Elizabeth Hart Bergstrom
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New story in Indiana Review

2/3/2021

 
Thank you to Indiana Review editors for publishing my short story/ fairy tale, "Wild Mushrooms," about a woman, her dog, and their quest into a dark forest full of wild mushrooms and a mysterious bear. You can order the print issue, 42.2, here.

"The old woman who lives on the hill tells me she has a great craving for mushrooms. The hill her house sits on is so high that she used to stand on tiptoe and peer into heaven. Now her spine stoops, and she isn’t tall enough anymore."

Year-end roundup: My writing in 2020

12/29/2020

 
GIF of a cute, smiling dumpster on fireArtwork by Truck Torrence of 100% Soft
Despite 2020 being a dumpster fire in so many ways, for many people, I'm grateful to the editors who published my work this year, and to my friends and colleagues who continue to do the weird and necessary work of writing. Here are the pieces I published this year:

Juked: "The Mimosa Tree"

"The woman said, I wish I would have a child as dark as the night and as bright as the moon, and she was so weary that she lay down and fell asleep right there, her cheek pressed against the grass, her arms wrapped around herself as the moon and stars kept watch."

Post Road: "In the High Prairies"

"The railroad tracks carry the smell of dead things warmed by the midday sun. In the high prairies of Montana, it’s been a cold March—but this morning a northwest wind swept in, bringing mild air that makes the ice on the trees crackle and sigh."

Wigleaf: "Fairy Tale Happy Hour"

"A frog, a hedgehog, and a wolf walk into a bar."

A Quiet Afternoon: "The Baker's Cat"

"Karina dreamed of freshly baked limpa bread made with dark rye flour, flavored with orange peel and caraway and anise. She dreamed of fluffy cardamom buns filled with whipped cream."

Longleaf Review: "The Kudzu Eaters"

"In the old days, we burned the bodies of fossils to keep warm. We loved roads so much, we drove them until we turned the rivers to oil and rock salt."

Okay Donkey: "The Jackalope in Economy Class"

"The jackalope fantasized that she and Nessie would hit it off. They probably had a lot of things in common besides being cryptids."

Malasaña: "Wendy the Fire-Eater"

"The carnival lights scattered rainbows in Wendy’s black hair, and her tattooed skin smelled like paraffin fuel."

PANK: "Two Women in the Underworld"

"I hear they started a band called The Pomegranate Seeds
with Eurydice on drums and Persephone playing guitar
They are teaching Cerberus to howl in three-part harmony"


Closet Cases: Queers On What We Wear: "Firecracker," Et Alia Press

"When I couldn’t disappear, I tried instead to sparkle as brightly as possible, to become so visible that my glamor and eccentricity were a shield."

P.S. And thank you to the editors of the Wigleaf Top 50 for longlisting my flash fiction "Convenience Store Prayer," published in 2019 by the wonderful CHEAP POP. Thank you to editors Michio Kaku and Jaime Green for listing my essay "A Funeral for Two Birds," published in 2019 in The New York Times, as Notable in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2020.

New short story published in Post Road, "In the High Prairies"

12/17/2020

 
Thank you to David Ryan and the other editors, interns, and staff of Post Road for publishing my short story "In the High Prairies" in their brand-new Issue 37. The full issue is available online, and it will also be released as a print issue in early 2021.

​I started writing this story five years ago in Nelly Reifler's fiction writing class, based on an exercise brainstorming lists of nouns and verbs, drawing lines to connect them randomly, and then writing sentences based on the combinations. "Railroad tracks" + "ripen" was where this story began, which led me to look up how often animals are hit by trains. This newspaper article about hundreds of antelope struck by a train in Montana inspired the setting.
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Photo by Jeff DeWitt/Unsplash

Notable in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2020

11/16/2020

 
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​I'm honored to share that my essay "A Funeral for Two Birds," published in The New York Times, is listed as Notable in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2020!

Thank you to editors Dr. Michio Kaku and Jaime Green.


You can read the original essay here. The anthology of other great essays is available for purchase at your nearest independent bookstore, Indiebound, or Powells.com.

