Cover Photo: This illustration shows a figure in a long red kimono painting the white background behind her with many flying black birds. Some of the birds are blurred in the background, but all of them are flying in the same direction, to the right side of the image.
Illustration by Sirin Thada for Catapult

The Genius and the Devil

What I wanted to know was this: What does it feel like to create something wondrous? To have a vision and then to perfectly translate that vision onto canvas?

City

seen

Only sentimental valuenothing expensiveVillageCity

are

Parentage is destiny

thread the needlecumulusdark bark quark

How awkward he must feel in these academic trappings

How arrogant she’s become

I shouldn’t ask about the sheets

was

Why can’t we wait together?

are

had

In her will, you see . . . I’m just drawing, you see . . .

It must be a trick of the light, the wind

Was it worth it?

Ah, yes. Me too. I understand.

did

seem

as

About you

you

and

right

see

Artforumgenius

there

Village

,

you

Stephanie Feldman is the author of the novels Saturnalia, forthcoming in fall 2022, and The Angel of Losses, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, winner of the Crawford Fantasy Award, and finalist for the Mythopoeic Award. She is co-editor of the multi-genre anthology Who Will Speak for America? and her stories and essays have appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Electric Literature, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, The Maine Review, The Rumpus, and Vol. 1 Brooklyn. She lives outside Philadelphia with her family.