Asimov's Science Fiction: June 2013 - Plot & Excerpts
In 2012, she won the Rhysling Award for best long form poem. Other work has recently appeared in Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, and Shimmer. Like many of her stories, Megan tells us, inspiration for "A Love Song Concerning His Vineyard" came about through "the convergence of several unrelated images: a line from the Book of Isaiah, a poster of Mars in a middle-school hallway, the red label on an empty wine bottle, and a name jotted down on a Post-It note and subsequently forgotten." When I was twelve, my father, who was white, told me that Black women couldn't appreciate good wine. "Just look, Isaya, at that grape juice your mother drinks," he said, pointing with his mustard-smeared knife at the bottle on my mother's kitchen counter. The cork was wrapped in gold foil, tied with a wisp of pink ribbon. Sweet Moscato, the label said in a soft, curling font like a lady's handwriting. My mother had always liked sweet things. Even then, I knew it was not the wine's sweetness that my father objected to; it was its femininity.
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