Taking a break from promoting Work-Life Balance to instead promote “Down Into the Waters”, my new short story that’s part of Jason Erik Lundberg’s Fish Eats Lion Redux collection. I blogged before on how it revolves around themes of misogyny and colourism, but I think it might be worth very quickly talking just a wee bit more about the story.
Speaking of those themes, I think it was writing plainly about bigger ideas in Work-Life Balance that gave me the confidence to create this comparatively heavier story. On one hand, yeah, like my short stories for Infinite Worlds and LONTAR, “Down Into the Waters” is about relationships with dads or father figures (and lemme tell you, at some point, I really need to unpack that with my therapist), but I also think that the bigger focus on the community at large is the direction I want to take my work from here on out.
On a lighter note, the main plot point – a kid spotting a mermaid on the ferry to Sentosa – honestly started as a joke that my brother’s friend made when we were kids, while heading to the island. (Thanks for the laughs, Nazri.) I’ve wanted to write a story about that for ages, but never figured out what it would be about until fairly recently.
The book’s available at Epigram’s web store, so if you wanna check out “Down into the Waters”, as well as other new short stories by folks like Meihan Boey, Victor Fernando R. Ocampo and Felicia Low-Jimenez, you can…
Wayne Rée 