Some stories I’ve read recently. Tales of Strangeness, Beauty, and Horror “Cicadas, and Their Skins” by Avra Margariti in Strange Horizons I spent my first summer as an orphan watching cicadas fuck, scream, and molt. Wasn’t long before I plucked one of the cicada skins from the dry village soil. I brushed it clean against my secondhand clothes I was already beginning to outgrow. Dappled by sunlight, the carapace looked hard though I knew it to be brittle. A coat, people called it. To me it looked like a veil I yearned to slip into. A fierce, angry, bloody tale. An orphaned girl has lost her mother and moved from the city to a small, stultifying village. Watching the cicadas, she learns that she can slip into a cicada’s skin. She can find herself in the skins of mice, birds, and more. And she can teach the other children of the village to do the same. An angry tale of wildness, of desperation and freedom, of seeking escape from the judgmental eyes of th...
Woo hoo! Publishable or not, that is an awesome accomplishment.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it is absolutely *not* unpublishable, if you're willing to try something new with me... :)
(I am 100% serious about that, because I've liked every story of yours I've ever read! But also completely understand if you want to rework it to something you can send somewhere more mainstream... email me if you want to see the terms I finally settled on, though.)
Thanks so much for your comment, Cloud! Well, right now the novelette is still a big mess--it needs a lot of revision, I think. But those revisions are going to have to wait a few weeks, because I have some medical writing deadlines upcoming. I will definitely keep you in mind, though, when I think the piece is ready. Thank you so much!
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