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Nussia
Nussia... I said her name like a wish.
All Lindsay Fields has ever wanted was to have a best friend--someone to share all her likes and dislikes, who would truly understand her. When she enters a competition to host Nussia, a teenage alien from a different planet--and wins --thirteen-year-old Lindsay is ecstatic. Now, the Fields' are not only the first ever humans to host a Fike alien, they are also the first African-American family to do so.
But Nussia is not quite what Lindsay expected. And Lindsay's family, home, and entire life changes because of Nussia's arrival... but not in the way she imagined.
From the author of Reenu-You comes a brand new novelette of being careful of what you wish for.
All Lindsay Fields has ever wanted was to have a best friend--someone to share all her likes and dislikes, who would truly understand her. When she enters a competition to host Nussia, a teenage alien from a different planet--and wins --thirteen-year-old Lindsay is ecstatic. Now, the Fields' are not only the first ever humans to host a Fike alien, they are also the first African-American family to do so.
But Nussia is not quite what Lindsay expected. And Lindsay's family, home, and entire life changes because of Nussia's arrival... but not in the way she imagined.
From the author of Reenu-You comes a brand new novelette of being careful of what you wish for.
80 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 26, 2018
1 person is currently reading
26 people want to read
About the author
Michele Tracy Berger
24 books46 followersMichele Tracy Berger is a professor, an award-winning creative writer, creativity coach and a pug-lover.
Her main love is writing science fiction though she also is known to write poetry and creative nonfiction, too.
Her origin story:
At the age of six, Michele’s mother turned a walk-in closet into creative space just for her daughter. That closet became a portal and gateway to self-expression. Michele pretended that Will Robinson, a character on the television show Lost in Space was her brother and that she fought alongside Lindsay Wagner who played The Bionic Woman. And, she went on many other adventures. From that age on, Michele never doubted the power of the imagination.
Her publications:
Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Apex Magazine, SLAY: Stories of the Vampire Noire, Concrete Dreams: Witches, Warriors and Wise Women, Afromyth: A Fantasy Collection Volume 2, Stories We Tell After Midnight #2, Nevermore; UnCommon Origins: A Collection of Gods, Monsters, Nature and Science, Flying South: A Literary Journal; 100 Word Story; Thing Magazine; Blood and Bourbon, and FIYAH: Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction.
Her nonfiction writing and poetry have appeared in The Chapel Hill News, The Wild Word Magazine, Glint Literary Journal, Oracle: Fine Arts Review, Trivia: Voices of Feminism, The Feminist Wire, Ms. Magazine, Carolina Woman Magazine, Western North Carolina Woman, A Letter to My Mom (Crown Press), Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia Butler (Twelfth Planet Press) and various zines.
She is the 2019 winner of the Carl Brandon Kindred Award from the Carl Brandon Society for her story "Doll Seed" published in FIYAH: Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction.
In 2020, her science fiction novella, "Reenu-You" about a mysterious virus transmitted through a hair care product billed as a natural hair relaxer, was published by Falstaff Books. Much of her work explores psychological horror, especially through issues of race and gender.
She is immediate past President of the board of the North Carolina Writers’ Network (NCWN) and immediate past President of the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association.
Her debut short story collection, "Doll Seed" from Aunt Lute Books will be published Oct 1, 2024.
The stories span horror, fantasy, science fiction, and magical realism, but are always grounded in very real characters and beautifully rendered, distinctive communities. Often thematically centered on the lives of women and girls, especially women of color and their experiences of vulnerability and outsider status, these stories are often playful and always provocative.
Fifteen stories invite you to get comfortable in the dark, to consider freedom and sacrifice, trust and betrayal, otherness, and safety. Marisol, an aspiring jewelry artist is haunted by a fast-food icon. Chevella, a self-aware doll, finds herself in 1950s America playing a key role in the Civil Rights Movement. Lindsay, a Black girl in 1970s America “wins” an extraterrestrial in a national contest only to find her family's life upended. Chelsea and Jessa, two sisters, fight about what a strange child means for their family. A meat grinder appears in a magical forest and chaos ensues. All this and more.
Her main love is writing science fiction though she also is known to write poetry and creative nonfiction, too.
Her origin story:
At the age of six, Michele’s mother turned a walk-in closet into creative space just for her daughter. That closet became a portal and gateway to self-expression. Michele pretended that Will Robinson, a character on the television show Lost in Space was her brother and that she fought alongside Lindsay Wagner who played The Bionic Woman. And, she went on many other adventures. From that age on, Michele never doubted the power of the imagination.
