Apex Magazine Issue 110: Apex Magazine, #110

By Jason Sizemore

Apex Magazine is a science fiction, fantasy, and horror magazine featuring original, mind-bending short fiction.

EDITORIAL
Words from the Editor-in-Chief — Jason Sizemore

SHORT FICTION
The Chariots, the Horsemen — Stephanie Malia Morris
When You're Ready — M. Ian Bell
Kerouac's Renascence — Tal M. Klein
All Clear — Hao He
The Whipping Girls — Damien Angelica Walters

NONFICTION
Interview with Stephanie Malia Morris — Andrea Johnson
Interview with Cover Artist Kim Myatt — Russell Dickerson
Undead: The Making of a Poetry Anthology — Katerina Stoykova
Nexhuman: From Origin to Translation: The Long Path from Italy to the US — Francesco Verso
Five Things to Remember When Running a Writer's Convention — Kelly Swails and Melanie R. Meadors

COLUMNS
Between the Lines with Laura Zats and Erik Hane
Page Advice with Mallory O'Meara and Brea Grant

POETRY
the undead — Allison Thorpe
Ghost Ships — Amy MacLennan

• Language: English
• Publisher: Apex Publications
• Release date: May 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201490676

Jason Sizemore

Jason Sizemore is a writer and editor who lives in Lexington, KY. He owns Apex Publications, an SF, fantasy, and horror small press, and has twice been nominated for the Hugo Award for his editing work on Apex Magazine. Stay current with his latest news and ramblings via his Twitter feed handle @apexjason.

Book preview

Apex Magazine

Issue 110, July 2018

Stephanie Malia Morris Hao He (Translated by R. Orion Martin) Tal M. Klein M. Ian Bell Damien Angelica Walters Allison Thorpe Amy MacLennan Francesco Verso Kelly Swails Melanie R. Meadors

Edited by

Jason Sizemore

Apex Publication

Contents

Words from the Editor-in-Chief by Jason Sizemore

The Chariots, the Horsemen by Stephanie Malia Morris

Interview with Author Stephanie Malia Morris by Andrea Johnson

Undead: The Making of a Poetry Anthology by Katerina Stoykova

the undead by Allison Thorpe

Ghost Ships by Amy MacLennan

When You’re Ready by M. Ian Bell

Page Advice with Mallory O’Meara and Brea Grant

Kerouac's Renascence by Tal M. Klein

Nexhuman: From Origin to Translation: The Long Path from Italy to the US by Francesco Verso

All Clear by Hao He

Between the Lines with the Print Run Podcast by Laura Zats and Erik Hane

Five Things to Remember When Running a Writer’s Convention by Kelly Swails and Melanie R. Meadors

The Whipping Girls by Damien Angelica Walters

Interview with Cover Artist Kim Myatt by Russell Dickerson

Contributor Bios

Next Month: Issue 111 Preview

Website and Newsletter Info

Subscription Info

Jason Sizemore

Words from the Editor-in-Chief by Jason Sizemore

Welcome to issue 110 of Apex Magazine.

Since I wrote our issue 109 editorial back in April—our zine’s production schedule runs two months ahead—the world of sci-fi and fantasy lost one of its most important, influential, and well-known editors of short fiction: Gardner Dozois. According to a Locus Magazine report, Gardner died May 27, 2018 at a Philadelphia, PA hospital of a sudden, overwhelming systemic infection.

I only met Gardner a handful of times. And in my limited experience, he was always friendly and generous with his time. Sadly, I can’t say I knew him well. But his work as an editor I am intimate with. In particular, his annual and vital Year’s Best anthologies. They were my bibles during my formative years. I started buying them every year and reading them cover to cover starting back in 1996. For nearly fifteen years, I did this. His anthologies served as personal textbooks for me, packed with lessons on what makes great short fiction in the form of the stories he selected.

Gardner was also an advocate for some of the most interesting writers working today—Lavie Tidhar and Rich Larson to name a couple.

