Reuniting with translator Polly Barton, Matsuda revisits similar themes in this new collection; across fifty-two stories, she tackles the pervasive misogyny faced by women in contemporary Japan and beyond.
Category: fiction
FICTION | The Grammar of Forgetting – Jeffrey-Michael Kane
Desire could drain a reservoir. Fear could empty a playground. And someone like her would be left to label the files.
Book Review: House of Day, House of Night by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones – Arbnora Selmani
“We are prompted to savour each word, carefully probing between our teeth to discover new morsels of meaning.”
FLASH FICTION | Blue Pieces of Sky – Mikki Aronoff
Stevie busies himself trying to match two blue pieces of sky. You watch him working the corners and the glands in your throat swell.
FICTION | Rooms: A Love Letter – Annemarie McCarthy
Inside the atoms of the cavity block extension live the remnants of a thousand John Players.
FICTION | Bruises – Keenan Lew
They say a lot of the work of being poly is scheduling. When I say ‘they’ I mean smug influencers with poorly produced podcasts, and when I say ‘being poly’ I hate myself.
FICTION | The Signmaker — David Hartley
They have agreed that this is an emergency. Signs need not be heeded in an emergency, they’re quite sure.
Steelers Country — Travis Dahlke
I convince Landa to be my accomplice as she culls rotten lettuce heads. They let Landa wear a knife on her belt. She has a weak heart and I think destroying crops makes her feel powerful.
Cats Don’t Care About Daylight Savings — Samiha Meah
Last night, I dreamt about them again. All moon-faced and lovely and it stirred that familiar ache.
FLASH FICTION — Beth Morrow
We’re hit with a waft of espresso. The thunder of grinding coffee beans. The high-pitched hiss of steamed milk. Our wish is granted.
The Season of Dying Birds — Harriet Sandilands
In the courtyard, at the entrance to the bookshop, an egg smashed on the cobbled ground – albumen, yolk and the bald outline and bulging eye of an almost-bird.
Hoop — Harriet Sandilands
There is an unspoken rule in a therapy group that you are not going to go out for a beer afterwards. It’s the same way that no-one actually tells you that you shouldn’t have sex with someone you just met on the third day of a meditation retreat, but you still know it isn’t a very good idea.
Porridge 