Her publications:
Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Apex Magazine, SLAY: Stories of the Vampire Noire, Concrete Dreams: Witches, Warriors and Wise Women, Afromyth: A Fantasy Collection Volume 2, Stories We Tell After Midnight #2, Nevermore; UnCommon Origins: A Collection of Gods, Monsters, Nature and Science, Flying South: A Literary Journal; 100 Word Story; Thing Magazine; Blood and Bourbon, and FIYAH: Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction.
Her nonfiction writing and poetry have appeared in The Chapel Hill News, The Wild Word Magazine, Glint Literary Journal, Oracle: Fine Arts Review, Trivia: Voices of Feminism, The Feminist Wire, Ms. Magazine, Carolina Woman Magazine, Western North Carolina Woman, A Letter to My Mom (Crown Press), Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia Butler (Twelfth Planet Press) and various zines.
She is the 2019 winner of the Carl Brandon Kindred Award from the Carl Brandon Society for her story "Doll Seed" published in FIYAH: Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction.
In 2020, her science fiction novella, "Reenu-You" about a mysterious virus transmitted through a hair care product billed as a natural hair relaxer, was published by Falstaff Books. Much of her work explores psychological horror, especially through issues of race and gender.
She is immediate past President of the board of the North Carolina Writers’ Network (NCWN) and immediate past President of the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association.
Her debut short story collection, "Doll Seed" from Aunt Lute Books will be published Oct 1, 2024.
The stories span horror, fantasy, science fiction, and magical realism, but are always grounded in very real characters and beautifully rendered, distinctive communities. Often thematically centered on the lives of women and girls, especially women of color and their experiences of vulnerability and outsider status, these stories are often playful and always provocative.
Fifteen stories invite you to get comfortable in the dark, to consider freedom and sacrifice, trust and betrayal, otherness, and safety. Marisol, an aspiring jewelry artist is haunted by a fast-food icon. Chevella, a self-aware doll, finds herself in 1950s America playing a key role in the Civil Rights Movement. Lindsay, a Black girl in 1970s America “wins” an extraterrestrial in a national contest only to find her family's life upended. Chelsea and Jessa, two sisters, fight about what a strange child means for their family. A meat grinder appears in a magical forest and chaos ensues. All this and more.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
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June 25, 2018This is our next short story! A little bit more about it, from the author:
An African American girl “wins” an alien in the 1970s who comes to live with her family. What could possibly go wrong? I like to think of the tagline for this story as E.T. meets Fatal Attraction.
I didn’t intentionally set out to write an anti-E.T. story. I was probably the same age as the main character, Lindsay when I saw E.T., around twelve or thirteen. Like many, I enjoyed the movie despite its saccharine feel. And, like the speculative fiction media that shaped my early life (e.g. Lost in Space, Bewitched, The Bionic Woman, Star Wars, etc.), themes of race and gender as well diversity in casting were habitually absent. So while speculative media served as a fantastic conduit to imagine different realities, it didn’t give me the conceptual tools or language to understand the inequities that I experienced as a young black girl that were a feature of my everyday life. On some level, I noted that absence.
At the same time I was absorbing fantasy and sci-fi end when I was young; I was also deeply into horror. My mother was a serious horror fan and I think my younger sister can quote most of Steven King’s work. Typical of my generation, I watched and read material that was definitely age inappropriate. I credit my early horror interests in giving me an alternate way of looking at the world, one that is grittier and less idealistic. I’ve gravitated more toward horror tropes in my writing as they provide a powerful way to dig into the complexities and contradictions of race and gender.
The kernel of this story was inspired many moons ago by the biting, incisive comedy of Paul Mooney. He did a famous bit on racism, sci-fi movies and how some white people would rather embrace an alien living as a neighbor, next door to them, rather than an African American family. His routine challenged me to reflect on the absolute irrational nature of racism and explore that irrationality through storytelling. The structure of Nussia allows me to play with the external challenges that the Fields family faces as they host Nussia, and the way each family member responds to that pressure.
I am generally interested in themes of paranoia, obsession, conspiracy theories and the intricacies of race and gender. You’ll find many of those themes in Nussia. It’s also an intimate story in that much of the drama and conflict happens behind closed doors.
Voice and character usually come first for me when writing. Once I had the frame of the story, Lindsay’s voice came to me pretty easily. I had a lot of fun remembering what it was like being a thirteen year-old girl and even though I didn’t grow up where Lindsay did, I did grow up during that time in the Bronx.
