A review by librarycryptid
FIYAH Issue #15 by DaVaun Sanders, Soonest Nathaniel, Uche Ogbuji, Aurelius Raines II, Yvette Lisa Ndlovu, Endria Isa Richardson, Maya C. James, Vincent Tirado

emotional hopeful medium-paced

4.0

You can read this and other reviews over on my blog, The Library Cryptid: https://librarycryptid.wordpress.com/

I was very excited to give this literary magazine of speculative fiction by black authors a shot, because I’ve heard so many wonderful things about it. By the end, I think my unfortunate takeaway was that I’m not much of a fan of sci-fi/fantasy short stories, for various reasons. So, naturally, the stories with creepy elements stayed with me the most, like “Red Cloth, White Giraffe” by Yvette Lisa Ndlovu, which is about the ghost of a woman seeking peace while her body decays and her family delays her burial. 

My overall enjoyment of this magazine suffered because I am not an avid poetry reader and don’t really get poetry. It’s hard to hold that against FIYAH; poetry certainly has its place in the literary fiction world, I just happen to not enjoy it. And, of course, it seemed to be (to my uneducated eyes) experimental poetry, which didn’t help me out at all. Props to writers who can create poetry, they are smarter and more creative than I will ever be, but they’re so out of my reading league. 

Discounting the poetry, my average rating was a solid 4, so that is my final rating. If I were to include the poetry in my calculations, it’d probably end up as a three, but again, that feels unfair and I bought the magazine for the stories, anyway. My favorite of the collection was “Your Name is Oblivia,” by Vincent Tirado, which I still think about weeks later.
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