I’m so delighted! One of my favorite recent stories, “Refugee from Fairyland” has been accepted by Julia Rios for Worlds of Possibility. It’s always lovely working with Julia – and this will be the third time. The first was my story Light and Death on the Indian Battle Station at Fireside, the second, more recently, was also in Worlds of Possibility – Bidaii ki Chicken Curry.
This story was written for a challenge on Codex, the membership forum for neo-pro writers: Weekend Warrior, usually held in January. It’s a game in which you get a series of prompts on Friday evening, choose one that speaks to you, then submit the resulting story (no more than 750 words in length) to the challenge. Though I’ve been a member of Codex for years, 2022 was the first year I participated.
“Refugee” was my Week 5 story, and I enjoyed writing it, and also enjoyed editing it later to build it out more. Although it’s so short, I loved all the characters in it – especially Munna, the young refugee.
I put together this little visual in Microsoft Paint, using clip-art from Clker.com, which offers public-domain art. There’s something about it that captures the mood of the story.
KEYAN BOWES 