The World Traveler

BLACK SAND IN GLASS BOTTLES | Emma Hutson

→Read the story @ SEVERINE.

NOTE: The story can be found in ISSUE 3: WANDERLUST. You’ll have to view the piece in ISSUU — it’s on page 14.

I like when journals publish themed issues. The themes are typically conveyed in a single word so full of cultural and psychological implication that there’s no telling where the enclosed works will go. Such is the case with the “Wanderlust” issue of SEVERINE.

In the Slums of New China

 

RED MASK | Jessica May Lin

→Read the story @ Shimmer.

 

SPOILERS BELOW, AS USUAL. READ THE STORY FIRST.

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There is a lot going on in this fantastic, emotionally charged story by Jessica May Lin. “Red Mask” has its feet planted in two different speculative camps (let’s not say ‘genres,’ which seems too compartmental a term): sci-fi and ghost stories. While it might be unusual to have futuristic technology and a folkloric ghost-presence working in tandem, the juxtaposition works incredibly well–thanks to the author’s painstaking world-building (on both the futuristic and supernatural sides of the story) and the matter-of-factness with which our narrator depicts this far-out world.

Tonight’s Forecast: Cloudy with a Chance of Flying Heads

 

PENANGGALAN | Eric Williams

Read the story @ Noble / Gas Qtrly

 

Warning: 

There will be spoilers. Read the story first.

Now that you’ve read Eric Williams’s dark yet surprisingly upbeat story about an ambitious woman who sucks the blood of one of her coworkers, you probably have a good sense of what a Penanggalan is. But I’ll quickly give you a little background on this monstrous creature (via Wikipedia, of course):

The Beast: Behind-the-Scenes Q+A w/ Louis Rakovich

Today we’re checking out a very psychological work of flash fiction by Louis Rakovich. You can check out “The Beast” over at Zetetic Record by clicking the appropriate link:

 

The appropriate link

 

Have you read the story? Great! Let’s talk with Mr. Rakovich about his writing process and how this quietly haunting piece came to be…

Girl in Blue Dress (1881): Behind the Scenes Q+A w/ Sunil Patel

Enjoy our latest author Q+A, this time featuring the great Sunil Patel! His SFF short story, Girl in Blue Dress (1881), appears over at Fantastic Stories of the Imagination.

Check out his piece, then read the “behind the scenes” interview below!

Bargain: Behind-the-Scenes Q+A w/ Sarah Gailey

Today we’re excited to present a Q+A featuring the talented Sarah Gailey, author of “Bargain,” a new short story in Mothership Zeta that mixes deal-with-the-devil horror with unabashed comic satire.

Check out the story, then read the following interview about her process of writing this marvelous piece:

Anamakee: Behind-the-scenes Q+A w/ Author Garret Schuelke

Welcome to our latest behind-the-scenes Q+A, in which author Garret Schuelke discusses his new novel Anamakee (available now at Amazon).

You can check out a preview of the novel over at Cultured Vultures.

Anamakee: Behind the Scenes w/ Author Garret Schuelke

Lolita: A Rebuttal

KINGDOM BY THE SEA | By Amy Parker

→Read the story @ Interfictions.

In the past few months, I’ve heard and read a lot of commentary on the works of Nabokov and the ever-controversial Lolita. Today we’re not discussing Nabokov’s novel itself, but rather an intricate and dangerous short story called “Kingdom by the Sea,” published this fall by Amy Parker in Interfictions.  

Portrait of a Dive Bar

TOURNIQUET TUESDAYS | Tori Bond.

→Read the story @ Cease, Cows.

In “Tourniquet Tuesdays,” author Tori Bond begins by describing the drinking game of the same name (“It involved Wild Turkey and knocking someone out while blindfolded”) and uses this bizarre tradition as the starting point for what turns into a nuanced portrait of a deep-woods dive bar (Ottos’s Bar), its proprietor and patrons, and ultimately the unnamed small town it serves. The story relies on an anonymous third-person narrative voice to expand its view from the wacky barroom game to the plight of working-class, small-town communities and the ennui and confinement that often befall their residents.

“Where Was I”: Behind the Scenes with Jenny Wales Steele

Welcome to FictionFeed’s first ever behind-the-scenes author interview!

Today we’re chatting with author Jenny Wales Steele about the process behind her phenomenal short story “Where Was I,” which appears over at Compose Journal.

Go read the story at Compose Journal and then check out the Q&A below!

A Dream Narrative

DREAM SEQUENCE #35 | Lisa De Nikolits

→Read the story @ JELLYFISHREVIEW.

 

This story is a cool and super trippy dream sequence that commands readers’ attention through its beautiful prose, idiosyncratic shifts and associations, and the overall confidence with which this piece is written: there is an urgency to the events described, even if the laws of cause and consequence are skewed by the story’s dream logic.

Srsly, like… LOL!!! ;) …or: How to Be a True Navajo Woman

FAWNA MOON | Erika T. Wurth.

→Read the story @ Waxwing Literary Journal.

The following is a list of unforgivable textual crimes: plagiarism, oxford commas, semicolons (except when used ironically), triteness, cliches and received language as a substitute for original thought, interrobangs, emojis, and unintentional rhyme/alliteration.