Calling for a fundamental cultural shift through stories (with a side of your favorite brew)

Magazine Review: khōréō Vol 1, Issue 2

Good morning! I can officially say that I survived my first week doing both blogging and this demanding new job. I hope that I will find the balance to not only continue putting out content for you, but also for visiting all the blogs that I love and sending love. I have a lot of exciting things going on this month and I can’t wait to share everything that has been happening behind the scenes with you in my wrap up post coming very soon. Thank you all for your patience and support! Let me share with you a little love for my favorite magazine. 💕

Make sure to subscribe to khōréō for yourself here, or just buy one issue to see if you love it.

Magazine Review

I have a really strong feeling that this magazine will blow me away with every single issue they put out. I can’t even believe that there is a magazine that features immigration and diaspora authors telling stories that are important to them and, by extension, to me. I’m so grateful for this magazine and for the incredibly sweet people who work for khoreo. I cannot recommend getting a khoreo subscription enough. Especially if you are a diaspora reader, this magazine is written for you. It has given me so much, and I hope it can give that to you as well.

It’s hard to put together cohesive thoughts about a short story magazine, because there are so many stories within them, all from different authors. What I will say is that this issue nailed the feeling of being somewhere but not quite belonging as much as everyone else. That feeling that so many of us feel that we are where we belong the most, but we still don’t belong as much as everyone we know. It’s a feeling that is hard to explain to someone who has never felt it, but to those who have, they know exactly what it is like. It is conveyed so perfectly within this fiction that it reminds me of exactly why fiction can be so powerful and important. This issue is important, this magazine is important.

Instead of giving you a little summary of each of the stories, because they are all incredible, I’d like to direct your attention to the incredible authors that have put their hearts into these pieces. Plus links to read them when they come out on the website, but I highly recommend you get a subscription so you can read them all early!

About the Short Story Authors

A. M. Guay

Read Golden Girl online for free now! (20 min read)

A. M. Guay is a writer and adoptee from Asunción, Paraguay, raised in Brooklyn, NY. This is her debut speculative fiction publication. She also has work forthcoming in Corvid Queen and writes in other genres under her full name; she can be found at anamariaguay.net or on Twitter at @anamguay. She currently teaches writing in Oregon.

Jaime O. Mayer

Read Seeing Myself in Unexpected Places online for free now! (20 min read)

Jaime O. Mayer is a Korean American adoptee, tea drinker, and avid hobby collector living in the Seattle area with her husband and their two cats. Her fiction has appeared in Cast of Wonders and Cicada Magazine. Her nonfiction can be found at The Learned Fangirl, Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction, and the anthology Invisible 3. You can find her online at jaimeomayer.com.

Deborah Germaine Augustin

Read Love at the End online on July 1 (25-30 min read)

Deborah Germaine Augustin is a writer born and raised in Malaysia. She dreams of a world where we all have freedom of movement.

H. Pueyo

Read Green, Yellow, Red (10 min read)

H. Pueyo (@hachepueyo on Twitter) is an Argentine-Brazilian writer of comics and speculative fiction. Her work has appeared before in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons and The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, among others. Find her online at hachepueyo.com.

Rachel Gutin

Read For Future Generations (20 min read)

Rachel Gutin is a writer and special education teacher. She lives in Brooklyn, NY, and is a member of the organizing team for Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers. She shares her apartment with a satisfying assortment of books, a growing collection of craft supplies, and an impressive number of fountain pen ink samples. You can find her on Twitter at @Rachel_Gutin or on Instagram at @detailsandtales.

Anjali Patel (out 8/12)

Read Our Bones Were the Mortar (10 min read)

Anjali is a Black and South Asian computer whisperer and speculative fiction writer. She writes to explore queerness, agency, ancestral severance, convoluted mythologies of her own devising, and the stars. She lives with a grizzled dog who offered to teach her magic in exchange for free New York City rent. Find her at anjali.fyi or on Twitter @anjapatel.

Decolonize Your Bookshelf With Me

Hi! I’m Amanda. Bookish Brews started as a personal project to decolonize my bookshelf turned into a passion for diverse stories. Once I realized how much we can grow personally from stories by people with different experiences than our own, I realized how much they impact our world. But I also know that growth from stories does not happen without intentionality. Bookish Brews is dedicated to building meaningful conversations about how stories by diverse voices can change our lives, our culture, and our world.

"Let's change the system via the lens of compelling fiction."

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