RIP Gardner Dozois. Thank you for being an ambassador of genre short fiction.

You may have noticed that this issue seems a bit heftier than normal. That’s because it is—with more than double the amount of original fiction than we typically put in an issue. The reason for this is twofold: 1. The Apex Magazine Patreon has surpassed our $600 goal, unlocking an original novelette every quarter, and 2. Cris Jurado is back with another amazing international fiction selection.

This month, our Patreon-backed novelette is Kerouac’s Renascence by Tal M. Klein. It’s a slow burn that muses on second chances and the unexpected aftereffects of accepting those chances. Readers of Tal’s popular novel The Punch Escrow will be surprised by the change in tone and pace, showcasing his versatility as a writer.

All Clear by Hao He is our quarterly international SF fiction selection by international fiction editor Cris Jurado. It’s a dystopian action piece that’s layered in culture, technology, and family.

M. Ian Bell’s When You’re Ready is a science fiction piece about finding love and perfection. It’s never easy, is it? And in Stephanie Malia Morris’s poignant and odd coming-of-age short story, The Chariots, the Horsemen, the author uses one of my favorite writerly tricks: religion as metaphor. Stephanie’s story may be the shortest of our fiction selections this month, but it might pack the most emotional punch.

Rounding out our July fiction is a reprint of The Whipping Girls by popular Apex Magazine contributor Damien Angelica Walters. It’s always great having Damien in our pages.

Russell Dickerson interviews cover artist Kim Myatt, discussing tone, mixing darkness with light, and the power and impact of using a subtle color palette. Stephanie Malia Morris is put under the spotlight by Andrea Johnson, delving deep into the trauma family can inflict (both knowingly and not) and the relationships between mothers and daughters. Melanie R. Meadors and Kelly Swails (the organizers of the annual Writers Symposium at the Gencon gaming convention) contribute a piece about how to run a writing convention. Lots of good information for those of you who may be considering volunteering and for those who enjoy the results.

Finally, we bring you a taste of what Apex Book Company most recently has to offer. Francesco Verso discusses the origins of his upcoming Apex novel Nexhuman, giving us just a peek at the long journey from Italy to the US. And Katerina Stoykova introduces two poems from her upcoming Apex poetry anthology Undead (edited with Bianca Lynne Spriggs): Ghost Ships by Amy MacLennan and the undead by Allison Thorpe.

Enjoy the issue!

---

Jason Sizemore

Editor-in-chief

Stephanie Malia Morris

The Chariots, the Horsemen by Stephanie Malia Morris

1,650 words

I ascend during the church picnic. My thighs peel off the plastic bench with a crisp smack, and I’m two feet into the air before I understand what is happening. I flip a foldout table, clawing for purchase. Potato salad and peach cobbler spill onto the grass. I pinwheel. Gravity rearranges the fat of my arms and thighs, drags my skirt over my head. I wear yesterday’s underwear turned inside out. It didn’t mean anything this morning, to wear day-old underwear. Tears swell my eyelids, run into my cornrow braids.

No one moves—not the deacons at the grill or the congregants at the long benches. Their eyes slide to Granddaddy. He watches me, his face stone. I’m so sorry, I blubber, into the silence. He walks away, the sun white on his clerical collar.

The trees slow my assumption long enough for my mother to come. Branches break as she tugs me free. We come down in a green shower. Her body grounds us.

Granddaddy will not look at me, will not speak. I’m sorry, I keep saying. He kneels beneath the trees to pray, Jesus in Gethsemane.

You didn’t do this, my mother says. I sob into her blouse. I do not think about the air holding me, the emptiness beneath my feet. I do not think about being, for just a moment, more than my body.

I do not remember the first time my mother ascended, but I pretend I do. Perhaps it was during the offering or the altar call. My mother, pushing off the ground barefoot and grinning, her high heels abandoned, cradling me against her belly. Mama still in high school, no older than I am now.

