31 Days of Stories 2021, Day 26: “Safeword” by R.O. Kwon and “Scissors” by Kim Fu
Two stories about pleasure and pain interrogate the nature of trust and what we risk when we relinquish control.
A Blog About Books and Reading
A Blog About Books and Reading
Two stories about pleasure and pain interrogate the nature of trust and what we risk when we relinquish control.
“Violations” is a story that instructs its reader how to read it even as it is unfolding on the page.
The interplay among the characters in Nguyen’s story dramatizes the prickly concerns that crop up in the face of cultural conflicts and commingled histories.
A fantastical story with origins in myth and fairy tale, Aiken’s narrative imagines the world’s greatest Shakespearean actor as a werewolf.
One of Faulkner’s most exuberant tales, this story of poetic revenge is also uproariously funny.
The term “splatterpunk” refers to a highly disreputable, extreme subgenre of graphic horror, but its best practitioners do much more with the form.
Kavan’s story is typical of her technical approach, which telescopes time and proceeds in a kind of modified stream-of-consciousness narration.
Valerie Martin’s long story is about a poisonous artistic rivalry.
The story is about the mother of an imprisoned son before, during, and after her bus trip to visit him.
Hurston’s story contains the folk idiom for which she is known, as well as being a signal example of her concern with women overcoming abuse at the hands of men.