Short story in “A Public Space”

A Happy New Year to all my friends and readers! My short story, “Nazaré,” has been published in the rather eminent literary journal A Public Space. The journal has been in print since 2006. It partners with the brilliant Graywolf Press, one of the best indies around, and publishes some excellent writers. Actually, one of…

“How to Pronounce Knife” by Souvankham Thammavongsa

A phoneme is a single sound, the smallest unit of language. But the way a phoneme is pronounced can contain a world of information about a speaker’s race, nationality and social status. The title story of How to Pronounce Knife hinges on the pronunciation of the silent k. It’s an authorial trick that serves as…

“Kafka in a Skirt: Stories from the Wall” – by Daniel Chacón

Daniel Chacón begins his latest collection of short stories with a metafictional device. He tells us how to read the book. We can read the stories in order or skip around, following themes. The device is borrowed from Julio Cortázar’s Rayuela (translated as Hopscotch), a masterpiece in 155 chapters, the final 99 of which can…

Mailbox Chronicles no. 1: Mission at Tenth

‘Mission at Tenth’ Volume 5 arrived in my mailbox last week. It includes an extract from my novel, Damnificados (page 49, if you really want to know), so I’m a little biased, but I think it’s an excellent publication. I haven’t read it all yet, but I particularly enjoyed a brilliant story by Josip Novakovich…