Holy shit, it's the last Wednesday of March. I almost forgot to post this. This is a bit of a different type of author appreciation post than I usually write, mainly because I'm only talking about short stories.

Kiini Ibura Salaam is an essayist, speculative fiction writer and painter from New Orleans. Her work is incredibly hard to describe, blending together sci-fi, fantasy, creative non-fiction, erotica. He work has been published in a number of different anthologies and she currently has two collections of short stories published.

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Ancient, Ancient is Salaam's first collection of short stories. I picked this up for bingo last year for the award winning square as it won the James Tiptree Jr. Award in 2012. I went in not knowing what to expect and wound up discovering one of the best books I read last year. Salaam's stories cover a wide variety of mythologies, characters, technologies, and narratives. Though out them all is an incredible sense of wonder and sensualism.

Three connected stories from this collection are available to read on Salaam's website.

• Of Wings, Nectar, & Ancestors

• MalKai's Last Seduction

• At Life's Limits

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When the Word Wounds is Salaam's second collection of short stories. It's a fair bit shorter than Ancient, Ancient but is tightly packed with fantastic fiction. It's not as strong a collection as Ancient, Ancient in my opinion but is still a fantastic read.

• Watch the book trailer for When the World Wounds

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Kinii Ibura Salaam is an author to read if you love short stories, like weird fiction, or are looking for something new and different. I'm excited to read her next work and see if she tries her hand at longer fiction.