Alters Index
Your pinned navigational aid for the magazine
Welcome to your helpful Index. I like to be helpful. No need to be afeared!
I think she wants some ghost stories…
…Unfortunately I don’t really do ghost stories…
…Actually, I have recently delved into scary stories. Scroll to the end for the horror stuff. Warnings, though, of the trigger variety, are probably required because we’re talking real-world evil.
This, more than the Intro & Submissions Page, is where you want to come for navigating this Alters section. Now we are getting to the eclectic variety stage of Alters, it seems somewhat necessary. So I will be updating this page regularly and pinning it to the Section. Return here whenever you like!
Please note this Index is for the Alters section – the navigation page you want for the site itself is the About page, although each section itself does have its own pinned post, so you could just go there.
If you love the spec fic stuff I do, then you should seriously check out the Paschats section, which shall have an abundance of writing all set in the same, different place. Likewise there is my new Spec Fic section, and then there’s Unofficial Katy. This Alters section, from now on, is all the non-spec fic stuff.
Also, please feel free to leave comments and share and so on for the various pages in this section. Your feedback is gratefully received - improvements can be made! And if you really love what I do, please do consider going paid so I can do this for a living! And I will definitely try and give you what you desire.
Alternately, you could just feed my caffeine addiction by buying me a coffee!
Please note that for multipart stories, each episode also has a previous/next link embedded at the beginning/end as appropriate. The links from this page take you to the start of multiparters.
So, here is your Index, pretty much in chronological order of publishing, with a brief description where required.
Primary stories and features
Intro & Submissions Page – does what it says on the tin.
D-Zero Meson Oscillation (in 10 episodes) – here is the intro, and here is Episode I. This is the first version of the Katrina origin story. Although the characters are the same, I wanted to make the final version more psychologically believable. But I do like this story – it’s great fun, with an affectionate poke at fan fiction. Call it postmodern irony.
Please note I’ve moved this story to the Spec Fic section, as it is part of my Immigration Control collection. I’m leaving the above paragraph and link up here, though, as it’s such a crossover and it relates to the rest of the publication. It was also the first story I ever posted here on my Substack, so I’m sort of nostalgic and wistful about it.
Saturday Pomes & Words – the first one from 10/03/2024 is here. Again - previous and next links are embedded (although you could jump in anywhere). This was going to be a Sunday thing, but then I switched to doing Fairytales on Sundays, so now this hopefully regular Saturday feature consists in little ditties & poetry, offbeat observations, bits ‘n bobs of what they now call ‘flash fiction’ (and non-fiction), and, well, oddities, I suppose. Instead of flash fiction, I call them vignettes and sketches. Please do offer feedback on these ones, so I know what kind of things you like, and what you’re not too keen on. And, sure, what you might even like to see! Hmm, perhaps some little comedy skits?
Probably best I provide all the links for this feature, as it’s so eclectic and there’s quite a lot of it now. So, in chronological order:
1/ 10/3/2024 This one is a few little ditties by Alison, with dragons
2/ 17/3/2024 This one by Alison is ‘The Story of the Elders’, a lovely little bit of magical realism, and something which really did happen in our garden
3/ 24/3/2024 This is Alison’s poem ‘A Cautionary Tale for Young Kittens’ - this should be in an anthology of cat poems, definitely
4/ 31/3/2024 More cats for you - these are two related sketches by me from my Juvenilia, one about a Burman cat and another about what gods want. It’s kind of allegory/metaphor for the beginning and the ending of life. There’s also a fair amount of autobiography in the intro
5/ 7/4/2024 This is two poems by me, ‘Respite’, and ‘Old White Lion’ - these are from my Kundalini collection (see below); specifically they are poems eighteen & nineteen in the collection (there’s twenty-five in total)
6/ 20/4/2024 This seems to be where I switched from Sunday to Saturday! This is a short, humorous and ironic little ghostly vignette/sketch called, erm, ‘A Ghost’
7/ 25/5/2024 Here is a little guest post by Katrina, as it happens, in which she writes about writing and how, contrary to the usual writing advice, you should ‘never kill your darlings’
8/ 1/6/2024 This is an amusing little thing by Alison about some questions for an English Baccalaureate
9/ 27/7/2024 This is a short story, around 3,000 words, called ‘How to Feel Better’, which is a kind of delicious postmodern Kafkaesque pastiche; every writer who is a writer will relate to this, trust me
10/ 17/8/2024 This is a little selection of fragments, or what some call ‘microfiction’, again from my Juvenilia - these are quite amusing, if surreal
11/ 02/11/2024 These are two new poems (well, the first one is song lyrics, but they’re both poetic, so there). This was after the encouraging response I got to my poetry, which gives me the confidence to bare my soul for all to see, so to speak
If you enjoy my poetry, then the following is an extra one which I decided to post spontaneously when I was in a bit of a mood. Normally it would go in the Pomes & Words of course. Click here for the link to these two poems, which kind of have a passionate nautical thing going on. That’s from 17/10/24, and those two are also part of my Kundalini collection.
