Interfictions

by Delia Sherman, Theodora Goss (Editor), Karen Jordan Allen

Nineteen writers dig into the imaginative spaces between conventional genres--realistic and fantastical, scholarly and poetic, personal and political--and bring up gems of a new type of fiction: interstitial fiction. This is the literary mode of the new century, a reflection of the complex, ambiguous, and challenging world we live in. To illustrate the broad range of interest in this style of fiction, the editors gathered stories from new and established authors in the USA, Canada, Australia, and the UK, and also fiction translated from Spanish, Hungarian, and French. These nineteen stories, by some of the most interesting and innovative writers working today, will change your mind about what stories can and should do as they explore the imaginative space between conventional genres. Features an introduction by Heinz Insu Fenkl and an afterword by the editors, and original interstitial fiction from Christopher Barzak, Colin Greenland, Holly Phillips, Rachel Pollack, Vandana Singh, Anna Tambour, Catherynne M. Valente, Leslie What, and others. What Is Interstitial Art? Work that falls in the interstices--between the cracks--of recognized commercial genres. Interstitial Art wanders across borders without stopping at Customs to declare its intent. So Who Are We and What Are We Doing? The Interstitial Arts Foundation is dedicated to bringing together readers, writers, scholars, critics, listeners, musicians, viewers, artists, performers, audience and participants to celebrate and further explore work that resists categorization. What Are the Rules of Creating Interstitial Art? Interstitial art is a moving target. It's work that demands you engage with it on its own terms. Interstitialartists don't make rules--we debate and interrogate them. Interstitial fiction is an umbrella term for a wide variety of writing that does not preclude or discount the use of other terms. The IAF is not creating a new movement; we're a barometer, measuring (and celebrating!) what already exists.

Contents:
What we know about the lost families of House by Christopher Barzak
Post hoc by Leslie What
The shoes in SHOES' window by Anna Tambour
Pallas at noon by Joy Marchand
Willow pattern by Jon Singer
Black feather by K. Tempest Bradford
A drop of raspberry by Csilla Kleinheincz
The utter proximity of God by Michael J. DeLuca
Alternate anxieties by Karen Jordan Allen
Burning beard by Rachel Pollack
Rats by Veronica Schanoes
Climbing Redemption Mountain by Mikal Trimm
Timothy by Colin Greenland
Hunger by Vandana Singh
A map of everywhere by Matthew Cheney
Emblemata by Léa Sihol
When it rains, you'd better get out of Ulga by Adrián Ferrero
Queen of the Butterfly Kingdom by Holly Phillips
A dirge for Prester John by Catherynne M. Valente
Afterword : the spaces between by Delia Sherman and Theodora Gross

Genres: Short Stories, Fantasy, Fiction, Anthologies, Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Magical Realism

276 pages, Nook

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Delia Sherman (born 1951) is a fantasy writer and editor. Her novel The Porcelain Dove won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award.

She was born in Tokyo and brought up in New York City. She earned a PhD in Renaissance studies at Brown University and taught at Boston and North-eastern universities. She is the author of the novels Through a Brazen Mirror, The Porcelain Dove (a Mythopoeic Award winner), and Changeling.
Sherman co-founded the Interstitial Arts Foundation, dedicated to promoting art that crosses genre borders.
She lives in New York City with her wife and sometime collaborator, Ellen Kushner.

Reviews

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the tales in this anthology. I was especially impressed by the final story, Catherynne M. Valente's "A Dirge for Prester John" (in which the shipwrecked title character really does meet the creatures so fancifully described back in 1165 C.E.), as well as the entry from Anne Tambour ("The Shoe in SHOES' Window," a dispatch from a not-so-glorious but certainly resourceful Workers' Paradise) and Rachel Pollack's tale of the Old Testament prophet Joseph ("Burning Beard"), but they're fine stories all.

However... even en masse these stories are not--cannot be--strong enough to bear the weight of the Movement they're being enlisted to support here. "Interfictions" are just... stories, after all, ones that don't happen to fit neatly into already-defined genres. Which is a good thing, whether you call it slipstream or genre-bending or just plain fiction, but it's pretty thin gruel for a manifesto!

