In the July issue of Fantasy Magazine . . .
Short fiction by Boloere Seibidor (“Odd Peas in a Pod) and Sabrina Vourvoulias (“The Memory of Chemistry”); flash fiction by Lindsey Godfrey Eccles (“A Star is Born”) and Michelle Muenzler (“The Life and Death of Atomic Tangerine”); poetry by Shilpa Kamat (“Goldilocks”) and AJ Wentz (“Self-Inflicted Haunt”); and an interview with author RF Kuang.
Music is a huge staple of my personal identity, so I think it always reflects one way or another in my work. However, for this in particular, I wanted to show every memory of the past associated with a song, the reigning anthem at that point in the protagonist’s life, as the memories themselves are often painful, and music for me has always been a useful suppressant, redirecting my mind from bitter introspection.
RF Kuang is a Marshall Scholar, Chinese-English translator, and the Astounding Award-winning and the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy
The year was 1999. Tupac’s Brenda’s Got a Baby was the anthem in Old Creek ghetto. Yes, I wasn’t born. But the first time, in a beat-up, metal-scrunched blue taxi, on her way back home, when the song came on, Mother felt my first kick coincide with the blistering bass beat. It’s a wonder how I knew that feet were made for dancing.
It begins with an explosion: his mother. He isn’t born yet, but he’ll be made from the bits and pieces she leaves behind. Star-stuff. She’s also left some heavier elements, extra dusts and gasses he’ll have to figure out what to do with later.
It’s always intrigued me that insects—creatures we rarely think about except when we are hellbent on exterminating them—are the repository of so much folk belief. They’re divine messengers, symbols of soul or scourge, portends of death and new beginnings. It’s no coincidence that, in our day and age, immigrants are represented by the monarch butterfly, which flies as far as 3,000 miles across the continental Americas to reach home.
Confused, are you / the inkling shoestring type / who always gets away / You must remind me: / who am I to you if / you do not bite?
We hunt for the structure of the universe in its ghosts. – Dr. Michelle Francl / In the beginning / In the beginning was the trigger warning: / Prepare for insects. Prepare for words in Latin and Spanish. Prepare for science and other species of the supernatural. Prepare for losses that rewire the chemistry of the brain. Prepare for aging and the way it flays you back to the first cell. Prepare for ghosts.
In the July issue of Fantasy Magazine . . . Short fiction by Boloere Seibidor (“Odd Peas in a Pod) and Sabrina Vourvoulias (“The Memory of Chemistry”); flash fiction by Lindsey Godfrey Eccles (“A Star is Born”) and Michelle Muenzler (“The Life and Death of Atomic Tangerine”); poetry by Shilpa Kamat (“Goldilocks”) and AJ Wentz (“Self-Inflicted Haunt”); and an interview with author RF Kuang.
