News & Press from The Future Fire: Louise Hughes

Showing posts with label Louise Hughes. Show all posts

Wednesday, 7 May 2025

New issue: 2025.73

“Progress has to do with all mankind, not alone with the calm, the wise, and the patient. There is youth in the world, and youth is generally neither calm nor patient; it does not like to sit in the rear rows and listen to mature considerations rendered in the tone of a stock-market quotation concerning questions that are burning up its heart, itself silent; if it did, it might learn to be wise and calm,—and also ashy and inert. There is feeling in the world, and a very great quantity of it; and those who do the suffering and the sympathizing may be expected to say and to do many things not within the limits of logic.”

—Voltairine de Cleyre (1907)

Issue 2025.73

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Friday, 29 July 2022

Mini-interview with Louise Hughes

Louise Hughes, author of “Unspoilt” in The Future Fire #62, joined us for a few questions.

TFF: What does “Unspoilt” mean to you?

Louise Hughes: Not everyone can go out there and join a mass protest, whether because they have a disability or some other circumstance prevents them. The world is complicated and it can be frustrating. Sometimes you're so busy focussed on your own thing that you don't even notice what is happening. “Unspoilt” is intended to show that there are other ways of taking part in a rebellion, even one you've only just learnt exists.

TFF: If you could choose only one book to take on a long space journey, which one would it be?

LH: Like the characters in my story, I’m going to pick an audiobook: Hild by Nicola Griffith, narrated by Pearl Hewitt.

TFF: Which natural or geographical feature do you feel most affinity for?

LH: Hills or mountains (definition variable depending on location). I like to be at the top, looking down on everything below. There’s a reassuring solitude about it when you can see all the paths up and know exactly who and what is around you, and all the sounds of the world are there but far away.

Extract:

The cockpit shutters slid upwards and the planet below us swept into view. Blue, for the most part. The kind of sapphire blue travel corps were so fond of using on holoboards. A series of archipelagos clung to the equator like dead ants.

There was nothing I couldn’t already see in the portfolio. Nothing the drones weren’t streaming up to us as they hovered merrily through their scan pattern. Nothing that wasn’t plotted on Karin’s maps.

Reminder: you can comment on any of the stories or illustrations in this issue at this post.

Sunday, 3 July 2022

New Issue: 2022.62

“La révolution et la libération des femmes vont de pair. Et ce n’est pas un acte de charité ou un élan d’humanisme que de parler de l’émancipation des femmes. C’est une nécessité fondamentale pour le triomphe de la révolution. Les femmes portent sur elles l’autre moitié du ciel.”

—Thomas Sankara (le 8 mars 1987)

Issue 2022.62

Short stories

‘Song of Your Life’, Nicole Lungerhausen – illustrated by Fluffgar
‘We Were Ghostless Against Her’, Ioanna Papadopoulou – illustrated by Sarah Salcedo
‘Unspoilt’, Louise Hughes – illustrated by Eric Asaris
‘New Day Dawning’, Francesca Forrest – illustrated by Toeken
‘The Heart of the Party’, Sarah Day – illustrated by Miguel Santos

Novelettes

‘A Door of My Own’, Tim Pratt – illustrated by Carmen Moran

Poetry

‘We Don't Always Have to Toss Her in the Deep End’, Jordan Hirsch – illustrated by Cécile Matthey
‘Reasonable Accommodations’, Nicole J. LeBoeuf – illustrated by Cécile Matthey

Download e-book version: PDF | EPUB | Mobi

Editorial by Djibril al-Ayad

Sunday, 2 April 2017

New Issue: 2017.40

“One human life is deeper than the ocean. Strange fishes and sea-monsters and mighty plants live in the rock-bed of our spirits.”

—Ben Okri

Issue 2017.40

Flash fiction

‘Seven Choices’, Rachel Rodman (illustrated by Cécile Matthey) (cn: abortion; sa)