I Hereby Proclaim Holly Phillips Queen of the Universe

I don't know why Holly Phillips hasn't been proclaimed Queen of the Universe. Okay, maybe I'm getting a little carried away, but her short stories are just so spellbinding, so gorgeously written, that I have to talk about them just a little.

I have purchased four copies of Holly's 2005 collection In the Palace of Repose and have given three of them away to friends. "Here," I tell them, "You can thank me later. Remember me in your will."

How did I wind up with four copies? I bought one at last year's World Fantasy Convention, after hearing Phillips read one of her unpublished stories that left me delightfully stunned for the next hour or so. Since then, our library system has steadily withdrawn copies of the book and I've been buying and giving them out each time they do. I figure I might as well put them in the hands of my friends who appreciate good writing.

Right now I'm studying the story "Pen & Ink," which I'll have much more to say about in a later post. But for now, just what is it that makes Holly Phillips all that?

Phillips writes with a haunting elegance that makes you want to wrap yourself in each story. She's obviously read a lot of poetry, but unlike some writers, the story is elevated (and not hindered) by the language.

Here's a brief example. In "Pen & Ink," Cezanne, a young girl at art school, has been stealing paintings for a man she calls "the curator." Here, Cezanne is sitting outside the restrictive girls' school she has sneaked away from for three days, only to be returned to it against her will.

The lawns were groomed even during the winter, but the band of trees that bordered the wall was half wild, a circle of woodland where leaves were allowed to lie where they fell. Waiting, Cezanne sat on a punky stump and sketched the skeletons of maple leaves while a chill breeze toyed with the edges of the paper and flipped the hem of her uniform skirt above her knees. A shadow fell across the page. She looked up, pen in hand.

Even before Phillips tells the reader, we know this is an appearance of the curator. The chill breeze also hints that each time Cezanne steals for the curator, he's actually violating her in a cruel, heartless way. The paragraph also illustrates how appearances are kept up at the school and where the limitations lie.

These are wonderful stories, some of them heartbreakingly wonderful. Be on the lookout for Phillips. After all, she could be our next queen.