Blurb:
Who owns what you create?
Creation is a provocative exploration of what it means to be
free. Set in a dystopian future where creativity is exclusively harnessed for
the greater good, two artistically talented individuals remind us all never to
take for granted the product of our own work and imagination.
Creation is inspired by Ayn Rand’s Anthem and Kazuo Ishiguro's Never
Let Me Go.
Author’s Bio:
Kat is a young author living in Fort
Collins, CO. She graduated cum laude from the University of New Mexico with a
BA in English at age nineteen and is a master of procrastination and pizza
eating. She will soon query agents with her biggest and baddest novel, Flowers When You're Dead.
EXCERPT
“Beautiful. Just beautiful, Jess,” says Janet. She’s one of the Dancers. We’re required to watch other
Talent’s
performances or observe their works for inspiration, so she and I became fast
friends. Due to the
organization of our leisure room, I am acquainted with
many Creators whose names begin with J. “Just
what
I needed. You’ve
taken such a turn from your last work. What a fantastical land you describe. I
could dream
up a ballet on the city alone.”
Janet is right. A City of Twine is my best work, but only because
I did much pleading to be able to use the concept. I was supposed to be Creating
on the subject of Churches, but the idea of a City—a thing almost taboo in nature—was just too alluring. I asked
the Head of Focus, and he approved on the condition that Wessely was to paint
the city I envisioned. Of course Wes said yes, so I got my writing Slab and
began the inspiration process. I was allowed to look through all of the old
manuscripts with the Old Artist’s
projections of what a city might look like. It was thrilling.
“You
should,” I say. “If the HOF approves, you could
work with Kelly the Designer and Tim the Setter.
Wouldn’t
that be lovely?”
“Oh,
of course!” she says. “That would be utterly Creative.
Jess, you’re a shining star as always.”
I smile.
“Stars
sound so precious,” I say. “It’s a
shame they don’t exist. Can you picture what
life would be like with the things we’ve
Created?”
“Like
the permanent skin artwork,”
she giggles. “Wessely would do a fine job. Did
Turner say if it would hurt, or no?”
“It
would hurt,” I say, “because it uses sharp objects
called needles to put the ink under the skin.”
“How
perfectly horrible,” she says. She clutches at her
sides and makes a face. “Why would he dream up
such an awful thing?”
“I’m not sure,” I admit. Janet twists her light
blonde hair into a bun and knots it on the top of her head. “A
world without pain is a dull one. You know that.”
“Quite,” she says as she pulls off her
ballet shoes and points at her bruised and calloused feet. “But it’s
worth it for Creativity. James did a portrait of my
feet, did you know that? Just like this. It was wild. It has
never been done before. The HOF was pleased and gave
him an extension on the mountain moving piece.”
Oh, that mountain moving piece again. She’s gone on for days about it; how
striking and innovative the idea is of having one madeup Creation move another
madeup Creation.
I often wish mountains were real. A character of an
earlier manuscript climbed up a mountain, one that was terribly steep. I hadn’t a solution to make the mountain
any easier to climb, so the character never reached his destination. The idea
of taking those things Steven painted—he
calls them machines—and
using them to modify such a huge mound of Creation seems quite absurd, now that
I’ve been corrected. The HOF subdues
the complexity of our Creations if our ideas get too out of the ordinary, such
as when I wanted to split the mountain in half with a contraption called a saw.
Some sort of sharp tool or whatnot. Apparently, Tyler’s idea of a saw was much too
small to cut something so large down the middle, and by that time I had already
devised an alternate solution.
“Will
you and James have supper with Wessely and me tonight?” I ask. “I notice the two of you have sat
yourselves off alone lately. Collaborating on
something?”
“Oh,
no,” she says with a laugh. “We just enjoy our alone time with
one another. It’s hard to have a personal conversation
when the rest of the Creators are around, you know? Funnily enough, I plan to
coordinate a ballet with segments of silence. I’d
like that. Silence. Time to just listen and dance and twirl without the voices
of hundreds in your head.”
She stands up and raises her arms in the air, then
spins and smiles at the roof, her slightly crooked teeth
exposed. It makes me think of something I’d seen during one of my viewings.
Someone came up with the
idea that if small metal squares were glued to one’s teeth and were connected by a
metal wire, the teeth
could be straightened. It was ingenious, and although
we know nothing of the Technical realm, the concept seems like it should be
real. Braces, that’s what they are.
Giveaway
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