Ashley Wurzbacher holds a PhD from the University of Houston and an MFA from the Inland Northwest Center for Writers at Eastern Washington University. She teaches creative writing at the University of Montevallo. Her work has appeared in the Colorado Review, Prairie Schooner, Iowa Review, Cincinnati Review, Gettysburg Review, and elsewhere. Her debut short story collection, Happy Like This, is the winner of the 2019 John Simmons Short Fiction Award and is forthcoming this fall from the University of Iowa Press. She is grateful to the I-Park International Artists-in-Residence Program for the time and space to write this story.
May/June 2019
Fake Mermaid
Sometimes she feels like a third gender—preferring primary colors to pastels, the radio to singing. At least she’s all mermaid: never gets tired of swimming, hates the thought of socks. […]