“Tote Tante” and “Meat!” in Weathering Youth
Because Weathering Youth is my biggest collection to date, I’m grouping the short stories and flash fiction stories in pairs for my posts, based on the way they fall in the collection. This lets me look at the connections between the stories and how I decided to arrange specific stories in the collection!
“Tote Tante” and “Meat!” both feature characters who aren’t young adults per se, but aspects of their respective stories fit well into a collection of young adult stories.
“Tote Tante” is a flash fiction piece that involves a pair of cousins celebrating the life of their aunt, who has recently passed away. It touches on family and the conflicts that sometimes happen with those with whom you’re the closest. Although the title seems a little irreverent, it’s the actual name of the drink that the cousins make in the story! While the characters here are in their 20s, much of the story that precipitates this one involves their younger years.
“Meat!” is a zombie short story, but rather than being about mindless zombies, it’s told from the perspective of one zombie who lives with two other zombies, each of whom retains some of their mental faculties. This story involves an examination of tropes that pit groups of supernatural creatures against one another and some creative problem solving. While the characters here don’t have ages given, this is a very young adult (and even younger) friendly story.
Both “Tote Tante” and “Meat!” are exclusive to Weathering Youth, and you can read them, along with other stories featuring young protagonists in a variety of settings, in print and ebook formats!
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