short stories – Jessie Kwak

[Short Story] “Once More With Soul”

Post published:June 16, 2020

I have a love-hate relationship with our new virtual world. On the one hand, my day job has always been virtual (I'm a freelance writer), so I'm pretty comfortable conducting business via video and phone call. And now that everyone else is doing it, I've had so many experiences with friends and family that we should have done before. Virtual game night with friends in Seattle after their kids went to bed? Why weren't we always doing this? Virtual craft play dates with my sister's kids who live 3 hours away? Why weren't we always doing this? Happy hour book…

The Final Waking: a short story for #burningcat

Post published:November 20, 2019

They think I’m dead. The heretics threw my body into the trash pit with the rest of the refuse — they should have burned me, but they didn’t know. My legs and neck are broken, my torso slashed open. It itches as the wound knits, my bones ache as they heal, but I know from experience that this will pass. Though this is the worst death yet, by far. Ever since I took my vows I’ve wondered how my ninth and final waking will feel. I expected panic, but despite the trash pit, despite the state of my body, my soul…

Writing a World in Glimpses

Post published:August 2, 2018

Two years ago, I wrote the short story that gave me my first glimpse into the Durga System. (It was published in the second volume of Bikes in Space, a fantastic series of feminist bicycle science fiction edited by Elly Blue.) In that story, Willem Jaantzen was the villain — but as I expanded on the premise of the original short story I became more and more fascinated by him and his crew. (If you've read Starfall, you've been introduced to Starla already; if you've read Negative Return you've gotten to meet Manu.) Since those books came out, I’ve written another…