2021 The Fiction 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.
1st March 2017 Lusaka. Madam, Re: Resignation – Prisca Banda Madam, many months now, you…
For a long time, I stayed in a prison by the sea surrounded by ramparts.…
I. The plain truth is that was the bitch’s name: Quimbamba. My brother showed up…
On a Saturday evening at a 5-for-Rupees 500.00 beauty salon, Lina is getting her eyebrows…
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.”
At first I was worried that I would fail. It started as a dream that I was naked and paralyzed in the street. It started as a dream that I was falling and falling and flailing. There was no ground to catch me. Then it was a summer of summer classes all day and tutoring into the night. Then I was thinner and someone said I looked good. Then I was straight A’s. Then I looked A okay. And then I remembered to miss meals to stay on top. And then, and then, and then, I no longer dreamt I was falling. And then I was in the eye of it. I was feeding off an ocean of anxiety.
After getting shooed away by yet another business owner who couldn’t understand what we wanted, I was reminded how some fruit never sweeten. No matter how you till the soil, no matter how many kind words you speak while watering, no matter how many days you wait for the fruit to ripen, some fruit will always come out bitter.