As the story opens, 12-year-old Dylan Dearborne is yearning for a bit of permanence. She and her mother, Maggie, are living in Springfield, Oregon, in the early 1980s with a nice, decent man named Joe and his teen daughter, Anna. Maggie’s been wandering aimlessly with Dylan for years (“She’d been shuffled from one place to […]
Bobb has been immersed in STEM education at Georgia Tech, Google, and the National Science Foundation. He weaves together the many threads of race, technology, and American history, alongside his own personal history as an immigrant son of Guyana, to clarify the stakes for Blacks as we enter an AI-dominated world. From school segregation to […]
In 1938, more than 10 years before “the great leader had announced to the world the founding of the new China, the People’s Republic of China,” young sisters Mingyan and Shuyan lead the simple and careless lives that children so often do—until the threat of war draws too close for comfort. When their father, in […]
In this collection of five stories, Chen explores themes of emotional isolation and dissatisfaction; her characters navigate turbulent interpersonal relationships while contending with sadness. In “Perfect House, Perfect Life,” a wife and mother feels the walls closing in around her, an emotional parallel to her downsizing of the family’s residence due to an equally decreasing […]
As a woman who had most of her six kids in her 30s, Larson knows what it’s like to be subjected to unsolicited thoughts, ideas, and criticisms from various people in her life. All of their input made her feel like she was “shrinking,” she says, but it also compelled her to explore constructive and […]
Potchky, a ring-tailed lemur, is a fussy eater; pal Nosh, a koala, is a more willing gourmet. Nosh wants to make latkes (Potchky: “What are latkes?” Nosh: “Yummy potato pancakes”) but Potchky whines: “The only potatoes I like are potato chips.” Potchky agrees to help Nosh prepare the treats but objects to the color of […]
“At home, I was the center of everything.” Wild Princess has it good and knows it. The words “She showered me with attention” are paired with an image of a pair of peach-colored human hands with painted fingernails giving Wild Princess a beauty treatment. One day some cardboard boxes appear, and “then the suitcases came […]
Joe’s superwealthy-by-marriage “Grandma B,” whom he adores, has befriended one-time protection racketeer Arman Babylon at the exclusive LA cancer treatment center where both are living. The repentant Babylon hires Joe to find his long-missing granddaughter, Twyla Mann, now 38, and tell her the woman she thinks is her mother actually isn’t—a domestic coverup instigated by […]
Etta Wheeler moved to Manhattan in 1873 with her husband, Charles, who had accepted a position as a journalist at The New York Daily News. Although married for nine years, the couple had no children. Etta, a devout Methodist, sought to make herself useful, and what happened next made her famous: On a missionary outing […]
In a world filled with people possessing fantastic powers, 15-year-old Alé Aragón was once deemed a Deficient, lacking an “accelerated ability” that many others have. But he survived a brutal fight, marking him as a Feral, a designation that means his ability—to come back from the dead—is outside the Common Six (such as the telekinesis […]