ANMLY #27 :: Fiction

FEATURED IN THIS FOLIO:

Change, whether good or bad, comes.

In our current global and cultural context, barraged daily as we are by a constant stream of information on our fraught and changing world, some days the future looms dark; dark in its uncertainty, dark in the potential directions it might go.

This reminds us of a thought from Chloe Clark’s “Bound, when Rissa, upon listening to recordings from the Mariana Trench, admits to her lover Rahul how sad she is to discover “that even so deep into the earth, there’s still so much sound. It’s like you can’t escape from noise.”

But, Rahul says, “That should make you happy. Even in the darkest, you can still hear life.”

And it is life lived in the dark- in moments of compromise and messiness – that we celebrate in these stories. In Doormat, we see a woman who doesn’t take the path of popular fantasy: who doesn’t start over, become triumphant but instead attempts to make do with what she has, however problematic. In the science-fiction of Bound, we see a similar reckoning with limited choices – what can we do when we are bound literally up with the environment?

Cinnamon Baseball Coyote shows a montage of sibling relationships, how people change over time, in the small moments that mean growing up and defining oneself.

What we find in these stories is, yes, strong writing, vivid imagery, and compelling characters, but more so the feeling that, even in so much noise and darkness, there is life. The small quiet of what occurs between and within the margins. This is perhaps not a fully optimist perspective – but one still of resilience, in difficult realities. At least that’s what we hope these fictions might offer you as readers.

Beyond these fictions, what brings life to us as interim editors are the joys of welcoming new talent to the Anomaly team. For this issue we are deeply indebted to the tireless behind-the-scenes managerial prowess of managing editor Sarah Clark. And we are thrilled to welcome David Weiden as fiction editor, Katie Jean Shinkle as associate fiction editor, and new readers Stefania Gomez and Addie Tsai for Anomaly #28. We look forward to their contributions to the next great era of Anomaly fiction.

Kathryn Henion, Interim Fiction Editor
Katherine Agard, Associate Fiction Editor
26 December 2018