Bordertown is a city on the edge between the human world and the realm of faerie. For over a decade, beginning in the mid-1980s, a variety of authors wrote a series of shared-world stories and novels set in or around that city. But there have been no new Bordertown stories for thirteen years—or in mythic terms: the Way to the Border has been closed, and nobody has gotten through. Until now.
When Ellen Kushner and Holly Black set out to launch a new anthology, Welcome to Bordertown, they gathered some of the most interesting writers in fantasy today. Included are new stories from writers who helped create Bordertown a quarter-century ago, mixed in with a lively variety of newcomers who grew up reading about Bordertown. The anthology has an exciting premise: while thirteen years have gone by in the human world, only thirteen days have passed inside Bordertown, and now young people are once again finding their way to the city, bringing cultural changes along with them. Their experience parallels that of the authors, arriving in established territory with a whole new range of ideas and ways of approaching fantasy.
In assembling their team, Kushner and Black made a point of finding writers who were familiar with Bordertown, so everyone involved in this anthology came to the project with a love of the place. That love comes through in the stories, and it came through when I asked a bunch of contributing authors about working on the book.
(For further introduction to the anthology, see the companion piece to this article, Running Away to Bordertown: An Interview with Holly Black, Ellen Kushner, and Terri Windling.)
—What excites you most about contributing to this project?
Revisiting one of the magical places I love, only this time not just as a reader or editor, but actually getting to play there myself.
"She wakes in an alley and can't remember how she got there. There is blood under her fingernails..." —Opening lines of "Gray," the very first Bordertown story, by Terri Windling (writing as Bellamy Bach)
Being able to appear in an anthology with so many writers whose work I have adored in my life. Sometimes I look at the table of contents and I am just blown away that my name could possibly be on the same page as these writers. My seventeen-year-old self has not stopped geeking out.
I read these books as a kid—and now I get to contribute to that world. It's awesome. Like being a kid listening to a band you love and later being invited to join them in a jam session. I get to make a tiny contribution to a shared world that takes up a lot of space in my head. It's like being invited to join in on someone else's dream.
The sense of community. I don't think I've ever felt so deeply a part of an anthology I've written for as with Bordertown. There really was a sense that we're not just contributors to this world but somehow a part of it—and working with the other writers to weave our stories together was a lot of fun, too.
Mostly I was just happy that it was making its return, and about the chance to read new stories set there. I decided to follow the journey of someone getting there this time—and that was what really interested me. With that out of my system, I find myself thinking about Bordertown itself again and hoping there'll be more opportunities to both write stories set there and read ones by other folks. I love what everybody brought to the table for this one.
Being asked! Bordertown is definitely in the contemporary fantasy Hall of Fame, and being asked to provide the art for the (as far as I can tell) first-ever comics story in that shared world is a pretty big deal. I grew up worshipping a lot of the writers first involved in Bordertown, so it's a thrill to be in a book alongside my teen idols. Working with the writer for the story, Sara Ryan, is a tremendous pleasure on any day of the week, so it was pretty much a dream job.
"I was a college student when I read the books for the first time, and they cracked open wide my sense of what you could do in fantasy. Reading about Bordertown was the first time I saw people like me in speculative fiction. Messed-up kids, making messed-up choices. I couldn't be a magician's apprentice, or a pig keeper who might or might not be a king's son with a prophecy hanging over my head. But I could, maybe, somehow, be part of a community of artists who loved magic..." —Holly Black, from her introduction to Welcome to Bordertown
I've been thinking a lot lately about the kind of fantasy settings that make readers want to crawl inside and inhabit them. And despite its dangers, Bordertown is definitely one of those places. There's something very powerful and compelling about the way Bordertowners claw and carve their way toward a place in the world, patchworking and jerry-rigging versions of family, community, home.
Getting to tell another Wolfboy story. I may love him more than any of the other characters I've created. What next excites me is the continuation of a world that's shared by many great writers, each adding their own perspective to Bordertown.
It was total bliss getting to write a story with Terri Windling again! Our last collaboration was "Mockery" in Bordertown (1986). Also, I've been in every single Bordertown anthology since the first one—so I'd hate to break a perfect record.
Being a part of the Bordertown community. To have my name among the names that populate my bookshelves is just tremendous; to have those names actually entering my inbox on an almost daily basis always gives me a moment of needing to assess my surroundings to make sure I haven't slipped across the Border myself.
Being able to contribute to something wonderful. I probably gave away or sold most of my Bordertown books before I realized how scarce they'd become, but I've owned them all at one point or another, and I never forgot the hours of enjoyment I had reading the stories, (sometimes critiquing them, but that for me is part of my enjoyment in reading). Bordertown introduced me to a bunch of great writers whose books I then sought out over the years. And when Ellen and Holly accepted my story, it gave me the opportunity to share a stage with some of the authors whose writing had been formative for me in my journey to becoming a writer. It allowed me to do so in a series I'd enjoyed. And it allowed me to inject into Bordertown some of the voices and experiences I'd wanted to see more of in the series as a reader. They'd been there, but often in the background. I got to bring a couple of them to the foreground and run with them.
