"The Strawberry Festival" in Occulum

My new flash fiction "The Strawberry Festival" is in Issue 2 of Occulum. I love the aesthetic of this journal. Editor Arielle Tipa has gathered a dark constellation of writers around her with these first two issues, and I'm happy to be a small part of it. Here are the first few lines from the story:

It was red through and through. I reached my hand deep in the inner leaves. An ant crawled across my knuckles dragging a broken leg. I tried to help by pulling the leg off, but I broke the ant in half and its two pieces went round and round trying to find each other. Red ones are the sweetest. This one was a little soft in the middle and the sweet was almost rot. I fed a piece to the dead ant.

"Teenage Boy in Polaroids" in New World Writing

My short story, "Teenage Boy in Polaroids," is live at New World Writing. A big thank you to Kim Chinquee for accepting this piece. I'm happy to be in the company of many writers I admire and a lot of excellent work at this magazine.

Here's the opening paragraph:

The teenage boy drove a black Trans Am with an eagle on the hood. He was friends with my babysitter Rita and her friends, and she would invite them over to drink beers and blast David Bowie and T. Rex on my dad’s stereo system. One night the girls raided my parents’ bedroom and dressed me in a wig and a glamorous old gown and painted my face with lipstick and rouge. The teenage boy had long brown hair just like the wig I wore. “Look at us with our lovely locks,” he said, shaking his curls. The girls took Polaroids to show my mom, and the pictures bloomed on the little black squares like oil on rain.