Spoiler Alert
Amanda Yskamp
Shaped like a thrip with the habit of a silverfish, this book-eating insect spends its entire life cycle making its way from prelude to epilogue, through exposition, rising action, climax, and denouement, through protagonist’s indecision and reminiscences, through long description of wheat fields and the pivotal moment when Lucia finds the key. The passageways it makes, consuming pulp when vellum can’t be found, open parlors among the serifs and finials for breeding and bearing. Should an unwitting reader throw the covers wide, the story will end with a twist if not a shout.
Amanda Yskamp’s work has been published in such magazines as Threepenny Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Georgia Review, Boxcar Review, Rattapallax, and Caketrain. She is the poetry editor and frequent cover artist for WordRunner E-Chapbooks. She lives on the 10-year flood plain of the Russian River where she teaches writing from her online classroom.