It came from Emily McIntyre

Emily McIntyre’s story “Jewel/Gem Offering” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 12 January 2018. Summer in Portland is a riot of roses. Funereal roses, scattering their fragile petals around them like Miss Havisham’s train; glowing roses like tiny sun-bits just waiting to be noticed; classic tea roses whispering of the past. I spend a lot of time on my bike in the summer in this city, thinking while I ride, and occasionally I pull over …

Jewel/Gem Offering – Emily McIntyre

It is dawn in the half-world of Varuzza, and the sun strikes the woman’s face in strips of meat red and blue. Around her still-trim waist she wears a leather belt holstering the latest shiny aggro-tech; old lace kisses pearls around her neck and in her hand is a pot holding the tender sprig of a rose with deep purple thorns and a bud the color of midnight on the old Home World. Two days …

A question for Emily McIntyre

Q: Why fantasy?

A: Ignoring the fact that Jewel/Gem is a sci-fi story (my first, possibly my last), I choose to write fantasy not just because it’s cool—like fezzes are cool—but because life, through the lens of fantasy, is a little richer. Through fantasy I can take a stab at the ‘why’ behind the ‘how’, and often neglect the ‘how’ entirely. In fantasy we can tackle tough topics with just enough distance to stay safe until the fatal moment that truth stabs us in the heart and we find that, like all good literature, this story has changed us somehow. We’re bigger. Deeper. Angrier.

Fantasy helps us live.


Emily McIntyre’s story “Jewel/Gem Offering” was
published on Friday, 12 January 2018.

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About Emily McIntyre

A globe-trotting coffee entrepreneur by day and a diehard fantasy writer/reader by night, Emily McIntyre lives in Portland, Oregon.


Emily McIntyre’s story “Jewel/Gem Offering” was
published on Friday, 12 January 2018.

Subscribe to our e-mail updates so you’ll know when new stories go live.