July 2025 Issue 1

In this issue: Short stories and podcast episodes from the second half of June and a story excerpt about a curious being with a monstrous face.

FROZEN DESSERTS: A WONDROUS INVENTION 🍦

Do you like frozen desserts? Got a favorite? I do enjoy ice cream. It's indulgent and luxurious. But also fun-loving and up for anything. A quiet afternoon at home. A rambling girls' night. It gets along with so many other desserts. Like cake. Cookies. I know I'm not the first to notice.

"Ordinary" ice cream already has the power to heal. Kinda like...a good story. 😏

✒️ 🪶 🎙

Greetings! I'm Nila. Every week, I release a new short story and a new podcast episode spanning the genres of science fiction, fantasy, mystery, mythology, fairy tale, fable, and horror.
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Whether you're in the mood to read or listen, I've got stories to tell you.

Here we go...

Wonder-June 💭

✒️ A few years back, I indulged myself and bought Wonderbook, a "visual feast" of a book about fiction writing by Jeff VanderMeer. In June, I wrote stories inspired by exercises from the book. Everything is not about humans. The stories below feature characters who aren't. A device, a library, and a monster.

🎙 The podcast episodes feature inventions gone haywire. Two mice get into some scientific mischief, and a young man's precious prototype falls into a bowl of ice cream.
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Titles and taglines below. Enjoy!

Short Stories

We're in Year 12, the Year of Praxis. The word essentially means "practice." Through the stories, I'm exploring elements of my writing practice.
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Each link below leads directly to the story post.
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​GORILLA COASTER GUARDIAN​
Vanessa just wanted a nice new drink coaster, but she ends up with an advanced piece of technology that takes on the aspect of a gorilla, and the mission of being her protector. 🦍
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Genre: Science Fiction, Mystery

​A LIBRARY WHO LONGED TO READ​
A library becomes awakened, and longs for what the people who walk through its doors take for granted: the power to choose, to move, to speak, and to read. 📖
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​Genre: Mythic Fantasy

​HAPPY HUMAN FACES HIDING LONG SHARP TEETH​
A person traipses through the forest, searching for a mysterious creature who has been sometimes maligned and sometimes exalted, for its uncanny appearance. 🎭
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Genre: Mythic Fantasy

Podcast Episodes

We're in season 8, the Year of Revisitation. Each episode is a standalone story, but it's inspired by an earlier story.

The text links below go to the Explore page on Storyfeather, where you can listen to the episode, find the links to the episode(s) that inspired it, and more.

Pressing on the Spotify embed image leads to the episode's Spotify page.

​MATCHSTICK AND MISCHIEF​

Two adventurous friends offer to help a scientist whose revolutionary invention for all mousekind isn’t exactly authorized.🐀
​Genre: Science Fiction, Fable

Matchstick and Mischief Jun 20 · Storyfeather 36:44   ​

​LASER BEAM ICE CREAM​

A kitchen mishap leads to the accidental invention of the most powerful ice cream in the world. 🍨
​Genre: Science Fiction

Laser Beam Ice Cream Jun 27 · Storyfeather 38:20   ​

🗡

A shopkeeper and great-grandmother, who lives a few towns over from mine, told me she befriended a chimera spirit when she was a girl. They were still showing themselves to us back then.
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She noticed the teeth first, she told me.
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Long sharp teeth—some like thorns, some like needles, some like blades.
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She was too young to be afraid of those teeth. Too young to tell her mother what she had seen peering back at her through the dense wood. And too young to remember anything else about that first encounter.
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Except that she laughed.
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She laughed at the face that was laughing at her.

—From "Happy Human Faces Hiding Long Sharp Teeth"

Parting words🪶

I'm curious. What's your favorite fictional setting? You can reply to this email, if you feel up to sharing. Likewise, if you've got any questions.

My reason for asking? Next time, we journey into uncommon places and spaces.

Happy reading and listening! 📚
—Nila

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