We welcome Candice Roma to the pages of Swords Against! with her sword & sorcery & black powder story the Bone Compass. Go sign up at Backerkit today to be notified when we launch.
Candice Roma is one the best pure storytellers I’ve ever encountered. When you read her work, you’re not just reading a story, you inhabit the characters she creates. I first met her in a writing group in Austin, Texas, and I was captivated by her latest project, a body-horror novel. I’m really looking forward to that forthcoming work, but in the meantime I tricked her into writing a friggin’ great sword-and-sorcery-and-blackpowder story called the Bone Compass for this magazine. And I know you’re going to love it.
Candice Roma has been working with words in some capacity since she graduated from Dartmouth College with a BA in English with Creative Writing in 2001. In 2004, she graduated from the University of Notre Dame with an MFA in Creative Fiction. For the next 20 years, she worked in various roles in the publishing industry, such as an intern for literary agent David Hale Smith, a production editor for a book packaging company, and as a developmental and copy editor of both fiction and nonfiction. Recently, Candice has returned to her first love of writing. She is currently working on a novel. This short story is her first published work.