Author Archives: Aly Writes

The Library of Borrowed Lives — Part 4

The gate clicked shut too loudly behind her, and I stood frozen for a moment too long. Afraid to go after her, afraid to take the time to look at what she’d passed me, I slipped down the stairs to the underground barracks and felt the way through the dank black to my bunk.

The Library of Borrowed Lives — Part 3

It was blank.

Both facing pages were completely blank. Nerves burning a hole in the pit of my stomach, I knelt and tentatively flipped to another. Still blank. I quickly thumbed through the entire second half – not a single word, symbol, or picture printed in the book.

Writing in the In-Between

I’m sitting in a tiny art gallery on a cold, grey, rainy day that feels more like November than May. The lights are dimmed to showcase delicate tapestries that cast shadow portraits on the clean, white walls. Six pairs of hands tap away at keyboards while I try to keep my allergic sniffling (the only indication that it actually is spring) to a minimum. It always feels a little like we are part of the exhibit, we small group of almost-strangers who gather here twice a year to spend twelve hours filling blank pages.

My Top 5 Dream Publications

Every writer has a few: those legendary lit mags we dream about when hitting “submit” on Submittable. The ones we read and reread when imposter syndrome sets in. The ones that feel just out of reach, but we can’t help but try anyway.

The Library of Borrowed Lives — Part 2

No one I had ever met had ever learned to read.
And yet here they were, books by their hundreds, being shelved day after day after day by dozens of unquestioning workers happy only to have a temporary job and a roof and a meal.