Ninth Letter / 2013
“Aren’t you tired of being a flower, Violet? Momma says to me one morning from the depths of her bed. Flowers crush so easy, baby, but nothing breaks a jewel. I like being a flower and I only came in here to get my books to do school with Lily, but I don’t know how to tell Momma that I want to help but I want to be a flower too so I just nod yes. Diamond says Momma, no one could ever break a diamond cos it’s harder than bones.”
Flash Fiction International (W.W. Norton) / 2015
“It began with the Christmas tree lights. They were candy-bright, mouth-size. She wanted to feel the lightness of them on her tongue, the spark on her tastebuds. Without him life was so dark, and all the holiday debris only made it worse. She promised herself she wouldn’t bite down.”
The Djinn Falls in Love (Solaris) / 2017
“And I can feel her looking at the red of my hair, at the red of my eyes, and even in the dark I know she can see the blue tinge of my skin. ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘You’re…’ ‘Yeah,’ I say, keeping my head high. ‘I am.’ For a moment I think she’s going to run back into her house, or phone the police, or open up that plastic box of Happy Meal toys and throw them at me one by one.”
Geek Love (Stone Box) / 2012
“The train home is busy, and I stand as close as I can to the people beside me, trying to sear away the blankness of all that plastic and metal. That spicy-foresty taste from the coffee shop is still faintly there on the back of my tongue, but it’s fading. I stand so close to the other travelers that our shoes touch and the waves of our coat-hems interlock and my breath mists their glasses. But the people—all of them, every one—smell of nothing.”
Best British Short Stories (Salt) / 2011
“The day after I met Grace – her pierced little mouth, her shitkicker boots, her hands as small as goosebumps writing numbers on my palm. The day after I met her, I went to the heart rental place.”
Plague Zine / 2018
“The first house I gave you was a tooth. The dentist pulled it to make space for the rest of my teeth, which apparently is often a problem for small-mouthed people when the wisdom teeth come in. He asked if I wanted the tooth, and I didn’t particularly, but I also didn’t want it to get thrown in the bin, so I wrapped it in a tissue and took it home. It was jagged at one end and it smelled sweet and a bit rotten. I got a nail from the toolbox and started to carve the tooth.”
PANK / 2011
“They see the straight line of my jaw along the length of their thighs and they see how it fits, the geometry of bodies. They have wondered for so long why nothing ever fits, why the knobs of their spines press hard on chairbacks and why they can’t lie parallel in bed, and then there I am. I know how to fill the gaps in a girl.”
Body Parts / 2016
” The bourbon stays down, and Daniel is still pretending not to notice the guy who followed Jack into the bathroom—scrawny, red-eyed, his leather jacket hanging off his shoulders like he’s only bones. Tonight is Jack’s turn at the Investigation, though he takes more turns than Daniel because he enjoys it more. Daniel always worries that it’ll get too far before he finds out, that the other man will already be inside him before he recognizes the shape of his eyes or the angle of his nose. That doesn’t seem to bother Jack, and yet he still won’t kiss Daniel.”
Verbicide / 2009
“After the show, Mara coils her intestines up carefully and threads them back through the hemmed slit of her bellybutton. I mirror her, coiling up her guitar leads and putting them behind the amps so she doesn’t get them mixed up. She did that once before and the electric shock fried part of her liver — we had to eat three boys to get that back.”
Bookanista / 2017
“During her lunch break, she paused mid-sandwich to fold intestines from her newspaper. Walking out of the office, her nervous fingers made an ear out of the tissue in her pocket – luckily the thin sheets wouldn’t hold the shape, and unfurled as she threw it on the pavement. On the journey home, her bus ticket became a tongue.”
FRiGG / 2011
“How to Be the Best Man: Clip holes in the hedge maze. Sew the ring box into your trouser pocket. Remind everyone about the time you stole your father’s boat and sailed out among the islands for two weeks of puffins and cider and campfires; don’t mention that it was snow-spattered or that the girl went back to where she came from or that you sailed back with your fists covering the compass in the hope that you would accidentally sail out across the ocean.”
