Blackbird Fly! is a 5,000 word short story that appears in the DAW anthology, Women Writing Science Fiction as Men. Edited by Mike Resnick and Marty Greenbery. The beginning follows:

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Blackbirds don't sing; they rumble with thunder in the dead of the cold desert night when only those with the need to know are around to hear them. Add a few rattlesnakes, coyotes and jack rabbits and you've got your typical audience for a takeoff that includes the best damn light show you can find anywhere: a shock wave of flaming diamonds that's a Fourth of July rocket ride through the dark, black sky into the light of the sun.

Marysville residents never quite got used to those booming afterburners back when I was a kid spending summers with my grandparents; but I thought that was the sweetest sound I'd ever heard, and I loved those window-shaking sonic booms. When I caught a glimpse of one in flight, I set my heart on becoming a Blackbird pilot.

The Falcon, the Saber, and the Basilisk is the working title of my current YA, 80,000-100,000 word manuscript. It begins as follows:

Traveling from order to chaos. Exchanging a clean home for a filthy one. Abandoning delicious, home cooked meals to live on pizza seven days a week.

That's what it meant to leave home in Philadelphia to visit Mom in Indianapolis.

Sam Unger the Third -- Trey to everyone except some of his teachers -- finished packing his suitcase for the longest Indianapolis visit of his life.

A full year of dirty dishes stacked everywhere except in the dishwasher. Twelve months of living in a bedroom overflowing with things Mom didn't need and didn't want but wouldn't throw away. Three hundred and sixty-five days of hunting hopelessly for clean towels, clean clothing, or clean anything inside that apartment.

It stank. Both the apartment and the idea of living with Mom for an entire year.

But he had to go. Dad had wanted to go overseas for years and they needed him there. Trey could see it in his eyes every time they talked about it, so he'd worked hard to convince Dad that he should go and that he would be fine living with Mom for a year.

And now, with the house walls echoing around him and Mom's clutter-filled apartment ahead of him, Trey wished he hadn't worked so hard to convince Dad that he could go to Kuwait.

Mom meant well, but life with her was... well... never boring.

Trey smiled, remembering the last visit when Mom had decided her neighbors were mistreating their cat by leaving it outside on their balcony during the day. Mom had built a trap and baited it with tuna and then maneuvered the trap onto the neighbor's balcony with a fishing pole.

If the line hadn't broken, she might have succeeded in pulling the trapped cat up onto her balcony.

They never did find that cat. While the family was looking, the police had restrained Mom, who was screaming, "Free Fluffy!" over and over again like some kind of chant you'd shout at a football game.

Now he was going to have a year filled with adventures like that one.