Many years ago, I wrote a poem that included the following phrase: “home is the place you return to and find no longer exists.”
That concept, a variation on “you can’t go home again,” has haunted me. It haunted me in my early 20s, when all I wanted was to get out of my hometown and never come back. It haunted me a few years later, when a good job offer brought me back to my hometown. And it haunts me now, after more than a decade back “home”–or, anyway, someplace more-or-less like home.
I’ve never been a big fan of the idea that SF’s defining feature is literalizing metaphors. In the best SF, the metaphor is perhaps part of the whole, but only part. After all, we want stories that can’t be easily reduced, that whose complexity extends far beyond just the metaphorical.
That said, there is always going to be a certain pleasure in teasing out the metaphor and seeing where it takes us. On that note, I’m delighted to share with you that the most literalized-metaphor story I’ve ever written (or, likely, will ever write) is now available at Fireside.
“All the Hometowns You Can’t Stay Away From” features a protagonist dealing with the fact that she (quite literally) can’t go home again. It’s also a story about grief, loss, and choice. Because I wrote it, it’s also queer AF.
I hope you enjoy, and I hope that the pleasures of the story extend beyond the literal. And if not, I’m sure there’s a reality where another version of me wrote a version of the story that another version of you prefers.