HAPPY NEWS! I have a (sly climate protest) solarpunk story which will be published in an exciting new anthology called SOLARPUNK CREATURES later this year! World Weaver Press. Really thrilled!
As well, Allium: A Journal of Poetry & Prose has accepted a fun flash fiction story of mine, “Coulda Been a Singer.” Can’t wait to see it there! Allium comes out of Columbia College Chicago and has really great pieces in it.
March 20th, 2023
I’m honoured to be among these 12 amazing stories of climate fiction from Grist/Fix Magazines: Read “Imagine 2200” for all 12. Fantastic artwork too
https://grist.org/fix/climate-fiction/imagine-2200-benni-and-shiya-are-leaving/ *
It’s live! Alluvian’s “Weird Weather” issue is live today! The stories look great. Have a look!
http://alluvian.space/jerri-jerreat-lightning-in-35
The story looks great. It might seem dark–but you’ll be safe with this story.
GREAT NEWS! Alluvian Journal has accepted a new story of mine, quirky hopepunk, entitled, “Lightning in 35–” . It will be published online in late August! Happy dance! – July, 2022
Alluvian is an amazing literary magazine with an environmental focus. Check it out. It is published in Ithica, New York. Ithica is a very bold little city which is aiming to cut their city’s carbon emissions by 100% by 2025! Wow! That is a serious role model for all cities worldwide. *
*er, I could have erred here. Alluvian might come out of Madison, WI. My bad.
“Red to Pink” is a very brief flash fiction story of mine, in this new anthology by Guernica Press. It is on Amazon, but it’s always preferable to order it from your local bookstore. There are some gorgeous short pieces in here.
My story is dedicated to my Nana (Amy Haynes Treanor) and my sister, (Susan Iker).
Loud Coffee Press , Latest Issue, Spring 2022 has a quirky micro break up story in it: “5 Senses.”I think it’s a rather dreamy, happy ending. What do you think?
https://www.loudcoffeepress.com/issue-10
https://onyxpublications.com/arborite-countertops/
1st Place: Arborite Countertops
https://onyxpublications.com/arborite-countertops/
News Flash! Etched Onyx Magazine and Story Discovery Podcast have chosen my story, “Arborite Countertops” for First Prize of their 2021 Fiction Contest! The story and podcast are both now live! The podcast has the audio version of the story, (relax and kick back), followed by an interview with the author. The interviewers are pretty great and make it fun. Enjoy!
Podcast
I’m very honoured. Hope you enjoy the story.
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Flyway: Journal of Writing & Environment will be publishing a mysterious story I wrote, “In the Karakum Desert”.
It was a story from a pile of inspiration notes tossed in a bowl: the “Gates of Hell”; a new butterfly guide; moments with my mom, friends, construction workers, engineers and mechanics; news reports; travels; etc. I hope you find it an engaging read. – Jerri J.
News: How eerie is this story now, in the face of Russia invading Ukraine? Putin is a throwback to the StalinKings, secret police, and repression of years ago. – Jerri J, February 24th, 2022
https://flywayjournal.org/fiction/in-the-karakum-desert-jerri-jerreat/
http://flywayjournal.org/fiction/in-the-karakum-desert-jerri-jerreat/
I think of it as protest eco-fiction. With a dash of magic. – Jerri
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NEWS FLASH! “Feminine Collective” has published my story, “Cowboy in Red in Cheating” online, today! August 7th, 2021. Trigger warning: A mother prepares to meet the cousin who raped her over 20 years ago.
#MeToo.
Cowboy in Red is Cheating
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Brilliant Flash Fiction
has published my story, “Voldemort Sky” in Issue 27, September 2020! Looks great!
A lighthearted piece, inspired by my favourite local shop, “Glenburnie Grocery,” bad weather and my husband’s motorcycle. Enjoy! Here is the beginning, from their website:
https://brilliantflashfiction.com/2020/09/30/issue-27-september-2020/
Voldemort Sky
By Jerri Jerreat
The weather was alive that day; it had force, and meaning.
I left the man on the steps of City Hall. I’d nodded politely through his, “It’s not me, it’s you,” speech. I assured him we were fine; I was just popping in to the library.
Instead, I wound through limestone alleys and parking lots, fury an excellent adrenaline.
The wind had picked up, so I stopped to pull out the ancient brown leather jacket and gloves from a saddlebag, then yanked on the helmet and snapped it up. Betty purred under me as I revved her four-stroke engine, and curved into traffic. Heading north.
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My story, “Cinnamon” is now available in The New Quarterly, issue 154. Pay a small fee to The New Quarterly to read all their great writing in past issues online.