Necessary Fiction / 2013
“This is how it really was: Wednesday night at the Olympia and everyone looked the same. Some girl was up on stage doing her thing, standing on her tiptoes to sing because it hadn’t occurred to anyone to lower the mic after the boys had played. Her band was Bitches on Acid, or Cuntfight, or Slit, and they had red glitter drumskins and Hello Kitty stickers on the bass. You know exactly how they looked: pink hair, smeared lipstick, and muffin-tops anchored over the waists of their jeans. There was even a plastic unicorn standing guard at the front of the stage. You know exactly how they sounded too, but who needs more than three chords anyway?”
Annalemma / 2010
“By then, she’d already decided not to tell. Silence is easier, that’s all. She has no proof and wants no fuss. It’s not even a crime, not really. Nothing would happen except that she would never be herself again. She’d be That Girl. Did you hear? She was asking for it.”
The Puritan / 2018
“The Mushroom House: This highly-unusual dwelling will make the perfect home for the right occupants. Eco-friendly and ripe for development. Buyer be aware that house is set on a bed of mushrooms with most of the organism below the soil surface, providing a sturdy and constantly-growing base for the structure. The organism’s above-surface aspect forms the walls and roof. Three public rooms, two bedrooms, family bathroom—though these will expand as the organism grows. Damp-proofing recommended.”
F(r)iction / 2018
“She pulled herself up to kneel on the windowsill. She could see them clearly. They were on all fours, their legs long and thin, and they were bright as mercury, except for their black eyes. Their faces were terrible and beautiful. Inside their narrow chests, their hearts throbbed so hard the skin pulsed. Their voices filled her head.”
Banshee / 2018
“You’ve heard that when you give birth, the baby can come out in a variety of forms, but there’s really no need to worry about it. Whatever emerges, eventually it will all come together and make a baby. You might give birth to a quartet of mango-sized objects. Or a whole big bunch of grape-sized objects (painless, but takes a while). Or, if you’re unlucky, a pair of blood orange-sized objects (which you haven’t seen, but imagine is a bit of a struggle).”
The Island Review / 2015
“The graces are restless today. They pweet and muss, shuddering their wings so that the feathers stick out at defensive angles. I feel their disquiet. When the sea is fractious like this – when it chutters and schwaks against the moorings, when it won’t talk but only mumbles – it’s difficult to think.”
Booth / 2011
“At five to nine we take the metal grilles off the window-frames. When we lift, our arm muscles tense to the size of garlic cloves. We already have crumbs in our hair. Clouds reflect on the spilled liquid on the table.”
Cabinet des Fées / 2010
Foundling Review / 2010
Goblin Fruit
Salome / 2009
Ampersand Review
The Rumpus / 2010
I’m 18, I’m standing under a spotlight with no clothes on, and the photographer is pointing at my thighs. This is what I mean, he says in a Czech accent. I must airbrush this now! You must start jogging more.
PANK / 2011
Every now and then I find that some teen girl has posted one of my poems or stories on her blog. I get all excited and talk about it on my Twitter and Facebook, and send her a comment or email to say thank-you. And perhaps this is annoying.
Wanderlust and Lipstick
The first time I ever smoked a peach cigarette, I was wearing a dinosaur suit and sitting on my friend’s balcony in a Tokyo suburb. My friend had a dinosaur suit because he’d gone to a fancy dress party the week before, and I was wearing it because I was cold and it was made of fleece.
Boston Globe / 2011
Like most readers, I love browsing in bookshops and libraries. I enjoy running my fingers along the spines of books and reading titles and authors’ names, pulling the books out and flipping through them, thinking about the stories inside them.
The Millions / 2010
There are two ways to retell an old story: just tell the same story again, or try to subvert it. The problem with fairy tales is that they are more than just old stories.
2017
Inspired by the traditional tale of seduction, curiosity, violence and revenge, this show is a contemporary reimagining which combines storytelling, original song and contemporary composition.