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Being powerless and voiceless for too long creates a weird dissonance. So when a ray of hope actually presents itself, it comes as a shock. It’s only when that initial feeling of shock and helplessness abates that one can learn to pick up the pieces and move on.
In this issue’s short fiction, Amal Singh gives us a difficult reality check in “What Is Mercy,” and K.P. Kulski’s “An Arrangement of Moss and Dirt” reminds us to be careful what we wish for; in flash fiction, Addison Smith introduces us to a couple coming out of—or into—their shell in “Sounds for Crustaceans,” and Mark S. Bailen has a fresh perspective on portal stories with “Lost Portals”; for poetry, we have “The Herbalist” by Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe and “The Forbidden Path to Forgetting” by Daniel Ausema. Plus an interview with Elysium and Destroyer of Light author Jennifer Marie Brissett. Enjoy!
Let me take you through the anatomy of an active protagonist, one that everyone can relate to. We’ll make our protagonist—we’ll call him John—young and healthy, male, of humble origins (perhaps he’s from a farming village). But his status will not be humble for long, for John is dreaming of greatness someday, or adventuring across the world, or perhaps winning the heart of the most beautiful princess throughout the faux medieval European continent he hails from.
For me, in this story, colonialism was a bigger issue. I live and teach college English classes on the edge of the largest reservation in the US, the Navajo reservation, and many of my students are from the nearby Hopi and Apache reservations as well. How could I have a story set in Holbrook, AZ, with no Native characters, and yet how could I, a white writer, create a believable and non-stereotyped Native character? Merlene is a woman and has depression because those are two things I do know about, and I tried to add a touch of reference (the ‘rez,’ her aunties) without overstepping.
It was a wonderful collaboration. Eugen is first, very patient, and second, very dedicated. She sent me, I think, two or three versions of the first part in its growth, in which I could see the character and story develop. It was beautifully crafted and written, and I was very afraid of not being at her level! Then we discussed the homonculus/spirit role and identity and it became clearer and clearer, and I did my part.
In this issue’s short fiction, Eugen Bacon & Seb Doubinsky take us through a frank and brutal emigration in “The Failing Name,” and Inez Schaechterle visits the Old West in the here and now in “Ghost Riders at Hutchinson’s Two Pump”; in flash fiction, Vanessa McKinney brings coming out to the celestial level in “Shapeshifter,” and in Sarina Dorie’s “My List of Bedtime Bogeymen” we may—or may not—want that bogeyman to stay away; for poetry, we have “The Reality of Ghosts” by Yilin Wang and “i find my body and my body” by Shaoni C. White. Plus an essay, “We Are The Mountain: A Look At The Inactive Protagonist” by author Vida Cruz. Enjoy!
My books are very different, and I think for someone who has only read one type of story from me it can be a bit shocking to see how much things can change from one book to the other. Velvet Was the Night is absolutely a noir set in a time and place most people don’t know about. This is the era when the Mexican government is torturing, killing, and beating activists. The CIA is assisting the government because they want to fight communists in Latin America. It’s a grim, dingy setting, full of conflict.
In this world, all magic comes from faith, which provides a great story engine because it forces power and purpose to stay intertwined. Somewhere along the line I created the North Star, goddess of prophecy, hope, motivation, and travel-towards. This story was my chance to give the North Star her moment in the light, elusive but clear.
I always saw the ghosts as a kind of nuisance that you live with but shake your head at. Like the stray cat on your street—okay, you’ve put out food for him once or twice when he looked worse for wear, but whenever he looks healthy, you’ll shoo him off and then moan about him peeing in your garden every chance you get.
CY: How is it July already? This month I’ll be teaching at the Cascade Writers Weekend, along with Wendy Wagner, who our readers know and love as the editor of our sister magazine, Nightmare. Wendy and I have been friends for more than a decade—we read at each other’s weddings! Years go by without us getting to see each other in person. While the Cascade workshop is online this year, I’m so excited that we get to teach together.
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This issue's cover art by
warmtail / Adobe Stock Image.
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