Remember when we could go into a cafe and meet people? “Cinnamon” is a fine antidote to COVID. Set in Kingston, Ontario, just pre-covid.
A barista uses history to romance a serious math textbook writer.
https://tnq.ca/issues/issue-154/
Send me your review!
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2 stories to appear in March, 2020!
I am excited and very honoured that my story, “Cinnamon” will appear soon in the brilliant literary magazine, “The New Quarterly”.
Note: TNQ is mentoring a group of Canadian women who were once refugees, to write their own stories. These stories are becoming a performance onstage. I hope they bring it to theatres across Toronto, and then to the outposts of Ontario for the rest of us.
As well, the online magazine, “Toasted Cheese” will feature a quirky little micro-fiction story of mine in their next issue. Thank you!
*****TNQ Issue 149 has a great story written by Adan Jerreat-Poole, about a feisty elderly woman. Adan is the brilliant writer who has a Young Adult Fantasy novel coming out from Dundurn Press this May! “The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass”. Order it at your local bookstore!
https://www.dundurn.com/books_/t22117/a9781459746817-the-girl-of-hawthorn-and-glass
*****TNQ Issue 145 has a short, upbeat story I wrote. A shy teenager secretly admires the newcomer, learning English, with secrets in his eyes…
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Toasted Cheese has a micro story, “Island” of mine, with a sly, wry tone. My grandmother would have been shocked. Sorry, Nana.
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Jerri Jerreat
white settler living gratefully on traditional
Anishnaabe and Haudenosaunee land.
Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Winters
This anthology envisions winters of the future, with stories of scientists working together to protect narwhals from an oil spill, to bring snow back to the mountains of Maine, to preserve ecosystems—even if they have to be under glass domes. They’re stories of regular people rising to extraordinary circumstances to survive extreme winter weather, to fix a threat to their community’s energy source, to save a living city from a deep-rooted sickness. Some stories take place after an environmental catastrophe, with luxury resorts and military bases and mafia strongholds transformed into sustainable communes; others rethink the way we could organize cities, using skybridges and seascrapers and constructed islands to adapt to the changes of the Anthropocene. Even when the nights are long, the future is bright in these seventeen diverse tales.
GLASS AND GARDENS: SOLARPUNK WINTERS is out in ebook and paperback today!
“Each of these stories features a wintry, inhospitable setting occupied by tenacious survivors and innovators, and an emphasis on LGBTQ representation and female empowerment runs through each of these visions for more progressive futures…readers will take comfort in this wide range of snowy, hopeful tales.” —Publishers Weekly
Feminine Collective has chosen a beautiful photo to accompany my story “Floating on Tires”. This was written after about a year of reading about the flow of refugees across the Atlantic and up through the terrifying Darien Gap toward North America. If you are interested in the state of human migration across the planet, I highly recommend finding the film “Human Flow” and viewing it. There are articles listed that might interest you, as well, at the end of my short story. _J. Jerreat Oct. 6th, 2019
Floating on Tires
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Thank you to Everyday Fiction! I think the layout of their online literary magazine is terrific. Today, they featured my story. Yes, it is set slightly in the future. Yes, it is Toronto… –JJ Sept. 25/19
Everyday Fiction
BITE-SIZED STORIES FOR A BUSY WORLD
WATER MARRIAGE •
by Jerri Jerreat
Monday, staring at lychees in the specialty shop, Zuberi wondered who had murdered the snitch. And how he and Rosa could have quarreled over something so — impersonal.
… read the rest at Everyday Fiction !
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A lighthearted story, now appearing in the Penmen Review:
NEWS: Several literary magazines will be publishing my short stories in September: The Penmen Review; Everyday Fiction; Feminine Collective; and finally, a little late, The Ottawa Arts Review. Exciting!
“WOW” (Women On Writing Online Magazine) has published my flash fiction story, “Waves”. Look it up.
Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Winters
Out in ebook and paperback on January 7, 2020!
These are stories of scientists working together to protect narwhals from an oil spill, to bring snow back to the mountains of Maine, to preserve ecosystems—even if they have to be under glass domes. They’re stories of regular people rising to extraordinary circumstances to survive extreme winter weather, to fix a threat to their community’s energy source, to save a living city from a deep-rooted sickness. Some stories take place after an environmental catastrophe, with luxury resorts and military bases and mafia strongholds transformed into sustainable communes; others rethink the way we could organize cities, using skybridges and seascrapers and constructed islands to adapt to the changes of the Anthropocene. Even when the nights are long, the future is bright in these seventeen diverse tales.
