As the introduction notes, muses in myth are usually seen as female and historically women have long been consigned to the role of muse instead of creator. So it’s very fitting that these are all stories by women writers. In some a muse makes a personal appearance; other stories broadly engage with a theme represented by a muse.

Unfortunately, the book doesn’t start off with its strongest piece. Coming from the muse of epic poetry, ‘Scraps of Eutopia’ by Ruth Nestvold documents the life of Chloe Ramsay, a lesbian poet who flees the puritanical, arid US to find freedom in 1920s Paris with Gertrude, Alice and the rest. Author of the eponymous epic poem that rebuts Eliot’s ‘Wasteland’, Ramsay has now been forgotten. We can only glean ‘scraps’ of her life in remarks by friends and academics. This kind of narrative collage can be vivid and effective. One fictitious critic asks a salient question — “why an anti-Semitic poet with a fascist cultural understanding is regarded as more serious than a poet who celebrated an island of freedom in the midst of millennia of repression?”However, many of these fragments render potentially moving material unengaging and almost dull. Was that the intention?

Under the inspiration of Polyphymnia, the muse of sacred poetry, comes Elizabeth Garcia’s ‘Ask for Her Hand’. A prodigal sister returns for a visit to the family. In an affable first-person narrative the dutiful stay-at-home daughter reveals this to be a family of religious cultists who have been delivered from demons that include sarcasm, sloth, lesbianism, constipation and tax evasion. They all live in the basement because it’s ‘safe’. The family assume that the young man she brings with her has come to ask the father permission to marry the daughter in respect to their patriarchal religious tradition. Big mistake! There are some fine moments of subtle comedy involving duck fat and the preferred way to cook a roast, as well as an equally subtle and nuanced confrontation between dutiful daughter and patriarch.

‘Melody’, dedicated to the muse of music, describes a woman in an old peoples’ home who constantly hums “something unrecognisable”. What is the old woman hearing, what tune is actually passing her lips? Another resident narrates with sharp and humorous observations, livening material that could have been dreary in other hands. Clio, the muse of history, is explored in ‘She Who Remembers’, where Greek myth meets Native American folktale in a lyrical tale of telling, affirmation and resistance.

As for the muse of tragedy — such a story could be a hard one to pull off without melodrama or pathos. This is acknowledged in Toiya Kristen Finlay’s title, ‘Cue the Violins’. Two friends witness a death — departing soul and all. They are subsequently ‘followed’ by death, as people around them start dropping. The story is appropriately dry and wry, if sometimes disjointed.

‘Day After Tomorrow’ by Tamar Yellin is another approach to the muse of tragedy. Maxine is in her car, fast-forwarding a Johnny Cash tape at an intersection. Her lapse of attention results in a fatal accident. Quick vignettes from different viewpoints reveal that Maxine is leaving her husband for Suzanne, who is about to kiss another woman in a Paris café Paris. Suzanne sees her moment of lust for this other woman as an extension of her love for Maxine, who she expects to be united with very soon. Meanwhile, the husband’s perspective reveals a life starting in loneliness that is about to return to it. Yellin reveals a whole network of longing and loss that is just about to become known to the characters.

The Muse of Dance is served by Ursula Pflug’s ‘The Eyes of Horus’, a trippy tale where an Egyptian god mingles with marginal artists and punks in New York. “Why is it that in your time people can’t tell the difference between drugs and eyes?” Horus complains when he makes an offer that is first turned down with ‘I don’t do drugs.’

Heather Shaw’s ‘Skatebirding’ is inspired by the muse of astronomy. When Gretchen is pregnant she must give up her coveted job at a space station and live in a desolate “bubble town” with only an old-fashioned library and a local gang of skateboarders for diversion. She is intensely lonely, especially when she realises that her husband has betrayed her. Meanwhile, she starts getting close to the oldest of the skateboarders who suggests a possible way out of her situation. Though there are some moments of awkward info-dump by the erudite skatepunk, it’s a slice of satisfying Bradburyesque SF with a feminist twist.

In ‘Spies’ the Three Fates strike in the little Georgia town of Glassboro. This atmospheric piece makes you feel that Southern heat and small-town lethargy. While the story is dedicated to Thalia — the muse of comedy and idyllic poetry — a number of other muses turn up to avert the crisis. But Thalia’s second tale, a Cinderella retelling by Beth Bernobich, doesn’t quite hit the spot. There are some nice descriptions and an unexpected female demon, but these are overshadowed by the general predictability and flatness of character that often afflict the “fractured fairytale” genre.

Errato, muse of love poetry and mimicry, gets three stories. In Jai Clare’s ‘Without the Dreaming’ Talis’s lover Sarah has ditched him for a secure life. He is left heartbroken and drifting. The story evokes open spaces and landscapes of loneliness: ”deserts and wood ash air and cities of marsh and mountains full of soldiers”. He encounters another woman who cannot replace Sarah, but their contact creates new possibilities for them both.

In ‘The Teasewater Fire’ a professional model-maker grieving for her still-born child creates a distinctive and animated world in miniature. She specialises in wildlife, but she soon adds a new human figure to her menagerie.

Jessica Treat’s ‘Meeting M’ describes a lunchtime meeting of two writers. One has a crush on the other, she has also been experiencing writers block. Teetering on the edge of an obsession, she follows the object of her desire and ends up at a chocolate shop — where a turning point is reached.

Earlier, Elizabeth Hand makes a tongue-in-cheek comment that muses might belong to an endangered species. However, this book shows that they are still able to offer a rich range of ideas and images to those who like to tell stories.

Rosanne Rabinowitz’s published fictions include stories in The Third Alternative, Visionary Tongue and Roadworks, plus contributions to The Slow Mirror: New Fiction by Jewish Writers and Deep Ten anthologies. Her work is currently showcased in Midnight Street 4 (www/midnightstreet.co.uk), and a story is due to appear in Café Ole: Too Hot to Handle (Independent Persons Press). She has also written reviews for TTA, Interzone and of course, www.laurahird.com. Rosanne lives in South London with a rather demanding 17-year-old cat. Sometimes she works as a freelance sub-editor; other forms of toil have included stints as a life model, oral history researcher, part-time mental health worker and full-time dole claimer. A graduate of the Sheffield Hallam MA in Writing, Rosanne has completed one novel and is working on a second..

© 2006 Laura Hird All rights reserved.