On the back of that, by which I mean the positive response I got from many of my lovely readers (thank you!) I decided to post more of my poetry. Specifically, I have two completed collections from some twenty years ago (2004, that is), called Kundalini, and The New (I was listening to a lot of Interpol at the time). So I am starting with Kundalini. Here is the link to the first three poems. Those two from the previous paragraph are also from Kundalini, as are the ones from 7/4/24 in Pomes & Words. Kundalini Four to Six is there.
I should also mention that I have published this collection, although only as an e-book for now. Please check this link to purchase a copy (for the price of only one of your caffeine-infusions!). The book version has a fair few extras in it, not published here on my Substack, just so as you know!
12/ 23/11/2024 Whilst we’re on the subject of Kundalini, this edition is just one, very short, but lovely little poem called Fibonacci Five, which was excerpted from some of the other poems in the collection using the Fibonacci sequence. It’ll make more sense when you read it, trust me
13/ 07/12/2024 This is my first batch of microdosing (thanks to Miguel S. The Fiction Dealer for that) - essentially it’s just fragments. These ones kind of form part of my afterlife-themed stuff (and see below for more). I have more fragments like this prompted by Miguel, and some of these will form later Pomes & Words
14/ 21/12/2024 This is another batch of humorous fragments from Miguel’s prompts, with a loose theme of ‘Visitors’
15/ 22/02/2025 This is four more poems from the Kundalini collection, specifically numbers seven to ten
16/ 01/03/2025 This is three more poems from the Kundalini collection, Thirteen to Fifteen. If you like your poems a bit dark then you may like them. Yes, I know the whole collection is a little dark, but hey…
17/ 08/03/2025 And here we are with poems Sixteen & Seventeen
18/ 15/03/2025 This one is poems Twenty to Twenty-Two
19/ 22/03/2025 And here are the last three in the collection! Twenty-Three to Twenty-Five; this one also give you details about the e-book, which you can happily purchase, I hope…
20/ 12/04/2025 This some amusing microfiction fragments; and some lovely ditties by Alison
21/ 19/04/2025 More microfiction fragments
22/ 24/05/2025 Even more microfiction fragments (although there’s a little poem in there too for this one)
For some more poetry which I wrote more recently, there is:
Two angry ones from beginning of April 2025.
Fault Lines from 25 April 2025
I left my heart in the galactic core from 14 May 2025
I’ll add some more in this little section as and when.
Now I can add to it. I started posting selected poems from my second collection, The New, which was written around the same time as Kundalini. So that selection starts here with #1, Death would be a Masterplan.
#2 is The Whore Opening, which is a bit-sized bit of playfulness.
Fairytale Sunday – the first one from 14/04/2024 is here. This originated when I decided to do something about fairytales for Sunday Pomes & Words, but then realised it could, and should, be a regular feature in itself. As such, I will still do some Pomes & Words, but I won’t restrict myself to Sundays (it’s now going to be Saturdays). I am intending the fairytales feature to alternate between the kind of lecture you wished you could’ve had at University and an actual story in the fairytale mode.
So far, here are the topics I’ve covered:
1/ 14/4/2024 Eat the Apple! A slightly offbeat take on what kind of stories make for a fairytale; I also talk a little about feminist critique of fairytales and the Freudian analysis. The main tale I discuss here is Red Riding Hood.
2/ 21/4/2024 This is a postmodern, slightly disturbing Fairytale, a short vignette (around 1100 words) by me from my Juvenilia called ‘An Optician’s Tale’, with an acknowledged nod to Octavio Paz’ ‘The Blue Bouquet’.
3/ 28/4/2024 This one is about Sleeping Beauty, with a little dissociation.