A Quiet Afternoon anthology - cozy speculative fiction available now

7/2/2020

 
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I'm excited to have a short story about baking and magical animals in a new Canadian anthology, A Quiet Afternoon! The anthology includes 13 speculative fiction stories that go perfectly with a cup of coffee or tea on a rainy day (or any quarantine day). It's available as an ebook for $7.50 (less in U.S. dollars), and the publisher, Grace and Victory Publications, is donating 50 percent of the proceeds to Black Lives Matter-Canada.

"Karina dreamed of freshly baked limpa bread made with dark rye flour, flavoured with orange peel and caraway and anise. She dreamed of fluffy cardamom buns filled with whipped cream. She dreamed of gingerbread cookies laced with spices and molasses, saffron Lucia buns curled into the shape of the letter S, sticky bites of flourless chocolate cake, and thin oatmeal cookies that crunched between the teeth before a delicate layer of chocolate melted onto the tongue."

Happy reading! And thank you to the editors who made this possible.

New poem in PANK, new anthology coming soon

6/26/2020

 
PicturePhoto: Oriol Portell/Unsplash
I have a new poem published at PANK, titled "Two Women in the Underworld":

"I hear they started a band called The Pomegranate Seeds / with Eurydice on drums and Persephone playing guitar / They are teaching Cerberus to howl in three-part harmony"

I'm also excited to have a short story in the Canadian anthology A Quiet Afternoon, a collection of speculative fiction published by Grace & Victory Publications.

​It will be available as an ebook on July 1, and 50 percent of the profits will be donated to Black Lives Matter - Canada. These are calm, cozy stories you can read with a cup of coffee or tea on a rainy day—no fairy tale gore like many of my other stories have!

New story in Longleaf Review about a (hopeful) post-apocalyptic society

5/31/2020

 
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Photo by Katie Ashdown/Flickr CC BY 2.0
Thank you to Longleaf Review for publishing my new flash fiction "The Kudzu Eaters," which you can read here. It's part of their beautiful new issue featuring many wonderful writers of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction.

I wrote this story on March 5, 2020, when COVID-19 had just led me to cancel a short trip to see friends who I hadn't seen in years. Still, I didn't understand yet just how bad things would get. The virus was on my mind, but I didn't want to write fiction about it in a literal way, so I wrote instead about oil, kudzu, and floods.

What if a jackalope fell in love with the Loch Ness Monster?

5/15/2020

 
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My new flash fiction piece published today at Okay Donkey asks this pressing question. It's one of the silliest stories I've ever written, but to tell you the truth, I also earnestly relate to the jackalope a fair bit. Thank you to the editors at Okay Donkey!

​"The jackalope fantasized that she and Nessie would hit it off. They probably had a lot of things in common besides being cryptids. For example, the jackalope’s favorite drink was whiskey, and Scotland was known for excellent Scotch." 

After writing this story, I was excited to find this mural of a jackalope and Nessie (plus Bigfoot, a werewolf, and a UFO) outside Ha Ha Pizza in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

Closet Cases: Queers on What We Wear

4/20/2020

 
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​I'm happy to have a short essay published in a new coffee table book called Closet Cases: Queers on What We Wear.

​Published by Et Alia Press, it's a gorgeous compilation of photographs paired with poems and essays about LGBTQ+ identity and self-expression. You can order it here.

A new carnival-inspired short story published in Malasaña

2/29/2020

 
PicturePhoto by Jonathan Daniels/Unsplash

​Thanks to Malasaña for publishing my new short story "
Wendy the Fire-Eater," the third piece I've published that was inspired by Coney Island.

"The carnival lights scattered rainbows in Wendy’s black hair, and her tattooed skin smelled like paraffin fuel."
​
The Coney Island Circus Sideshow puts on a live sideshow every year, April through September, with acts like contortionists, sword-swallowers, fire-eaters, human blockheads, and performers who lie on beds of nails. Go see the show if you live in New York or plan to visit (as long as you're not squeamish about swords and nails)!



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