Here's something I don't do much of - recommending poetry. Marisca Pichette's piece for Deadlands #32 is too much fun not to, however, with its gay girlscouts riding out the afterlife for a good time: our death is the latest badgestitched to rotting skinluminous beneath the moon. sitting cross-legged in mosquito poolswe learn the names... Continue Reading →
The Dragon Beckons the Fish
Last month, I shared a pair of drawings; since I'm busy writing my Starling House review and don't have the time to read or write my daily short story review, you get another pair of drawings! I continue to follow along with 21draw's excellent lessons, taught by Mark Kistler. Oh no, I forgot to shade... Continue Reading →
The Short Story Reader #125 – Dandelions by Martin Cahill
Previous | Next What happens when strangers from the stars come and their physiology interplays with ours in so unique a way as to invite nothing but murder. Martin Cahill's "Dandelions" is a flash piece that offers a refreshing reimagining of the alien invasion. Never mind that was exactly what they wanted to happen, what... Continue Reading →
Água Viva by Clarice Lispector | A Short Vignette of My Experience
“I know what I am doing here: I am telling of the instants that drip and are thick with blood.” I read Clarice Lispector's work Água Viva at what might have been the most serendipitous time, during personal heartbreak that saw me submerged into a well of grief. It proved slippery to get out of,... Continue Reading →
What I Talk About When I Talk About Books In November – Part 2
Previously on What I Talk About When I Talk About Books In November... Hullo again! Time to cover a few more of the by-gone reads of yestermonth! Last time, I went on a Greek play binge! This time around, I reckon it's time to cover a few weirder reads from the Ancient and Medieval world,... Continue Reading →
A Gentleman and a Scholar’s Short List of Books I Hope To Read Before Year’s End
Hullo, hi, Filip here. I take this valuable reading time to notify you that I have a few too many books I'd like to read before the year comes to an end, and I'm, frankly, drowning under the sheer weight of paper stock. Prepare yourselves! Starling House by Alix E. Harrow The new Harrow novel... Continue Reading →
The Short Story Reader #124 – Morag’s Boy by Fiona Moore
Previous | Next Once upon a time, some four months ago, I reviewed a little story by Fiona Moore called "The Spoil Heap". Imagine my shock when the very first story in Clarkesworld #207 is a standalone sequel, once more featuring my favourite postapocalyptic techie Morag! Now older, Morag is asked by her family to... Continue Reading →
Tyranny, Prophecy, and Freedom in Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound
You can find my previous essay on a Greek tragedy (Medea) here. I wrote this for a university class, and I figured I might as well share it with you lot. Aeschylus creates one of Greek tragedy’s most sympathetic figures in Prometheus Bound’s eponymous protagonist. The titan Prometheus’s choice to defy Zeus for the sake... Continue Reading →
The Short Story Reader #123 – Maladaptive Camouflage by Ann LeBlanc
Previous | Next I discovered "Maladaptive Camouflage" thanks to a tweet by Angela Liu (whose excellent story "The Last Gamemaster in the World" I reviewed last week). What a great find this short story is--a blending of first and second-person narrative at a critical moment in three people's lives. One of them, at first glance,... Continue Reading →
Never Play Alan Wake 2 Before Bed
...Might be that every sound, every creak and rasp and grate will set your imagination on fire with the darkest possibilities. (Can you tell that I spent way too much time on playing a game and didn't have the time to finish my daily short story reader post before bed? No? Phew!)
The Grimoire Reliquary 