There are two short story posts this week
It’s true! Don’t sleep on the megapost I did on Jennifer Hudak’s stories – she’s a sci-fi writer whose stories are so much more than I expected. They’re science fiction stories in the sense that The Shawshank Redemption is a prison movie. I read most of her online work and picked a bunch of my favourites. There’s enough there to keep you occupied this weekend.
I published a couple book reviews this week – Girl in a Band is Kim Gordon’s memoir and it’s excellent. Perspective(s) by Laurent Binet was forgettable to me, but if you’re a nerd for the Italian Renaissance, then you’ll probably get more out of it than I did.
The five stories below – two nonfiction, three fiction, are all stunners, but they’re also somewhat grim. Themes of trauma, self-harm, abortion, displacement by genocide, and other ugly things. That wasn’t deliberate, and it’s completely fair to skip this week if you’re feeling vulnerable. I’ll do my best to bring some laughs next week.
Nonfiction by Shaimaa Abulebda and Susan D. Ross, and fiction by Stephenjohn Holgate, Dawn Tasaka Steffler and Patricia Pease.
Want to submit a story? Please do!
Nonfiction
Displacement is an Extra Limb That I Carry by Shaimaa Abulebda
One of the most stunning pieces of writing I’ve ever come across. Abuelbda is a gifted writer who tells the story of her displacements in unforgeettable language:
Every moment throughout the last eighteen months of this genocidal war has been hell. But receiving ‘evacuation orders’ and being forcibly displaced from our home, along with all of Eastern Khan Younis, was a deeper layer of hell no human should have to endure. The displacement — God Almighty, the displacement — continues to haunt me. It is the worst lived experience I have had, my worst nightmare, a trial I do not wish on anyone.
A Lucky One by Susan D. Ross
There are all sorts of upsetting things in this story, so if things like self harm and abortion are upsetting for you, skip this one.
Ross’s memoir is a harrowing and haunting story of an unexpected pregnancy at age 15. Just terrifying stuff:
I sat up naked on the couch listening to his feet slapping, the front door thumping closed. I stared at my mother and laughed. She turned away without a word. A month later, all five of us girls had prescriptions for The Pill.
It was too late for me. I began each day vomiting in the girls’ room at school. Weeks ticked by as I refused to admit the truth to myself. I refused to do or say anything. I held fast to the magical notion that I would become unpregnant.
Fiction
In the Queue for Ice Cream by Stephenjohn Holgate
This is fiction, but reads like a memoir piece. Holgate was born in Jamaica and lives in London, and this story shines a light on the subtleties around how race and social interactions intersect.
I wait in the queue, for ice cream, and listen for any grumbling about the sun’s warmth. There is nothing as well loved here as meteorological gossip and fulminations against the sun, the wind, the rain. What kind of weather these people want, my mother would ask.
The Election Goes Badly by Dawn Tasaka Steffler
Dawn Tasaka Steffler wrote on BlueSky, “I wrote this a couple of months before the election, hoping that by putting down my worst fear it might be banished.” It’s sadly prescient:
In an alternate timeline, you wouldn’t be flushing your estrogen and testosterone blockers down the toilet. You wouldn’t be packing up your cosmetics, unplugging your make-up mirror, or swapping out your padded bras for sports bras, ugly but compressive.
The Outcasts by Patricia Pease
Pease’s story of a couple of unusual kids finding some (un)common ground is sweet and sad. I’ve been thinking about it for days.
In 1968, Sadie entered junior high at a new school. Kids immediately called her Sad Sadie, the Fat Lady. There was one kid who didn’t make fun of her; Beau Watson. Bo Bo the Weirdo.
