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Category: Publication Announcements

  • …out of WordRiot

    Via the work of Stephen Graham Jones, author of tomes and short stories alike, I came upon Word Riot, an online literary magazine showcasing some of the best short fiction around. Diving further I came upon former fiction co-editor of Word Riot, David Barringer’s story collection “We Were Ugly So We Made Beautiful Things.” This brief work (68 pages) absolutely below me away. I knew, after reading that collection, that I had to be a part of whatever Barringer had his hands in.

     

    Luckily, Word Riot considered my words suitable. Appearing now is my short fiction piece, “Our Guy.” Skim it, then immediately buy “We Were Ugly…” (if not for the stories, do it for purposes of understanding what the title of this post means).

     

    Word Riot Banner

    Word Riot is a Monthly online literary magazine with a notable book catalog under the Word Riot Press imprint.

  • what happens to us isn’t good

    Flash fiction: feeding a demographic composed of people without much time to read but with plenty of time to think. I used to think of flash fiction as a pompous intellectual commercial; there is something buried in there, but more often than not it doesn’t want you to know what it is. The burden lay with the critic. But then I happened upon a little thing called the internet, where flash fiction has been allow to flourish outside—and even influence—academe. Amy Hempel, an author who writes in a very flash-fiction, minimalist style uses the following lines in her story “The Man in Bogotá,” which textualizes my eventual change nicely:

    “It took months. The man had a heart condition, and the kidnappers had to keep the man alive […] He wondered how we know that what happens to us isn’t good.”

    The internet has without a doubt promoted the art of flash fiction more than any other medium. The internet reader is a predictable type, one with short attention span while simultaneously being offered infinite possible directions. The charge upon the author is to craft something meaningful using as few words as possible (generally about 500 – It’s hard to stay with a story while so much delicious porn lingers just a mouse-click away).

     

    Fortunately, for all of us, flash fiction isn’t being left to fend for itself. Numerous online and print literary magazines are being produced that cater specifically to the flash fiction genre. Head over to one of the best, Vestal Review, to read my flash fiction piece “5” x 6″ in a Sturdy Frame.” Then read all the other offerings; you’ll have plenty of time left over for porn, I promise.

     

    Vestal Review Banner Vestal Review is a quarterly print and online literary magazine devoted entirely to flash fiction under 500 words. While you’re perusing the goods spend a few bucks and subscribe: you’ll need to fill what little time you spend away from the internet reading something, right?

  • under the influence

    Any form of expression is arguably one committed “under the influence.” What we eat, what we say, how we walk—hell, human beings simply walking is really just a biological influence. But historically, for writers, one of the most iconic influences of all time is Absinthe—The Green Muse; a devastating liquor. Everyone from Ernest Hemmingway (his short story “Hills Like White Elephants” comes to mind) to Joey Goebel (with his novel Torture the Artist) has capitalized on the image of Absinthe. What better way to weave my own way into this cultural icon than by way of a lit mag called The Green Muse, with “Refill,” a story about a man governed by substance? I suppose a better way would have been for me to actually use the word “Absinthe” somewhere in the story. But I didn’t.

     

    One of my writing heroes, Denis Johnson, has a few pertinent words on the topic of writing under the influence (of drugs and alcohol):

    “I think it’s silly for anyone to think you could write under the influence, but if they’d like to think that, I’d like to keep the legend alive. Maybe I was under the influence when I wrote Jesus’ Son and I just didn’t know it.”

    Green Muse Review Banner

    The Green Muse is a monthly journal publishing work both online and in print. They are a young journal so be sure to support them (and me) by purchasing a copy of the print journal here.

  • a guilty conscious

    Online literary magazines seemed to me for the longest time some form of blasphemy. Not much compares to the tactile and aesthetic appeal of a printed, bound journal. Maybe that sounds a little creepy, but I’m a creepy guy.

    So when writer and friend Christopher Dwyer posted over at Write Club about this online lit-mag called Dogmatika I wasn’t exactly crushing keys to get over there. But call me a convert.Dogmatika was the eye opener. It stands as not only the first online lit-mag that I read with regularity, but also the first I loved so much that I felt compelled to submit my own fiction. Head over to Dogmatika now to read my short-short, “Petty Injuries.”

    Maybe I was a literary snob. Maybe I yearned too much for the prestige that comes with a printed journal. Maybe I was too focused on the canvas, not the art. I think Albert Camus is correct, that “a guilty conscious needs to confess. A work of art is a confession.”Despite the form, the work needs to get out there.*

     

    *Though I would say that many theorists, the late Jacques Derrida being one of them, might point out the impossibility of separating message from forum, that they are part of the same end. I agree. But that keeps me from being able to use the Camus quote, and I really like Camus’s work. And yes, I used the quote out of context. What are you going to do, dig up Camus’s corpse and tattle? You are? Can you get me a postcard or something?

    Dogmatika Banner Call it the month of Write Club. Four of us have stories in Dogmatika this month. The aforementioned Christopher Dwyer’s Parabola Jason Kane’s “Letter From Point Pleasant“ and Mark Lazer’s “Three Times Dead“ all share page space in June.