Here is more a question of when than where.

9 June 2018

Today and tomorrow we’ll be featuring stories involving time travel!

Today, excerpts from Teresa P. Mira de Echeverría’s “Liquid Glass” (trans Lawrence Schimel – and the story from which our title comes), which appears in Broad Knowledge, and D.A. Xiaolin Spires’ second story in these anthologies, “Bristling Skim,” which appears in Sharp & Sugar Tooth:

D.A. Xiaolin Spires writes:

I have two stories in these URB anthologies, “Bristling Skim” (Sharp and Sugar Tooth), a creepy tale of gastronomic nefariousness and “Sunbasker” (Broad Knowledge), a science-fiction robot story set in a plantation with dark, fairy-tale elements. Both stories feature astute and willful female protagonists. “Bristling Skim” takes you to (WWII and) post-WWII Japan and stems from conversations I’ve had with people in Japan who consumed school lunch in the 1950’s and 60’s. It was during this time that Japan (as well as Taiwan, mentioned briefly in the story) received food aid from the US, consisting of wheat, milk and other products that eventually found their way to everyday diets through institutionalized programs like school lunch. (Here’s a timeline of school lunch in Japan throughout modern history. The website’s in Japanese with lots of interesting photos.) Given the current ubiquity of vending machines, I felt compelled to include them, as well! The story starts off with two divergent temporal spheres coming together—and includes the anonymity of the machine that dispenses drinks and the historical connection to food during occupation and reconstruction and thereafter. I was inspired by the sheer palpability of revulsion when (some) people in Japan talked about the so-called milk/not-exactly-milk served as school lunch during that time. You should see how their faces scrunched in disgust!

Teresa P Mira de Echeverría says of her story:

The story was born from the stained glass windows of Chartres and its non-labyrinth, but above all, it was born from the idea of how the name “witch” is incarnated in the skin of the woman who is different, of the woman who is strong, of the woman who fights for her place in the world… and in the tortuous way to assume that name as an honorary title and not as a disqualifying epithet. In the story I talk about the fever of the protagonist and, for the second time in my career, I ended up with fever myself while writing about her… well, that made the descriptions much easier.

I already knew Women Up To No Good and, knowing the theme, and having already published with Joanne Merriam (thanks to Lawrence Schimel) a novelette, I knew of the professionalism, the commitment and the human quality of who do URBB. So, how can I not want to participate?

Check out the Kickstarter!

About the Authors

Argentine author Teresa P. Mira de Echeverría holds a doctorate in philosophy and is a university professor. Her novelette, Memory, is also available from Upper Rubber Boot Books (in a translation into English by Lawrence Schimel, who also translated “Liquid Glass”), and was a finalist for the Spanish national science fiction award, the Ignotus. Her other titles include a short novel, El tren (Café con Leche, 2016), and a collection of stories, Diez varaiaciones sobre el amor (Editorial Cerbero, 2017).

D.A. Xiaolin Spires stares at skies and wonders what there is to eat out there in the cosmos. Spires aspires to be a 3-D printing gourmand, but will happily concede with producing and consuming quixotic fiction and poetry. Trips to East and Southeast Asia continue to influence her writing and leave her craving durian, fermented foods and copious amounts of wonder that fuel her body, spirit and imagination. Website: daxiaolinspires.wordpress.com.

Entry filed under: Anthology, Fiction, News. Tags: , , .

Tannins work like that. I said you were destroying history


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