New Story in Cosmic Crime Stories

A soldier returns home from Afghanistan with a strange, ancient box, completely sealed and covered in cuneiform.  He soon discovers that the box is far older than he realized, and he escapes to California’s high desert to protect his family.  However, his young brother is not so easily deterred and puts everyone at risk.

My story “Pyriscence” is now available in the anthology Cosmic Crime Stories.  Pick up a copy today at Amazon and add it to your list on Goodreads.

This story is particularly special to me, as I am a US Army veteran and grew up just outside of California’s high desert.  I wrote this story for a creative writing class at UW Milwaukee.  Writing is only part of the process towards getting a work into your hands.  This story went through at least seven major revisions and countless minor revisions.

A City of Han reviewed by The Korea Times, Asian Review of Books, and LA Review of Books

I’m thrilled to see how much publicity A City of Han: stories by expat writers in South Korea, which features my story, “The Mosquito Hunters of Korea,” has received!

When I wrote “The Mosquito Hunters of Korea,” I’d hoped it would find a publisher willing to include it in a magazine or an anthology, and I’d hope readers would enjoy it.  But I didn’t know. So often, that’s the sorrow of writing – you put so much of yourself into a project, then send it off.  Sometimes stories go from publisher to publisher for years and never find a home. You wonder if you just see through its flaws with the unconditional love of a parent. Or perhaps, like Stephen King wrote, the story is just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

This story came out of my Art of Fiction course at UWM, taught by George Clark. That was a tough semester – I started four different stories, trying to find characters and a plot that stood out to me. One of those has been shelved for good, or so I think, and two others (one set in Bronze Age Greece and another in the North Woods of Wisconsin) have been going through revisions upon revisions.  The fourth, “The Mosquito Hunters of Korea,” was turned in for a grade.

Many of these links are from closer to when the book came out.  I’ve been meaning to share them, but COVID seemed to warp time, and now it’s months later.

The Korea Times

Los Angeles Review of Books

Asian Review of Books

(The Asian Review includes a quote from my story, “You young folks come here for your year-long assignment, and after a few months, you think that you know everything about Korea,” and remarks that this “resonates throughout the collection, establishing a division of the transient foreigners who pass through the neon-lit facades and those who stick around long enough to get to know the real Korea by traversing through the less visible terrains of the country.”)

Kyoto Journal

Be Marie Korea

Can’t Find My Way Home Podcast

New Erasure Poems in the Cincinnati Review

I’m so excited to announce that two of my erasure poems have just been published by The Cincinnati Review as a special online feature!

This is part of a new series of erasures, where I examine ableism – how our society is built for and defaults to people who are able bodied – in texts.  Specifically, these two erasures look at students in special education.

As the editors at The Cincinnati Review say, these “speak to the violence of ‘normality’ on the disabled body,” how being labeled as different and flawed controls and removes the voices of those who are considered disabled.

Read online.

New Erasure Poems in The Banyan Review

The Banyan Review has picked up a trove of my erasure poems!  These poems are similar, but different from my past erasures.  I’ve been working on a new style of erasure, where the original text is present and readable, and these are the first published in this new style.  What I like about these is that being able to read the original text creates a palimpsest affect, where there is interplay between the original text and the new text.

This idea of creating a palimpsest came from a class I took from the poet Kimberly Blaeser, as well as from readers who kept trying to read the original text in my older erasures.

If you find yourself struggling with a few junctures in my erasures, not knowing which direction to take for the “official” reading, don’t worry.  Part of the joy of reading an erasure is the misreadings that can be created.  No text – even fiction – is complete on the page, but rather, it is completed through the reader’s eyes and mind.

The Banyan Review also asked for a reading.  On their website, you’ll also find a video of me reading two of my erasure poems.

Here is the link: http://www.thebanyanreview.com/issue6-summer-2021/ted-snyder-banyan-review-summer-2021/

Korea Herald reviews A City of Han

A City of Han, which includes my short story “The Mosquito Hunters of Korea,” has been reviewed by The Korea Herald.

I am in disbelief that they said my story reminded them of Joseph Conrad.  In high school and for many years thereafter, Heart of Darkness was one of my favorite books.

Read the review here.

New Story: The Mosquito Hunters of Korea

A scientist with a US military preventive medicine unit in South Korea dies in a minefield while collecting mosquitoes in the DMZ.  His supervisor, the unit’s newly appointed executive officer, takes over the position, only to find out that this was not the first such death.  He will have to fight against his unit’s dark history if he is to not repeat it.

“The Mosquito Hunters of Korea” is available on Amazon in the anthology A City of Han: stories by expat writers in South Korea. Pick up your copy today!

A City of Han has been listed as a #1 New Release in Asian Literature by Amazon.com.

New Article: Ancestor Simulations: A Past, Revisited

Ancestor simulations, such as the matrix simulation in the eponymous movie trilogy, are a recurring form of technology within speculative fiction; however, science fiction critics have largely overlooked their importance to the genre.

This paper examines how ancestor simulations function as a plot device and how this changes over time from the 1980s to today.  The relationship between characters and ancestor simulations parallels the growing dependency upon computers during this time period and, disturbingly, suggests a willingness to give up agency for a freedom mediated by computers and technology.

Read my article, ”Ancestor Simulations: A Past, Revisited,” at NewMyths.com.