The Readers’ Guide
What’s in Issue 978
| News | This is Bewildering Stories’ last regular issue of the year. Next week, we’ll bring you the editors’ choices from the fourth quarter of 2022 and, on December 26, the Annual Review. |
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| Short Stories |
Two young girls hang out together at a shopping mall while their mothers work nights. They soon find out how much they need a father:
Shauna Checkley, Lucky Clover Leaf. Genealogical research can bring surprises and happy revelations: Silvia E. Hines, Kindertransport, part 1; conclusion. New contributor A. S. Mehta brings together a young doctor and a dying patient who not only tells her but shows her the difference between the “life of the flesh” and the “life of the spirit”: An Encounter With a Life. Aster comes from a spirit world and is fascinated by a hard-working baker. She is kindly inclined to make life easier for him, but her society strictly enforces its rules about contact with humans. Aster has her work cut out for her: Danielle R. Morrison, The Baker on Chambers Street, part 1; conclusion. |
| Flash Fiction |
A man lies comatose in a hospital, but he can hear. And a visitor’s girlfriend finds that she can make out words when he moves his lips. The result is a conversation between two friends forever separated in this life: Charles C. Cole, Moving Lips. |
| Poetry | Classic Reissue: One of the first contributors to Bewildering Stories, Thomas R., sent a poem at year’s end twenty years ago. It celebrates life aboard a Ship Upon an Unending Ocean. |
Departments
| Welcome | Bewildering Stories introduces and welcomes A. S. Mehta. |
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| Challenge | Challenge 978 cheerfully announces that Your Ship Has Sailed, and you’re on it. |
| The Art Gallery |
Richard Ong, Christmas Starlight Channie Greenberg, Bird of Paradise in Blue A randomly rotating selection of Bewildering Stories’ art NASA: Picture of the Day Sky and Telescope, This Week’s Sky at a Glance |
Randomly selected Bewildering motto:
Randomly selected classic rejection notice:
Bewildering Stories’ official mottoes:
“Poems are not made with ideas; they are made with words.” — Stéphane Mallarmé
Ars longa, vita brevis. Rough translation: “Proofreading never ends.”
To Bewildering Stories’ schedule: In Times to Come
Readers’ reactions are always welcome.
Please write!
