Fiction
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New Sudden Fiction in Queens Quarterly
Check out my newest short-story in the spring issue of Queen’s Quarterly. It was fun to write and return to the Himalayan landscape.
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New Story in fillingStation
Check out my new short-story in issue #83 of fillingStation Magazine. My thanks to fiction editor Tasnuva Hayden for taking a chance on this linguistically-playful story. Check out the other contributors and work in this Language themed issued. https://fillingstation.myshopify.com/products/filling-station-issue-82 The LANGUAGE issue, featuring new work from: Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán, Matthew Barron, James Braun, Megan Callahan, Douglas Cole, paulo da costa, Jaimie Franchi, Ed Go, Erina Harris, Henry Heavyshield, Chris Hutchinson, Daze Jefferies, Sophia Lengle, Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi, Cassandra Myers, Shane Neilson, Steve Noyes, Coco Owen, kerry rawlinson, Nnadi Samuel, Tosh Sherkat, David Sheskin, Liam Strong, Sara Truuvert, and Xen Virtue. Cover art by Jacob James Bews.
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The Midwife of Torment & Other Stories by Paulo da Costa
Book Review in Prairie Fire Jul 25, 2018 The author’s subtitle, “60 Sudden Fictions,” illuminates much of what a reader experiences in delving into Midwife of Torment: having entire life-narratives sprung fully grown upon the sensibilities, like Athena’s delivery from her father Zeus’s head to relieve a massive migraine. Spread out among six sections, da Costa’s fictions vary from mere flashes of life, mostly as tormented as the title suggests, to fleshed-out nightmare conflicts. These fictions never occupy more than three or four pages of the collection, yet some require days of mulling to decipher their word-codes. Luckily, the undertaking yields deep-seated surprises and sometimes sheer delights, and turns out…
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New Sci-Fi Story in Mithila Review
Check out my new story in Mithila Review’s special global Hopepunk issue of science fiction (and fantasy) devoted to positive and powerful character-driven stories that imagine an open and inclusive tech-empowered democratic future for all people, species and countries on Earth. Harefoot Express – Think Globally, Travel Locally. A story that takes place in Mohkínstsis, (present day Calgary), and sometime in the late 21st Century. This tale transports us to a future that still holds hope for human existence, including more inclusive and democratic forms of governing, as well as new strategies for the long process of restoring the earth’s natural ecosystems and diminishing the human footprint. What will tourism…
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The Art of Micro-Fiction
Tuesday March 21 2023 7-9 pm MT Sign Up Instructor: paulo da costa From one sentence-long to 1000 words stories, join paulo in learning the necessary skills to hone your writing craft in order to deliver a compact and compelling narrative. Learn to effectively distill a story down to its most impacting emotional moment. Successful micro-fictions leave a lasting impression on a reader’s mind. paulo has been writing sudden fiction since the 90’s and has published over 100 sudden fictions in his writing career. His micro fictions have won competitions, have been anthologized internationally, translated to other languages and recorded in audiobooks. His latest work, The Midwife of Torment and…
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Story on CKUA Radio
This week’s Blindman Brewing Session Story features the work of Calgary-based writer, editor, and translator, Paulo da Costa. Inspired by his winter walks through McHugh Bluff, In Motion explores the natural forces that shape our human endeavours and relationships. Listen at CKUA: To listen to this growing collection of stories, or check out these beautiful Super Stout labels, visit CKUA.com/sessionstories
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Focus On Victoria – Magazine – w/ author paulo da costa
By Amy Reiswig An out-of-the-box thinker, writer, editor and translator believes in daring to be different for the social good. http://www.focusonvictoria.ca/julyaugust-2017/paulo-da-costa-the-midwife-of-torment-other-stories-r5/
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The Scent of a Lie
We never carried ill intentions towards Camila Penca. We simply prayed for our village’s old peace to be restored and, thank God, He answered our prayers. Camila was born into a well-bred family in our respectable village nestled on the tusk-sharp escarpment of Hell’s Mouth Bay. A village still standing with pride and resilience after centuries of Atlantic rage. Camila spent childhood in her own world. She climbed up and down the escarpment, collecting gull feathers, splashing in the tide pools, plucking at the sea urchins, ‘she loves me, she loves me not,’ then, with the first tides of puberty, ‘he loves me, he loves me not.’ Some say…
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Roses for the Dead
Padre Lucas found rest under an olive tree. He pressed his handkerchief to the halo of white hair around his skull, attempting to suppress the beaded sweat drenching his face. He leaned against the olive trunk, contemplating the green quilt covering the valley floor, tracing the corn patches and grape fields stitched together by a thread of stone hedges. The sinuous River Caima, unusually brilliant under the sun, forced him to squint. He shielded his face. The river, the earth’s open artery, crossed the heart of the valley, delivering life and fertility to the fields. Intricate veins burst from the main artery, channelling precious water to remote places along…
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Vera
Vera rested, curled in the shade of the womb, meditating on the journey ahead, inch by inch building strength and filling with readiness; readiness, invisible as air that inflates lungs and lends might to voice, invisible as wind that sculpts landscapes and lends shape to the world. Vera rested until the sting of the syringe ejected her out of her dormant state. She sprang forward, initiating the contractions that flushed her towards the sliver of light and into the blur of expectant faces. Vera darted into the world wearing a premature coat of long black hairs which prompted her brother to scream in delight on first seeing her, “A…
