Curio

This week: Curio by Laura Ellen Scott.  There are three best things about this collection of award-winning, disturbing shorts:

1. “ Bog Redaction“

2. You can pay for the whole book with a tweet

3.  Weird illustrations by Mike Meginnis of Uncanny Valley

I’m way behind on this; it came out last January.  We’re almost to the new January.  One of the reasons I decided to try to write this blog was to attempt to break my paper habit and explore more what people are publishing online.  Most of the stories I’ve been lucky enough to publish have been in online journals, but I still have a hard time pulling my eyes away from paper journals and pointing them at a screen instead.  This is a conflict I’m currently trying to wrap my head around.

My toe is now officially in the water, though, and Curio tells me to come on in because the water is well-written and complex.

“The Brewsters” is at first only quietly disarming, but it grows quickly into a full-fledged attack on moral sensibility before ending in a flag-planting sentiment shared by many true Americans.  This is no small feat, because the entire story can be read in about one minute.

Scott’s book  Death Wishing is out, and I’m looking forward to picking it up.