And I got to mess with Bordertown in the finest Thieves' World tradition. Screaming Lord Neville was created by Ellen lo, those many years ago. He was all there; I just nudged him a little. Much to Ellen's delight, I must say. Stick and Lubin were created by fellow Canadian Charles de Lint in the original series, and what fun it was to write them into my story, to hint at a possible origin story for Stick, to simultaneously honour him for being one of Bordertown's first characters to be out as black—perhaps the first one—and to tease him for his standoffish ways! So much fun to dance with Lubin for the sheer joy of dancing, to give cameos to Ron Vasquez, Linden, and Leda. Not to mention tossing in the Wild Hunt (I put a tapir in there as one of the steeds for the sheer devildemented delight of putting South America on the page). And the Jou'vert (pr. jouVAY) Jamboree, as nods to both the Trinidad Carnival and Toronto's own Caribana Festival. And New Orleans, in the Mardi Gras-esque crews (krewes) and the jazz funeral theme of the festival. I had a ball injecting a riff on west African egunguns into the world of Faerie. And now it turns out there may even be a La Diablesse in Bordertown. I know some readers will be resistant to the elements I added into the mix, but that was ever the way with shared world anthologies.
I always wanted to go to Bordertown, and now I feel like I've been able to do that, in a way. When my character walked through Soho for the first time, it felt completely natural to me, like I was coming home. I loved the Bordertown stories so much, and read them all eagerly when they came out—just the idea of having my work next to these authors I admire is so amazing.
Getting to play with a whole new cast of characters. Professionally speaking, I came to the world only in Essential Bordertown, but it was a real plunge into the deep end, since I helped Terri edit the volume as well as writing a story for it. This time, Ellen was doing the editing and I was just writing a poem, but I still got to read everyone's thoughts about their stories and characters and the world and how it all fit together. It created a real sense of community—of Bordertown-ness, in fact.
Art by Tara O'Shea
—How have Bordertown stories affected your own imaginative landscapes?
"Okay, so you've found your way to Bordertown. That was probably hard, so hooray for you. But please, dear noobs, don't be naive: life here isn't easy, and you must keep your wits about you." —From "Bordertown Basics," Welcome to Bordertown
Bordertown stories from the past (and those I've read in the new anthology) always have this amazing effect on my perspective. I can remember reading Bordertown stories and looking up from the page to find certain familiar streets suddenly holding the possibility of leading me into new and strange places, where different people from the ones I knew lived. These kinds of urban fantasy stories have the effect of a revolving door. You go into a familiar building through the door, and when you come out, the world you left is very different. I think having our perceptions of the familiar world rearranged in this way is necessary for constant upkeep of clear vision.
I'm a total city girl—born in Tokyo, brought up in New York, lived in Boston. On one level, I've lived in Bordertown all my life. On another level—the level of artistic community—I'm always finding and re-finding it. Reading Bordertown made me think about how, in modern Fantasy, the city has taken over the role the Wild Wood played in old fairy-tales—a place where you lose and find yourself, where your life can depend on learning when to trust and when to hold back and how to resist temptation—or deal with the consequences of not resisting.
I read a lot of fantasy as a young person that took place (at least partially) in a modern world. The intersection of the familiar and the magical always captivated me. It made it that much easier to infuse my own comfortable, safe young life with dramatic possibility. As a result, I've always been most interested in creating stories that combine a "real" world (contemporary or historical) with elements of the fantastic or the bizarre.
That's what the imagination of childhood and adolescence feels like: that life could, at any moment, bust out with something terrifying and exciting. Pure fantasy or pure realism lack that freaky, "new kid" edge. I think Bordertown is meant to be an embodiment of that edge.
"From the first time I read the books, I knew that was what I wanted—to be a part of a community of artists.... It was Bordertown that inspired me to see the mythic and strange in the detritus and mundane trappings of the modern day." —Holly Black, from her introduction to Welcome to Bordertown
They've infused my sense of fantasy with a healthy dose of courage and patience and grit, I think. It was through these stories that I was first introduced to non-portal, non-secondary-world fantasy, to allow the possibility of finding wonder in cities and dirty alleys as well as forests and mountains.
I think that sense of writing about artistic types with a social conscience in a series where the background setting was the strongest connecting thread is probably what got me started with Newford. I'd always thought I'd gotten the idea from Marion Zimmer Bradley and Ed McBain, but in thinking about it, this is probably where it really came from.
Bordertown and the '80s/'90s wave of urban fantasy they were part of meant I "grew up" as a writer just assuming that of course magic could be part of the real world. Most of the fantasy I've published has in some way been tied to that world.
Broadened it, kicked it into a different gear. Not sure my book with Midori Snyder, Except the Queen, would have been written without Bordertown being there first.
I think the single biggest influence is the sense of music and art and a city all coming together to create magic. It's such a different view of fantasy than the more typical Robert Jordan style epics that I had been reading in my early teen years—and it's one that has weathered my journey to adulthood far better.
