Beyond the Latch and Lever

Doorways can be a bridge to another world, a portal to a bygone era, or a crossroads between two cultures-or two lives. Sometimes a doorway is a ledge between the racist past and a robotic future. A passageway leading to celestial spirits, or earthbound souls-to a crumbling castle adrift in time.


Doorways are the ferries that usher us through beginnings and endings, steering us into possibility and misfortune, alike. Some doors protect us and give us privacy, while others keep us isolated and confined. Some doors trap people inside their haunted minds.


In this book, you will find eleven doors.
Eleven stories waiting to be opened.
Each one a passageway into the unknown.


Beyond the Latch and Lever is an anthology of speculative literary fiction with stories from emerging authors with ties to the Pacific Northwest.


Esterbell by Elle Blackwood: An old woman returns to the crumbling French château where she spent her childhood to say goodbye to the keeper of her past.


The Two Lives of Agapito Cortez by Carlos Joaquin Gonzalez: A wounded, Mexican-born Union soldier awakens to find the world isn't the same as he remembers.


The Third Quirk by Karin Larsen: An alien retrieves their dead brother's spaceship and comes to terms with their grief.


Home to Skjolden by Erik Amundsen: When a man returns to Northern Norway to sell his family's farm, a curious encounter unearths the past and makes him question his legacy.


Flight of the Bumblebee by Susanna Skarland: A young couple in the near future struggle to survive in a world where the natural pollinators have died off and corporate robotics serve as their replacement.


Liminality by R. L. Castle: An elderly doormaker seeks comfort in the doors of his past.


Between Hell and Fire by Bobbie Peyton: A young Filipina farmworker must navigate the haunting nature of racism on an asparagus farm in 1960s California.


The Pantry Ghost by H. K. Porter: Trapped inside an unfamiliar pantry, a young woman struggles to piece together the string of events that led to her isolation.


Rabbit's Key by Steve Garriott: When a physics major agrees to an adventure with an eccentric young man, they stumble upon a scientific discovery that alters their reality and their futures.


The Last Door in the Hilbert Hotel by Evvan Land: A man must complete a test to find the exit from his own personal hell.


The Wending Way by J. S. Artz: A celestial being sent to Earth must decide whether to stay and help, or leave humankind to their own destruction.