"Bordertown is one of the most important places where Urban Fantasy began." - Neil Gaiman
"The original node for smart Urban Fantasy." - Cory Doctorow
Bordertown is shared-world Urban Fantasy series for teen readers. A "shared-world" series is written by multiple authors, telling stories set in the same milieu -- in this case, a modern, ravaged, multi-ethnic city on the border of the Faerie Realm. Bordertown: a place where runaway kids, from both sides of the border, come to make new lives. Where neither magic nor technology work they way they should. And where nothing is quite as it seems....
To learn more about the series: How We Got to the Border: the history of Bordertown.
Bordertown Anthologies:
Borderland
Co-edited with Mark Alan Arnold
New American Library & Tor Books
The book that began it all, with stories by Steven R. Boyett, Charles de Lint, Ellen Kushner, and me (writing under the shared pseudonym Bellamy Bach*).
"A dreamland of rock and roll glamour, punk elves, and alienation raised to high style."
- Locus Magazine
Bordertown
Co-edited with Mark Alan Arnold
New American Library & Tor Books
More stories of the border by Emma Bull, Ellen Kushner, Will Shetterly, Midori Snyder, and me.
“There is something about a punked-out, mohawked elf in a leather jacket that shatters the Tolkien mold, that allows the characters to be different, to be apart from the previous mythologies....The chronicles of the Borderlands are heartily recommended.” - Different Worlds
Life on the Border
Tor Books
More stories of the border by Emma Bull, Kara Dalkey, Charles de Lint, Craig Shaw Gardener, Michael Korolenko, Ellen Kushner, Will Shetterly, Midori Snyder, and me.
“Life on the Border turns the volume to 11, cranking up the energy and enthusiasm as the authors really hit their groove. It’s like the song right before intermission, when the music’s clearly gotten into the blood, and everyone’s dancing….This volume is one of the best in an outstanding series.” - The Greenman Review
The Essential Bordertown: A Traveller's Guide to the Edge of Faerie
Co-edited with Delia Sherman
Tor Books
New stories (and a Bordertown travel guide!) by Steven Brust, Charles de Lint, Michael Korolenko, Elisabeth Kushner, Ellen Kushner, Patricia A. McKillip, Felicity Savage, Delia Sherman, Midori Snyder, Ellen Steiber, Caroline Stevermer, Donnard Sturgis, and Micole Sudberg.
"Irresistible: this is what the universe ought to be like." - Interzone
Welcome to Bordertown
Edited by Holly Black & Ellen Kushner
Random House
A new generation goes to the border; Christopher Barzak, Holly Black, Steven Brust, Cassandra Clare, Cory Doctorow, Amal El-Mohtar, Neil Gaiman, Nalo Hopkinson, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Annette Curtis Klause, Dylan Meconis, Tim Pratt, Sara Ryan, Janni Lee Simner, Catherynne M. Valente, and Jane Yolen spin new tales of the city along with original Bordertown writers Emma Bull, Charles de Lint, Ellen Kushner, Patricia A. McKillip, Delia Sherman, Will Shetterly, and me.
"This is over 500 pages of fiction and poetry, revisiting the Bordertown setting which helped lay the groundwork for today’s urban fantasy bonanza. Not only have many of the original contributors showed up for another go-around, but they’re joined by a fair number of today’s hottest writers, those who pretty much GREW UP with Bordertown. This isn’t a rehashing of the old days, this is a love-fueled rock n’ roll continuation and updating where a new generation meets the old gang. (And in my opinion, they came up with a perfectly appropriate way to make those intervening 13 years between installments seem like 13 day...heheheheh.)" - Michael M. Jones
"This anthology brings together many series favorites, as well as a host of amazing additions who offer up stories and poems in what is still the best mash-up of music, faery and coming-of-age drama." - Colleen Mondor
"This is punk-rock, DIY fantasy, full of harsh reality and incandescent magic." - Kirkus (starred review)
"Bordertown has reopened to a new generation of runaways, misfits, and dreamers." - School Library Journal (starred review)
Bordertown Novels:
Elsewhere by Will Shetterly
Jane Yolen Books/Harcourt Brace & Tor Books
Winner of the Minnesota Book Award
Nominated for the Locus & Mythopoeic Awards
“A hard-edged vision, sharp as a knife-blade, a borderline where punk and funk mix with Blake and Yeats, and Faerie is not as we might expect.” - Lloyd Alexander
NeverNever by Will Shetterly
Jane Yolen Books/Harcourt Brace & Tor Books
“A delightfully funny book...even better than the first.” - VOYA
Finder by Emma Bull
Tor Books
“Combines gritty realism with a fey otherwordliness to produce a suspenseful and entrancing blend.” - School Library Journal
Welcome to Bordertown: Special Edition Audio Book
Brilliance Audio
Short-listed for theAudie Award
This audiobook edition is narrated by Cassandra Campbell, with MacLeod Andrews, Holly Black, Steven Brust, Dounya El-Mohtar, and Ellen Kushner. This edition features original music by Drew Miller (of the legendary folk-rock band Boiled in Lead) -- including a fully-produced track of the song "Run Back Across the Border' by Steven Brust, with the author himself on lead vocals; and Neil Gaiman reading his own poem, "The Song of the Song." Go here for more information.
The Random House book trailer for Welcome to Bordertown:
"I was a Bordertown fangirl before I was ever published. I wanted to go there so badly I could taste it." - Annette Curtis Klause
Art above: Cover art for Bordertown by Phil Hale, The Essential Bordetown by Jim Carroll, and Welcome to Bordertown by Steve Stone. Bordertown sketch by Iain McCaig.
* "Bellamy Bach" is pseudonym used by several different writers of teen fiction in the 1980s; I was neither the first nor the last to borrow it. The Borderland stories under the BB name are by me, but only the Borderland stories. All other works published under the pseudonym are by other writers.