Especially one like the introductory essay (by Heinz Insu Fenkl, apparently something of a luminary in other respects). Written in bombastic academese, with quote-laden definitions and hair-splitting distinctions and at least one obvious lacuna (Fenkl overlooks the easily-found evidence of ongoing interest in Barry Hughart's 1985 fantasy novel Bridge of Birds, apparently because it doesn't fit his argument), Fenkl's essay very nearly kept me from reading the book at all. Which would have been a shame.

Seriously - skip the front matter and go straight to the fiction. I don't think you'll regret it.

[Lettie Prell · Rating 4 out of 5]

My utter favorite was Csilla Kleinheincz's "A Drop of Raspberry" because of the language (although it's a translation from the Hungarian) and imagery. "A Map of Everywhere" by Matthew Cheney also stood out in its quirkiness. Catherynne M. Valente's "A Dirge for Prester John" and Mikal Trimm's "Climbing Redemption Mountain" must also be mentioned. Overall, the anthology worked for me, as a collection of "interstitial" works. I attend science fiction conventions as well as the AWP, and have noticed the opportunity to pull certain attendees of each together into fruitful collaboration. Delia Sherman and Theodora Goss appear to have done exactly that.

[Shara · Rating 5 out of 5]

What is interstitial fiction? This short story anthology does its best to find out. From the intro, which defines interstitial being between borders, but something that's not a hybrid, to each of the 19 stories crafted by some damn talented voices in fiction, I have to say, I learned a lot. Interstitial writing isn't just about genre, or only about genre. In some stories, interstitality had to do with place, or with character, or with a particular moment in life. This book is shelved in the SF/F section of the store, and indeed, some of the stories certainly have a magical realist flair, but if I had to classify this book as anything, it's literary fiction. It's not an anthology that's for everyone, but for anyone with a love of language and fine writing with an open and inquisitive imagination, I think you'll find this anthology worth your while. I know I sure did.[return][return]The full review, which contains a story-by-story reaction (and some reactions contain spoilers, others do not), may be found in my journal. Just click here: http://calico-reaction.livejournal.co...

[meeners · Rating 4 out of 5]

what a powerful collection! what i loved most about reading it was the reading experience itself: disorientation, surprise, anticipation, delay. these stories hit you, hard and ferocious; they linger.

one thing i would have liked to see more of: engagement with / questioning of narrative convention and the written word itself. more breaking down of form, as in allen's piece; less single-voiced narrators, less confidence in stylistic unity.

most memorable stories for me: barzak, singer, deluca, allen, schanoes, ferrero.

[Dnice · Rating 5 out of 5]

AMAZING. Seriously, this is probably the best collection of short stories I've read since Alice Walker's "in love and trouble". The concept of interstitial writing doesn't feel "new" as much as it is really about giving definition to what more and more writers are doing as they cross genres, defy "rules" of story telling and venture into to new territories. I love this book. love it. please read it.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

A star less than _Feeling Very Strange_, the first slipstream anthology I read. Same quasi-genre, same stories, different terminology. The cover blurb and the introduction are both VERY PRETENTIOUS (the Interstitial Arts Foundation? really? five'll get you ten all of these literary foundations are run out of someone's basement office) but if you can put aside the pretension the stories are for the most part pretty good.

[Kara · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of stories that don’t quite fall into any one genre. All well written, all pushing at the boundaries of fact and fiction, with the near constant theme that, no matter where the party is, Death fill find a way to crash it.

[Catherine Schaff-Stump · Rating 4 out of 5]

These were mostly very interesting and good. I skimmed about 3, but eagerly devoured the rest, and thought Kafka would be proud.

[E.A. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Given how little I cared for the one Delia Sherman novel I tried to read, I should have been more prepared for how little her taste aligns with mine. I enjoy Theodora Goss's work, and hoped there would be more of interest to me in this anthology of stories. Alas, that was not the case. I only liked three stories: Christopher Barzak's "What We Know About the Lost Families of ____ House", K. Tempest Bradford's "Black Feather", and Veronica Shanoes's "Rats."

