The idea for "Reparations" started with a single line from a writing prompt I saw somewhere about a year ago, at which point Amaya entered my head with the full force of a Category 5 hurricane. I don't write first-person stories often; I have a hard time getting the character's voice just right and tend to dislike sticking in any one character's head for the duration of an entire story. I didn't have either of those problems with Amaya. She just wrote herself, and I enjoyed every second of it.
I sent this story to a grand total of five publishers before I decided I didn't want to go that route after all. Two of them sent back very positive rejection letters, but they both suggested changes that I realized I just wasn't willing to make. Maybe I would have been better off listening to them. Maybe (probably) the story isn't as good as it could be. That's okay. "Reparations" is a deeply personal story for me—more personal than I ever anticipated it being. It's the story I'd been trying to write for five or six years, though I didn't realize it until long after it was finished. It was a sort of catharsis, and because of that, I couldn't bear the thought of making any major structural changes. For all those reasons and more, I decided to publish the story myself and make it available to readers for free. I can only hope that someone will find it and enjoy reading it in spite of its imperfections.
If you would like to read more of my work or find out more about my stories, please visit www.tahernandez.com
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Reparations
Short StoryThe scars of war can never be erased... Amaya is an enchantress in a world where magic is heavily restricted. After a brutal civil war tears her country apart, she must come to terms with everything that has happened and find a way to face her past.
