Status Updates From The Daily Assortment of Ast...

Favorite was The Wandering Festival: candid presentation of fantastical circumstance. Looked up Benny Blow but he may have moved on from short stories. Also appreciated FT Kula’s imaginative creation of a new character using an incident in Cleopatra’s life as a jumping off point

Perhaps this story is fantastical in that’s this woman’s family loves her and forgives her when she owns up to her mistake

Introduction to Zimbabwean incels. So creepy to imagine people fantasizing to the way I would pronounce my name 😝

More mental illness. But at least camaraderie among sisters

Child abuse. It’s not a compelling short story without child abuse.

Simple, touching, and sad. Did the mother break because of the hopelessness of being black in America?

Oh so delicious! An incalculable grief… did that phrase inspire the story? As if grief could be calculated…

I’ve listened to this story as part of Arimah’s full collection, but it’s fun to read the lines and remember how well she does this one. Casual hints of the supernatural and dystopian while the principal characters are preoccupied with their personal drama

Um, not sure what I was meant to get out of creepy elder sexual assault story from rural Missouri…