Crawford Fantasy Award, and finalist for the Mythopoeic Award. She is co-editor of the multi-genre anthology Who Will Speak for America? and her stories and essays have appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Catapult Magazine, Electric Literature, Flash Fiction Online, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, The Rumpus, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and more. She lives outside Philadelphia with her family.
Recently I asked Feldman about what she was reading. Her reply:
I read weird fiction and horror year-round, but I always take a deeper dive in the fall months. Right now, I’m reading Robert Aickman’s story collection Compulsory Games. Aickman was a 20th-century British writer of what he called “strange stories,” and I think he described his work perfectly. It’s not quite supernatural fiction—I’m only halfwayVisit Stephanie Feldman's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.through, but so far there are no obvious ghosts or vampires. In fact, there are no explanations at all for the disappearing wives, bloodthirsty cows, and—most importantly—the crazy-making mystery of other people’s behavior. It’s an unsettling and exciting book.
I’m also reading Nick Perilli’s Cul-de-sac. I loved his chapbook collection Child Lucia and Other Library Fabula, which has the same weird sensibility as Aickman but with Perilli’s unique humor. His first novel, Cul-de-sac, is about a young man facing grief and depression, but by fighting his way through a mirror universe of his suburban neighborhood, with portal televisions, living dolls, and the friends he abandoned long ago.
The Page 69 Test: Saturnalia.
--Marshal Zeringue
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