Gwylan, Sally
Entry updated 7 August 2023. Tagged: Author.
(1953-2021) US author who attended the Clarion Science Fiction Writers' Workshop and began to publish work of genre interest with the Flash Fiction story "Salt" in The Infinite Matrix for 12 August 2002, followed by "In the Icehouse" (March 2003 Asimov's). The latter novelette forms part of her only novel A Wind Out of Canaan (2012), described on its title page as book one of the sequence Away Yonder; a projected second volume, «A Singing in the Bones», did not appear. A Wind Out of Canaan is set in the US Depression era and has as its protagonist a travelling female teenager who comes across a hobo camp or "jungle" run by closely humanlike outlanders. These people access their homeland "Canaan", seemingly a Parallel World better than miserable Earth, via portal Technology which then malfunctions disastrously; survivors of this accident, including one young outsider, trek across the US in search of a new refuge and another group of the visitors. Nuances of contemporary history and language are carefully researched; the storytelling is effective but, absent the intended sequel volume or volumes, ultimately unresolved. [DRL]
Sally Gwylan
born Texas, USA: 14 November 1953
died New Mexico: 8 October 2021
works
- A Wind Out of Canaan (Correo, New Mexico: Bird's Nest Press, 2012) [portion first appeared March 2003 Asimov's as "In the Icehouse": Away Yonder: pb/Sally Gwylan]
links
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