Bewildering Stories introduces and welcomes...

Paulina Guerrero

Paulina lives with two pets in the midwestern USA. Her writing specializes in folklore, choreography, film and theater in general. During the day, she works in the administration of a non-profit organization.

“Blue Night Full” earns a distinction as having one of the most unusual titles of any work in Bewildering Stories, which is saying a lot after 20 years of publication. And yet, at the end of the daughter’s and mother’s exchange of formal letters, readers will surely feel that the title is as appropriate as it is succinct.

The correspondence is initated by a daughter whose mother seems to have walked out into an arctic winter night, never to return. And only at the end of the mother’s reply does the mother say, “Goodbye.”

At some point, readers will become mindful of a Bewildering Stories motto or proverb: “Readers take everything literally unless they’re told to do otherwise.” The mother cannot walk out into the “blue night” hatless, with snow crunching under her feet, unless she soon finds a warm igloo somewhere.

But if the mother has gone on a figurative, mental journey, what, exactly, impels her to? Cryptically, the mother admits she could say what it is but declines to do so, describing only the emotionally tortured effects and thereby creating a mystery to draw the readers into a darkly lyrical pair of interior monologues.

Paulina Guerrero’s bio sketch can be found here.

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