Today through the letterbox came the newest issue of Confingo Magazine which includes my story, 'Space Travel.' I have only belatedly realised the similarity of the title to that of my forthcoming novel, Astral Travel: they are completely different in subject matter! 'Space Travel', the short story, is about a pregnant couple who have been undergoing IVF, and the way that the uncertainty of the pregnancy, and the vulnerability of the babies they have already lost, have made them hyper-aware of the dangers and uncertainty of our present-day world, and our lack of control within it. The title is basically meant as metaphoric - the metaphor of a spaceman connected to his spaceship but floating outside it is used more than once. At one point, when I showed the draft of the story to some writer friends, they suggested I should change the title as it could be misleading, signalling wrongly that the story was science fiction. In fact, however, the possibility of strange things in the sky underpins the story - and indeed begins it, as you can see below - and so I decided to keep the title.
Confingo is a beautifully designed magazine. As usual there is stunning artwork (this time by Elle Brotherhood), and this issue takes an unusual form: the pages are thin card rather than paper, and the whole book is ring-bound. It looks like nothing less than an art publication. You can order it from the Confingo website once it has been added to the shop.
