SUQI KAREN
SIMS
Writing, Teaching, PhDing
Short stories, essays, and Guy Fieri fan fiction.
Read her latest publication here.
ABOUT SUQI KARENSuqi Karen Sims was born and raised in Taichung, Taiwan. Her work has appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, MSU Roadrunner Review, CALYX Journal, and others. She is a recipient of the Steven R. Guthrie Memorial Writers’ Festival Contest in fiction and the Margarita Donnelly Prize in Prose Writing. Read more.
Agnes Scott College Writers’ Festival Magazine, p.36
Raohe Night Market
Steven R. Guthrie Memorial Fiction Prize
“Raohe Night Market in Taipei is famous for two thingsȡ The frst is the fresh tianbula, a tilapia and cuttlefsh paste sliced into a boiling pot of vegetable oil. Uncle Tianbula shaves at a giant mass of seafood clay, the shards sizzling in his dynastic cauldron...The other thing Raohe Night Market is famous for is its fortune tellers.”
Madame Bovary: What is food if you can’t consume it?
“Madame Bovary is a food novel: food echoes itself across the narrative, and Flaubert uses food to highlight the characters bourgeois angst. However, Flaubert’s use of food is almost antithetical to the way food is used in contemporary literature and writing.”
“Watermelon Salad”
“Listen, it’s you, me, and Jojo. We’re going in, doing the thing, and getting out. Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy–Grilled Cheesy. You’ll be with me, Jojo will be in the getaway, and I’m not going to let anything happen to you. I’ll do the heavy lifting. You just hold the gun and keep your cool. Deep breaths.”
EDUCATIONSims is a graduate of Davidson College and completed her Master’s in Journalism at New York University. She is a doctoral candidate at Georgia State University, where she teaches composition and creative writing.
RECENT PUBLICATIONSSuqi Karen Sims is completing a book of short stories about food, myth, and Taiwan. See below for a selection of published stories from the collection. She is currently querying literary agents.
“Watermelon Salad” MSU Roadrunner Review
“Niwawa (Clay Baby)” CALYX Journal
“Raohe Night Market” Agnes Scott College Writers’ Festival Magazine
“‘God is a little girl with mud on her hands’ begins this remarkable fable about the animating force of love and longing. This short, lyrical tale moves with a fierce fluidity one section to the next and the stirring emotional sweep that can only be evoked by a perfectly executed allegory. Stunning.”
Kellie Wells • Author & Judge of the 10th Annual Margarita Donnelly Prize for Prose Writing, about “Niwawa (Clay Baby)”