Hello, everyone!
Although I’ve been publishing speculative stories for a while now, this is the first time I’ve gathered the courage to make an #AwardsEligibility post. I published 4 stories this year, a poem, and several non-fiction pieces on speculative themes.
So, if you’d like to read my work, nominate them for any awards, or recommend them to your friends, feel free to do so. If a piece is behind a paywall or in a print anthology, or if you have any questions or just want to say hi, you can message me on Twitter, or email me at archita.666@gmail.com.
Stories
- “The Green Man’s Wife”. Tasavvur. August, 2022
The Green Man’s Wife was published in the third issue of Tasavvur, a lovely online magazine that publishes South Asian speculative fiction.
My free-to-read story is a bittersweet romance that blends South Asian customs with Celtic mythology, set amidst an ecological crisis, with a non-binary protagonist.
- “The Other Wives”. Dark Matter Presents: Human Monsters. A horror anthology from Dark Matter Magazine, edited by Sadie Hartmann and Ashley Saywer. October, 2022.
I’ve grown up reading and loving fairytales, and in The Other Wives, I revisit the story of Bluebeard with a sci-fi gothic twist. This was the second time I tried experimenting with horror and I’m glad that the wonderful team at Dark Matter Magazine, picked it up for their anthology.
Amazon | Goodreads
- “Sirena’s Collection of Tarot Cards”. Moonflowers and Nightshade: an anthology of sapphic horror, edited by Samantha Kolesnik. October, 2022.
Sirena is a professional medium who makes it a point to not date her clients. But when she falls in love with the budding actress Lorna, the real and the magical worlds begin to collide…
I’m a professional tarot card reader and I adore romance stories, so writing this piece was pretty fun. If you’re keen to read a story about dysfunctional millennial relationships, with some adultery and witchcraft thrown in, you might like this one.
- “The Weaver”. Every Breath Alight: an anthology from Dandelion Revolution Press. November, 2022.
Lola, a bot, is heartbroken when her boyfriend cheats on her. When neither the synth-drugs nor the twink vats of her cyberpunk city can help her to move on, she visits the mysterious entity called the “Weaver” hoping to rewrite the story/code of her life.
I wrote this story way back in 2020, during the pandemic, while trying to recover from a messy, toxic friendship. Set in a cyberpunk dystopia, The Weaver is about healing from heartbreak and finding yourself again, and I’m really grateful that this story has found a home in an anthology themed around women’s empowerment, along with thirteen other tales.
Poetry
- “radha”, a rather old poem of mine (written during my undergrads), recently resurfaced in Star*Line (Volume 45, Issue 4, Fall 2022).
Non-Fiction
Along with writing speculative stories and poems, I also enjoy reviewing SFF books and composing essays about cinema and pop culture.
Essays
- The Marvelous World of Tarot (Third Lane Magazine)—a personal piece that details my journey with the Tarot, and also provides a short history of Tarot cards!
- Turning Red and Navigating Messy Mother-Daughter Relationships (Interstellar Flight Magazine)—an op-ed that explores how Pixar’s animated film centers Asian family dynamics while negotiating inter-generational trauma.
Book Reviews
- Shuffling the Gothic Cards in “One Dark Window” by Rachel Gillig (Chicago Review of Books)
- The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Strange Horizons)
- Book of Night by Holly Black (Strange Horizons)
- A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske (Strange Horizons)
- The Smallest of Bones by Holly Walrath (my blog)
Film/TV Criticism
- Netflix’s The Sandman Is a Delicious (But Forgivably Flawed) Adaptation (The Portalist)
- The Highs and Many Lows of The Rings of Power Season One (The Portalist)
- The Brutal Allegory of Interview With the Vampire Season One (The Portalist)
I might have a few more pieces coming out soon, and I’ll add them here when they get published.
Other Stuff/Comics
This year has been a rather difficult one. Personal tragedies, pandemic-related disruptions, and other bits of chaos made it really hard to find time for myself, and I’m a little sad that I didn’t get to write as much fiction as I’d hoped. Nevertheless, I’m trying to take things slow and I did get to experiment with different mediums—I have a couple of comics coming out in anthologies next year and (hopefully) some non-fiction pieces too.
Hopefully, the next year will be kinder and lovelier to us all. Here’s to more stories!
About the Author
Archita Mittra (she/they) is a queer writer, editor, and artist, with a fondness for dark and fantastical things. Her work has appeared in Tor, Strange Horizons, Anathema Magazine, Hexagon, and elsewhere. Her stories and poems have been nominated for the Pushcart and best of the net prizes, and long-listed for Toto Award for Creative Writing in 2020. She completed her B.A. (2018) and M.A. (2020) in English Literature from Jadavpur University and has a Diploma in Multimedia and Animation from St. Xavier’s College (2016).
She lives in Kolkata, India, with her family and rabbits, and can be found on Twitter and Instagram @architamittra.
Archita Mittra: writer, editor & artist 