By Henri Brink “We were thirteen. Soon after, we took the cardboard box holding Nana’s ashes to the Highway 50 overpass and opened it, watching her bits and pieces dance in the powerful wake of passing eighteen wheelers. Then, we went home and crafted a plan. And waited.” – Beth Anderson, “Patience”
For her contribution to Furious Gravity, Beth Anderson delivers a gripping story about loss, violence and the ways family protects and harms us. Told in dual first person, “Patience” is an incredible piece of flash fiction that somehow manages to span a moment and a lifetime, and it opens the anthology with a poignant elegance that I, for one, couldn’t get out of my head. Thoroughly starstruck, I recently got the chance to talk with Beth about her stories, her community, and the process of writing "Patience."
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By Jason Brandon Colleen Kearney Rich’s “The Other Gorgon Girl” shifts the popular focus from Medusa to her sister Euryale, the god of war. In this short story, mythology is married to a modern scenario. Euryale, fed up with the account manager and his mansplaining, gives him a look that leaves him petrified. But how does one dispose of his petrified body in this surveillance state? Won’t cameras catch her and her boyfriend getting rid of the body?
While this isn’t a bloody murder, the account manager cannot escape his state of petrification and be resucitated. Euryale defeats the evil, but cannot escape the consequences. In this interview, Colleen Kearney Rich and I discuss the origin of this piece, her affinity for the short form, and how she has advised and uplifted other writers. By Emily Park  In A January Migration, J.J. Kent narrates a cold night in New York City and a tense dinner conversation with her partner. The story follows them on the walk home, their voices rattling through the winter air over the crunch of slushy sidewalks beneath their shoes. Intertwined in the narrative are moments of relatability and imagery that articulate the subtle, fleeting moments of pain and pleasure that come with human relationships.
Local to Maryland, Kent is seizing the moment to write! She is a writer currently working on her first book, a retelling of her hilarious and adventurous childhood. I had the pleasure of discussing her journey as a writer and her story A January Migration. by Kalin Lamme Why is writing important to you? I’ve always written to process life and to make sense of things, like the death of loved ones, experiences I’ve had, and choices I haven’t made. I get to create characters who are messier than me and learn about myself and the human condition from them. It’s a creative outlet that makes me feel alive. |
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