The inspirations and origins for our stories.
Nora Mulligan’s story “The Circe Test” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 14 July 2017. I’ve been fascinated by Greek myths since I was a kid, reading D’Aulieres’ Greek Myths (and then later reading them to my daughter), and I’ve always been fascinated by Circe’s interaction with Odysseus. There was just something about the way she transformed men into pigs that appealed to me for some reason, and I always thought it wasn’t fair for …
T. B. McKenzie’s story “BetaU” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 7 July 2017. “BetaU” is my reflection both on the fast approaching possibility of programmable brains, and also on the way the real world can condition us to conform. Having worked in education for over a decade, I’ve seen the most enthusiastic young teachers burned up by bureaucracy, becoming the mindless middle managers they once so despised. “BetaU” imagines a future where that process …
Y. X. Acs’s story “The Abjection Engine” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 30 June 2017. This story was originally written as a response to a call for submissions put out by Weird Tales. My intention was to write a weird, hard science fiction story, appropriate, I thought, since the theme issue was going to be focused on Nikola Tesla. This led me into a love affair with his work that has yet to end. …
Filip Wiltgren’s story “One Divided by Eternity” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 23 June 2017. There’s a small theater company in the town where I live, specializing in plays for kids and teens. I attended one of their openings, a fantasy play about a group of teenagers and their daydreams. Before the play, cast members walked around asking people “what would your best ending be?” Just like that, I heard Chilli’s voice in my …
Molly Etta’s story “The Illuminator Leaves” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 16 June 2017. This story has a couple of different points of origin: The first one goes quite a ways back. I was a sophomore in college, getting interested in medieval texts and manuscript culture, and I thought I’d like to write something about a mute illuminator, who could only communicate through images. I imagined her as a kind of Scheherazade figure who …
Christopher Cervelloni’s story “Trucks in Reverse” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 9 June 2017. “Trucks in Reverse” started with a simple question: Can bad people in one context be great people in another? I have always loved speculative fiction and found it to be the right place to explore this question. Through many drafts, I stayed focused on the idea that people sometimes must do bad things to protect and care for the ones …