This volume has been on my shelf for over a decade, and I tried starting it three times. never getting more than 4 stories in before it went back on the tbr shelf for another few years. I got really stubborn this time and made myself try every story, but after the midway point of the line-up, I finally stopped making myself finish them. If I wasn't into it by page 2, I skipped it.

[Gustav Gerät · Rating 5 out of 5]

very good book, I like it

[Solveig · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with all anthologies - some stories I enjoyed. Some I did not. I did enjoy the Holly Phillips and the Csilla Kleinheincz stories.

[Madame Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid collection.

[Alicia Zuto · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this book. It was a great idea for a subject and I have a couple favorites in here.

[Homo Sapien · Rating 5 out of 5]

The stories in this book all fall between genres, satisfying anyone who can't decide on any one genre. Every story is well written and translated, with each story a different mix of characters that you get to know easily.

My favorite story out of this book is, "A Drop Of Raspberry" translated from the original Hungarian. A lake takes on the form of a person when a man tries to drown himself in her after his divorce. The lake wakes up to him, and rescues him from drowning by washing him to the shore. The two start to have a relationship, until winter, when the lake freezes over. After many months, the lake thaws and the man returns with his new girlfriend. The man and the woman leave, but the lake still thinks about them and hopes that they come back to her shores.

[Don · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish I could do half-stars on here, but I couldn't see my way to rounding up to give this one four. There were quite a few gems in this collection which absolutely fulfills its purpose of exploring the space between conventional genres. And it had me right up until about the last third of the book. I simply got lost out in the interstices by then. It's quite possibly more my failure than that of the collection, but still.

[Rupert · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some really good stories in here, but the context of the book is slightly amusing. There have always been plenty writers writing free of genre restrictions (Borges or Cervantes for instance), but they weren't necessarily part of a group. I have ambivalent feelings about this book trying to establish a genre of non-genre writing.
But it's a good solid collection, although not the most adventurous.

[Cindy C]

I have thus far disliked all but one of the stories I have read in this book. For instance I don't think the story "Timothy" deserves to see the light of day, let alone be included in an anthology of purportedly imaginative writing. Still, I'm keeping an open mind, since I have only read a handful of stories.

[Suzanna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I may have expected too much of this anthology. There were a few good stories here, but a lot more that I just ended up skimming. There is a fine line between surreality in fiction and a story that is just scattered.

[Priscilla]

I borrowed it to read "Rats," a short story by Veronica Schanoes, as she is one of my all-time favourite professors. Her story was disturbing and excellent!

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

my review on hipster book club

[Bridgett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked all the stories, though a few were confusing. I liked the variety of culture. My two favorites were "Black Feather" and "Rats" because I love fairy tales.

[Sarah Brandel · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's difficult to summarize or categorize this anthology, and I think that's one of the many things I enjoyed about it.

[Fish Food · Rating 2 out of 5]

not for me tbh i just didn’t connect with it. a bit too christian for me.

[༺Kiki༻]

What We Know About the Lost Families of—House by Christopher Barzak
Post Hoc by Leslie What
The Shoe in SHOES’ Window by Anna Tambour
Pallas at Noon by Joy Marchand
Willow Pattern by Jon Singer
Black Feather by K. Tempest Bradford
A Drop of Raspberry by Csilla Kleinheincz
The Utter Proximity of God by Michael J. DeLuca
Alternate Anxieties by Karen Jordan Allen
Burning Beard: The Dreams and Visions of Joseph ben Jacob, Lord Viceroy of Egypt by Rachel Pollack
Rats by Veronica Schanoes
Climbing Redemption Mountain by Mikal Trimm
Timothy by Colin Greenland
Hunger by Vandana Singh
A Map of the Everywhere by Matthew Cheney
Emblemata (reciting the Heart Sutra) by Léa Silhol
When It Rains, You'd Better Get Out of Ulga by Adrián Ferrero
Queen of the Butterfly Kingdom by Holly Phillips
A Dirge for Prester John by Catherynne M. Valente