I loved that I got a chance to do some sci-fi world-building in developing the Fike and the challenges Nussia faces as being a representative for her people at such a critical time in her life. The story also combines several interests that recur in my writing: rites of female adolescence, mother and daughter relationships, and female friendships.
Imagining and wrestling with this story helped me, and hopefully my readers, to see some uncommon angles by which we can all deal with the perceived alien differences in ourselves and others.
An African American girl “wins” an alien in the 1970s who comes to live with her family. What could possibly go wrong? I like to think of the tagline for this story as E.T. meets Fatal Attraction.
I didn’t intentionally set out to write an anti-E.T. story. I was probably the same age as the main character, Lindsay when I saw E.T., around twelve or thirteen. Like many, I enjoyed the movie despite its saccharine feel. And, like the speculative fiction media that shaped my early life (e.g. Lost in Space, Bewitched, The Bionic Woman, Star Wars, etc.), themes of race and gender as well diversity in casting were habitually absent. So while speculative media served as a fantastic conduit to imagine different realities, it didn’t give me the conceptual tools or language to understand the inequities that I experienced as a young black girl that were a feature of my everyday life. On some level, I noted that absence.
At the same time I was absorbing fantasy and sci-fi end when I was young; I was also deeply into horror. My mother was a serious horror fan and I think my younger sister can quote most of Steven King’s work. Typical of my generation, I watched and read material that was definitely age inappropriate. I credit my early horror interests in giving me an alternate way of looking at the world, one that is grittier and less idealistic. I’ve gravitated more toward horror tropes in my writing as they provide a powerful way to dig into the complexities and contradictions of race and gender.
The kernel of this story was inspired many moons ago by the biting, incisive comedy of Paul Mooney. He did a famous bit on racism, sci-fi movies and how some white people would rather embrace an alien living as a neighbor, next door to them, rather than an African American family. His routine challenged me to reflect on the absolute irrational nature of racism and explore that irrationality through storytelling. The structure of Nussia allows me to play with the external challenges that the Fields family faces as they host Nussia, and the way each family member responds to that pressure.
I am generally interested in themes of paranoia, obsession, conspiracy theories and the intricacies of race and gender. You’ll find many of those themes in Nussia. It’s also an intimate story in that much of the drama and conflict happens behind closed doors.
Voice and character usually come first for me when writing. Once I had the frame of the story, Lindsay’s voice came to me pretty easily. I had a lot of fun remembering what it was like being a thirteen year-old girl and even though I didn’t grow up where Lindsay did, I did grow up during that time in the Bronx.
I loved that I got a chance to do some sci-fi world-building in developing the Fike and the challenges Nussia faces as being a representative for her people at such a critical time in her life. The story also combines several interests that recur in my writing: rites of female adolescence, mother and daughter relationships, and female friendships.
Imagining and wrestling with this story helped me, and hopefully my readers, to see some uncommon angles by which we can all deal with the perceived alien differences in ourselves and others.
July 19, 2018
I enjoyed the alt history angle and how the racism of 1973 (higher expectations placed on a minority family, and how hosting Nussia could change their lives) took this to a whole other level than what a reader might be expecting (i.e. the standard 'aliens as metaphor for accepting difference' line).
I don't want to spoil things for other readers, but I will say that the mood of the story reminded me very much of Nicholas Fisk's "Grinny", which I re-read over and over as a kid and which had a similar premise.
I don't want to spoil things for other readers, but I will say that the mood of the story reminded me very much of Nicholas Fisk's "Grinny", which I re-read over and over as a kid and which had a similar premise.
January 14, 2019
[Nussia](https://www.thebooksmugglers.com/2018...) is a short story that describes the first alien exchange student, who comes to a black family in the Bronx. The writing felt very uneven, and the plot a bit directionless, so even though the idea is nice, the story didn't capture me at all.
July 19, 2018
Wanted to like this a lot more than I did, though I did enjoy the ending.
July 1, 2018
I just found this SO boring. And maybe it's because I'm not an alien fan in general, since I tend to stay away from books with those creatures in them. Or maybe it's that it's set near the end of the 1970s, which I didn't really care to read about. But whatever it was, it was so dull to me, and I didn't really like any of the characters except their grandma. And the MC, Lindsay, was okay. Her voice was just so young, which makes sense because she's only 13/14, but I couldn't get into the story. Ugh. SADNESS.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews