I can finally announce that my fourth and final project for this year will be a new short story, “Down Into the Waters”, appearing in Jason Erik Lundberg’s Fish Eats Lion Redux.
The collection’s published by Epigram Books and will be out in October/November. That’s right, along with Work-Life Balance and Internal Damnation in September, your later half of this year is going to be very me-heavy.
This marks my second collaboration with Jason and, as fantastic as he was when we worked on “Satay” for LONTAR, I’m even more grateful for his feedback this time round. “Down Into the Waters” is probably the most brutally honest I’ve been in a short, touching on topics like toxic masculinity, misogyny and colourism. It began, naturally, as a very angry story. Jason, however, helped to sharpen it, elevating the tone from angry to dangerous.
(Special shout-out to Felicia here too. She was one of this story’s early readers and it came a long way, thanks to her advice.)
Also, here’s a fun little tidbit: the title and overall mood were inspired by PJ Harvey’s Down by the Water, so if you wanted a recommended soundtrack, this is it.
Wayne Rée 