The Fall 2006 issue of Blithe House Quarterly, featuring “a diversity of new short stories by emerging and established lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered authors,” is available online now!

I was pulled into Michael Langan’s short story, Skin, by its opening.

Mine is not a coming out story. It’s a going in story.

If you develop enough skins, no one can harm you.

If you develop too many skins, no one can touch you.

It’s a delicate balance and, I’m afraid, I never got it quite right.

Skins can be shed though.

The telling of a story is the shedding of a skin.

Let’s try that.

If that’s not enough to do it for you, here’s more of a teaser:

‘We’re all just stories Simon, like the spiders. We think we are in control of our lives but all we have is limited choices; narratives laid down for us, lines, radiating out, or running parallel to each other, sometimes taking a turn so they cross over. That’s where people meet. Like me and you.’

…snip…

‘Stories are what tell us who we are and what we are. But we can’t always control them – the stories we tell and the stories that are told about us. They mark us out. But they can trap you as well. They can trap you until you believe them yourself and become the characters in them. What people call fate is really just a story you become trapped in. Even when you think you have free will, all you’re doing is choosing one story over another.’

You can find Maria on MySpace here. Pick up Queer Shorts, her new anthology, at MergePress.com.