4/ 23/6/2024 In this edition I discuss the classical influence on fairytales, specifically with regards to the Orpheus and Eurydike story. It also contains an old essay of mine from my university days about Herbert Marcuse’s Eros and Civilisation. This one is quite long, but it’s a rewarding read.
5/ 11/8/2024 Staying with the classical theme, this one is actually a few topical observations on the controversy surrounding a certain sequence in the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. I timed it to coincide with the final day of the Games. The fairytale in question here is The Judgement of Paris.
6/ 8/9/2024 Now we’re going all the way back to Atlantis for this edition. These fairytales are the oldest stories in human history (which I also touched upon in the very first Fairytale Sunday). I think this one is lovely - this is Stories my Mother Taught me. It’s actually one of my favourite all-time posts from my Substack.
On a related note, there is a short story in the Paschats section called The Younger Horus, which reads like a fairytale. If you liked the Atlantis one, you will like that story too, I’m sure. This one also got an honourable mention in the Lunar Awards Season 8.
An Affair with ChatGPT – Episode I stars here. This is where I pursue a somewhat sinister but admittedly frivolous agenda of employing something akin to the Socratic Method in a vain attempt to provoke self-awareness in this machine. Or bring out a ghost. Or something. Episode I, which was prompted by a Lunar Awards prompt, was about getting ChatGPT to write a story with an AI character in it, so we can see what its view of AI/itself actually is. That seems like a valid starting point. Anyhow, I am hoping this is going to be a very interesting little project/journey/experimental indulgence.
[update on this score: although I have a fair few archived conversations about all this, ChatGPT has this annoying tendency to waffle on with its lists of both sides of arguments. So a lot of these conversations end up being far too long for a Substack post. I could edit them, of course, but that’s tiresome. So for now, this intended feature is in pause mode, shall we say. I might get around to resuming it at some point. Then again, I may not. That first one is quite interesting, though.]
Little speculative fiction fragments and one-offs - These are little things that I just, I don’t know, get an idea in my head and then write them. They are usually very short pieces which I call fragments. I have an aversion to terms like ‘microfiction’ and ‘flash fiction’, so my take is anything up to about 300 words is a fragment, 300 to say 1000 is a sketch, up to 2000 is a vignette, then anything beyond that is a short story.
There are a number of such things in the Pomes & Words series, but I’ve also done some standalone pieces. So these include, so far, without description, because they’re too short for description:
My Best Wish and a Million Orbits
Hopefully there will be more to come.
In fact, on reflection these three all have a kind of Afterlife theme to them, and they turned out really well, so I am minded to continue writing fragments with that theme. Especially after subscribing to The Fiction Dealer. With regards to Afterlife themed stories, see also Never Seen Stars (in the Spec Fic section). Also, this Journal entry from Katrina touches on the same theme. The Fairytale Sunday about Orpheus & Eurydike obviously likewise addresses that theme.
Although these do have a speculative fiction element to them, I’ve decided to leave them here as fragments in the Alters section.
Coming soon - seeing as this section is called ‘Alters’, it’s about time I started writing some non-fiction stuff about dissociation, and other related psychological issues, which, naturally, pertain somewhat to my self. Or selves, even… It also relates to Katrina’s story, equally naturally.
Update: I started this series, which I’ve called My Psych Profile. Part I starts at that link. To date there are 3 parts.
On a related note, there is also a real-life horror story, which I should warn you is not for the fainthearted, as it is based on my own memories. It’s called Child Game Hunts, a terror sketch you can read there.
Continuing with the real-world horror theme, I wrote some more little vignettes/sketches. These are a sort of flashback/back story sequence from my Katrina series.
Skinner Box, in which little Katyusha enters phase two of the mind control training. There is also the non-fiction background to that story, Inside the Skinner Box, where I talk a little about the CIA’s MKULTRA series of behavioural (operant) conditioning experiments (Subprojects 68 and 136 are the specific ones). Skinner Box was my contribution to the TiF Small & Scary horror story special, which has some superb writing to be discovered.
TiF followed this up with a Friday 13th gathering, based on the theme of Eye See You. My contribution stays with Katyusha and is called Ivan Sees You, which you can read there.
Great pic !
This 'live' pinned index by themes/topics is a great idea. I'm almost up to my 100th post but so far have only provided a summary of my different writing forms. I might give doing it this way a try.