If you’ve been following my scribbles, then you already know that my story “Thief of Future” is available for free reading over at Lightspeed Magazine.  Also available is an author’s profile (by Robyn Lupo) in which I talk about the story setting and themes.  Something I didn’t talk about in the profile was the inspiration for the story. 

The central idea for “Thief of Futures” came out of a brainstorming session with my writing group, Hopefull Monsters (yes the extra “L” is not a mistake—at least that’s our story and we’re sticking with it!).  We were brainstorming things that could be stolen in a speculative-fiction story.  As is typical with brainstorming, the “ordinary” ideas came out first, but soon more interesting ones surfaced.  The idea that a thief could literally steal someone’s future was one of those ideas.  From there, Eshram, his daughter, Mr. Padwal, and Mr. Oduya quickly emerged.  The setting came with a major rewrite and was inspired by my travels through Indonesia, even though the setting of the story is actually Kuala Lumpur.  The rest, to be cliché, is history.

So if you haven’t already, check out “Thief of Futures” along with the other wonderful stories published in the in the September issue.  I hope you enjoy it.