Each year The Fabulist makes nominations to the Pushcart Prize, which publishes an annual “best of the small press” anthology. We’re limited to six, so, tough choices …
These stories tend to be a bit more “literary” and less genre … and are good indications of how we’ve grown over the past year. This year’s batch of tales and yarns are by turns poignant, eerie, unnerving and quietly tragic. All use the methods of “fantastika” to unlock some of the mysteries of the human heart.
Regardless of whether anyone wins any prizes here, we want to thank the authors for sharing their fiction with The Fabulist, and acknowledge their exceptional work (listed below in alphabetical order by author’s last name).
Blossom
By Sophia Colby
What do you do when “the blossoms refuse to leave you”? In this poignant but never sentimental tale, a young person infected by flowers moves from stigmatization to a thorny sort of acceptance.
Abbreviation
By Laird Harrison
A ghost story of sorts, this quietly devastating tale addresses painful issues of bereavement and grief, caveat lector.
You Can Take It From Here
By Marguerite Hogan
In this odd and witty little yarn, a woman gets very good relationship advice from a colorful talking condom.
Urban Beekeping
By Emmy Ingle
Home is a middle-aged baker whose body is a beehive. How much room for love can there be in a honeycomb heart?
Wax Works
By Rin Kelly
In this wicked little stinger, social satire and speculative fiction converge to burst some techno-utopian bubbles
All The Dark Places
By Mandy Ruthnum
Into an idyllic lakeside campground comes word of a missing child. What they’re actually searching for turns out to be altogether different, and quite beyond reach.
