Xia Jia (aka Wang Yao) is Associate Professor of Chinese Literature at Xi’an Jiaotong University and has been publishing speculative fiction since college. She is a seven-time winner of the Galaxy Award, China’s most prestigious science fiction award and has published three science fiction collections (in Chinese): The Demon-Enslaving Flask (2012), A Time Beyond Your Reach (2017), and Xi’an City Is Falling Down (2018). Her first English language short story collection, A Summer Beyond Your Reach, will be the first book published by Clarkesworld Books. She’s also engaged in other science fiction related works, including academic research, translation, screenwriting, and teaching creative writing.
Xia Jia has the following works available at Clarkesworld:
Him Alone in the darkness, he counts the tick-tocks. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve . . . There are sixty seconds in a minute. His thumb slides from the tip of his index finger to the second knuckle. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve . . . There […]
This is a globally popular reality TV show. The structure of the show is simple. The screen is split in half: on the left, the patient reclines in a sling chair; on the right sits the therapist. To preserve anonymity for both participants, their faces are replaced by vivid software-generated 3D cartoon versions and their […]
Lindy (1) I remember the first time Lindy walked into my home. She lifted her tiny feet and set them down gingerly on the smooth, polished wooden floor, like a child venturing onto freshly-fallen snow: trembling, hesitating, afraid to dirty the pure white blanket, terrified of sinking into and disappearing beneath the featureless fluff. I […]
If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler Li Yunsong (librarian, traveler on a winter’s night) posted on 20xx-04-06 Many are the ways of commemorating the dead, and no one can say which is best—not even the dead. The method I’m about to tell you is perhaps the strangest of them all. My father was a […]
Mom said to Tongtong, “In a couple of days, Grandpa is moving in with us.”After Grandma died, Grandpa lived by himself. Mom told Tongtong that because Grandpa had been working for the revolution all his life, he just couldn’t be idle. Even though he was in his eighties, he still insisted on going to the […]
Zhuazhou Lao Zhang’s son was about to turn one; everyone expected a big celebration. Planning a big banquet was unavoidable. Friends, family, relatives, colleagues—he had to reserve thirty tables at the restaurant. Lao Zhang’s wife was a bit distressed. “We didn’t even invite this many people to our wedding!” she said. Lao Zhang pointed out […]
Awakening of Insects, the Third Solar Term: Ghost Street is long but narrow, like an indigo ribbon. You can cross it in eleven steps, but to walk it from end to end takes a full hour. At the western end is Lanruo Temple, now fallen into ruin. Inside the temple is a large garden full […]
