For 50 years, the International Wizard of Oz Club’s Oziana has been publishing short fiction and art related to the Land of Oz series, which itself turned 120 this year. The newest issue is out now on Lulu.com, and I have had some time to read and digest it, so I thought I would provide my assessment of it here, without giving away too many spoilers of course.
Cover Art - “120 Years of Oz” by Able Tong
Ooh such a pretty cover, don’t you think? It makes me want to see an animated Oz movie using these designs.
“Zinnia’s Wish“ by Suren Oganessian
Eh I don’t know about this story. It just didn’t do it for me. Sounds like it was written by some talentless hack with too much time on their hands. Wicked and Dorothy Must Die did “dark and edgy” Oz first. How unoriginal.
Oh wait, this was my story!
Haha, yes, I may have mentioned on this blog earlier that my story was going to be in Oziana this year, marking my debut. Now that this is out I think I can start talking more candidly about my Oz stories. This story got second place in the International Wizard of Oz Club fiction contest in 2019, which was a great honor.
In the story, the fact that you are unable to die in Oz takes a horrifying turn when my main character Zinnia gets buried alive under an avalanche for decades. After finally digging her way out, she sets out to make death possible in Oz. The story was something I started to come up with about two years ago when I was working at a call center with nothing to give me joy in between calls but Oz books on Gutenberg.org. One of Baum’s many gimmicky communities in Oz, the Flutterbudgets of the sixth book, who have excessive anxiety, struck a cord in me for their relatability whatever reason. So I decided to build a story around one of them. Although I do have a lot to say about the story I can’t very well give it an unbiased review. I will say that the short story version which appears here is a very early draft, inhibited by the 10,000 word limit of the fiction contest. It’s a short story that wants to be a novel. Keeping it under the word limit was a special challenge. I have a finished draft of the full novel version now (the events of this story, which have been expanded upon and changed a little, take up maybe the first third of the entire story), and am gradually working on a sequel. I believe the best way to tell a darker Oz story is not to change Oz itself, but to look for the imperfections in canon Oz from the books. Oz is a flawed utopia.
Mitchell Mayle was chosen to illustrate, and he did a very good job. Zinnia even made the back cover thanks to him! I was thrilled at this; a character born in my mind gracing the back cover of anything is a very surreal feeling. It feels good to be published again for the first time in a long time.
Zinnia; the only Goth in Oz.
A Use for Jack’s Pumpkins
This is just a recipe for pumpkin pie. I should try it this year and see how it turns out.
“Dinner at the Del” by Robert Baum
In this story, L. Frank Baum is visited by a sea captain who seems oddly familiar to those who may have read his books The Sea Fairies, Sky Island, and The Scarecrow of Oz. Was this a real person who helped inspire these stories? And if he was real, then was Oz perhaps real too? Was L. Frank Baum actually writing nonfiction instead of fantasy? Robert Baum is L. Frank Baum’s descendant, perhaps he has access to secret family records, and this is a true story! Can I leave for Oz now that I have unlocked this hidden truth?
“The Wizards of Silver and Gold in Oz” by Nathan DeHoff and Joe Bongiorno
I have a weak spot for stories about dragons, and this one was right up my alley. This story is very much in the vein of Ruth Plumly Thompson’s Oz books, and it probably helps to be familiar with them when reading this story. In the story the Munchkin King has taken a three year vacation (not a long time when you’re immortal I suppose), leaving the Scarecrow to rule in his place. The Scarecrow is then visited by one of his old acquaintances from the Silver Islands (this is where it would pay to be familiar with Thompson’s The Royal Book of Oz) who warns of an impending invasion of Oz. This is a three chapter story, with the promise of a continuation in next year’s issue. I am eager to see what happens next in the story.
“Polychrome’s Sky School” by Paul Dana
Paul Dana wrote a wonderful four-book series of Oz books starring the characters Ojo and Button-Bright which I read and thoroughly enjoyed not long ago, so to be in the same publication with him was certainly a treat! This very short piece involves Polychrome, a “daughter of the Rainbow” who lives in the clouds and appears in several Oz books, notably being the subject of some of John R. Neill’s greatest illustrations, and in fact this story is accompanied by a very pretty illustration of her by Sam Milazzo. Polychrome is trying to learn magic to be better prepared for the next time she returns to solid ground. And if you like puns, this is the story for you! It would have made Ruth Plumly Thompson proud.
I recommend picking this magazine up and giving it a read! In fact I need to read upon past issues as well, several of which are also still listed on Lulu.
https://www.lulu.com/en/en/shop/marcus-mebes/oziana-2020/paperback/product-wq98jd.html
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