Aelita Parker
Aelita Parker is a Japanese and Irish American writer. Her stories have appeared in New England Review, swamp pink, for which she won the Fiction Award, and Vassar Review. A finalist for the Iowa Review Fiction Award and the River Styx Fiction Prize, she has received fellowships and support from Ucross Foundation and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She received her MFA in fiction from Brooklyn College and her BA from the University of Pennsylvania.
Aelita is currently editing her novel, “Offering Child,” a multiperspective narrative exploring the price of one family’s devotion to a self-proclaimed Korean messiah, as well as a short story collection, “The Haunted.”
She teaches at Gotham Writers Workshop.
Fiction
“Riverbed of Souls,“ New England Review volume 46.3-4
AUGUST: WEEK 7
“Hey,” Kazu whispered, “don’t go anywhere, okay?”
I was sitting in bed reading—a Japanese translation of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. Kazu was lying next to me, his arm across my lap. I’d thought he was asleep. “It can’t hear you,” I said.
Kazu repeated himself, speaking louder this time. I laughed. But then I felt bad about laughing because Kazu blushed and leaned away from me. “It’s still an embryo,” I said softly. “There aren’t any ears.”
What was wrong, I thought later, about him speaking to our embryo? He was only excited. Only nervous. We’d had three miscarriages by then.
OCTOBER: WEEK 15
When Kazu got home he presented me with a gift wrapped in pink washi paper. He watched as I unwrapped it, his hands clasped before him as if in protection.
The week before—the start of our second trimester—he’d brought home a bag of baby things: pacifiers and burp cloths, crotchet sneakers and a fleece romper decorated with bears. We’d never made it so far along; I thought if we ever did, I’d feel an unclenching in my chest. That I might even allow myself some measure of joy. But instead, looking at it all, I was even more miserable. I berated Kazu. For the cost and the impracticality—the onesie would likely be too small by winter. Kazu had apologized, and it made me feel wicked.
“Maybe a Lion,” Vassar Review Issue 9: Design and Devotion
Sometimes, though Margaret has never shared this with Jin, she will look up from washing her hands or her face, and there will be a moment where, not expecting herself, forgetting herself—the pallor of her face; the lines that have sunk deeper over the years, like paths too often traversed—she is surprised to see the woman before her. She feels sure, in that fraction of a second before recognition, that it isn’t herself who she is looking at, but Georgie.
“Rotten Teeth,” swamp pink no. 13
Riko’s teeth were yellow and grimy. Some areas, like around her gums, were brown. As I watched her, I felt the sludge creeping over my own teeth, and I knew that even if I didn’t feel sick with fear, her rotting mouth would have made me unable to eat the ice cream, which had already gone hazy and soft, like a daydream.
Awards
2024 swamp pink Fiction Prize for “Rotten Teeth”
Finalist, 2024 Iowa Review Award in fiction for “Rotten Teeth”
Semifinalist, 2024 River Styx Prize for “Hail Mary, Full of Grace”
Japanese American Association “Honjo Scholarship,” 2021
Aelita Parker 