In my memory that is not a memory, we keep rising. The pews drop away. My granddaddy grows still and silent at the pulpit. Below, the congregation gazes up. Above, the chapel roof opens.

My memory is not a memory, and this is what my mother has told me happened: that when she ascended, Granddaddy sprang from the pulpit and grabbed her foot. He pulled until he could reach my legs, and then he grabbed me and wrenched until I screamed. Gravity refused to take hold. My granddaddy kept pulling. He pulled my leg from its socket, he pulled until gravity returned.

My mother gives me a chain. I remember how she wore it looped around her waist, anchored to the furniture. She has not needed it for years now.

The links are cool and open in my hands like little mouths. They raise blue-purple welts where they nip.

I wear the chain when Granddaddy is in the house. It does not soften him. His eyes glance off mine. I keep finding him wracked with prayer.

The chain sinks into the folds of my waist when I ascend. I rub ice on the bruises. I fear the emptiness beneath my feet.

I spend an entire night bumped up against the ceiling. The house groans around me and popcorn Styrofoam peppers my hair; dissolves like chalk in my mouth. When my mother finds me the next day, I am crying. "I’m fat, I yell at her. I’m supposed to be too fucking fat to go anywhere."

She tries to hug me. I shrink away, take savage delight in my misery. She sits on the bed watching me for a long time.

I wear the formless t-shirts she wore the year she stopped ascending, the sweatpants stretched so wide the elastic sags. She wore them the day she put the chain away for the last time, but she cannot wear them anymore. These clothes are my inheritance. They were supposed to protect me.

I dream of the air holding me. In my dreams, I am not afraid.

My mother says, Your granddaddy was little when Jesus called his mama home.

I imagine the tent in which my great-grandmother preached, poles strung together with lights, Granddaddy seated on a backless bench in the hot dusk. His mother stands at the pulpit, glistening with sweat, a handkerchief in her hand. She thunders the name of Jesus. The congregation thunders it back.

And then, from the back of the tent, the horses. They come from nowhere and sweep down the aisle, manes white with fire, dragging a chariot. Its wheels knock benches askew and fling worshippers to their knees, tangles them, screaming, in the spokes. Granddaddy tumbles to the grass. He looks up to see the horses and chariot encircle his mother. Their violence raises a whirlwind of flame.

Maybe she ascends, and maybe she just burns.

The chapel is muggy during the eight o’clock service. My dress chafes. Fluid dribbles down my waist. I cannot tell if it is sweat or my scabs. I leave during the offering, lock myself in the bathroom, and shed the chain.

I press wet paper towels to my sores until the stinging stops, then stare at my mirrored self. My gorge rises. I seize a fistful of my underarm, dig my nails into its dark meat, its fat, shake it as if I am trying to rip it off. I tear at my thighs, I sink my fingers into the heavy flesh under my chin, my back, my ass. I open up the scabs, I bore bloody half-moons into my skin, I scream at the girl breaking down in the mirror. She is supposed to be safe. She is supposed to be small. But she isn’t. Her body is a burden and I cannot get out.

When I release myself, I am shaking so hard my legs cannot hold me. I drop where I stand, nerving myself for impact. But halfway to the tiles, my body softens, and I sink into the air.

I lie inches above the bathroom floor, in the stillness of my body. This body that did not let me hit the ground. This body that is mine.

I pull myself to my feet with the help of the sink. The emptiness supports me, firmer than the ground. I pump my arms, propelling myself toward the ceiling. I ascend.

The ceiling tiles are soft as foam, stained brown. I walk myself from one side of the bathroom to the other with my hands. Where ascension was once impulse, it is now deliberate.

I leave the bathroom, drift down the empty hallway to a back door. The walls thrum with the singing of the choir.

Outside, the air is thick and warm and wet. I scale the side of the building. The higher I climb, the harder it becomes to control the ascension. Giddiness spreads from my stomach, electrifies the ends of my braids, curls my toes. I reach the