Aster(ix) is a laboratory, a space where women writers of color can play and experiment. We celebrate our 10th anniversary with a double best-of issue.
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.
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.”
With each impulse, the current your heart siphons from the phone line will slowly render the vision of Self in vibrant color. Your grey tongue will begin to blush, too. When it swells with the metal-sweet taste of saffron, you will know that this vision of Self is real enough to power its own flow.
We’re thrilled to share the big news: Aster(ix) won a 2019 FIRECRACKER AWARD for best debut literary magazine from the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses!
We are thrilled to announce that we are finalists for the CLMP Firecracker Award that honors those who “introduce important voices to readers far and wide.” Thank you to the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses for the recognition!
