In Adrianne Aron’s “The Envelope Trick,” an immigrant learns the very system that’s helping him in his new country is also hurting him. ~ ~ ~ “The Envelope Trick” appears in The Golden Door, a collection of stories showing the impact on people when they’re treated as “the other,” whether they’re immigrants to a country,…
Below the pristine mountains of Portugal’s countryside, a war rages on in Rei Rosenquist’s “Friends.” Thrown together in a dismal war camp, imported refugees share nothing but their suffering. No common culture. No common tongue. But friendship can spring up even in the toughest of times. ~ ~ ~ “Friends” appears in The Golden Door,…
A young boy who dreams of emigrating to the U.S. to study at MIT comes across a pair of Soviet officers during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and learns there’s far more at stake than he’d ever dreamed in Tonya D. Price’s “Spy in the Sky.” ~ ~ ~ “Spy in the Sky” appears in The…
A wealthy actress in Hollywood in the 1920s takes on a pair of immigrant faeries as indentured servants in DeAnna Knippling’s “Myrna and the Thirteen-Year Witch,” but she didn’t realize just how high the cost would be to keep them safe. ~ ~ ~ “Myrna and the Thirteen-Year Witch” appears in The Golden Door, a…
Hedi Framm Anton’s “La Despedida” shows two sides of a story of farewell. A young girl lives with her grandmother in Honduras; they wait for a check from her mother, who works in San Francisco, so they can pay the fee the gang members demand every month. ~ ~ ~ “La Despedida” appears in The…
The president of the United States wishes for peace in “The Un-American President,” by Jason Dias. Sometimes integrity is doing the right thing because everyone is watching. ~ ~ ~ “The Un-American President” appears in The Golden Door, a collection of stories showing the impact on people when they’re treated as “the other,” whether they’re…
~ ~ ~ In Rob Vagle’s “Dispatch from the Other Side,” a young man who was separated from his family while trying to claim asylum in America follows the instructions on a postcard sent by his long-lost mother, and discovers things about his family he’d never expected to find. “Dispatch from the Other Side” appears…
A woman and her young daughter escape death in their home country, only to find themselves separated at the U.S. border in Steve Carr’s “Needle in a Haystack.” ~ ~ ~ “Needle in a Haystack” appears in The Golden Door, a collection of stories showing the impact on people when they’re treated as “the other,”…
In Lesley L. Smith’s “Ke’s Symphony,” a family of aliens, refugees who escaped a disaster on their own world, is welcomed with both friendship and fear on the planet that took them in. ~ ~ ~ “Ke’s Symphony” appears in The Golden Door, a collection of stories showing the impact on people when they’re treated…
An American temporarily loses his sight in an accident in Beirut in Bob Sojka’s “Transient Pains.” While recovering, he tells his nurse stories about growing up in an immigrant family in Chicago in the 1950s, where stereotyped animosities arose among people of different origins. ~ ~ ~ “Transient Pains” appears in The Golden Door, a…