Table of Contents
“Wings of Glass” by Wendy Nikel
“Halps’ Promise” by Holly Schofield
“A Shawl for Janice” by Sandra Ulbrich Almazan
“The Healing” by Sarah Van Goethem
“The Fugue of Winter” by Steve Toase
“The Roots of Everything” by Heather Kitzman
“Viam Inveniemus Aut Faciemus” by Tales from the EV Studio and Commando Jugendstil
“Recovering the Lost Art of Cuddling” by Tessa Fisher
“Oil and Ivory” by Jennifer Lee Rossman
“Orchidaceae” by Thomas Badlan
“The Things That Make It Worth It” by Lex T. Lindsay
“Glâcehouse” by R. Jean Mathieu
“Snow Globe” by Brian Burt
“Rules for a Civilization” by Jerri Jerreat
“On the Contrary, Yes” by Catherine F. King
“Set the Ice Free” by Shel Graves
“Black Ice City” by Andrew Dana Hudson
Learn more about the authors, and find out how to get a FREE Advance Review Copy at: www.worldweaverpress.com/blog
The Ottawa Arts Review
https://ottawaartsreview.com/
Ottawa Arts Review welcomes you to our Spring 2019 Launch Party on July 14th between 3:30 – 6:00pm at Vimy Brewery. Check out the event details to learn more about the dress code. We’d love to see you there.
This month, July 2019, a rather daring piece of my fiction will be published in the Ottawa Arts Review. I’m so very pleased they took the chance.
-Jerri 2019
The Yale Review Online: November 2018I’m honoured that my story, “The Narrow Cafe” is featured online in this excellent literary magazine! I hope the story intrigues you.Jerri, November 2018. note: “The Narrow Cafe” was inspired by Andrew, Nicole and Nomad Cafe, in Vermont, and by a few delightful local cafes in Kingston.The Yale Review The Narrow Café The café was a wide hallway in a refurbished century home. It had Doric columns at the entrance and stained-glass windows in the doors. It was all offices now, walls moved around, glass doors upstairs, very sleek. You had to look hard to see the bones of a family reading the paper or playing checkers. But inside the main-floor dark hallway lived magic. Halim’s Bibbeh always claimed the boy had a wizard’s touch. (He fashioned her Turkish coffee pot into a lamp that never needed a new bulb, and, she swore, he cured her arthritis with his drinks.) Halim was a quiet young man, who’d studied art and mathematics at Waterloo University. The math was for his parents. After college he worked three years at cafés, playing with art on the side. One café was a famous chain, but at the co-op, staff braided their beards and sported tattoos. He enjoyed the complexity of coffee, the precision of temperature, grind size, the mineral content in water, the aromatics. The other staff joked around, but coffee, to Halim, was serious. At twenty-seven, Halim decided to open his own café. His extended family tried to reason with him. They argued and prayed. A café! What a gamble! Still, family was family, even crazy. They lent him money and helped Halim hang Edison bulbs and install four train tables with seats, scrounged from an old Via Rail car. Beside the tables, Halim mounted four unusual windows, piano lights above each. They looked like sorcery and perhaps they were. Behind the pebbled glass were painted scenes one might see if crossing Canada on a train. Halim, born in a refugee camp (more of a mud pit, really), had never left Waterloo since arriving at age four. He designed the paintings working from hundreds of photos. After work, he liked to sit and look at his scenes: a rusty car at the back of a farmer’s field; skinny backyards with scrap tin forts; the prairies before cities had sprung up; mountains. Sometimes a blade of grass shivered. In February, The Narrow Café opened, with a seven-thousand-dollar espresso machine. Local people wandered in, curious. They liked his perfect brews and the fresh herb pastries from a Lebanese bakery. Thought his windows were spellbinding. With various milks, spices and Fair Trade beans from 6,000 feet up in Los Andes—or indigenous farmers in Chiapas–Halim created something new. Word spread through social media. The lawyers and accountants upstairs soon had to bring their lattés back to work. By the time fall leaves were under snow, the café was so popular that he’d had to post a sign, then ask people quite firmly to leave after one hour, laptop or no. He kept a blackboard behind the cash to jot the time someone sat down. Locals nicknamed him The Coffee Nazi; students hated him. Others loved him, however. He brought in a Golden Latté in his second year, a base of shaved turmeric root, cardamom and ginger. He whipped it up with various milks and honey. It was a life changer for some. Later, he melted Camino chocolate in a copper pan, added local fresh eggnog and cinnamon. He couldn’t keep up with the lines; people had to wait ten minutes sometimes, even with him hiring a part-time cashier. These drinks couldn’t be hurried. Part-time help was difficult. The first was a good student from the mosque, but she quit after four months for a job closer to the university. The second was always late or missed shifts. Just when he’d given up, a receptionist upstairs quit to work for him. Isa tidied up, did cash, and then learned coffee. She was quick, had two dimples, and laughed with people. (This astounded Halim.) Isa agreed that coffee was a religion, and declared his coffee made her feel freer. More—Isa. He taught her to steam