letter from the editor
I think sometimes writers conflate short stories with small stories. Stories have to be focused and quick, critics seem to suggest. But what I love about short stories is just how big they can be within a small space. How they can implicate everybody while being about somebody. The stories in this issue of Aster(ix) are big stories told in small spaces, by writers from all over the world.
It’s for you to step out of the novel’s shadow. You don’t need to stand next to anybody who takes all your shine. You have your own spotlight to bloom under that is not predicated on comparison but is predicated on your sole existence. People like to create drama: #TeamShortStory or #TeamNovel. But you don’t need each other to exist, and you don’t to be pitted against each other. Like Paul D said to Sethe: “You your best thing.”
Featuring 6 micro-fictions and 5 poems inspired Cecilia Vicuña’s 1972 “Amaranta” which was “lost and reborn” when found in 2021. The Chilean artist-poet-activist writes simply as an introduction to her work, “My work dwells in the not yet, the future potential of the unformed, where sound, weaving, and language interact to create new meanings.”
We, the editors for The Ferrante Project, having finished a bottle of Mezcal in one…
In Spring 2014, Nelly Rosario and I received an email from author and comadre, Stephanie…