From Modern Mythcraft to Magical Surrealism

The Conductors 728x90 banner ad

Advertisement

Podcasts

Fiction

An Indefinite Number of Birds

by Kurt Hunt

Author spotlight

Stanley began watching birds on the day he panicked and asked JD how much he really loved him, and JD responded, “Oh for fuck’s sake, Stanley. How many birds are in the sky? I don’t know—a bunch!” Stanley couldn’t get the question out of his head. By week’s end, he’d bought a birdwatching guide and an embarrassingly expensive pair of Leica binoculars. He spent a tense Sunday morning ready for the birds to awaken and sing the day’s gossips and confessions, watching and ticking things off in his journal as dawn grew from a hint to a bloody smear to proper daylight.

In Dec. 2020 (Issue 62)

Fiction

To Look Forward

by Osahon Ize-Iyamu

Author spotlight

We are the ones who dare, back and forth; our hair whipping over, our hearts full of joy. Our bodies burn bright and clean and crisp, glistening when we reach the sun. A healthy tan has coated our skin, our foreheads drip with sweat, our palms firm and slick. We are: over and over again, up in the air; not known to each other, but known to the sky. Mid-jump, mid-action, mid-reaction, mid-air; always there, on rusted swings, on creaking chains, on hot-sun days, back and forth and over, once again.

In Nov. 2020 (Issue 61)

Fiction

And This is How to Stay Alive

by Shingai Njeri Kagunda

Author spotlight

Kabi finds my body swinging. I watch my sister press her back against the wall and slide to the ground. My mother shouts, “Kabi! Nyokabi!” No response. “Why are you not answering? Can you bring that brother of yours!” My sister is paralyzed, she cannot speak, she cannot move, except for the shivers that take hold of her spine and reverberate through the rest of her without permission. She is thinking No, no, no, no, no. But the word is not passing her lips which only open and close soundlessly. Mum is coming down the stairs.

In Nov. 2020 (Issue 61)

Fiction

Black, Their Regalia

by Darcie Little Badger

Outside, the quarantine train was unblemished white. Where its tracks skirted populated regions, barbed wire and warning signs—DANGER! ¡PELIGRO! INFECTIOUS MATERIALS! ¡SUSTANCIAS INFECCIOSAS!—discouraged trespassers from marking the cars with spray paint. The interior was another story. In her cabin, a narrow sleeper with four beds (one for Screaming Moraine, one for Fiddler Kristi, one for Drummer Tulli, and one for their carry-on luggage, several densely packed grocery bags, and an electric violin), Tulli found graffiti scrawled near her upper bunk.

In Dec. 2016 (Issue 60)

Fiction

The Things My Mother Left Me

by P. Djéli Clark

Tausi sat listening to her aunts, who crowded in a circle at the far end of the room. Their dresses were a kaleidoscope of greens, reds, blues, and yellows, each worked with repeating patterns that shifted with the eye. Huddled like that they seemed to her one polychromatic beast with seven heads and fourteen limbs. None of them made an effort to whisper as they planned her life.

In Dec. 2016 (Issue 60)

Fiction

The Padishah Begum’s Reflections

by Shweta Narayan

Hidden by the feathers of the Peacock Throne, Jahanara watched the Frenchmen’s heads appear at the top of the steps. Diwan-i-Khas, the hall of so-called private audience, would loom before them now. Morning light caught on its outer pillars and scalloped arches, setting the whole aglow: marble embers sparking with pearl and silver inlay in creeper patterns wound around gearwork. Light slanted through the hall, danced on silk and dust and metal, and threw the delegates’ shadows in before them unannounced.

In Dec. 2015 (Issue 59)

Fiction

The Lily and the Horn

by Catherynne M. Valente

War is a dinner party. My ladies and I have spent the dregs of summer making ready. We have hung garlands of pennyroyal and snowberries in the snug, familiar halls of Laburnum Castle, strained cheese as pure as ice for weeks in the caves and the kitchens, covered any gloomy stone with tapestries or stags’ heads with mistletoe braided through their antlers. We sent away south to the great markets of Mother-of-Millions for new silks and velvets and furs.

In Dec. 2015 (Issue 59)

Fiction

The Glass Bottle Trick

by Nalo Hopkinson

The air was full of storms, but they refused to break. In the wicker rocking chair on the front verandah, Beatrice flexed her bare feet against the wooden slat floor, rocking slowly back and forth.

In Oct. 2014 (Issue 58)

Fiction

Miss Carstairs and the Merman

by Delia Sherman

The night Miss Carstairs first saw the merman, there was a great storm along the Massachusetts coast. Down in the harbor town, old men sat in taverns drinking hot rum and cocking their ears at the wind whining and whistling in the chimneys.

In Oct. 2014 (Issue 58)

Fiction

Torn Away

by Joe R. Lansdale

The license was invalid by a couple of months, and the photo on it looked somewhat like him but it was faded and not reliable. I told him so. “Oh,” he said. “I should have noticed it was out of date.”

In Dec. 2011 (Issue 57)