Our Place Is In Between, by Stephen Delaney

Prose, chapbook, 36 pages, from Bottlecap Features.

In Our Place Is In Between—a collection of 20 flash pieces, microstories, and prose poems—the fantastical and the real coexist. The real can be a portal; the fabulous, a mirror in shards. A quiet cat-owner, his life consumed by books, finds a lion-headed man barging toward him. A man’s lies to his boyfriend come to life. A tiny being’s defenses undermine it. And hauntings—both literal and figurative—jangle an artist as he faces his failures and age.

The real can be a portal, but it can also be a house, a concert hall, a small town turned prison. Characters dog questions in the face of pat answers. They skirt obstacles of the culture that’s failed them. Relationships salve until the outside worms in, or the inner life is tamped, sacrificed to the solace of groups. These texts trace the lives of those who seek the genuine. In flashes they glimpse the true, glimpse the good, as they glean through what rubble is left.

Stephen Delaney writes short fiction, craft articles, and book reviews. His stories have been featured in Bending Genres, Euphony, New World Writing, and elsewhere, and have been nominated for The Best Small Fictions. His nonfiction has appeared in such magazines as The Writer, The Believer, and Rain Taxi Review of Books. In his writing, he likes to examine overlooked topics and explore where magic and realism meet.