts stretch and tear with untimely exits and unscheduled entrances. Terrifying possibilities and unwilling certainties
split our minds. And our spirits suffocate in lives squandered by chaos, conformity and regret.
Cleghorn’s characters live through this and more.
They can be found in contemporary Brisbane suburbs, as well as in deep space and bleak futuristic regimes. From station platforms to a space stations to stationary racks of wombs, you will find them navigating grief woven through longing, love spliced with betrayal, compassion cut with rage and discovery intersecting the horrific.
The stories of This Once Precious Life cross genres and forms, encompassing everything from vignettes to novellas. With a stunning array of voices and an appetite for the monstrous and vulnerable, Cleghorn’s stories encompass the paradox of her writing life; neither here nor there, but in all places at once.
FOREWORD (Marion Taffe)
VIGNETTES (tiny moments)
555
it could be
oksana
shipwrecked
MICRO & FLASH FICTION (brevity at its finest)
she would be grass
closure
no need to reply
taping lydia
the man who would
to the boy of my heart
SHORT STORIES (of the literary persuasion)
nothing new to begin
rapunzel is not here
first to a hundred
graceville
at arm’s length
SHORT STORIES (of the speculative fiction bent)
if only you’d been nice
kissed by the sun
firefly epilogue
the meek shall inherit the earth
womb-of-mine
the leaves no longer fall
NOVELETTES & NOVELLAS (dark weird shit at its best)
elyora
the starling requiem
this once precious life
AFTERWORD (Lily Mulholland)
Elyora
novella
eISBN 978-0-6486271-0-4
Pages: 95
Formats: ebook
Release Date: TBA
Price: $2.99 (buy via Kindle)
Short-listed Aurealis Awards, best short horror 2012
When Jo, Hal and Benny arrive in Elyora the absence of takeaway coffee is the least of their problems. At each other’s throats and without transportation, phone service or somewhere to stay, they accept the hospitality of the enigmatic Lazarus at the original Elyora homestead.
As day turns to night, the sanctuary of the rambling house becomes a terrifying alternate reality of memories peeling back onto themselves to expose secrets and paranoia dating back to 1942.
To escape Elyora and return to 2012, Jo must remember who she is and find Benny and Hal before they succumb to the same fate as those who came before them.
First published as Elyora by Review of Australian Fiction (2012)
Published digitally as River of Bones by Endeavour Press (2013)
Amazon (Aus) #1 (Horror) & #13 (Bestsellers)
The Starling Requiem
novelette
eISBN 978-0-6486271-1-1
Pages: 46
Formats: ebook
Release Date: TBA
Price: .99c (buy via Kindle)
Short-listed Aurealis Awards, best science fiction novella, 2018
Anikó has a new life as an author, supported for a year by a meager grant. By day, she writes the novel the Government commissioned. By night, she writes a novel the Government would never endorse.
To stave off loneliness and hunger, she joins a study mapping the neural pathways of narratives, and it is there, in the Science Partition, she meets the enigmatic and paranoid E. When E goes missing, Anikó is forced to walk the liminal space between her old life and new to find him.
The search unearths cutting-edge, pre-revolution technology that promises both resurrection and revolt in the real and imagined worlds.
First published, eMergent Publishing, 2018
THIS ONCE PRECIOUS LIFE (novelette)
At the edge of the known universe Dr Thaleia Halligan is in search of life. This time though, she returns from deep space with something unexpected, something dark and unseen stowed away.
When feelings for her new field medic threaten more than just late night security protocols on Eridani research station, she retreats into the turmoil of her body of memories.
At odds with her indentured past and trapped in the violence unfolding within her, she must finally choose life or death. But this time, it will be by her own hand.