A scammer clairvoyant on the lam flees to the Florida Keys and finally meets her ghostly counterparts. ---latest fiction for the Kaleidotrope, serving some of the best lit for freaks since 2006

My review of Rob Wildwood's latest book Magical Britain for SABAT Magazine: https://medium.sabatmagazine.com/magical-britain-37132468be19

Visit: https://www.odyssey.pm/contributors/emily-linstrom/?fbclid=IwAR0yd1ZLuCklJmJKb-RvKbhp-7qdzbgLdMOBycQF93kvOZ0QOmGB6iaWY2I

"I have no wish to go back to normal. Normal has never been kind to me. Normal abuses and alienates — it is the worst kind of coward, a bully. Normal insists that we question nothing and risk even less, leave the waters untested or otherwise reserved for only the elite to traverse. Normal normalizes harmful behavior, bids us repeat the patterns of our parents and their parents, even if it kills us. Normal has no use for the rich and strange, prefers that it remain submerged fathoms and generations below. Normal insists that inequality is normal, desirable even. Normal commands us to strike our sails and suffer the storm in the name of “well, that’s life.” Normal is the simplification of the soul. No, I’m done with normal, even if I’m unsure of what the new normal should be." My latest piece for Sabat Magazine, featuring artwork by Hidden Velvet.

Primavera Quarantena, Italy

"The Liberation of Louise was inspired by a framed antique print of Queen Louise of Prussia that hung in my bedroom as a child and has travelled with me throughout the years, from East Coast to West, before finally being freed from her frame just before I moved to Italy. The much-loved historical woman was celebrated for her grace, kindness, and ability to cool the tempers of even the most hot-headed rulers, including Napoleon. Her death at 34 rendered her an immortal beauty and portrait of the ideal wife and mother. Nowhere, however, is her spirit spoken of, or her fiercest, most secret desires—if she was allowed to have any. So in a moment of impulse, I cut her out and freed her for the day. She now presides over my altar, as both companion and reminder."

' All women know that place, that summer when first love tastes like an armada set to sail right off the edge of the world, you thought the danger was in losing but no, it was believing yourself incapable of surviving space, becoming a body impervious to the gravity of another. ' Read my full poem at www.yespoetry.com