I held off announcing this a little because of some weirdness, but I’m happy to say that that has resolved itself, and now I can happily report that my story The Other City is currently up at Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show.
The man stumbled through the gates of Salem with a bundle in his arms. “Let’s eat him,” the boys said and scampered down the grassy hill to the wall, hooting and hollering and grabbing sharp sticks and stones as they went.
Fun facts about this story:
This was the first short story that I wrote after I decided to get serious about my writing a few years ago. It took a while to find a home.
My idea for the story involved the ending (which I won’t spoil), and the starting point of a man being expelled from Salem. So I wrote the first line above (“The man stumbled through the gates of Salem”), then thought for a moment. The next line (“‘Let’s eat him,’ the boys said”) was a moment of inspiration, and this wound up driving the rest of the story. My advice is that when your subconscious gives you cannibalism, you run with it.
J.S. Bangs 