Bewildering Stories welcomes...

Jessica Knauss

Jessica is a native of northern California but has moved around in recent years. She says she’s writing a biography of Alfonso X of Castile and a historical novel set in medieval Spain. She has also published novels, short fiction, and non-fiction. She says she and her husband would like to open an ice-cream parlor.

“Unpredictable Factors...” introduces Emily Mattheson, a young primary-grade schoolteacher. Readers might expect Emily to be as innocuous as plain vanilla, but they’ll know from the very first paragraphs that Emily’s career will be an inadvertent horror story. She’s not only lazy and careless, she’s a kind of suburban monster, a character who might be a match for the Meursault of Albert Camus’ L’Étranger.

But unlike Meursault, Emily never realizes what she represents or what she’s done. Readers might wish she did, but she’s all the more frightening for being a Black Hole of moral insensitivity.

Jessica Knauss’s bio sketch can be found here.

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