admin7EyZHDb8HNC8btr3, Author at X-R-A-Y

REPOTTING by Ona Akinde

February 3, 2025 · Creative Nonfiction

1 at the airport in lagos, we find out my bags are overweight. it doesn’t surprise me. how was I supposed to fit years of my life into two 23kg suitcases? I buy an overpriced ghana-must-go bag to replace the heavier suitcase so I have more room for my things but my bags are still overweight. my mother is frantic as we pack and unpack, and I decide what else to let go of. “are you sure you don’t need this? the dress is nice on you,” she asks as I hand her another item of clothing to take back…

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she transmogrified in my bed by Rylie Farr

January 27, 2025 · Fiction

My girlfriend has started a new regiment this week. She told me after coming home yesterday from work. Supposedly, this is supposed to help her achieve her “ideal form.” Every night now she is supposed to take these fluorescent green pills with her dinner. I don’t mind it too much. She becomes so sleepy afterwards, so I tuck her in our bed before sitting out on the couch for a couple of hours. Our flat is now quieter than usual. It seems the side effects are starting to take place in her body. This morning, she woke up before me…

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WANTED: DANCE PARTNER by Brian Benson

January 25, 2025 · Micros

It’s late afternoon, day five million of this insatiable year, and I’m melting into an overstuffed chair, doing whatever I’m doing on my computer—checking email, collecting fun facts about my father’s mortality, finding new things to be ashamed of—when suddenly I hear a sound like a leaking balloon and I glance up and there he is, the dog I’ve married into owning, lying belly up on the couch, looking like he was dropped from a helicopter and landed comfortably on his back. Paws to the sky, tongue lolling from his mouth. He’s taking me in with upside-down eyes, waiting to…

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BOLOGNA by Sean Hayes

January 24, 2025 · Fiction

We stood on top of our worlds as we knew them. The fall could kill us. Or worse. All part of the thrill. Henny, Walsh, and I were on the last level of scaffolding wrapped around the Bronson Windmill in Fairfield. We were heading into our senior year at Greenfield College Preparatory School. If you think we had on boat shoes judging from the last sentence, you’re wrong. Only Henny and I had on boat shoes. Walsh wore oversized flipflops with bottle openers on the soles. We sat down, dangling our feet over the edge of the scaffolding, swinging them…

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An Interview with Jeffery Renard Allen by Kenny Meyer

January 23, 2025 · Interviews & Reviews

I was introduced to Jeffery Renard Allen’s brilliant short story collection, Fat Time (Greywolf Press, 2023), by Chaya Bhuvaneswar (prize winning author of Dancing Elephants). At the time I was a participant in her short story class. She made a habit of urging me to get out of my reading rut and explore the work of writers from divergent cultural backgrounds. Chaya had plenty of good things to say about Allen’s Fat Time, so I bought a copy. I should explain that I come from the opposite end of the cultural universe from Mr. Allen and the characters he portrays….

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TEENAGED GIRL GROWS ANTENNA IN SCHOOL BATHROOM STALL #3 by Suzanne Richardson

January 22, 2025 · Micros

I always thought I was a science project. Maybe all girls are. Today I listen too hard and become a sound reflector, sound detective. I click my converse and my head splits like Zeus. Through my skull my alloy daughter emerges. She is like me but picks up gossip frequencies. Particular metal. Flagellum and scape. Dipoles and cables. A sci-fi fascinator for prom. Now more radio than girl. I lean, press, pick up the waves of other girls. Someone said the trees were moving, but it was the world. Silence does not exist here on the moon, in this girls…

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CHARLENE ELSBY RECOMMENDS: Books from the Void

January 21, 2025 · Interviews & Reviews

Since I went to VoidCon 2023, I’ve pretty much been catching up on the books I acquired there. And the problem only got worse after VoidCon 2024. Organized by Evan Dean Shelton and Edwin Callihan, VoidCon is a curated convention for weird fiction and weird horror, including literature, art and music. Art’s that, like, “wouldn’t it be nice if it found commercial success” but nobody’s expecting it to. The void aesthetic is irreverent and fun while dark and existentially horrid, and militantly encourages the participation of diverse voices on their own terms. So as an artificial way of imposing order…

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THE SLEEPING BANKER by Matthew Binder

January 20, 2025 · Fiction

The factory closed the week before Christmas. The owner had moved his operations to Bangladesh. Emanuel had spent eleven years on the assembly line. It was the only job he knew. Marta, his wife, could no longer cut hair. Her condition made her hands tremble to the point that her clients had begun to complain about nicks on their necks and ears. They were three months behind on rent, the electricity was shut off. Their kids were eating crackers and trekking through the snow with holes in their shoes. Emanuel had once had luck betting on football matches. That ended,…

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THE CHILLED SUNLIGHT by Steve Gergley

January 19, 2025 · Micros

In town there were a series of murders. Each attack occurred beneath the almond tree spiking through the pavement in the center of Second Ave. No one seemed to care. Everyone walked the sidewalks as if nothing strange had happened. They chatted about the weather and watched the mailman wander the knotted maze of the streets. They met up for brunch and dinner and played games with their children and dogs in the park. My wife and I were terrified. We drove to the supermarket using an alternate route each day. We avoided our friends on the weekends in fear…

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AUG STONE RECOMMENDS: Steve Aylett, Kevin Maloney, Madeline Cash, John Patrick Higgins

January 16, 2025 · Interviews & Reviews

Steve Aylett, The Book Lovers (Snowbooks, 2024) Steve Aylett is back with a new novel that could very well be his best work yet. In The Book Lovers, Aylett’s fireworks are at maximum intensity – dazzling, dizzying, and coming straight at you. Launched from one of the all-time great opening lines – ‘A book is like you and me – glued to a spine and doing its best’ – the text is hilarious, profound, and just a delight to engage with. Almost every sentence is rich, full of meaning, and contains enough avenues of thought to construct a city…

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