#371 Liminal Spaces with Shaelin Bishop

This week, we're running a takeover in collaboration with Shaelin Bishop. This contest’s winner will not only be awarded $250 — they’ll also receive personal feedback from Shaelin! Here's what they have to say about their takeover:

Many of my favorite novels take place in liminal spaces — places that lack context, where reality feels altered. These are often abandoned or empty places where we are used to seeing people, such as an empty mall or hospital, or transitional spaces like airports, parking lots, and urban edgelands. Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin has a chilly unease throughout, as the characters wander a largely deserted Korean resort town in the off-season. History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund is set around a nearly abandoned former commune in woodsy, small-town Minnesota. Body Double by Hanna Johansson takes place in an unnamed European city, where the characters float between shopping malls and empty movie theaters.

Liminal spaces are also compelling on screen. A24’s Backrooms (2026) turns the liminal space into a zone for psychological horror. The hit TV series Severance primarily takes place in a psychologically inescapable corporate office building whose sleek out-of-time fixtures and fluorescent lights feel nightmarishly surreal. These transitional spaces seem to peel back a character’s artifices, becoming vehicles for transformation.

I’m drawn to liminal spaces in my own work. When I first started writing short fiction, I made a list of liminal spaces, and whenever I was stuck, I would drop a character in one and write from there. The resulting characters were strange, extreme people who existed on the fringes of society. I was compelled by how a character would be forced to confront the strangest parts of themselves while in such a meaningless place. When a place lacks all context, we may start to project our own meaning onto it, and we may reveal the darkest corners of ourselves in doing so.

Each prompt for this week’s contest includes different liminal spaces. I think they make the perfect backdrop for a short story, each one a contained bubble of altered, yet unnervingly mundane, reality. I encourage you to drop a character into one of these spaces and see who emerges. Embrace the surreal and the weird, and see where the liminal takes you!

Special Update: The Results 🏆

The top pick for this takeover was "And Abruptly Left Me" by June Cruz. Here's what our guest judge had to say about the winning story:

An intricately detailed story of a fleeting love affair, written in prose rich with sensorial and historical detail. It’s a striking narrative about a transformative romance that is equally tragic, tender, and revealing. Full of keenly observed descriptions and vibrant detail, this is a story where the enclosed setting drives both the protagonist’s loneliness and her connection with newcomer "spring girl" Teresa. Despite the liminal nature of the setting, the voice is so confident and the context so richly explored that the story gains a lush romanticism. This is a truly beautiful, well-controlled piece that captures desire and heartbreak with clarity, subtlety, and sumptuous writing.

Congratulations to contest winner June Cruz and the runners-up, Keba Ghardt and Jonathan Huston!