Thrice Around the Walls of Troy by Gary Duncan Round and round, thinking: All this, for her? Remembering the stories he’d heard about her: the face, the ships, all that. That first time he saw her, his idiot brother…
BackStory: Five Questions with Fiona J. Mackintosh
BackStory: Five Questions with Fiona J. Mackintosh Author of Postbellum What inspired you to write this piece? That’s a long story. I have spent many years researching the lives of an Anglo-Tahitian royal family in the 19th and early 20th…
Postbellum
Postbellum by Fiona J. Mackintosh January 25, 1867 Somewhere outside Jacksonville, Illinois, the train slows to a crawl. Clara cups her hands and peers into the darkness but sees only the rail bed stones and the ragged edge of a…
BackStory: Four Questions with Becca Borawski Jenkins
BackStory: Four Questions with Becca Borawski Jenkins Author of You May Hear of a Killing Who are your favourite historical fiction writers (flash or otherwise)? I tend to read mainly non-fiction history, but I love when it is shared in…
You May Hear of a Killing
You May Hear of a Killing by Becca Borawski Jenkins The heat made her an inch shorter as she watched the dust devil tread toward her down the only road in this not-even-a town. Her hands rested at her hips.…
BackStory: Five Questions with Jude Higgins
BackStory: Five Questions with Jude Higgins Author of Send Him Victorious What inspired you to write this piece? It was inspired by a black and white 1930s photograph of two children playing at the shore while a boat came in.…
Send Him Victorious
Send Him Victorious by Jude Higgins I last saw my big brother Charlie laugh in 1937, the day after George VI’s coronation. He nearly wet himself when I asked him about a word in the National Anthem. Why were we…
BackStory: Five Questions with KM Elkes
BackStory: Five Questions with KM Elkes Author of Two by Two What inspired you to write “Two by Two”? I was on a staycation, sitting at home listening to rain hammering down outside and wondering why I wasn’t somewhere warmer,…
Two by Two
Two by Two by KM Elkes They say Noah died, 350 years on from the Great Flood, as a naked, purple-lipped drunk. But some know better. The ones who have seen ancient eyes beneath brows knotted as old, sick trees.…
BackStory: Five Questions with Amy Slack
BackStory: Five Questions with Amy Slack Author of The Bathtub What inspired you to write this piece? “The Bathtub” was inspired by a visit to the Mining Art Gallery in Bishop Auckland late last year. I’d wanted to learn more…