Bewildering Stories welcomes...

Sacha Moore

Sacha lives in a small apartment in Brooklyn with two kids and several pets and many plants. She works part-time as a social worker pairing elderly people with caregivers.

“That Thing With Feathers” is a serial complete on line as of the first instalment. The title of the story is borrowed from a poem of Emily Dickinson’s: “‘Hope‘ Is the Thing With Feathers.”

“The thing with feathers” is a synecdoche — a form of metaphor in which the part represents the whole — that invites the prospective reader to find out how a bird might represent hope. In Sacha’s story, young Tabitha hasn’t read the poem; she rewatches old movies. Her feathered thing may be a condor, crow or canary but not a chicken: her hope is not one of song but of flight; she doesn’t like country life and would prefer to fly away to the city.

At a superficial level, the story might be read as a perennial woman’s complaint: “Where’s a good man when you need one?” But the story is not so stereotypical. Readers will find Tabitha, Gloria, Doug and Serena fascinating for their sheer frustration of unfulfilled needs.

The recurrent theme of alcohol suggests a deeper interpretation: all four characters illustrate various forms and stages of addiction. And it is not merely substance abuse; the story will engross the readers with an account of the reasons for the characters’ psychological vulnerability.

Sacha Moore’s bio sketch can be found here.

Welcome to Bewildering Stories, Sacha. We hope to hear from you again soon and often!