It was such a pleasure having my short story "The Cicadas" featured in the latest issue of Strange Pilgrims, not least because the publication included a fun and thought-provoking interview about my writing life. Enjoy reading this foray into the speculative, stay a while for the interview, and/or listen to my "atmospheric" reading in the accompanying audio.

In Állex Leilla's Springtime in the Bones, the city of Salvador, capital of the Brazilian state of Bahia, is as much a character as the novel's two protagonists, Luísa and Michel. Storied. Reticent. Presiding. So timeworn that it is described as only a local would know it, with equal parts awe, scorn, comfort, and annoyance. Luísa, who muses about the rusting, "worm-eaten" sights and the challenges of living in "such an old place", at one point suggests fleeing the city for B