The Role of Violence In Claudia Hernandez’s “De Fronteras”
Even in a new time of ‘peace,’ histories are preserved by those who live through them.
Rookie, Revisted
Since curating this old-new collection of yearbooks, I’ve been thinking about where Rookie fits into 2024 teenage girlhood. Is there an equivalent to Rookie Mag that offers impartial advice and a platform for conversations between young girls?
Talking with Tavi Gevinson
You need different things to feel like you know characters in a film than you need if you’re reading a graphic novel.
Unlearning and Relearning: Reading and Writing, Again
In the past few years, I’ve been finding my way back to reading that excites and inspires me. Part of the process has been unlearning what I’ve been taught for so many years, and relearning ways that are more playful, open, and spontaneous. I don’t read only to “interpret” or “uncover,” but to simply experience.
Announcements
Past Announcements
Issue 41 Pre-Order Open
Our 41st issue is now available for pre-order online.
2021 Sudden Fiction Contest Winners!
We’re thrilled to announce the winners and honorary mention of our 2021 Sudden Fiction Contest! Read more to find out who won!
Book Reviews
There is no Freedom: Chain Gang All-Stars Review
In 359 pages, Adjei-Brenyah delivers soul-shattering violence and shines a light on the brutal love of spectacle that already exists in America today.
The Misrepresentation of Mental Illness: The Maidens by Alex Michaelides
While I think there is room for discourse surrounding mental illness and mental health in all genres, there is no reason for an awful trauma to be presented as the rationale for a murder mystery.
Sex, Suicide, and Suburban Malaise: A Review of The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
The girls seem to be an afterthought from the start. This is their story, and yet, it isn’t.
More Reviews
A Review of Fourth Wing, by Rebecca Yarros
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros was a book I picked up on a whim, almost by accident … it was a deviation from my path of adulting. A deviation that I cannot recommend enough
All Black and White: A Review of Brandon Sanderson’s Wax and Wayne Series
The heroes and villains are not as well drawn, resulting in a battle between good and evil that lacks the moral nuance of the original books, and is instead, all black and white.
On the transformative power of female kinship: A Review of Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton
The readers grow with the speaker; we are able to witness the experiences that shift her mindset, giving us the sense that her words and advice are rooted in real lived experiences.
Pain as Power: Review of Witch King by Martha Wells
Martha Wells’s bestselling Murderbot series has been lauded for its aromantic and asexual representation, but coming off that series, she struggles to depict queer relationships that are romantic (and, presumably, sexual).
And Something More, Something That Is Lost in Translation: Review of Translation State by Ann Leckie
Translation State offers an exciting peek into a rapidly changing universe, tempting us with glimpses of the Presger’s true nature and grounding us with lovable, refreshing characters.
Commentaries
What About That?
It’s safe to say that being a woman is to perform and act.
Is Yuri Gay? On Queer Representation in Japanese Media
Stories can fall anywhere between lifelong friendships (“they were just really good friends”) to explicit affairs, all without disturbing the lesbian elephant in the room.
The Art of Re-Reading: Jandy Nelson’s I’ll Give You The Sun
There’s pressure to consume books faster, to analyze and synthesize and summarize, and while those things undoubtedly lead to new knowledge and growth, the pressure can also be demoralizing.
Final Girl Theory
Perhaps next time you sit down at a theater, buttered popcorn in hand and blood-red Icee melting in the cup holder, you’ll be equipped with some basic knowledge of a final girl film’s recipe.
More Readings
The Subtle Art of Silliness: How Children’s Media Can Heal our Inner Child
Do you ever wonder why there seems to be a timeless essence to the stories little kids continue to read?
Classic Fantasy Tropes Upside Down: What Differentiates Joe Abercrombie’s The First Law from The Lord of the Rings
These tropes have been employed throughout literature in so many ways that one wonders: how is a story able to maintain its originality?
What’s up with Cannibalism?
“Mom,” she called to her own mother. “Something’s wrong.”And then the cat ate her kitten. And then ate the other kittens too.
Fiction
His Scaly Self
Gradually, he grew accustomed to his alternate form, to the point that he could forget about it for hours at a time.
More Stories
The Pestilence
It protests that it would never, and that two can travel, and hunt, more safely than one. This is again the truth, and the man is the sturdiest person it has seen in some time, which is good for protection and, if protection fails, for food.
Pernicious Percival and the Treacherous Pair of Thieving Trousers
Operations were running smoothly for Syndico Oil Palm—that was, until the Bornean rainforest mysteriously disappeared overnight.
The Churchyard Ritual
I saw it as a kindness, a gentle practice. I was wrong.
I Hate the Couple in Apartment C
I hate the couple in Apartment C. They throw parties on weeknights and watch the same movies with surround sound.
TNR
I am losing the pregnancy when the kittens arrive.
Float
Drowning is silent. It’s just the grief that makes any noise.
Comfortable
He sat in front of me, between my legs, leaned back onto my chest; I had to labor my breaths. “I feel so comfortable,” he said.
Salem Runs
Last semester, I almost got mugged. Or I think I almost did.
Interviews
Breaking the Canon: Interview with K-Ming Chang, Sudden Fiction Guest Judge & Author of Bestiary
Something about flash fiction and short fiction is just so ripe with experimentation and with breaking boundaries and for kind of completely turning on its head what a story can look like.
A Flash of Lightning and Heartbreak: Interview with Ashley Hutson, Sudden Fiction Guest Judge & Author of One’s Company
I feel like when you write flash, you’re giving something to the reader, like an electric shock.
A Case for “the surreal and the strange”: Interview with Anna Vangala Jones, Sudden Fiction Guest Judge and Author of Turmeric & Sugar
When I picture a flash fiction story done well, a story that’s getting so much across in this tiny space, I imagine a little snow globe or something that’s bursting with how much is going on inside it.
More Interviews
“Dive Right Into It”: An Interview with Leland Cheuk, Sudden Fiction Guest Judge and Author of No Good Very Bad Asian
With any story, you want to be taken into a world that you haven’t been before—taken into a consciousness, into the mind of a person you’re unfamiliar with.
An Interview about the Creative Process with Nico Pereda, Filmmaker and Director of Summer of Goliath, Fauna, and The Private Property Trilogy
It’s more like you’ve been all your life consuming—consuming images, consuming the world around you, conversations, and all kinds of things that you read, but also consuming experiences in many ways. What you create as artists is distilling that experience.
A Box of Ingredients: Interview with Beth Piatote, Sudden Fiction Guest Judge and Author of The Beadworkers: Stories
I think about other Native people who may read that piece and can, through the piece, feel a connection to those lands…feel that they are there.
Personal Essays
On Journaling: Don’t Kill Your Darlings
Every now and then, I flip through all my journals – seven bound notebooks filled with memories and ideas from every part of my life.
A Message of Encouragement from Mark Salzman
If you like telling stories, if you like putting things into words, it’s going to come out of you one way or the other.
A Writer’s World – The good, the great, and the inbetween
I’m learning that maybe there’s somewhere in between being good and being great— the space that aching writers occupy.
More Readings
Borderline
By the year 2020, years of therapy had helped me accept a blistering status quo: the likelihood that my mom’s health may never improve.
Los Globos
I had always thought that words can do anything. Explain and convey every feeling. If there was no word to describe it, it was because you could not find the right one. It was on you, not on the words. It has only been recently that I realized that words…
Talk to Me
The power of interviews is structural: an interview inherently forces you to listen and ask first, before saying anything else.
Visuals
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