Prompt I: Sound & Color

The Alabama Shakes's sophomore album Sound & Color was a revelation in 2015, credited as an expression of greatness in Americana for its blend of "southern soul" and "garage rock". Its awards and accolades echoed this sentiment. The band was led by guitarist and vocalist Brittany Howard, a Black queer woman who remains celebrated for her musicianship and the power of her voice. The album opens with a track by the same name. In an interview with NPR, Howard describes the story she was telling when she wrote it, a work of science-fiction in itself:

I started writing about an astronaut that was sent on a mission to find a new Earth. And they put him to sleep, and everything's going as planned. They put him out there, and he wakes up and everything's wrong. Everything's chaotic. Everything's different, and he's getting these flashbacks, and his brain isn't functioning. And he realizes that he's been asleep for 500 years. And once that sinks in, the music kind of goes through these - sorrow and anger and all this grief. And then finally, he just accepts it. You know, I'm out here alone. But at the end, there's a new beginning because the sun rises over this new planet that he had found. And even though he's alone, it's just so beautiful.

Sound & Color remains one of the most lauded albums in each of the genres it's considered to belong.

Submissions

Please submit original works of flash or short fiction through our portal by DATE. Submissions must be works related to the speculative fiction literary genres as defined in our general submission guidelines.

The application of the "Sound & Color" theme may be derived from but not limited to:

• album or single
• the title/lyrics, but must be meaningfully distinct from the original creator's interpretation
• the time/circumstances under which the work was produced
• any related concepts

Culturally relevant interpretations of the theme are welcome and encouraged.

Please see our full submission guidelines for additional instructions.

The Issue