Tag Archives: Lightspeed Magazine

2022 Short Fiction Round Up 2

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Time for some more short fiction I want to share with you all. It’s been a couple weeks since the last post (which was the first of the year) and I figure I should make a note about the schedule I plan to keep as I try to once again not get derailed off this project. My desire is to make weekly recommendation posts, but I’m giving myself permission to not feel bad at all if it slips to bi-weekly at times. Too often when I start missing my own self-imposed deadlines I start feeling bad and then I start not wanting to think about it at all which makes it harder to get done which leads to more missed deadlines and more feeling bad and and and I think you see where I’m going with this, yeah? So that’s the goal: weekly, but not feeling bad if it isn’t.

Often when I’m reading and picking out stories for these posts I find themes and patterns start to emerge, and I always find that interesting and fun, but this week is a little different because I decided to actively seek out stories that fit a theme I wanted. That theme? I wanted stories that made me happy. That I would want to read again because they made me so happy. Every story I recommend is a story I like, and that I think are really good. That’s not the same thing as saying every story I recommend makes me happy. It’s been a hard couple weeks for so many people everywhere. It always is you might say, but these couple weeks have felt extra so.

And so I chose to look for the happy. That’s come out in different ways as you’ll see below. Not every story is funny or joyful, though there’s a good helping of that, but for me each of these stories left me feeling good. Made me want to read them again and let them put a smile on my face, whether that smile was the aftermath of a burst of laughter or bittersweet and tinged with memory. It is my sincere wish that you find something here that makes you smile and a little happy too.

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Weekly Fiction Rec Roundup 12

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I swear I don’t set out to find themes for these roundups. I guess it’s no surprise they happen though.

My process for making these lists is pretty simple: I pick a story and read it, if I like it enough to share it goes on the list. I try and get a story every day, but I’m most often hitting 5 a week.

Reading though, is, of course, a very subjective experience. Stories are not the static things we so often think of them as, but are more like conversations between the author and reader1Or creator and audience if we want to be inclusive of all kinds of stories.. Sure, only one person (the author) gets to do the talking in this conversation, but as readers we bring our own thoughts, feelings, current mood and other baggage to the experience. It’s why one person can love something another hates and why we can have evolving2Or devolving in some cases. relationships with stories we engage with years after our first experience of them: I rewatched the Matrix the other day and was able, for the first time, to see some of what it was saying, what it had always been saying, but I never understood when I watched it3Many, many times. years ago, about the trans experience. I rewatched some Seinfeld episodes today and cringed at the explicit rape culture jokes.

So, yes, it should come as no surprise that in a week that has had me4And, many, many others. wondering about how we live in a society, and indeed world, that seems doomed, possibly within our children’s lifetimes, that I might “click” most often with a certain kind of story. This is…a dark place to find oneself, a dark conversation to be having, but I feel like most of these stories fit in this conversation and while I won’t say they have answers5I’m not sure there are definite answers to the questions these conversations raise, only ideas and choices. I do think they’re good conversational partners for the week6Oh if only it were really just this week though, eh? so many are having. Continue reading →