Tag: short fiction

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“Quality of Life” at Stupefying Stories

“Beg your pardon? Well yes… I suppose it does look a little like a ceramic doughnut. I’d never noticed. But make no mistake! That smooth frosted exterior hides the finest modern microtechnology, computer components too small to see with the naked eye, taking remote readings from up to twenty meters away… We’ve been collecting data for decades, you know, all in the public interest.”

Stupefying Stories Showcase presents my short piece “Quality of Life.” Read the rest here:

http://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/2018/01/today-on-showcase_10.html

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“Quality of Life” – a short story by Alexandra Renwick

 

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“As Mistress Wishes” to appear in alternate Canada anthology

Her ceramic arm and hand and articulated fingers gleam unadulterated ivory, whiter than the snow outside already melting as it falls. . .

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Some buzz has already been generating about the forthcoming 49th Parallels anthology from super-local (Yay, Ottawa!)  independent publisher Bundoran Press, which the Toronto Metro describes as “an anthology around what would have happened if the country took a very different turn.”  I’m happy to say my post-pandemic Vancouver story “As Mistress Wishes” will be joining the excellent lineup of these Canada-askew tales.

This one re-imagines the downtown Vancouver peninsula as a sort of steam-powered walled matriarchal city state, its society a product of the previous generation’s fierce battles over resources splitting along a strict gender divide, a world with little appreciation for nuance or inclusivity.

Mistress’s voice soothes something deep in my chest, past the industrial ceramic ribcage of my refashioning, a restless twitch in the meat muscle of my canine heart…

And of course it’s told from the dog’s perspective. Because DOGS.

More info as it materializes.

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“Or Current Resident” at Great Jones Street

or-current-residentThis cover for my story “Or Current Resident” made me snort tea through my nose.

Monday through Friday afternoon at six minutes past four, the same man in the same combat boots and blue shorts walks up Lula’s driveway, reaches into his satchel, and slides his delivery through her slot…

This was written as a Great Jones Street original. Nobody dies!

Direct story short link: https://www.greatjonesstreet.press/current-resident-alexandra-renwick/

 

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The Life of an Artifact in Duodecadal Glances

 

There’s an exquisite pleasure in communing with bees. That’s how I think of gardening as I watch the slow bumble of a black and yellow fuzzpot in his swollen pollen jodhpurs amble in and out of crimson-petaled cups I planted for exactly this…

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Go read my interstitial sudden fictions sequence “The Life of an Artifact in Duodecadal Glances” over at Map Literary. This piece is the full version of the segment which was part of my mini-collection We Beautiful Terrible Beasts, a finalist for the Rachel Wetzsteon Chapbook Prize.

story link: http://www.mapliterary.org/alexandra-renwick-the-life-of-an-artifact-in-duodecadal-glances.html

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“the monsieur” in the baltimore review

wielki_lester_1904My story “The Monsieur” is live over at The Baltimore Review. Can’t stand between a boy and his dummy…

He’d never held a ventriloquist’s dummy before. It was lighter than he expected. The Monsieur’s clothes were straight out of old French cinema, suited to black and white canal shots with lots of fog: the antique sailor-stripe knit shirt; the miniature wool beret. The red polkadot scarf knotted at the wooden throat brought the term neckerchief to mind. Though the carved wood features—hooked nose, bushy eyebrows, deep-etched lines around the mouth—were clearly those of an old man, Nate had expected the dummy to weigh the same as one of his nephews. Back when he’d lived in his sister’s basement the nephews had been young enough to still want to clamber up onto Nate’s knee. The oldest, only three, would climb into Nate’s lap and stare at Nate’s face with solemn eyes, sucking his thumb while Nate tried to make conversation as he would with someone his own age. So, what are you up to these days? Nate would ask. Seen any good movies lately?

Direct link to “The Monsieur.”

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Interview: Those who write us

Patterson–Gimlin_film_frame_352Fellow Those Who Make Us contributor Corey Redekop is hosting a series of intriguing mini-interviews in honor of the release of the aforementioned anthology.

Find out about my story “The Hairy Man.”

Find out why I hope nothing is unique about my wee little monster.

Find out about my favourite and least favourite monsters, because life is, after all, arbitrary and unfair enough as it is.

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cover reveal: Those Who Make Us

twmuCover has been revealed for Those Who Make Us, an anthology of Canadian creature, myth, & monster stories including my future Canadiana sasquatch tale “The Hairy Man.”

The Hairy Man showed me his pénis today at the castle and though my maman would not have approved I looked with Great Interest and when he pushed his matted brownish hair back over his man-thing and covered it up again he waited and I knew it was hoped I would return the Favour. I did not…

I pretty much adore this story. Love it for its Edwardian ladies’ digest overtones and its bildungsroman fragile rawness. Happy to say it’s been chosen also to appear in the Exile Literary Quarterly.

Pre-order the anthology here.

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“The Hairy Man”

Haida_SkidgateToronto-based Exile Editions has announced the table of contents for their forthcoming monster/myth anthology Those Who Make Us, which includes my post-apocalyptic love letter to Victoria, “The Hairy Man.”

Patterson–Gimlin_film_frame_352Living in the Pacific Northwest gives one (if one is odd, and loves monsters and attendant mythos) a somewhat proprietary appreciation for Bigfoot, aka Sasquatch, aka hairy man, aka gogit — okay, the dude has a dozen different regional names all over the world, and was incidentally responsible for one of my favorite X-Files episodes.

I’m in absolute love with this story. It’s tangentially set in the same future-Canada as my “Drowntown” (lead story in the Prix Aurora-winning Blood & Water) and Vancouver-based matriarchal steamworks story I’m still cooking in the oven. I’m starting to sense a post-disaster Canadian mosaic novel materializing…