Writer Spotlight: R.K. Duncan
I’m so excited to kick things off with my first installment of Writer Spotlight with R.K. Duncan! I’ve reviewed 14 of Duncan’s short pieces, 13 individually on Inkfoundry’s “Get WYSR” feed. (In case you didn’t know, Inkfoundry is a wonderful and free resource that aggregates short fiction and poetry pieces!)
13 of these were short fiction, and there was one essay.
Recurring Themes:
Anti-Fascism
Foodgasm descriptions
Dark Fantasy Faerie Tales
De-militarization/defunding police
A mix of rural and urban settings
Gods’ manipulation of humans
Day One - Jan 1
“The Tongue Remembers What the City Forgets”
Damo yearns to return to his homeland before the war was over, when things weren’t so picturesque and perfect. But that version of the Commonwealth doesn’t exist anymore, except in the tiny remnants of people who also remember.
The masks of Nin’s village are meant to nurture and provide, not to kill. But when warriors attack, Nin must decide if he will put on the mask of Never-Full, which could take over his body and soul and put those he loves in even more danger.
Food came up as a main theme for both these stories, as did the concept of different kinds of amnesia and loss of self and culture. I picked these stories at random from the author’s website, so I’m fascinated by any correlations I find.
Day Two - Jan 2
3. “A Guide For Your Journey to the Green Hills”
A travel guide for the lush and darkly dangerous fae world, where the stars re-align for each person differently and There is a Thing You Must Buy.
4. “Let the Gods Drown With Us”
The words of the gods are absolute. Their prophecies are final and deadly to those who hear them. But what happens when a sister refuses to listen to the words of the prophecy through the mouthpiece of her younger brother?
Interesting themes from these two stories: Both of them are dark fantasy, but in different veins. The first is more fun-dark, albeit more Grimm fairy-tale esque. The second has more nuance to its darkness, highlighting the ways that Gods manipulate and use their creations.
Day Three - Jan 3
5. “Day One”
A disjointed and chaotic number of days detailing the disarmament and dismantling of the police.
6. “Reminiscences on the Death of Gemal the Sorcerer”
Gemal the Sorcerer was killed, but the people who remember him and champion his causes will not let his legacy die.
When I read these stories, I was struck by their very obvious themes of calling out police brutality, military regimes, and urban rebellion against fascism. Now that I’m posting this on Jan 7th, I . . . I have to note that today, an ICE agent shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis. Literally, a few hours ago. And watching the footage of that was like watching a real-life version of these stories laid out in front of me. This might be the biggest thing I take away from Duncan’s writing—his unapologetic outline for how we can stop this from happening.
Day Four - Jan 4
7. “The Boy Who Loved Drowning”
A boy can divine answers to peoples’ questions by drowning himself. But his mentor and owner doesn’t necessarily like that the answers come so easily.
8. “Six Spiral Iterations of a Memory”
The narrator works in archaeology and discovers that she can enter ancient libraries, where the identities of a person from that time takes possession of her.
Both of these were dark fantasy tales where the main character dissociates in various interesting ways in order to answer questions about their world and themselves. I see larger theme as well that speaks of divinations and prophecies, and how these can twist and manipulate a person, or change them in some way.
Day Five - Jan 5
Connor and Ilse are flying in their mechs to search for the jacks, or those who sacrificed themselves for the ancient city of Philadelphia. But there’s betrayal and a dark secret hanging in the air.
10. “Two Songs Before the Airlock Cycles”
There’s not much time for grief on board a space station. Enough for two songs.
Once again, I’m finding a lot of similar themes and vibes in this pairing of stories. Of course, they’re both sci-fi, but there’s also the more specific sense of “working for the man” and not getting jack for it, if you’ll pardon the pun. That there’s punishment if you dare step out of line or try to make your lives better .
Day Six - Jan 6
11. “The Cost of the Revolution in Three Marvelous Confections”
Overthrowing a fascist regime comes with its costs. But not overthrowing that fascist regime comes with much greater costs.
When someone breaks with the old magic and gains Christianity as a religion, they find themselves in a righteous fervor to destroy their wild magic heritage.
These two were probably the most dissimilar stories so far in regards to the genre pairing and surface vibes. Except, now that I think about it, there are parallels: Both these stories possess the idea of overthrowing something, of taking over, of not letting someone get away with a regime.
Day Seven - Jan 7
This is the one nonfiction piece that I reviewed, and I’m so glad that I did. This details the pervasive problem in media and fiction about unflattering and stereotypical depictions of fat people.
14. “Her Black Coal Heart a Diamond in My Hand”
This dark fantasy tale follows Corey, a ghost exhibition artist, who uses and showcases ghosts in a sickening display of poverty to try and guilt money for the poor from the rich. But this exhibition takes a toll on him.
These two pieces are obviously not as similar, but I did think it was interesting that in the ghost story, Duncan does have a fat character that is not stereotyped with unflattering physical descriptions.
From this portfolio of 14 stories, if I had to describe this writer’s style in one sentence, I would say Duncan is especially talented at pointing out police brutality and overthrowing fascism, a master at dark faerie tales, and incredible at descriptions of food.
Interview Questions
Last but not least, I have a few interview questions that I had Duncan answer. Here are his responses.
What are the themes you tend to return to the most in your work overall? Why do think that is?
I think the themes I return to most intentionally are about the redemptive power of loving and being loved, resistance and solidarity, generational resentment of young people against the old, and the intersection of attraction/lust/consumption/exploitation and art. A lot of my work is self-consciously political, and a lot is colored by my aesthetic obsessions with fairies, the magic of names and language and music, medieval history and folklore and folk Christianities. That’s sort of a balance between the things I return to because I want to talk about them and the things I return to because I can’t stop thinking about them.
2. What is one of the characters in your short stories/flash pieces that you relate to the most, and why?
There are a couple of self-inserts in the set of stories you’re reading: both the nameless protagonist of Day One and the artist of Her Black Coal Heart are intentionally based on me, the first aspirational as a participant in something I wish for and wish to be brave enough to be part of and the second as a deliberate caricature in my own working through the worries I have about writing marginalized perspectives from my position of relative privilege.
3. What short fiction author do you look up to? Why?
This is honestly an awkward question for me, as my short fiction reading has been laggard of late, and I also grew up reading a lot of short fiction from more than one person I don’t want to promote, but a few names to mention: Amal El Mohtar, whose work is brilliant at every length. Effie Seiberg, who I don’t read everything from, but whose work did let me make a successful called shot at a market once. Ursula Whitcher, for her brilliant collection North Continent Ribbon, and Yoon Ha Lee, whose collection I found and devoured even before his novels.