Sins of the Father
At 9:15 a.m. on September 20, 2005, in a class on writing science fiction taught by Robert J. Sawyer in the Writing With Style program at the Banff Centre, I wrote the following opening lines, the exercise Rob set for us that morning:
Emily streaked through the phosphorescent sea, her wake a comet-tail of pale green light, her close-cropped turquoise hair surrounded by a glowing pink aurora. The water racing through her gill-slits smelled of blood.
My classmates thought it sounded interesting, so, as the week progressed, I turned that opening into this short story, “Sins of the Father.” However, I never submitted it anywhere. Before I got around to it, DAW picked up my novel Lost in Translation, originally published by Five Star, for a mass-market-paperback release,
