It's a Jumble

Very late, but here's a roundup of some stellar stories that I read this past spring. Perfect leisure reading for these long summer days, with a cool drink beside you. “To Kneel at the Altar of Your Bones” by Valo Wing in Haven Speculative She slices open a vein, and out pours star-matter. Liquid and glittering, the iridescent mess drips from her arm into my cupped palms. And, for a moment, there is only this: breathing in duet ( forte ,  agitato ), her brow a slash of determination worthy of sainthood (she’s my religion, yes), and, too, the dumbass acolyte who made a promise they’re no longer sure they can keep (me).   A failed opera singer, a girlfriend who has spent years with her consciousness trapped in a fungal network, and a shared promise to save the world. But what does a promise mean, after so much time apart? This is a gorgeously wild flash story, an epic written in just over a thousand words, a story that’s both playful and passionate: about love, devotion...

  Four beautiful books that I read this spring, with reviews.     Exit, Ghost by Jennifer R. Donohue   This is the modern fantasy retelling of Hamlet which I never knew I needed, set on the Jersey Shore with a snarky gender-flipped Hamlet and her dog named Yorick, a vivid cast of characters, and witches and dark magic galore. A deeply atmospheric, immersive story of grief, loss, love, mystery, doubt, and revenge.   Juliet “Jules” Duncan is heiress to a railroad fortune, a recent college graduate, and a witch. When we first meet her, she’s still recovering from the gun attack which killed her father in his own apple orchard, and which left her with a brain injury. She’s reeling from grief, and she’s just conducted a ritual to summon her father’s spirit, who tells her that his murderer is long-time family friend (and his widow’s new fiancé), “Uncle” Hector.   One of the pleasures of this book is seeing how the author translates specific plot ...

  It’s been a busy (and still cold!) spring, and this round-up is later than usual. Nevertheless, here are some stories that I read over January and February—stories strange and dark, warm and hopeful, rich and lovely. Stories of Memories, Dreams, and Nightmares "Flower, Daughter, Soil, Seed"   by Eugenia Triantafyllou in Uncanny Magazine Your great-great-grandmother was a yellow daffodil. Where she was born people called her narcissus. Her many heads blossomed from a loamy opening in the forest on a particularly chill spring day. They rose hungrily, searching for a few precious rays of sunlight. Her stems pushed against each other and against the cold wind.   A flower is born, and dies. But from her death a daughter springs forth, with memories of her mother. This is a gorgeous story of survival, migration, resilience, and change.   And it’s also a story of coming home, of both finding and accepting sweetness and love.   “Tell Me the Meaning of...

  "In times of continual, rampant warfare, a retreat to Nature was a necessary strategy. If the poets seek refuge in Nature, it must also be evident that Nature seeks refuge in a Tang poem; the temptation of a 20-word quatrain--for infinite Nature to come to rest in a 4x5 grid, just so; a sight to behold."   --Poet and translator Wong May, from her book In the Same Light: 200 Tang Poems for Our Century  

Consider the gaps and cracks and hollows in things: it is in the empty chambers that light appears, and all auspicious things come to roost only where there is stillness. --from the classic Daoist text, the Zhuangzi , Chapter 4, translated by Brook Ziporyn 

Stories published near the end of the year sometimes miss out on deserved recognition, which is a shame. Here’s a sample of just some wonderful things I read toward the end of last year.  “Rabbit Test” by Samantha Mills in Uncanny It’s a glitch they’ve used before. An errant bit of update code that will block their apps for a day or two. Sal uses them to disable her blood alcohol test whenever her parents are out of town. They download patches every time, but she’s a whiz at writing new ones, and that’s all that Grace needs, just a day or two to corrupt the rabbit test.   A sweeping, epic story of the history of abortion rights in America and beyond. A story that moves back and forth in time, between a chilling surveillance state of the future ( The Handmaid’s Tale with updated tech) to the development of the first urine-based pregnancy tests; a woman abandoned at the altar in 1817 America; the legendary “Jane” underground abortion group in pre-Roe-v-Wade Chicago, and ...

    I have a new story out today! “How to Travel Safely in Faerieland” appears in a special all-novelette issue of Fusion Fragment. It’s one of my favorite pieces so far, and dear to my heart. It’s about modern tourists in a modern-day Faerieland, in way over their heads. It’s also about the distance within families, Asian diaspora feels, and what it means (what does it mean?) to fall in love with a culture and world that’s not your own.   “How to Travel Safely In Faerieland” appears alongside beautiful stories by Angela Liu and Octavia Cade. You can download it for free or pay what you like by going to the link above.