In this issue of Fantasy Magazine: Short fiction by Simo Srinivas (“Bozpo Witch-Bane”) and Margaret Jordan (“Blue”); flash fiction by Kimberly Terasaki (“The World is Ending Tomorrow”) and Catherine Yu (“The Dancer”); poetry by H.B. Asari (“After the Pyre”) and Julia August (“The End of Little Dreams”); and an interview with the finalists for the Nebula Award for Short Fiction.
As of this writing, the Nebula Awards Conference just wrapped up! It was a fun event, and it felt like a real celebration of genre. The vibe of the conference inspired us to do a collective interview with the Nebula Awards finalists in the Short Fiction category.
My climate anxiety was at an all-time high. I couldn’t bear to write about reality, but I also couldn’t bear to leave it completely behind, so I built this world where disasters bruise themselves into the people who survive them, leaving wild magic behind.
It’s so dark. Black-orange-bloody-bruised. Flashlights throw long beams across the sand. Police lights flicker blue and red, blue and red, blue and red, and the Ferris wheel on the pier glows an obscene neon. No one thought to turn off the calliope. It echoes off the empty boardwalk, cheerfully macabre.
It’s 6.18am and you are looking at / reproduction William de Morgan tiles / and Morris & Co fabrics on John Lewis
No one saw me, but they certainly saw you: lithe and swan-armed, assured in your poses. You had a way with the steps. The light followed wherever you danced.
I guess I was thinking a lot about the push-pull of human progress and how it’s all so gray. It seems that our wellbeing has an inverse relationship to the wellbeing of non-humans. Not necessarily a bad thing, not necessarily a good thing. And everyone’s pure motives have become less pure over time.
The women of my lineage / all have hands wrapped / in ribbons cut out of us by men / we trusted.
Outside is the palace of slaughter. Under its gambrels of boiling sky, there is the cold unforgiving sea; there are mountains ready to cradle your bones. Along its corridors of singing grass, there are horseback warriors who will cut you to pieces.
In this issue of Fantasy Magazine: Short fiction by Simo Srinivas (“Bozpo Witch-Bane”) and Margaret Jordan (“Blue”); flash fiction by Kimberly Terasaki (“The World is Ending Tomorrow”) and Catherine Yu (“The Dancer”); poetry by H.B. Asari (“After the Pyre”) and Julia August (“The End of Little Dreams”); and an interview with the finalists for the Nebula Award for Short Fiction.
The world is ending tomorrow. That is what everyone was told. We panicked, of course. Looted stores, got into accidents, went to confession, got drunk.
