“In Translation” at New Pop Lit

My new story “In Translation” has been published by New Pop Lit, one of the more beautiful literary sites I’ve bumped into recently.

New Pop Lit maintains an active Twitter that I follow, with tastes that pulled me in tweet by tweet: praise of John Steinbeck (An obsession of mine, age 16-25), Herman Wouk (Inherited everything pre-1990 from my grandmother; still love Youngblood Hawke!), and especially the old Busby Berkeley musical Gold Diggers of 1933 (Blogged about it at my Warren William site), and I thought, okay, I need to try this place out!

“In Translation” is, well it’s a few things. A dystopian comedy? An allegory on communications in modern times. Existential nightmare? It’s got a few things going on.

I had the idea for it while watching an ASL interpreter in the corner of my TV and wondering, how do I know that’s what the other guy is really saying? And then, somebody was translating in English over a world leader’s comments, and I thought the same. So, this story was born of my ignorance.

These and other examples are in the story, though I keep the examples fictional, so readers of any political persuasion can both enjoy it and hopefully be a little uncomfortable with it. And hopefully have a few chuckles too! The translations eventually go beyond mass media … Alex experiences some, er, confusion, as the story escalates.

You can read my story in full, free of charge, over at New Pop Lit. Here’s the opening few paragraphs to get you started:

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Read “In Translation” at New Pop Lit