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P.H. Low

P. H. Low is a Locus- and Rhysling-nominated Malaysian American writer and poet whose debut novel, These Deathless Shores, is forthcoming from Orbit Books (US) and Angry Robot (UK/NZ/Australia) in 2024. Their shorter work is published or forthcoming in Strange Horizons, Tor.com, and Diabolical Plots, among others. P. H. is a graduate of the Viable Paradise writing workshop; a Pitch Wars alum; a first reader for khōréō, a magazine of speculative fiction and migration; and a finalist for the Emeka Walter Dinjos Memorial Award for Disability in Speculative Fiction. P. H. can be found on Twitter and Instagram @_lowpH and online at ph-low.com.

A Liminal Magic: Diaspora Parallels in Freya Marske’s A Marvellous Light

I have a confession to make: I think I’m burning out on writing “Asian American” literature. I know this is wrong of me. I know all writing is political. I know sharing our stories is an important way for us to work past media stereotypes, find each other, and reconstruct our collective histories. I have reread Babel and On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous and the Green Bone Saga over and over, as if by repeated consumption I could etch them beneath my skin.

The Will of the God of Music

You hear the door open as if in dreaming. Back when you were a conservatory student, you chewed a third of a melatonin tablet every night—to keep yourself from snapping awake before sunup, chest tight, your head still achy with exhaustion. Now, mornings are difficult: your eyelids weighted, sliding; thick grey wool between your temples. Your body drifting in a warm, slow sea.

Disenchantment

A girl is born with a hole in her heart. Her parents cannot touch her for weeks; instead, they whisper in immigrant languages over the rune-inscribed plastic tube in which she sleeps: terrified, for the first time, of death. She is so tiny—fists small as a doll’s, fingers the clenched sepals of some infinitesimal flower—and as they watch the tufts of her hair, her mouth opened in a cry no one can hear, a love swells in them so fierce and pure it hardly fits their skin.