Strange Horizons

NEW STORY OUT: UNDOG

I have a new story out in the new Strange Horizons issue! Undog is my own version of a haunted house by a dog that might not be quite alive or quite dead anymore.

This is my third appearance in the magazine and I am both super excited and sort of starting to see a pattern in the stories I publish there. It definitely feels like they get my more personal/intergenerational trauma/body horror stories of about 2k words. If that’s not a niche then I don’t know what is!

I have written ghost stories in the past but then something happened and I stopped going there. My themes changed slightly with time. So this feels like a nice return to something homey (pun intended) and familiar.

My initial inspiration was this microfiction by Lydia Davis called “Dog Hair” which absolutely GUTTED me. And not just because I am a mom to a sweet (and at times demonic) cocker spaniel. It was this sense of absence that fills every place where once someone we loved had been. Sometimes you can be brave for the worst stuff and then you go to familiar places and just face the emptiness and that’s all you need to fall apart. It’s a thought I am having a lot lately and might breed more art in the future.

My secret intention was to write a sequel to “Dog Hair”. If not a happy one, at least a creepy and heartwarming one. And pair the undog with someone equally broken. Someone who might have also felt unwanted, like the poor ghoul doggo of the story.

I keep thinking if that’s my dog in the walls—the dog I was meant to have—maybe there’s also another family. A broken, misshapen family full of open wounds stumbling around in the gaps, looking for me.

If you are the type of person who likes good unbois and wants to see them happy in this life or the next, this is a story for you. I hope this one helps you heal from old wounds. ❤

TWO OF MY STORIES MADE IT ON THE LOCUS RECOMMENDED READING LISTS! ALSO UNCANNY READER POLL!!

I am beyond thrilled to announce that my stories This Village, published in Uncanny Magazine and Bonesoup, published in Strange Horizons are on the 2022 Locus Recommended Reading List! There are so many of my favorite authors and stories on that list. It’s always a pleasure to be included among them.

The Locus Awards are open for anyone to vote and even write in their own choices from last year! If you’d like to vote for the stories you loved last year here is the link. I would be honored if you considered my stories for the Locus Award.

And while we are on the subject, did you know that Uncanny Magazine is running their yearly Uncanny Magazine 2022 Favorite Fiction Reader Poll and you can vote up to three of your favorite Uncanny stories! My flash piece This Village is one of the stories in the Poll. If you connected with this little story I would love if you voted for it.

Most of all lists are a great opportunity to discover new and amazing short stories. But there are some really cool stories that might not turn up on lists this year. So please keep looking for the stories that might speak to you. They are still out there, waiting 🙂

NEW STORY OUT: BONESOUP

 

My story “Bonesoup” is out in the new issue of Strange Horizons! This is my second appearance in a magazine I really love and I am so excited! 

The amazing Dante Luiz picked my story and created a gorgeous and chilling illustration based on it. It’s the one you see as a featured image at the top. I just can’t stop staring at it and finding new details that fit my story’s themes so well. 

The story sprung from a strange thought I had one night (more like super early morning…) about the Witch from Hansel and Gretel having children of her own, and what if these children carried on the cannibalistic tradition. It was not meant to be set in the modern-day, rather than set in some unspecified place that had a Middle Ages/fairytale feel. What happened, of course, was that the minute I sat down to write the story it became a modern-day Greek story about a grandmother trying to feed her granddaughter “good food” with references to the Greek Famine, and the occupation syndrome, and all the baggage the past carries. 

 

For a moment—perhaps it was my sweet-tooth brain—she looked mostly made of custard, her eyes were two pastel blue candied almonds, her chin was a shortbread biscuit. But parts of her were still meat.

 

This is a dark story that invokes a lot of uneasiness, but underneath it all there is love that binds the family of the story together. Food is love after all. I hope this story resonates with you. 

 

New story out: We Are Here to Be Held

The King’s Mirror by Rachel Quinlan
 

I have a new story out! You can read it here in the new issue of Strange Horizons or listen to the podcast here, in awe of Anea’s spectacular narration.

The idea came to me when I stumbled upon the weirdest pictures by photographer Ian Turner, of pelicans fighting over food scraps and stealing them from each other stomachs!

 

The photos gave me instantly the impression of a mother swallowing her daughter. I wonder what Freud would have to say about that.

This story is very personal to me and I feel like I’ve managed to handle the symbolism and the themes exactly as I intended to. It is about familial relationship and how complicated they can get sometimes. There isn’t one solution for everyone. Each of us has to find their own balances with the people they call family and sometimes the decisions might seem cruel but are necessary.

I hope you enjoy this one and maybe find something in this story that speaks to you.