Orca published my story, “Operation Empathy” in their summer Literary Speculative issue.
During the pandemic, I wrote a series of linked stories featuring a neuroscientist obsessed with empathy and her twin brother who creates a graphic novel featuring a superhero “Empathy.” This collection of literary stories with speculative elements is set in the near future.
Two stories have just been published, a third will appear in a Canadian lit mag.
Orca Literary Journal, a gorgeous printed lit mag, included “Operation Empathy” is their summer speculative fiction. You can visit their site and order the issue. In a foreword, the Orca editors include one of the best definitions of speculative fiction I’ve come across:
The beauty of speculative writing, when it’s done right, is that it begins with what we know about the world, makes a logical projection forward, and then takes that one extra step—taking its readers beyond what couldn’t be and into what might be, what could very well be, and sometimes what has to be.
Sinking City, an online literary journal published semi-annually by MFA students at the University of Miami, published my story “The Empathies,” set in a creepy, abandoned Disney World.
I’m so grateful to these literary journals and their dedicated editors and readers.
My fiction is usually firmly grounded in realism. But I like stretching my imaginary muscles, and it’s been wildly fun to try my hand at speculative fiction. I admire writers with eclectic bodies of work—Margaret Atwood the obvious example. And I try to “read like a writer” broadly, across genres: historical fiction, sci-fi, horror, poetry, a meet-cute or two, classics, and award-winning literary works.
I’m in awe of historical fiction. It’s a kind of world-building steeped in historical fact. Maggie O’Farrell’s The Marriage Portrait is on my TBR pile, and anything by Hilary Mantel. Next project, maybe?