Tiah Beautement's Blog, page 79

On AfroSF: Science Fiction by African Writers

AfroSF: Science Fiction by African Writers - She'd always loved her smooth skin but now it became impenetrable, its colour now golden like the light the New People gave off. The colour the reminded her of another life where she could both enjoy the water and endure the sun and the air. - 'Moom' by Nnedi Okorafor - No one knows she's here. She could get lost down here, disappear forever, absorbed by the ghosts of bureaucrats past. - 'Home Affairs' by Sarah Lotz - I rate the pain five out of ten and akin to a bright blue candle...

On Nick Mulgrew

Nick Mulgrew is one of the contributors to Feast, Famine & Potluck. His story made the long list after many rounds of blind judging. What made him a particularly interesting entrant, however, was that even after hearing his story did not make the short list, he donated countless hours of his valuable time to make the anthology possible. After publication his story, ‘Ponta do Ouro’ went on to receive high praise from Diane Awerbuck. So we sent Tiah Beautement out to find out more about this generous and talented soul. TB: I glanced at your twitter profile and read: freelance...

On Invisible Furies

Michiel Heyns, Invisible Furies - Parisians never go anywhere - why should they? - and despise anyone who does. That's why they've arranged for a flight of stairs at every Metro exit, to break the spirit of anyone hobbled with a suitcase... - - Martha is never late. It's her sole failing. - - He found, though, that to edit for a living was a full-time occupation, and he settled down resignedly to mulling over the outpourings of others, a task which, though hardly creative, did enable him to exercise to the hilt is rage for order. - - He...

On the saddest lines

On Rape: A Love Story

Joyce Carol Oates, Rape: A Love Story - And one bright hallucinatory morning in the desert he saw his soul curl up and die like an inchworm in the hot sand. - - He don't talk, it makes you talk too much. And when he don't answer you then after a while you can't talk either, then you start thinking too much. That ain't good. - - You didn't want to say the mermaid scared you, somehow. Since you'd been a little girl, seeing it above the lagoon. A freaky deformed female with no legs. - - You were twelve...

On the why

The restlessness settled in like an uninvited cousin that had pitched up on my doorstep with a rucksack and no money. I found myself sucking at my fingernails until they felt too long and too thin. All the things I wanted to put on the page elongated away from me. Words became bubbles of chewed gum floating pinkly in front of my eyes until I tried to grab them. Then they slipped from my grasp. Bouncy things slimy with saliva. - Rachel Zadok, Why Write?

On Dark Whispers

Joanne Macgregor, Dark Whispers - Never mind the reason why they think they are here, he knows that the real reason is to be corrected, to be made perfect. - - I can't save her unless and until she decides she wants saving. - - But with such bad beginnings, what hope do they really have of emerging from the cocoon of childhood without deformity? Already they are incubating ugliness. - - Fighting for peace is like fucking for chastity. - - I would like to tell you a story about a hero who slayed the Anger Monster. - -...

On touch

A paediatrician stands waiting to take him away. The baby is breathing on his own, and very vigorous, and so, I say to the mother, go on, reach up and touch him, it is really important; they may not let you hold him for a while. She reaches up and grabs his little foot in her hand, and afterwards I am sewing up her skin she is still looking at her hand and marvelling at the warmth of him, and how wonderful his skin felt. “He was hot as, cuz he came from inside me, and his skin was so...

On Bel Canto

Ann Patchett, Bel Canto - Most days it seemed like half the people he knew had been murdered, slaughtered in a host of ways that prevented him from sleeping well at night, and this man, the accompanist, had simply died. Somehow those two things did not seem exactly the same.- - Carmen wished that she could see inside his mind. She wondered if it would look crowded with words, compartments of language carefully fitted on top of each other. Her own brain, by comparison, would be an empty closet. - - 'If we put a gun to her head she...

On un-recovery

- Because I don’t want to lose what I learned there. And I don’t want to move on. And I don’t want closure. And I don’t want to recover. Because I don’t want to lose what happened to me. I don’t want that to be changed back. I don’t want to return to the obliviousness that I had participated in before that. You have to hold things open in order to nurture whatever new awareness was born there. - - Carolyn Forché, An interview with Carolyn Forché by David Write