I am so excited to announce the publication of my first novelette, Unbound!
This is the longest work I’ve ever had published, and I am so thrilled it is now live at the amazing Last Syllable.
What’s a ‘novelette’?
For those blessed enough to be unaware of industry slang, a novelette is generally defined as a work of fiction between 7,500 and 17,500 words. Unbound clocks in at about 17,300. It’s on the long end, but not quite long enough to be a novella, which is 17,500 to 40,000 words. Anything 40,000 and up is considered a novel.
So, Unbound is just less than half of a pretty short novel. It’s also divided up into mini chapters, so reading it all in one sitting is not required!
What’s it about?
Unbound follows Nerissa, the granddaughter and heir of Maia, a powerful coven leader. The day Nerissa finally ascends to the coven’s governing Inner Circle, Maia informs them they must travel beyond their forest’s borders to defeat a rogue wizard who endangers the entire world by the way he practices magic: unbound.
Unbound is about family, memory, loss, trauma, and identity. It’s about enmeshment, and the ways power can be stolen through fear. Really, it’s a story about deconstruction. About what happens when you realize the way you were taught to think about the world is actually…wrong.
Having pulled apart and reconstructed my own worldviews several times, I’m fascinated by the psychological processes of deconstruction. In Unbound, two characters undergo the deconstruction process, taking very different paths to get there, for very different reasons.
Trigger warnings?
Trigger warnings do apply. Religion isn’t discussed directly, but it was a huge inspiration, so those with religious trauma or who find the social dynamics present in high-control groups triggering may want to skip this one. Trigger warnings also apply for abuse in general, though most of it is referred to or takes place off page.
Warm fuzzies
One last thing. Last Syllable is a literary journal that specifically publishes long-form works, and it’s run by students getting their M.A.s in Writing. I feel lots of warm happy feelings about this, thinking about my own time in grad school studying writing. It was so formative for me, and I love that I (very indirectly) participated in someone else’s education experience. I’m so grateful to the student editor team that picked Unbound for publication!
I am incredibly proud of this story. I hope you take the time to check it out.
And, hey, if it isn’t your thing, maybe the next one will be.
Allison Wall 