31 Days of Stories 2023, Day 23: “Letter to a Young Lady in Paris” by Julio Cortázar; Paul Blackburn, trans.
One of the pervasive themes running through the story is the conflict between order and chaos.
Hell on Earth: John Vaillant’s Fire Weather is a sobering, terrifying, and infuriating look at how humans have created the conditions for our own extinction
In describing fire – its properties and its behaviour – Vaillant is at his most enthralling.
31 Days of Stories 2023, Day 22: “Snowblower” by Michelle Porter
Porter's story is as significant for what it leaves out as for what it includes.
31 Days of Stories 2023, Day 21: “The Moment Before the Gun Went Off” by Nadine Gordimer
Gordimer refuses to level judgment herself in the story.
31 Days of Stories 2023, Day 20: “Expecting” by Steven Heighton
Imagery involving implicit threat is threaded throughout the story.
“The only way I can explain my behaviour”
Martin Amis, sui generis.
31 Days of Stories 2023, Day 19: “The Harvest” by Amy Hempel
How much of "The Harvest" is true to the facts of Hempel's experience is unclear, and also unimportant.
31 Days of Stories 2023, Day 18: “Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire” by Neil Gaiman
Gaiman is commenting on our various prejudices regarding where genre work falls in the realm of literary respectability.
31 Days of Stories 2023, Day 17: “Doi Moi Beans” by Philip Huynh
"Doi Moi Beans" is a story about exploitation; not the obvious kind, but the subtle version.
31 Days of Stories 2023, Day 16: “Wedding Day” by Gwendolyn Bennett
Bennett's story, though relatively brief, is a subtle excavation of racial, class, and gendered power dynamics.