My short story, “Back Room,” is up now on the Broken Eye Books Patreon.
“Back Room” was solicited for an anthology of contemporary weird fiction involving children, under Broken Eye Books’ Patreon-first model – Patreon backers will get the fiction almost immediately, and eventually it will be collected in book form. Having previously contributed to the “Ride the Star Wind” anthology, I know Broken Eye Books does quality work.
“Back Room” is the story of two non-neurotypical sisters who get lost in a store at the mall, which goes much further back and into much weirder store-like dimensions than either of them anticipated.
The feeling of being overwhelmed and disoriented in retail spaces is a common one for me and no doubt for many autistic people. The Lagoona Beauty Boutique in this story is very loosely based on Lush, but I want to stress that I have nothing against Lush in particular – I am overwhelmed by almost every store and this one simply happened to be quirky and distinctive enough to be easy to write about.