Cotton Candy from the Sky & Other Stories, by Swetha Amit

Prose, chapbook, 44 pages, from Bottlecap Features. Cotton Candy from the Sky is a collection of flash fiction /short stories about humans’ relationship with nature. It explores the complexity of human behavior, their wrecked homes, and the undercurrents in their relationships with other humans. It depicts how humans seek solace in their natural surroundings. Sometimes, it dives into the wishful and fantastical aspects of humans who yearn to escape their turbulent situations by seeing magic in mundanity. The stories involve children from broken homes who long to escape into their fantasies, imagining pink clouds as cotton candy or dancing with peacocks using Artificial Intelligence. There are children bitten by the bug of loneliness and find comfort in the quiet companionship of birds either by swimming alongside them or watching them in the marsh surrounded by a certain soothing calmness. The stories in Cotton Candy from the Sky alternate between real and surreal worlds- underwater worlds, gardens, marshes, oceans, trails, magical forests, backyard pools, and traffic-laden roads. Images of birds in most of the stories cater to the escapist attitude of the characters wishing to embark on a flight of different sorts. Every story encapsulates characters of different stages and ages. These characters could be of any ethnicity or belong to any part of the world. The universal themes explored in the stories make it easier to strike a chord with the readers. The stories serve as a medium to explore the language of nature and what it means to find refuge in natural surroundings we often tend to miss in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Swetha is an Indian author based in California and an MFA graduate from the University of San Francisco. Her works across genres appear in Atticus Review, Had, Flash Fiction Magazine, Maudlin House, Oyez Review, and others. (https://swethaamit.com). She has received Pushcart and Best of the Net nominations. Her memoir titled A Turbulent Mind Journey to Ironman 70.3 was an honorable mention at the San Francisco Book Festival 2021. She is an alumnus of Tin House and Kenyon Review Writers’ Workshop, 2022 and 2023. Her novel in progress revolves around first-generation Indian Immigrants in the United States. The characters trace their cultural roots and navigate their trials and tribulations in a foreign land.