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“Perhaps you wrote this story, and then I happened”

This is weird and wonderful:

The very first short story I sold, back in 1995, “Poet for Hire,” involved a young woman with curly brown hair who starts a freelance poetry business in Milwaukee. She works out of a storefront in the 2200 block of Kinnickinnic Avenue, down the street from where I used to live, and she gets vital inspiration from the plants in the Arid Dome of Milwaukee’s Mitchell Park Horticultural Conservatory.

Last month I was contacted by Anja Notanja Sieger. Someone found the story and sent it to her — because she’s Milwaukee’s first and only poet for hire, she has written poems in the Arid Dome, her husband owns a used bookstore in the exact same storefront in the story, and she has curly brown hair.

Anja invited me to her podcast, The Subtle Forces. I read the story out loud, and we chatted about its coincidences. “Perhaps you wrote this story,” she said, “and then I happened.”

You can listen to the podcast here:

https://subtleforces.podbean.com/e/episode-37-poet-for-hire/

Sue Burke's avatar

By Sue Burke

Sue Burke’s most recent science fiction novel is Usurpation, the conclusion of the trilogy that began with Semiosis and Interference. She began writing professionally as a teenager, working for newspapers and magazines as a reporter and editor, and began writing fiction in 1995. She has published more than 40 short stories, along with essays, poetry, and translations from Spanish into English of short stories, novels, poetry, and historical works. Find out more at https://sueburke.site/

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