Toil & Trouble

by Jessica Spotswood

  TESS SHARPE (editor) is the author of the Young Adult mystery Far From You and the feminist thriller for adults Barbed Wire Heart. She lives in the backwoods with a pack of dogs and a cabal of slightly feral forest cats. Her favorite witch is Morgan Rowlands from the Sweep series.

  LINDSAY SMITH is the author of the YA novels Sekret, Skandal, Dreamstrider, A Darkly Beating Heart, and the Saints of Russalka trilogy, and is the lead writer and showrunner for Serial Box’s The Witch Who Came In From the Cold. Her fiction and comics work has appeared on Tor.com and in the anthologies A Tyranny of Petticoats and Strange Romance Volume 3. She lives in Washington, DC, with her husband and dog, where she writes on foreign affairs. She watched The Craft way too many times while growing up in Oklahoma, which was nothing and everything like the Sawtooths.

  JESSICA SPOTSWOOD (editor) is also the editor of the feminist historical anthologies A Tyranny of Petticoats and The Radical Element. She is the author of the Cahill Witch Chronicles and the contemporary novels Wild Swans and The Last Summer of the Garrett Girls. Jess lives in Washington, DC, where she works as a children’s library associate for the DC Public Library. Her favorite literary witch is Luna Lovegood.

  NOVA REN SUMA is the author of A Room Away from the Wolves and the #1 New York Times bestselling The Walls Around Us, which was a finalist for an Edgar Award and was named the #1 Kids’ Indie Next Pick for Spring 2015 and a Best Book of 2015 by the Boston Globe, NPR, School Library Journal, the Chicago Public Library, and The Horn Book. She also wrote the novels Dani Noir, Imaginary Girls, and 17 & Gone. She teaches at Vermont College of Fine Arts and lives in New York City. Her favorite literary witch from childhood is Dorrie the Little Witch, who often wore two mismatched striped socks, like Nova does today.

  ROBIN TALLEY is the New York Times bestselling author of five novels for teen readers: Pulp, Our Own Private Universe, As I Descended, What We Left Behind, and Lies We Tell Ourselves. Her short stories have also appeared in the young adult collections A Tyranny of Petticoats, Feral Youth, and All Out. Her first book, Lies We Tell Ourselves, was the winner of the inaugural Amnesty CILIP Honour and short-listed for the CILIP Carnegie Medal and the Lambda Literary Award. Her favorite fictional witch is Ursula in The Little Mermaid.

  SHVETA THAKRAR is a writer of South Asian–flavored fantasy, a social justice activist, and a part-time nagini. Her work can be found in a number of anthologies and magazines, including A Thousand Beginnings and Endings, Beyond the Woods: Fairy Tales Retold, Uncanny Magazine, and Faerie Magazine. When not spinning stories about spider silk and shadows, Shveta crafts, devours books, daydreams, draws, travels, bakes, and occasionally even plays her harp. Wise and/or wicked women who work magic are all dear to her heart, but if she has to pick a favorite, she really likes Granny Weatherwax and daayan and the Snow Queen and Kiki and...

  BRENNA YOVANOFF is the author of a number of young adult novels, including Places No One Knows, the New York Times bestseller The Replacement, and Paper Valentine, which was named a best book of the year by the Boston Globe and NPR. She lives in Denver, where she regularly cooks beef heart. Her favorite witch is Baba Yaga.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Creating a book is always a team effort, and that’s especially true for an anthology. Jess and Tess would like to thank:

  Jim McCarthy, our amazing agent, for jumping into our DMs and encouraging us to take this from a Twitter conversation to a real book, and for all of his wise counsel along the way.

  Michael Strother, for his contagious excitement and for initially acquiring the project.

  T. S. Ferguson, for his witchy enthusiasm, insightful edits, and championing the book in-house.

  Copy editor Libby Sternberg, for catching all our mistakes, and managing editor Kristin Errico, for keeping us on track.

  Cover designer Erin Stein, for a gorgeous witchy cover that represents the collection so beautifully.

  Siena Koncsol, Shara Alexander, Linette Kim, Bryn Collier, Evan Brown, and Krista Mitchell, for helping our book connect with its readers.

  Booksellers, librarians, and educators, for getting books into readers’ hands. You are amazing.

  Tehlor, Andrea, Lindsay, Brandy, Shveta, Robin, Nova, Zoraida, Brenna, Kate, Anna-Marie, Emery, and Elizabeth, for trusting us with your stories. They are beautiful and fearsome and magical in all the best ways, and we are so honored to work with you.

  Our patient and loving partners, who were not at all unnerved by all the revenge going on in this anthology.

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  ISBN: 9781489267429

  TITLE: TOIL & TROUBLE: 15 TALES OF WOMEN & WITCHCRAFT

  First Australian Publication 2018

  Copyright © 2018 Jessica Spotswood & Tess Sharpe

  All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher:

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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