Tanya Aydelott
Tanya Aydelott is a Pakistani American writer of speculative fiction. She has been published in Dark Moon Digest and FORESHADOW: Stories to Celebrate the Magic of Reading and Writing YA. Her story “Graveminder” won second place in the Owl Canyon Press Hackathon #4. She has an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts, where she won the Norma Fox Mazer award for fiction. Visit her online at http://www.tanya-aydelott.com
Excerpt from “Flight”
The museum was fairly large, with narrow stairwells and hushed, cool rooms. She felt her heart leap when Mama pointed out that one entire archway had been brought over from Spain, dismantled and reassembled to look exactly as it had in its original location. She thought, This is what I am, too. Brought here like a stone and expected to fit. She reached out to touch the pitted arch, but Mama gently tugged her back.
They stayed for a long time in the room with the unicorns. Mama had told her stories, but nothing looked the way she had imagined. Instead of gentle, sloping heads, the unicorns had beards, and their mouths were turned down as if they were sad or worried. And they were being hunted, first by dogs and then by men. The final unicorn was captured and enclosed, its body torn by sharp spears. The cage around it was low, but the unicorn could not escape it.
Mama touched her cheek, and she realized she was crying.
“Yes,” said Mama, “we should cry for them.”
“But they’re not real,” she remembers saying, her young voice high and hot.
“Things can be real even if we never see them,” Mama said. “Most things are. Don’t say a thing isn’t real until you know for certain.”
She remembers being bewildered and afraid. “Why is there a belt around its neck?”
Mama let out a breath. The dark shadows that had begun to ring her eyes seemed to have moved lower, into her voice. She said, “Things that are unexplainable—these are things that people feel they must control. Magic. Beauty. Art. Creatures like the unicorn, which they aren’t even sure are real. Even in their imaginations, they cage them.”
Her eyes moved from the unicorn to Mama. This was something important, something she needed to know. “People, too?” she asked, her voice hollow like a shell.
Mama passed a hand across the girl’s head, smoothing the stray hairs at her temples. “Oh,” she said softly, and, “yes.”
Read the full story at foreshadowya.com
Recommended Books for Aspiring Writers
Excerpt from “Flight”
The museum was fairly large, with narrow stairwells and hushed, cool rooms. She felt her heart leap when Mama pointed out that one entire archway had been brought over from Spain, dismantled and reassembled to look exactly as it had in its original location. She thought, This is what I am, too. Brought here like a stone and expected to fit. She reached out to touch the pitted arch, but Mama gently tugged her back.
They stayed for a long time in the room with the unicorns. Mama had told her stories, but nothing looked the way she had imagined. Instead of gentle, sloping heads, the unicorns had beards, and their mouths were turned down as if they were sad or worried. And they were being hunted, first by dogs and then by men. The final unicorn was captured and enclosed, its body torn by sharp spears. The cage around it was low, but the unicorn could not escape it.
Mama touched her cheek, and she realized she was crying.
“Yes,” said Mama, “we should cry for them.”
“But they’re not real,” she remembers saying, her young voice high and hot.
“Things can be real even if we never see them,” Mama said. “Most things are. Don’t say a thing isn’t real until you know for certain.”
She remembers being bewildered and afraid. “Why is there a belt around its neck?”
Mama let out a breath. The dark shadows that had begun to ring her eyes seemed to have moved lower, into her voice. She said, “Things that are unexplainable—these are things that people feel they must control. Magic. Beauty. Art. Creatures like the unicorn, which they aren’t even sure are real. Even in their imaginations, they cage them.”
Her eyes moved from the unicorn to Mama. This was something important, something she needed to know. “People, too?” she asked, her voice hollow like a shell.
Mama passed a hand across the girl’s head, smoothing the stray hairs at her temples. “Oh,” she said softly, and, “yes.”
Read the full story at foreshadowya.com
Recommended Books for Aspiring Writers
- Wonderbook by Jeff VanderMeer
- The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner
- Bone Gap by Laura Ruby
- The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo
- This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone