Editor's Note: Things With Feathers: Stories of Hope Anthology

As inspiration for Third Flatiron Anthologies' latest theme, we put forth one of Emily Dickinson's poems, "Hope," in which she characterized it as "a thing with feathers." We reprint "Hope" inside for you to savor. Many of the contributors to this anthology agreed with Dickinson, while others expanded the ideas and symbols of hope.

 

 We open with Nemma Wollenfang's "Dream Eater," a truly transformative steampunk fantasy that shows us how a little kindness can reap rewards beyond your wildest dreams. While Cayce Osborne's "Yin-Yang" is indeed a ghost story, it is also a story of redemption.

Is there hope for us all? In P. A. Cornell's "Shiny Things," humanity's future is in doubt, as aliens return the planet to nature, until an intelligent bird pleads our inventiveness. Conversely, we depend heavily on math and technology, but sometimes it can become an obsession, as in David Cleden's "Ephemeralities."

Some of our stories call on the hopeful lessons of mythology, magic, and religion, such as F. T. Berner's "The Ones Who Made the Crossing," Sharon Diane King's "The Sorcerer's Appendix," and, for a touch of the weird, Nicholas Stillman's future-origin story, "Yes, Sadly." Barton Paul Levenson uses "Elf Magic" to show us how we could get along with others who aren't like us.

Still others draw hope from the wellspring of the supernatural, as in Bruce Arthurs' "The Best Damned Barbershop in Hell," and Paula Hammond's "Adventures in the Spiritual Lost-and-Found."

A common linchpin seems to be how much family plays a pivotal role in giving us hope—even more so over the past year. The wisdom of grandparents and devotion of grandchildren take center stage in Emily Dauvin's "The Soul of Trees," E. J. Delaney's "Zeno's Paradise (with redheads!)," Shannon Brady's "The Wonders of Yesterday," and Raluca Balasa's "Vanishing Act").

In time for the winter holidays, we have Arthur Carey's heartwarming alien encounter, "The Black Marble," a story that lets us reflect on the good things that we have and how they might continue to be.

Enthusiastic hope, aka "the Tinker Bell effect": Remember how we all clapped to bring Peter Pan's pal back to life? We want to believe that Alicia Cay's astronaut will survive in "The Girl Who Built Worlds." Melissa Mead's "Stella" catches a falling star and puts it in your pocket—ready in case you need it. Brian Rappatta's "The Warrior Rides into Battle, Sword Held High," rides along with characters who live their dreams of a better future as they take the daily bus to work.

Those of you wondering whether you're brave enough to attend a science fiction convention in person this year, there's encouragement to be found in Danielle Mullen's "One Last Thing." You might meet someone truly inspiring.

Worried about the sentient AI in your refrigerator? Anchoring the anthology is a hopeful post-singularity tale about intelligent buildings who love their customers, in Wulf Moon's "Sophie's Parisian Stationery & Parfumerie Magnifique."

As usual, we include our humor section, "Grins and Gurgles." As a ginger native of the mythical Colorado town of Plumbum, I can attest to the findings in Bonnie McCune's "Final Report from the Land of Red-Headed Children." And there's fairies! Art Lasky asks whether fairies could bring back "The Summer of Love." When a tsunami threatens, James Dorr's "The Wise Sister" helps us plan for disaster without the need to overpack.

Finally, we feature an essay, "What Hope Might Ask," in which Gerri Leen lets loose with flights of fancy regarding our fine feathered friends. Luckily, we hear wild birds have been doing better during the pandemic. We also recommend an Atlantic essay on hope by Arthur C. Brooks.

We do hope you enjoy reading "Things With Feathers." It's available from Amazon for Kindle and print paperback.

 

Review: The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

  As a Coloradan, I often look forward to the work of horror writer Stephen Graham Jones. His latest, The Only Good Indians (Gallery/Saga Press), is a worthy entry that brings us into collision with the natural world. And anyone who’s tried to debug an electrical problem in the house will immediately be sucked right in.

Ten years in the past, a group of Blackfeet teens stumbles upon an elk herd that is easy pickings. They slaughter many, even though it’s an illegal kill and they haven’t a way of bringing all that meat home. Now the vengeful ghost of a pregnant cow comes back to harrow them.

As bad goes to worse (think "Cabin in the Woods"), Jones’s book touches on many issues, both historical and scientific.

I was reminded of the Magnetic Fields song, “Fear of Trains,” with its haunting litany of difficulties faced by Native Americans throughout our history

We are also reminded to coexist with wildlife. I just came across an ongoing study by Colorado Parks and Wildlife to study survival rates of calves under a year old among herds across the state, focusing on how human recreation may be influencing the behavior of elk. There’s a weird but fun story in the Colorado Sun about transporting pregnant elk via helicopter!

If you’re in Colorado in the fall, a real treat is to admire (from a remote, respectful distance) the “bugling” of the elk in Rocky Mountain National Park, as the rutting season begins.

At Third Flatiron, we featured a great story about mass hunts from trains in our weird western themed Principia Ponderosa anthology. The author of that story, “The Hunt,” Salinda Tyson also invoked a Servant spirit that preserved the balance between the human and the natural. If you liked Jones’s story, check out Tyson’s story here.

The Only Good Indians is a finalist for the Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction and is available on Amazon.

Racism Is Not a Family Value

Originally published November 2009

 

My daughter, a recent graduate in Cultural Anthropology, praised in particular a course on Zora Neale Hurston, an American folklorist, novelist, and authority on black culture, taught by Professor Lorecia Kaifa Roland of the University of Colorado Boulder. Raised as I was in lily-white suburbia, I had never heard of Zora. She was "rediscovered" by Alice Walker. But it turns out that one of Zora's best friends was Fanny Hurst, another famous novelist writing about black life. Hurst's novel, "Imitation of Life," was one of the defining "experiences" of my life, even though I never read the book. During your life, if you have children, you try to share your values and reasons for those values. I had shared the story with my daughter that I had joined the YWCA, one of the oldest women's organizations in the United States, not because I was a Christian, but because one of their basic tenets was to get rid of racism. Somewhere along the way, the YWCA felt this goal was no longer necessary and dropped it from their principles and practices. At the time, I was very upset about this and felt it was premature. I'm happy to say that it is now back (http://www.ywca.org/site/pp.asp?c=djISI6PIKpG&b=284783). My daughter and I didn't know we had these inspirational novelists in common, but for me it was exciting to see her discover and internalize an experience so different from her own privileged upbringing yet so important to our society today. "Imitation of Life" was made into two films, one in the late 1930s and another in the 1950s. I saw the 1950s version first. The story involves a black woman raising her light-skinned daughter while working as a servant for a strong white woman entrepreneur. The daughter, even as a young child, wants to be white and denies that she is "colored." When she grows up, she abandons her mother and gets as far away from her as possible, passing herself as white. She lives in constant fear of being discovered. Her mother is resigned, even comfortable, with her identity and never understands why her daughter rejects her race and her mother's love. There have been many other fantastic stories about mother/daughter betrayal, notably "Mildred Pierce" and "The Piano," but "Imitation" contained the double edges of blood kin betrayal and racism, a potent combination that I found life-changing.