anything, it is that stories are imperative for healing, coping, and understanding the world. They connect us during a time when we cannot be physically present with one another. If there is a silver lining to the crisis, I hope it is this – that we appreciate and encourage the joy of this beautiful contradiction.
Morris, Lin
Bio: Lin Morris lives and writes in his hometown of Portland, Oregon. His work has appeared on Trembling With Fear and Unlikely Stories, and the print anthology Flash of Brilliance. His short novel The Marriage Wars is available on amazon.com. In 2015, he placed 10th in NYC Midnight's international Flash Fiction Challenge. He is proudly and irrevocably left-handed.
Statement: If my writing has an agenda – and it does – it’s the inclusion of gay male protagonists in mainstream genre fiction. In other words, I write what I did not have growing up in the 1960s: someone to identify with, whose life is similar to mine, but whose sexuality is, though important, not the engine driving the plot.
And though Windfall is atypical of my work in this regard, it still aligns with my desire to honor and highlight the underrepresented in fiction. In today’s political climate, I think this is as important, if not more so, than ever before.
Morris, Rebekah
Bio: Rebekah Morris lives in Midwest Minnesota where she works for a propane company to feed her cats and hungry library. She's also pursuing her MFA in creative nonfiction. She's been published in Make MN, ANMLY press, and received 3rd Honorable Mention for nonfiction from the Utah League of Writers for one of her essays.
Statement: Our minds and memories are flawed. What happened last week can sometimes be just as blurry as what happened ten years ago. We need evidence to back up our memories because they deceive us when we let them. Our emotions can entangle our memory further and we end up believing untruths, our untruths become our truths. The best way to battle our foggy mind is to write our moments and observations down as they happen. I write to remember and believe that people will read to learn and relive times that have passed. The current pandemic has changed the way we live, and it is indeed a time to journal and have logged for the future. We want to remember it right.
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