There's a separate part of my brain marked "Bordertown" where the angry outcasts go (the ones from the modern world, that is; the ones with cloaks & swords still go to Riverside!).
Most of my work has been contemporary fantasy—stories of everyday life, where the magical mingles with the mundane, ideally illuminating unexplored facets of both. I can trace my love of such stories directly back to Bordertown.
Art by Tara O'Shea
—If you can get to Bordertown, what do you hope to find there?
Good music and interesting creative people—what more could you ask for?
Good music, interesting conversations, and bad boys/girls (who have always fascinated me). Oh, and a bunch of writers hanging around in the interstices, just hungering like anthropologists in a local bar, to discuss what we've just encountered.
"Community" is my short answer—people who care about the same weird, passionate things I do—and, thinking about it, I realize that, paradoxically, because of the series and my relationship with the others writers I know both in the B-town opus and in the sf/f world, I already live there, in a Bordertown of the mind, that meets in all the strangest places, from a hotel corridor at Wiscon, to a big table in Grand Szechuan after each KGB reading, to a hot conversation on Livejournal. OK, I can't still be the impoverished kid who mooched floorspace from Pat McKillip at World Fantasy and slept happily on the floor all night there . . . but I'm glad I don't have to stay all the time in a stifling world where no one understands me, either.
The one thing Bordertown has that my own world doesn't is . . . magic. Real magic, the stuff of myths and paperback books stuffed into knapsacks. And a consensus popular culture that is about folklore and the mythic, the numinous, instead of the objectification and sexualization of pre-adolescent girls. At least, the parts I'd hang out in.
"[Bordertown is] the origin node for smart urban fantasy, a series I've returned to again and again, and recommended hundreds of times." —Cory Doctorow
A good used bookstore. You have to figure they've got some hard-to-find titles.
Music! Magic! And totally the best elfin silken shirts to wear with my leather jacket. Okay, that's part of it. I also hope to find my youth, my hair color, and my waistline. Ha! Ha! Anything can happen in Bordertown, right? Or maybe I could be someone—or something—else for a while. I fancy I see my husband and my cats there, already. My husband's hair is down to his waist again—funny how it grew overnight—-and my Siamese cats have points in pink and purple when they think no one is looking. Perhaps I can get a job at Elsewhere Books. Wolfboy won't mind if I work on my novel between customers. I can start a writing group with that young elf, Moss, if he can tear himself away from Lizzie once in a while. Perhaps we can write a murder mystery together or send some Truebloods into outer space.
Well, since I already have true love and assume Emma would be along on the trip, I gotta go with "great food, music, and company, not necessarily in that order." For me, going to Bordertown is about finding what really matters, which ultimately means making things you love with people you love.
Magic! Of course I hope to find magic, just like every other noob who makes their way to Bordertown. Though much of what I once would have run away to Bordertown looking for, I eventually found out in the World: true love, people who get and accept me in all my weirdness, ways of telling my stories. So maybe there's more magic than we think in the World, after all.
My friends—ones I've known for what seems like forever, like Wolfboy and Spark and Orient and Screaming Lord Neville and Charis—and Socks and Queen B. from my own story. Also new friends, like Beti and Fig and Peya. Oh, and definitely the Rowan Gentleman, in any of his incarnations. And Goblin Market (who have been practicing) playing at the Ferret, because that would be just so very, very cool.
Great food, and maybe a young couple on guitar singing "Shoot Out the Lights."
The kind of life where you can spend all your time talking about art and books and music, reading and dancing and drawing, with plenty of coffee and wine and beautiful views. (I do everything I can to make my own life like that, anyway.)
Took me a long time to figure out how to answer this question, because I don't want to run away to Bordertown. I never did. It fit me no better than life in the real world did. Hanging out with fairies and elves, were such a thing possible, would make me feel more alienated from self and culture, not less so. It would render me even less reflected in the world around me, not more so. Many of the writers of the earlier stories actively worked against that dilemma by trying to make the human denizens of Bordertown representative of a range of races, classes, and cultures, and I even remember one lesbian coming out story. That effort towards diversity was part of the reason I was able form any kind of lasting connection to the series at all. So that's one thing. The other is that I came to the Bordertown books as an adult. In effect, I had already run away from home, and was busily going about the process of trying to make my world fit me better. And with a whole lot of luck boosting my efforts, I've thankfully had a lot of success in making bits of my immediate world fit me better.
Perhaps that's why my protagonist doesn't run away to Bordertown; instead, the world around her gradually changes until she finds herself living on the Border, in the complex, constantly negotiated concessions and tensions amongst community/communities, belonging, exile and outsider/insider status that is the delightful, scary, risky, rewarding fact of life in border towns and experienced by hybridized people wherever they live; a fact of life with which she's already quite familiar, because of who she is and where she lives. That is why one of my favourite pendants of artist Mia Nutick's found-poem jewellery pieces about this new Bordertown anthology reads, "And your skin is a Bordertown story." In many ways, that's the kind of story that Bordertown exists in order to tell.
Familiar stories I've never heard, from familiar people I've never met.
Plenty more about Bordertown can be found at bordertownseries.com.