Yellowface

Athena was the leech, the vampire, the ghost who wouldn’t let me go; Candice her deranged wannabe proxy. I am innocent. My only sin is loving literature too much, and refusing to let Athena’s very prenatal work go to waste.

Tell me, do I truly deserve that? Does anyone?

But Athena is the reason for any modicum of success I’ve ever had. My career as an author does not exist without her.

Without Athena, who am I?

I’ll play up the sapphic quality of it all, too. Readers will love that; queer love stories are all the rage now.

But writing is the whole world. How can I explain this to her? Stopping isn’t an option. I need to create. It is a physical urge, a craving, like breathing, like eating; when it’s going well, it’s better than sex, and when it’s not, I can’t take pleasure in anything else.

Juniper Song and Aurora Whisper.

They’re more like a smorgasbord of creative churning, half-formed doors to other worlds, worlds in which I lingered for hours when I didn’t want to be in my own.

I suppose Rory never felt such a deep connection to this house, though. I was the one obsessed with the sycamore trees in the backyard, with hiding out among their roots and spinning stories long after Rory decided it was time to return to the real world.

Interesting’ is a word people use when they can’t think of anything better to say. Be specific, Rexy.”

I’m not sure that Brett understands that the people who are into magical realism are so not into near-future science fiction of this sort. “Okay, but you’ve got to admit a dystopia set in Beijing is pretty far out of my wheelhouse.”