Out Now: “Last Bus to What’s Left of Albuquerque” at Kaleidotrope

Cover art by Shauna O’Meara

Kaleidotrope, a wonderful online magazine devoted to speculative fiction, published my story “Last Bus to What’s Left of Albuquerque” in their Summer 2018 issue. It’s an odd length — about 1700 words — and I was glad to see it picked up fairly quickly, on my first submission to Kaleidotrope. You never know, when you try something new or different with fiction, whether anyone else will see it in the same way you did, but Fred did. (He’s a great editor to work with; if you’re looking for a new market, I suggest sending your work his way.)

SFRevu Review said

Daymon Blue has finally been released from prison for going into debt for his daughter’s medical expenses. But what has he been released into? Another poignant tale.

I was thinking about what happens when people are released from prison, when I wrote this. How we expect most people to return to jail, how we don’t expect much good from them at all. Serving your time doesn’t mean what it’s supposed to, and the reasons why people end up arrested or imprisoned are rarely simple. We, Americans, in general, are committed to the prison system in a way few think about, and we’ve turned it into a profitable industry which is now creating new ways to punish people for being failed by society.

You can read it for free here. Please do let me know what you think, and tell your friends. Thank you!