Fantasy Magazine #61 has been very well-received–many thanks to all of our readers, old and new. Now we bring you issue #62 co-edited by Christie Yant and Arley Sorg. Hope you like it!
Walking out of the theater after seeing IT part one in 2017, there was only one person I wanted to talk to. Best-selling and Hugo-winning author Seanan McGuire is one of the only humans I’ve ever met who loves Stephen King like I do. When I got to Twitter, she was already yelling. And she was joined by best-seller and Hugo winner Catherynne M. Valente, who is on the same level as Seanan and me when it comes to these books.
After years of roommates and sublets and shared bathrooms, other people’s beard trimmings in the sink and other people’s leftovers leaking a brown film into the refrigerator, Jude moved into a walnut shell. She went in feet first, arms locked overhead in a butterfly stroke, letting all the air out of her chest in one long exhale like a spelunker. Inside, it was snug. Cozy.
I certainly can’t cook as well as Yun San, nor am I as fierce as Jin. The main thing I have in common with Yun San is her love of food – the favour she asks Jin, in the end, would be the same thing I would’ve asked for in her shoes. Chinese Imperial cuisine has resulted in a number of popular dishes today, some of which are my favourites, like Peking duck. As with Yun San, I also feel that it’s regrettable that some people treasure monuments and inanimate treasures more than our biodiversity.
“I have a favour to ask,” said the fushi to the chef, “and in exchange, I will grant you a wish.” “What sort of favour?” Yun San asked. She wiped sweating palms down her brown hanfu and tried to show a brave face. Thick mist had whisked her away from the back of her restaurant into the wilderness. Even were she thirty years younger and somehow able to outrun her captor, she had no idea where she was.
I am standing next to / the unsunken earth, / not yet a part of it / though I wonder—
Sometimes, when I speak, it comes out in bubbles—
The first time Robin spent the night at my house was the first sleepover I had that there wasn’t some kind of complaint from under the eaves or deep in the walls. We were eight years old and Robin slept in a leopard-print sleeping bag that filled the space on the floor between my bed and the wall. “You still sleep with a nightlight.” And Robin’s tone wasn’t snotty and mean the way Tina’s had been. There was no unspoken baby at the end.
So – 2020. What a year. And what an intense past few months. We’ve had so many challenges! Between elections and personal stuff–as we write this, on November 9th, we are both looking back at a lot of obstacles which are now behind us; and we are looking forward, embracing new opportunities, engaging in new discussions.
My inability to focus and lack of free time make very short stories ideal because I can actually finish them. They also just come more naturally to me because my current strengths as a storyteller are turns of phrase, evocative descriptions—elements that can make a short-short sparkle but can’t prop up a longer piece. As for composing a successful story in such a short space, I’m no expert, but I try to listen to people who are.
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.
