Ariel Chu is an incoming PhD candidate in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Southern California, where she will be completing a short story collection and novel with the support of a Steinbeck Fellowship. She received her MFA in Creative Writing at Syracuse University in 2020, where she was awarded the Shirley Jackson Prize in Fiction. A former editor-in-chief of Salt Hill Journal, a 2019 P.D. Soros Fellow, and a 2020-2021 Luce Scholar in Taiwan, Ariel has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, the Best Small Fictions Anthology, and the Best of the Net Award. Ariel's writing can be found in The Common, The Masters Review, and Sonora Review, among others; most recently, she guest-edited a collection of queer Taiwanese literature with the Asian American Writers' Workshop. Visit her at ariel-chu.com.

VISIT WWW.ARIEL-CHU.COM

MICRO

To Sever

By ARIEL CHU

To love in perfect solitude is a privilege.