“IN THE PENAL COLONY” BY FRANZ KAFKA

It’s a chilling story. A man known as the Traveller is visiting a

foreign penal colony where he is shown a special machine used

to execute prisoners. The machine inscribes the prisoner’s

crime onto their body until they die (kind of sounds familiar if

you’ve read the fifth Harry Potter book). It takes twelve hours of

torture before the prisoner dies. I told you it was chilling!

“THE DEVIL IN AMERICA” BY KAI ASHANTE WILSON (TOR)

Kai Ashante Wilson has quite a talent. This ties present day

police brutality towards African Americans to post-emancipation

America and a family of freed slaves that are living with the

Devil that followed them from Africa.

“SWEETNESS” BY TONI MORRISON (THE NEW YORKER)

A prelude to Morrison’s book God Help the Child, this is the story of Bride’s mother,

and her rationale for raising her daughter in a loveless home.

“GIRLS, AT PLAY” BY CELESTE NG (BELLEVUE LITERARY REVIEW)

“This is how we play the game: pink means kissing; red means tongue. Green

means up your shirt; blue means down his pants. Purple means in your mouth.

Black means all the way.”

The first four sentences of this short story sent chills down my spine. A superbly told

story of the extremes of girlhood and adolescence; the pressures girls face as they

get older.