velvety microfoam. In time, Isa’s espresso was excellent. She dyed her hair purple to celebrate and threw out all her dark skirts. Eventually the hall was too narrow so Halim took out the furniture, put in an elbow shelf and raised the window art. It became a standing-only or take-out café. That lasted a month, until he brought out the Winter Dogsledding Espresso with steamed cashew milk, honey, fennel and vanilla. Then the line had to coil around like a snake. People complained, but kept coming. The following summer he invented the Northern Lights Ice Café, with peppermint extract and something he refused to explain. They were wild about it and the lines went right out to the sidewalk. The businesses upstairs grumbled about noise; police complained about illegally parked cars. Halim didn’t know how to stop them. He liked experimenting; he loved the aromas, the tastes. After work, he rested, gazing out his painted windows. The relatives were paid off after the first year, but after the second, Halim was wishing for a day off. A weekend. A twenty-hour sleep. A trip, maybe by train. That second February he hung up a sign, “Will be closing for repairs in March,” and got a lot of guff about it. He spent the entire week in a hotel two hours away by train–sleeping, and occasionally ordering in. By August, the claustrophobia of people’s faces always surrounding him, demanding, had begun to fill every dream. He shortened his hours from 7 to 5, then began to close Monday mornings. Monday mornings he was seeing a psychologist. The counsellor was kind, intelligent, and seemed to understand the deep reasons that he couldn’t say no to people, how he’d love to travel, but work was life, right? His parents knew that (one a dental assistant at two clinics; the other a bus driver/night custodian). He enjoyed very much creating liquid art with his drinks. The therapist served him ginger tea and he felt strangely grateful. His hand shook, sipping. Following her advice, he began to close on Mondays entirely, and shortened Sundays from 11 to 3. There was a great deal of bellyaching from customers. Six months later he had enough money to consider a month off, even two. But who would take over the Narrow Café? What would his parents think? Holidays were for other people, rich people, not people like his family. His counsellor had bought a discreet diffuser but he noticed the lavender and citrus immediately. Curious, he could hardly pay attention to her radical suggestion. Something about a large wedding. Could she pass on his business card? He rejected it, then considered it. He’d have to close the café for a day. What on earth would he wear? Create coffee for happiness, she said. And let Isa have a chance to run it. He barely noticed over the scents. Long ago, his grandmother, Bibbeh, had rubbed basil leaves or rosemary and made him smell them, name them. It was she who’d encouraged his experiments. She’d even dabbled in “peasant perfumes”. Such a waste of time, his father had said. How had Halim forgotten? He took the wedding planner’s card. • • • It was nerve-wracking, wearing a smart suit (chosen by the wedding planner), and learning a new machine. But freeing. They’d placed bowls of flowers at his station, and hung a blackboard. Everyone adored his Wedding Wishes Espresso with its citrus dash. They took his business cards. Back at the Narrow Café, Halim confided in Isa. He’d rather enjoyed the event. Could he do both, she asked. She was wiping the counters and looked up to see him staring at the windows. Why not take a holiday? she asked. You’ve bloody well earned it. No, I couldn’t. Don’t you trust me to look after things? She joined him near the windows, looking out. It’d be here when you get back. I did fine when you were gone. It was— I know. I know it was just a day. Still— It was all done on the hush and hush, and took two months to arrange. Isa helped him find another barista to train (about time), a newcomer from Syria. He had mud on his shoes, a light in his eyes. Halim left his parents a loving letter and promised future contact. He invented a new coffee for the last week. With basil and cedarwood in it for Bibbeh, it was called, “Letting Go Latté.” It was hard to kiss his espresso machine goodbye. On the last day of work, Halim opened the pebbled window to his favourite scene, the Rockies, and stepped through. Jerri Jerreat’s fiction has appeared in The New Quarterly, The Antigonish Review, and The Dalhousie Review, was awarded a fiction prize (Room), and appears in two new anthologies, Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers (World Weaver Press) and Nevertheless: Tesseracts 21 (Edge Publishing). She has taught creative writing courses at St. Lawrence College. image: Juan Gris, Le moulin à café Coffee Grinder, 1920 Join Us Nevertheless: Tesseracts 21, an anthology of optimistic sci fi stories, is now available on Amazon.The Tesseracts series is a famous Canadian anthology published by Edge Publishers. Check it out This issue is a fun mix of stories that have an optimistic take on our future, but all sound intriguing.Mine is a gentle comedy about an RCMP officer with an eccentric family and dating problems. Hope you enjoy it!Jerri J. October 2018
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Jerri Jerreat, Author 