Kendra Fortmeyer

Asymmetry

"She arrived at the date and found herself already there."

LeVar Burton Reads, January 2019
48 minutes (audio only) words

Mermaids at the End of the Universe

"Surely we deserved this. We were the most beautiful, after all: the universe had looked down and said, yes, you are doing everything right and so I am rewarding you with more."

The Toast, February 2015
3,300 words

Waking Up to the Perfect Body (personal essay)

"America: we are doing this wrong. We are teaching our girls to bury themselves while they're still alive."

Gay Mag, November 2019
850 words

Supergiant

"We discovered the statues when we moved my grandmother out of her house. They were everywhere, clay and copper and soap and stone, tucked into nooks and teapots and half-buried in the garden."

Paper Darts, November 2019
1,200 words

No Matter

"First, I want to give you this moment. You will understand why in the end."

Lightspeed, August 2019
4,550 words

Octopus vs. Bear

"You woke up female this morning, so now you have a choice: do what other people want, or be a bitch."

Lightspeed, May 2017
5,200 words

Monomyth

"It is with a certain amount of anguish that she goes to the market. Selecting: one eggplant. One half dozen eggs. The smallest jar of peanut butter."

Cincinnati Review, June 2017
6,300 words

Asymmetry

"Each still considered herself the original one. Neither wanted to accept being a copy."

PodCastle, June 2017
4,100 words

The Selkie Wives

"The fisherman brings home a selkie wife, but he already has a wife. There is a furious whispered argument behind a half-closed door as the selkie, naked and doe-eyed in the living room, picks up the wife’s Hummel figurines one by one and sets each back down in just slightly the wrong place."

Apex, April 2017
3,100 words

The Third Stage

"In the dream, you are given the chance to undo your cousin's suicide."

Paper Darts, January 2017
400 words

X Approaching Infinity

"One hundred and six parallel universes away, she had not agreed to come on the date at all. Five hundred and seventeen, he had not asked her. They had not met."

Black Warrior Review, April 2016
2,650 words

Leonardo or Lenin or Princess Diana

"You cannot explain this to people at the party: the shock of seeing a dead thing. The small, barking twist of your heart."

Smokelong Quarterly, March 2016
960 words

The One the Wolf Forgot

"Eventually, talking to strangers is a life skill. Eventually, everyone's a stranger."

The Literary Review, February 2016
1,800 words

The Lepidopterist

"Lying there with the girlfriend soft and vulnerable in his arms, the killer felt, suddenly, worthy of trust."

Hobart, January 2016
510 words

The Girl Who Could Only Say sex, drugs, and rock & roll

"There was a girl who could only say sex, drugs, and rock & roll. It got her in trouble at school and made her popular at parties."

Chapbook: Awst Press, October 2015
5,430 words

Things I Know To Be True

"I am leaving the library when Miss Fowler stops me, peering through her glasses like they are windows in a house where she lives alone. She says, 'Charlie, a patron saw you ripping up books.'"

One Story, August 2015
6,650 words

The Pencil-Maker's Wife

"When she first became a tree, she spent her days in grief. There was so much lost to her autonomy. Breasts. Winter mornings with lemon tea."

Psychopomp, October 2015
2,700 words

Three and a Half Billion Chances

"There was a gentle knocking from upstairs, the ghost of her mother that haunted a bedroom closet. At night, Joanie said, she could hear her mother crying, but was afraid to let her out."

People Holding, August 2015
562 words

Spontaneous

"She wished she had a condition that carried more social currency: Parkinson’s, or Lou Gehrig’s. But a collapsible lung! This was a different thing entirely."

FiveQuarterly, July 2015
1,000 words

Things We Believed When We Were Small

"'It’s just that—well, honey,' her mother said. 'Men don’t make passes at girls who are on fire.'"

CHEAP POP, June 2015
500 words

CONTINUE? Y/N

"She has a fan following on the internet. They call her Flower Girl. There are theories: the game designers meant to make her a playable character. She has lines of dialogue buried in the code."

The Toast, May 2015
3,000 words

The Most Perfect Breasts in the World!

"The most perfect breasts in the world lived on a pedestal in a temple under thick glass and lots of lasers."

Les Femmes Folles Press, May 2015
500 words

The Week of Small Apocalypses

"I found my husband lying on his stomach, staring at the little crop circles in the lawn."

Wyvern Lit, May 2015
930 words

The Vesuvius Infant

"What you do not know is this: in the final hours of the doomed city of Pompeii, the gods came down from the smoke-choked skies and said, 'Okay. We found you a place.'"

The Butter, March 2015
1,400 words

The Monotony of O-Positive

"The vampires weren't sad, exactly. They were just tired of being vampires."

101 Words, February 2015
101 words

Snake Handling for the Next Generation

"It is your first day of work, and there is a snake on your desk."

Monkeybicycle, January 2015
1,350 words

The Exposed Nest

"In his final year of graduate school, my father took a job as a bus driver."

apt, January 2015
12,100 words

Squaline

"The trouble was that the shark had been born a human."

Smoking Glue Gun, September 2014
1,500 words

Asymmetry

"She arrived at the date and found herself already there."

Forge, September 2014
4,100 words

Neophyte

"After Paul left, I took a dance class."

Juked, June 2014
500 words

X Approaching One

"One day the husband didn't love the wife anymore."

PANK, May 2013
2,300 words

Disappointment

"The blonde had dyed her hair red, so the whole thing was a shambles."

Corium, November 2012
250 words

Caving

"We have been in the cave for many months...."

100 Word Story, October 2012
100 words

FISH

"There were seven fish swimming in the toilet bowl."

NANO Fiction (via Litragger), Issue 6.1, September 2012
300 words

The Monster Under Your Bed

"There is a monster living underneath your bed, and the monster is lonely."

Broad! (a gentleperson's magazine), February 2011
500 words