“We had this theory that things have life cycles, the way that people do. The life cycle of wedding dresses and feather boas and t-shirts and shoes and handbags involves the Garment District. If clothes are good, or even if they’re bad in an interesting way, the Garment District is where they go when they die. You can tell that they’re dead, because of the way that they smell. When you buy them, and wash them, and start wearing them again, and they start to smell like you, that’s when they reincarnate..”

― Kelly Link, The Faery Handbag

In perusing the interwebs I came across a nice list of ten online long(er)-form short stories. So I’ll test the patience and attention span of everyone in this best of all possible worlds and slide away from flash fiction for a while.

I’ve been a huge fan of Kelly Link for a long time and have written about her stories before. She writes these weird adult fairy tales – stories of a world with one foot in our own and another foot, plus two hands and a head, in a fantastic and sometimes scary alternate dimension. These should be read to kids, to insure they grown up nice and insane.

Today’s story The Faery Handbag, won the 2005 Hugo Award for Best Novelette, the 2006 Nebula Award for Best Novelette, and the 2005 Locus Award for Best Novelette. It was also nominated for the 2005 World Fantasy Award for Best Short Story. And the author has posted it on her website just so you can read it and enjoy it free of charge. This is truly the best of all possible worlds.

The Faery Handbag by Kelly Link

from Small Beer Press