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Women in Horror & Making Monsters
Women in Horror & Making Monsters
Making Monsters
Futurefire.net Publishing and the Institute of Classical Studies are currently working on a mixed fiction and nonfiction anthology titled Making Monsters, with a focus on classical monsters in fantasy, horror or science fiction short stories. They currently have a call for fiction submissions out with deadline February 28th.
The book will be published in the middle of 2018, and…
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Editor's Note And Table of Contents
Future Fire published my story today. They wrote this sweet message in light of all the June shit.
Ernestine made us a butternut squash soup with chunks of green apple and pear. She blended the ingredients with a hand mixer and simmered it while Sam and I cleared the table. The table was covered in old receipts, photographs, cords and clamps, playing cards, notes scrawled in pen with unsteady hands, and brown-ringed teacups. We asked her where it all went but she didn’t know anymore. She couldn’t remember much, but she remembered how to make the soup.
The produce came in a thick metal box with a clamp. There was a button that defrosted the contents. Ernestine gets all her produce from an outpost near Ganymede, and her meat from a station on Io. Her freezer is all blocked up with maple sausage patties; she says they’re for me, that she remembers how much I like them. I’ve been allergic to the coloring agents in them for nearly a decade now.
Sam helps her take the pot off the stove and holds the bowls steady while she ladles them.
“Get us some bread why don’t you?” Ernestine asks. She does not look up at me.
I open the refrigerator. I see unopened mustard, a shampoo bottle, and two beers. “There’s nothing,” I tell her.
She shakes her head with grave disappointment. “Not there.” She takes a long time before speaking these days, gathering her wool and stitching it out. “There’s a lady down on Complex 5, by the fountain. She’s got a little bakery there, cute little place. That’s where I get it.”
“What, you want me to go buy some now?”
Her head shakes when it nods. She has trouble holding it steady.
“My card’s on the coffee table,” Sam says. He’s going into the dining room with the bowls.
“I have money, Samuel.”
My hand is on the door. Complex 5 isn’t far, but it’s 16:30 UST, and everything closes early as shit on this station. It’s a glorified retirement community. I might get there and find out the sweet old lady who bakes the bread has been dead for a week. Our mom wouldn’t know.
I’m on the stoop when she says, “That’ll be fine, we’ll just need to get some bread later. You’re still growing, can’t just have you sippin’ soup.”
Ernestine locks her watery gaze on Sam, who smiles and taps the table with his fork. “Yes ma’am!”
His smile intensifies and pleads at me. So I sit down beside our mother. Her hand shakes the spoon through the surface of the soup and clinks all the way to the bottom of the bowl. But she makes it back up and takes a sip with no problem.
“The doctors have me on this nectar diet,” she says, after she swallows. “Five days a week, just the nutrient juice. It’s like mucous, the stuff. But I’m so pleased to have somebody to cook for.”
“It’s wonderful, Mom.”
And I’m not bullshitting her when I say it. I wouldn’t. The soup is delicious, tart and sweet like early fall on the surface of I-2367. They don’t grow apples like these so close to the sun. Not anymore. The old bird must’ve paid a small fortune for the shipment, and then she went and pulped ‘em.
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Click here to read the rest of Tiangong Park over at The Future Fire. Illustrations by Robin E Kaplan.
🔥
Stickup Kid // Keeping My Distance [x]
My photo and my edit.
Interview with Stickup Kid
On July 14th, I caught up with Stickup Kid at their Anaheim show in Chain Reaction. Stickup Kid is an alternative band based out of San Jose, California. The band consists of vocalist Tony Geravesh, guitarist Bo McDowell, bassist Jonathan McMaster, drummer Cameron MacBain, and fill-in guitarist Nicky Ertman. In 2013, they released their latest full length, Future Fire
Recently, you played with Forever Came Calling. What was most memorable about that tour?
It was a couple of shows. We did on here and one in the House of Blues San Diego. We got to see a Journey cover band. They had all the moms screaming.
How has your music evolved since you first began playing music with each other?
We’ve been playing for almost five years together. We just kind of grow together. [We] feel like we don’t try to just call ourselves a pop punk band, we just want to play music together. We want to play as best as we possibly can and get as good as we can possibly get. If we don’t feel right with something we’re not going to do it.
How do the songs off Future Fire differ from Nothing About Me?
The song writing changed a bit. Future Fire is not more internal, it’s something you can read and perceive it in different ways. For everyone, the lyrics have a different meaning.
Can you talk about the songwriting and recording process of Future Fire?
I pretty much spent like six months in my apartment. I had to be really quiet and I started writing some songs and Bo would come over and write with me. I had a story to tell about my family and about how that worked out. The songs came out a lot different because I had to be quiet which is something I thought was pretty cool.
What has been your biggest challenge as a band?
Balancing who I wanted to be, and my life, and balancing the love I have for music. There’s no doubt that if I could, I would be doing this 24/7. But, we have lives at home. We have bills and jobs to be stable. I think the longer I spend away from music, the more I feel very apart from myself, from who I truly am and it hurts me. Sometimes I wake up and I don’t even know who I am anymore because I haven’t played a show in so long.
What are your future plans?
We’re going to go home after this tour and we’re going to start writing.
Are there any last words you would like to share?
Support local music. Buy your favorite bands band’s merch.
And every bottle I take down, reminds me of your face, still smiling...
Stickup Kid
I woke up to the sound of the rain Coming down on a skyrise, sometime last night And like the autumn leaves, you were bound to fade Gone with the best times, a kiss under moonlight
