Praise
“[Bestiary] will charm you in every sense of the word. The variety of forms (prose poems, flash fiction, short story, longer story, formal poems, free verse) and subject matter (the afterlife, the end of life, the beginning of life, the time between lives, rewrites of old folk tales, brand-new myths, sex, sex changes, child sex, sexlessness) leaves you gasping.”
–Julie J. Nichols, NewPages.com
“…Bestiary Special of A Cappella Zoo is a strange, eclectic wonderland of prose and poetry, drawing together the real with the imagined and fantastic.”
–Rebecca Burns, Sabotage Reviews
“…reading Bestiary is a marvelous experience—a journey through a long series of bizarre and beautiful realities that provide a multifaceted examination of the human capacity for wonder. ”
–Brian Eisley, The Future Fire
First Lines
Travelers
Peter’s hand moves slowly, hovering above Delia’s bare forearm, as little as an eighth of an inch between her flesh and his trembling fingers. The ghosts feel safest that way. That’s what Peter had told her as he swallowed the last of his beer and set the glass aside, his eyes intent, lingering first on her lips, and then falling from her breasts to her right arm.
Peter doesn’t look away despite the sideways glances of their companions and the uncomfortable clatter of their silverware. A lone waiter watches from across the terrace. Delia bends her head, ignoring them all. She is focused on Peter’s open palm as it creeps above her bare arm.
The Anthology
A cappella Zoo is a journal of magic realism and slipstream fiction and poetry, currently. Founded in 2008, A cappella Zoo has made a bit of a splash with imaginative and evocative stories of the fantastic. The tenth issue, titled Bestiary, is an anthology of the best work from the magazine’s first five years guest edited by Gina Oschner